The Great Man Theory of history was popularized in 19th Century. As the name suggests, the theory proposes in its most extreme argument that all of history is shaped and explained by great men - heroes and villains alike. While it has come under much criticism, I think it hits on a few key truths.
It is much easier to remember just the great men of history. To be fair, history is long and complicated - and by default we want to summarize large swaths of knowledge into stories - and great men help us develop a mental model. Almost no one other than a trained historian could you off the top of your head when Cyrus the great ruled, and the key aspects of that period of history. Its much easier to understand the impacts of one man, and tie to him the surrounding effects of history.
Of course, that was then, and this is now. Knowledge can be stored digitally; we no longer rely on the spoken or hand-written word to transfer this knowledge about the past, so our abstractions regarding it can change. I really can ask google or an AI engine about the entire history of the middle east B.C., and understand the nuances of how other forces shaped history.
As the Great Man theory has fallen out of fashion, plenty of other theories have filled its place. Of course, there were also other theories competing at the time as well. I'm not even sure "theory" is an appropriate term to apply to history - history isn't a scientific process, really. I think these are more so lenses through which we must choose to view our own history. Insert joke about how all of history is propaganda here....
My "theory", the Great Invention lens of history, is really just my attempt to force some kind of organization to what I'm doing here. I do think it bears some weight though. In history classes we frequently teach about the impact of advances in farming, division of labor, etc. But the past hundred years have been defined by invention, perhaps more than any other age. One does wonder if things only feel like they're moving faster because of a modernity bias - since we're always in the present, well then the present must be the most advanced time! The difference in the past hundred years is perhaps that the technology we've invented has given us the ability to understand and organize information about the past much more easily. We've invented labor saving devices not just for the body, but for the mind as well.
So that's the theory. It might evolve as a I do more research. I'm going to focus on the impacts of inventions on history. Since its only a hundred years, I'll have less to digest between each invention. And yet, each invention could have even greater impact.