1.
BBC
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The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
2.
British people
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British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
3.
Guy Fawkes
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Guy Fawkes, also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes was born and educated in York and his father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic. Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for the continent, where he fought in the Eighty Years War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries and he travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England, Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, prompted by the receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was questioned and tortured, immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the mutilation that followed. Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in Britain since 5 November 1605 and his effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by a fireworks display. Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 in Stonegate, York and he was the second of four children born to Edward Fawkes, a proctor and an advocate of the consistory court at York, and his wife, Edith. Guys mothers family were recusant Catholics, and his cousin, Richard Cowling, Guy was an uncommon name in England, but may have been popular in York on account of a local notable, Sir Guy Fairfax of Steeton. The date of Fawkess birth is unknown, but he was baptised in the church of St. Michael le Belfrey on 16 April, as the customary gap between birth and baptism was three days, he was probably born about 13 April. In 1568, Edith had given birth to a daughter named Anne and she bore two more children after Guy, Anne, and Elizabeth. Both were married, in 1599 and 1594 respectively, in 1579, when Guy was eight years old, his father died. His mother remarried years later, to the Catholic Dionis Baynbrigge of Scotton. A governor of the school had spent about 20 years in prison for recusancy, and its headmaster, John Pulleyn, came from a family of noted Yorkshire recusants, the Pulleyns of Blubberhouses. Fawkess fellow students included John Wright and his brother Christopher and Oswald Tesimond, Edward Oldcorne and Robert Middleton, after leaving school Fawkes entered the service of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. The Viscount took a dislike to Fawkes and after a short time dismissed him, he was employed by Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu. At least one source claims that Fawkes married and had a son, in October 1591 Fawkes sold the estate in Clifton that he had inherited from his father. He travelled to the continent to fight in the Eighty Years War for Catholic Spain against the new Dutch Republic and, from 1595 until the Peace of Vervins in 1598, France
4.
Oliver Cromwell
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Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell was born into the gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIIIs minister Thomas Cromwell. Little is known of the first 40 years of his life as only four of his letters survive alongside a summary of a speech he delivered in 1628. He became an Independent Puritan after undergoing a conversion in the 1630s. He was a religious man, a self-styled Puritan Moses. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short and he entered the English Civil War on the side of the Roundheads or Parliamentarians. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles Is death warrant in 1649 and he was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649–1650. Cromwells forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country, during this period, a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics, and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651, as a ruler, he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. He died from natural causes in 1658 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the Royalists returned to power in 1660, and they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded. In a 2002 BBC poll in Britain, Cromwell, sponsored by military historian Richard Holmes was selected as one of the ten greatest Britons of all time. However, his measures against Catholics in Scotland and Ireland have been characterised as genocidal or near-genocidal, Cromwell was born in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599 to Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. Katherine married Morgan ap William, son of William ap Yevan of Wales, Henry suggested to Sir Richard Williams, who was the first to use a surname in his family, that he use Cromwell, in honour of his uncle Thomas Cromwell. They had ten children, but Oliver, the child, was the only boy to survive infancy. Jasper was the uncle of Henry VII and great uncle of Henry VIII, Cromwells paternal grandfather Sir Henry Williams was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire. Cromwells father Robert was of modest means but still a part of the gentry class, as a younger son with many siblings, Robert inherited only a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes, Cromwell himself in 1654 said, I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity. He was baptised on 29 April 1599 at St Johns Church and he went on to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos
5.
Richard III of England
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Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485, at the age of 32, in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty and his defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the historical play Richard III by William Shakespeare, when his brother King Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edwards son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. As the young king travelled to London from Ludlow, Richard met and escorted him to lodgings in the Tower of London, on 25 June, an assembly of Lords and commoners endorsed the claims. The following day, Richard III began his reign, and he was crowned on 6 July 1483. The young princes were not seen in public after August, and accusations circulated that the boys had been murdered on Richards orders, there were two major rebellions against Richard. The first, in October 1483, was led by allies of Edward IV and Richards former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. In August 1485, Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Henry Tudor landed in southern Wales with a small contingent of French troops and marched through his birthplace, Pembrokeshire, recruiting soldiers. Henrys force engaged Richards army and defeated it at the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, Richard was struck down in the conflict, making him the last English king to die in battle on home soil and the first since Harold Godwinson. Henry then ascended the throne as Henry VII, after the battle Richards corpse was taken to Leicester and buried without pomp. His original tomb monument is believed to have been removed during the Reformation, in 2012, an archaeological excavation was commissioned by the Richard III Society on a city council car park on the site once occupied by Greyfriars Priory Church. Richards remains were reburied in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015 and they returned to England following the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton and participated in the coronation of Richards eldest brother as King Edward IV in June 1461. At this time Richard was named Duke of Gloucester and made a Knight of the Garter and Knight of the Bath, by the age of seventeen, he had an independent command. With some interruptions, Richard stayed at Middleham either from late 1461 until early 1465, while at Warwicks estate, he probably met Francis Lovell, a strong supporter later in his life, and Warwicks younger daughter, his future wife Anne Neville. As the relationship between the king and Warwick became strained, Edward IV opposed the match, during Warwicks lifetime, George was the only royal brother to marry one of his daughters, the eldest, Isabel, on 12 July 1469, without the kings permission. George joined his father-in-laws revolt against the king, while Richard remained loyal to Edward, in 1468, Richards sister Margaret had married Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, and the brothers could expect a welcome there. Although only eighteen years old, Richard played crucial roles in the battles of Barnet, during his adolescence, Richard developed idiopathic scoliosis. Following a decisive Yorkist victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury, Richard married Anne Neville, by the end of 1470 Anne had previously been wedded to Edward of Westminster, only son of Henry VI, to seal her fathers allegiance to the Lancastrian party
6.
