Curated playlist
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
- James Clerk MaxwellEinstein once corrected a host who said he stood on Newton's shoulders. He said he stood on the shoulders of Maxwell.
- Charles DarwinCharles Darwin likened confessing his theory to confessing a murder. He told botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1844.
- Walter ScottWalter Scott owed £130,000 and refused any help. The novelist wrote his way out of ruin instead.
- John RoebuckJohn Roebuck agreed to pay James Watt's debts for a two-thirds share in an engine that still fell short.
- Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Stevenson was left out of a 2,000-page Oxford anthology in 1973.
- Arthur Conan DoyleArthur Conan Doyle once bowled out the famous cricketer W. G. Grace and wrote a poem about it.
- David HumeDavid Hume said his first book "fell dead-born from the press." He wrote it in France by age twenty-eight.
- Edward VIIEdward VII was barely a month old on the 8th of December 1841 when he was created Prince of Wales. He would carry that title until the 22nd of January 1901, a span of 59 years and 45 days. No heir in British history had waited so long, and…
- Thomas CarlyleA housemaid burned the only draft of Thomas Carlyle's first French Revolution volume. He rewrote it from nothing.
- John Russell, 1st Earl RussellLord John Russell was barely five feet five, and cartoonists mocked him for it. He still reshaped British democracy.
- John Lynch (historian)Historian John Lynch went from British Army service to decades studying Spanish America's revolutions.
- Alexander Graham BellAlexander Graham Bell was honored after his death in an unusual way. When his funeral ended, for one minute at 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time, every telephone on the continent of North America was silenced. The man being remembered is credited…
- Robert StephensonRobert Stephenson twice turned down a knighthood. The railway engineer was offered it by Queen Victoria in 1849.
- Thomas AllinsonIn 1891, physician Thomas Allinson walked from Edinburgh to London in fifteen days.
- Geoffrey HintonGeoffrey Hinton left Google in May 2023 to warn the world about AI. He had helped build the field for decades.
- Samuel SmilesSamuel Smiles died leaving a book manuscript locked in his desk. His publisher advised that it be destroyed.
- Philippa GregoryNovelist Philippa Gregory's charity has dug close to 200 wells in The Gambia.
- Peter TrudgillLinguist Peter Trudgill found the Beatles pronounced fewer r sounds over the 1960s.