A&E; Series on Top Figures of Millennium Now on Home Video

The “Biography of the Millennium,” a four-volume set unveiling the 100 most influential people of the last 1,000 years, according to A&E; Network, is available on home video.

The winner: Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468), the first European printer to use movable type.

Rounding out the Top 10: 2, Isaac Newton; 3, Martin Luther; 4, Charles Darwin; 5, William Shakespeare; 6, Christopher Columbus; 7, Karl Marx; 8, Albert Einstein; 9, Nicolaus Copernicus; 10, Galileo Galilei.

The countdown begins with Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent at 100.

The boxed set of videos lists for $39.95 and can be ordered at (800) 423-1212.

The four-hour program was seen on A&E; Oct. 19 and again on Nov. 27. It is scheduled for a double showing on New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m. and midnight.

Choosing the most influential people of the last 1,000 years was an ambitious undertaking that met with agreement in some camps and ample second-guessing in others. A&E; polled more than 360 journalists, scholars and political leaders, asking them to vote for the men and women who they felt had done the most to shape the world today. The network also took into account the views of viewers who cast votes on the “Biography” Web site.

The final list, which includes a fascinating mixture of the good, the bad, the brilliant and the diabolical, has sparked debate. Of course, total agreement of the final choices of the A&E; Editorial Board was not a possibility.

The program is hosted by Harry Smith, with observations from a panel that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton, Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams, Henry Kissinger, Newt Gingrich, Richard Holbrooke, C. Everett Koop, Itzhak Perlman, Norman Schwarzkopf, Wendy Wasserstein, David Remnick of the New Yorker, Walter Isaacson of Time and Harold Evans of U.S. News and World Report.