James Connolly
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James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader, aligned to syndicalism and the Industrial Workers of the World. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland and he left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of his day. He also took a role in Scottish and American politics and he was executed by a British firing squad because of his leadership role in the Easter Rising of 1916. Connolly was born in an Irish immigrant slum in Edinburgh in 1868 and his parents had moved to Scotland from Monaghan, Ireland and settled in Cowgate, an Irish ghetto where thousands of Irish people lived. He spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life and he was born in St Patricks Roman Catholic parish, in the Cowgate district of Edinburgh known as Little Ireland. His father and grandfathers were labourers and he had an education up to the age of about ten in the local Catholic primary school. He then left and worked in labouring jobs, because of the economic difficulties he was having, like his eldest brother John, he joined the British Army. He enlisted in the British Army at age 14, falsifying his age and giving his name as Reid and he served in Ireland with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Scots Regiment for nearly seven years, during a turbulent period in rural areas known as the Land War. He would later involved in the land issue. He developed a hatred for the British Army that lasted his entire life. When he heard that his regiment was being transferred to India, Connolly had another reason for not wanting to go to India, a young woman by the name of Lillie Reynolds. Lillie moved to Scotland with James after he left the army, there, Connolly began to get involved in the Scottish Socialist Federation, but with a young family to support, he needed a way to provide for them. He briefly established a shop in 1895, but this failed after a few months as his shoe-mending skills were insufficient. He was also active with the socialist movement at the time. He became secretary of the Scottish Socialist Federation, during this time, Connolly became involved with the Independent Labour Party which Keir Hardie had formed in 1893. At some time during this period, he took up the study of, and advocated the use of, by 1892 he was involved in the Scottish Socialist Federation, acting as its secretary from 1895. Two months after the birth of his daughter, word came to Connolly that the Dublin Socialist Club was looking for a full-time secretary. Connolly and his moved to Dublin, where he took up the position
7.
Socialism
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Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective, or cooperative ownership, to citizen ownership of equity, or to any combination of these. Although there are varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. Socialist economic systems can be divided into both non-market and market forms, non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend, the feasibility and exact methods of resource allocation and calculation for a socialist system are the subjects of the socialist calculation debate. Core dichotomies associated with these concerns include reformism versus revolutionary socialism, the term is frequently used to draw contrast to the political system of the Soviet Union, which critics argue operated in an authoritarian fashion. By the 1920s, social democracy and communism became the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, by this time, Socialism emerged as the most influential secular movement of the twentieth century, worldwide. Socialist parties and ideas remain a force with varying degrees of power and influence in all continents. Today, some socialists have also adopted the causes of social movements. The origin of the term socialism may be traced back and attributed to a number of originators, in addition to significant historical shifts in the usage, for Andrew Vincent, The word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas and this latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen. The term socialism was created by Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled utopian socialism. Simon coined socialism as a contrast to the doctrine of individualism. They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism based on the ownership of resources. The term socialism is attributed to Pierre Leroux, and to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France, the term communism also fell out of use during this period, despite earlier distinctions between socialism and communism from the 1840s. An early distinction between socialism and communism was that the former aimed to only socialise production while the latter aimed to socialise both production and consumption. However, by 1888 Marxists employed the term socialism in place of communism, linguistically, the contemporary connotation of the words socialism and communism accorded with the adherents and opponents cultural attitude towards religion. In Christian Europe, of the two, communism was believed to be the atheist way of life, in Protestant England, the word communism was too culturally and aurally close to the Roman Catholic communion rite, hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists. Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, at the time when the Communist Manifesto was published, socialism was respectable on the continent and this latter branch of socialism produced the communist work of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany
8.
