Well, generally if something has an actual
religion dedicated to it, it's pretty important...
Ramen is Chinese, right? Most other pasta has relatively (OK, extremely) italian names... But that is totally worthless, because names change, and trans-culture items tend to achieve new names...
The pizza in its well-known form (the pizza pie) is actually Italian-American, right? Just thought I would throw out another controversial "Italian" comestible...
According to everyones favorite non-credible information source, wikipedia.org , depending on how you define "pasta" it has been in China, Greece, Italy, Israel... Horace, Galen, Isho bar Ali, Athenaeus, etc. wrote about it...
Back to the original topic...
Alexander was very cool, or very evil, depending on how you look at it. It seems that Ancient dictators and conquerors are seen as cool, while more modern ones are seen as evil.
Alexander, Caesar, various Middle-eastern warlords...
Then Charlemagne, Napoleon, Frederik of Prussia...
Then you have Hitler, Stalin, various Middle-eastern warlords... Seen as evil sickos.
I'm not saying that they weren't, because I think they were. But why, because Alexander killed thousands and brought havoc so long ago does it make him cool? Because the slaughtered innocents are nameless? Because the genocideded cultures are gone?
Just some thoughts...