John Lennon
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John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful and musically influential band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a songwriting partnership. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the craze as a teenager, his first band, the Quarrymen, first became the Silver Beatles. After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he added Ono as one of his middle names, Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release, Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. By 2012, Lennons solo album sales in the United States exceeded 14 million and, as writer, co-writer, or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth and, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and in 1994 as a solo artist. Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman of Irish descent and his parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John Jack Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, after her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpools Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946 Lennons father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her, according to author Mark Lewisohn, Lennons parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, has said the scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again, Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence he lived at Mendips,251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own. His aunt purchased volumes of stories for him, and his uncle. In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature, Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society, but I cannot be what I am not. I was the one who all the other boys parents—including Pauls father—would say, the parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friends home, partly out of envy that I didnt have this so-called home
9.
Diana, Princess of Wales
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Diana, Princess of Wales, was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, who is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Diana was born into a family of British nobility with royal ancestry and was the child and third daughter of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp. She grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate, in 1975, after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer, she became known as Lady Diana Spencer. She came to prominence in February 1981 when her engagement to Prince Charles was announced and her wedding to the Prince of Wales on 29 July 1981, held at St Pauls Cathedral, reached a global television audience of over 750 million people. While married, Diana bore the titles Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, the marriage produced two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and she was celebrated for her charity work and for her support of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She was involved with dozens of charities including Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital for children, Diana remained the object of worldwide media scrutiny during and after her marriage, which ended in divorce on 28 August 1996. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, Diana was born on 1 July 1961, in Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk. She was the fourth of five children of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, the Spencer family has been closely allied with the British Royal Family for several generations. Both of Dianas grandmothers had served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, on 30 August 1961, Diana was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, with wealthy commoners as godparents. Diana had three siblings, Sarah, Jane, and Charles and her infant brother, John, died shortly after his birth one year before Diana was born. The desire for an added strain to the Spencers marriage. Diana grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate, the Spencers leased the house from its owner, Queen Elizabeth II. The Royal Family frequently holidayed at the neighbouring Sandringham House, and Diana played with Princes Andrew, Diana was seven years old when her parents divorced. Her mother later had an affair with Peter Shand Kydd and married him in 1969, Diana lived with her mother in London during her parents separation in 1967, but during that years Christmas holidays, Lord Althorp refused to let Diana return to London with Lady Althorp. Shortly afterwards he won custody of Diana with support from his former mother-in-law, Ruth Roche, in 1972, Lord Althorp began a relationship with Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of Alexander McCorquodale and Dame Barbara Cartland. They married at Caxton Hall, London in 1976, as an upper-class child at the time, Diana was first educated under the supervision of her governess, Gertrude Allen. She began her education at Silfield Private School in Gayton, Norfolk, and moved to Riddlesworth Hall School, an all-girls boarding school near Diss
10.
Isaac Newton
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His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics. Newton also made contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus. Newtons Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists view of the universe for the next three centuries. Newtons work on light was collected in his influential book Opticks. He also formulated a law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–90 and 1701–02. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and he spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint and his father, also named Isaac Newton, had died three months before. Born prematurely, he was a child, his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Newtons mother had three children from her second marriage. From the age of twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The Kings School, Grantham which taught Latin and Greek. He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Henry Stokes, master at the Kings School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a bully, he became the top-ranked student. In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge and he started as a subsizar—paying his way by performing valets duties—until he was awarded a scholarship in 1664, which guaranteed him four more years until he would get his M. A. He set down in his notebook a series of Quaestiones about mechanical philosophy as he found it, in 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his B. A. degree in August 1665, in April 1667, he returned to Cambridge and in October was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years, however, by 1675 the issue could not be avoided and by then his unconventional views stood in the way. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II. A and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1672. Newtons work has been said to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied and his work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newtons mathematical papers
11.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
12.
Charles Darwin
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Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, by the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. In modified form, Darwins scientific discovery is the theory of the life sciences. Darwins early interest in nature led him to neglect his education at the University of Edinburgh, instead. Studies at the University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for natural science, puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and he was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories. Darwins work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature, in 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his familys home and he was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin. He was the grandson of two prominent abolitionists, Erasmus Darwin on his fathers side, and Josiah Wedgwood on his mothers side, both families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder and he found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone, one day, Grant praised Lamarcks evolutionary ideas. Darwin was astonished by Grants audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus journals, Darwin was rather bored by Robert Jamesons natural-history course, which covered geology - including the debate between Neptunism and Plutonism. He learned the classification of plants, and assisted with work on the collections of the University Museum, as Darwin was unqualified for the Tripos, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828. He preferred riding and shooting to studying, when his own exams drew near, Darwin focused on his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paleys Evidences of Christianity. In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming out of 178 candidates for the ordinary degree. Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June 1831, inspired with a burning zeal to contribute, Darwin planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics
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