Curated playlist

Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

James Clerk MaxwellEinstein once corrected a host who said he stood on Newton's shoulders. He said he stood on the shoulders of Maxwell.
Christopher Kelly (historian)Historian Christopher Kelly argues that Attila the Hun was a thoughtful, effective leader. His 2009 book argued it.
J. J. ThomsonSeven of J. J. Thomson's students went on to win Nobel Prizes. His son George Paget Thomson won one too.
Lord ByronWestminster Abbey refused Lord Byron's body for questionable morality. It finally gave him a memorial in 1969.
George VIGeorge VI, known to his family as Bertie, wrote an anguished line in his diary about the day before his brother gave up the crown. He had gone to London to tell his mother, Queen Mary, what had happened. His entry read: "When I told her…
Charles IIICharles III was crowned at Westminster Abbey on the 6th of May 2023, in a ceremony planned for many years under the code name Operation Golden Orb. Reports before the day promised a coronation shorter, smaller and less expensive than his…
Alfred, Lord TennysonGrief for a friend who died at twenty-two shaped Tennyson's masterpiece.
Jawaharlal NehruJawaharlal Nehru spent over nine years in prison across eight separate detentions. He later led India for 16 years.
A. A. MilneA. A. Milne accused his old cricket teammate P. G. Wodehouse of near treason.
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…
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of EssexOne account says the Earl of Essex walked in on Queen Elizabeth not yet properly wigged or gowned.
Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton was born so small, he said, that he could have fit inside a quart mug.
James Graham-CampbellJames Graham-Campbell studied Viking gold and silver found across Scotland. His 1995 catalogue spans AD 850 to 1100.
Kim PhilbyKim Philby lunched weekly with the CIA's counterintelligence chief while passing secrets to Moscow.
Vladimir NabokovNovelist Vladimir Nabokov also named butterfly species, and later genetic research backed his theory.
Francis BaconFrancis Bacon may have died after stuffing a hen with snow. He wanted to test if cold could preserve meat like salt.
Daniel YerginDaniel Yergin started his energy research firm with a two-dollar file cabinet.
Nicholas CraftsNicholas Crafts, a British economist born in Nottingham on the 9th of March 1949, spent his career trying to put numbers on one of the most famous turning points in history. The Industrial Revolution is usually told through steam,…
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage died on the 18th of October 1871 at 1 Dorset Street in Marylebone, London, where he had lived and worked for over forty years. He was 79. Among his papers were designs for engines of brass and iron that could calculate,…
William DalrympleA book on an 1839 war led William Dalrymple to brief Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He also briefed the White House.
John DrydenHired thugs beat poet John Dryden in a London alley in December 1679.
Austen ChamberlainAusten Chamberlain won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 but never became prime minister. His half-brother Neville did.
Oliver Locker-LampsonIn 1933, British MP Oliver Locker-Lampson sheltered Albert Einstein from death threats.
Sogyal RinpocheIn 2017 the Dalai Lama called Sogyal Rinpoche "my very good friend" and then said, "Now he is disgraced."
Amartya SenAmartya Sen carries a name that was chosen for him by a Nobel laureate. Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, gave the newborn the name অমর্ত্য. The boy was born on the 3rd of November 1933 in Santiniketan, Bengal,…
Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Wittgenstein, the Austro-British philosopher, published only one book of philosophy during his lifetime, and it ran to just 75 pages. He was born in Vienna on the 26th of April 1889 and died on the 29th of April 1951. Nearly…
James George FrazerJames George Frazer wrote about world cultures without ever doing fieldwork. He relied on mailed questionnaires.
Chris WeitzChris Weitz sent a studio an unrequested 40-page plan to win the job of directing The Golden Compass. He got it in 2003.
Raymond WilliamsA teenage visit to a Soviet pavilion in Paris led Raymond Williams to read Karl Marx.
Bertrand RussellAt 89, philosopher Bertrand Russell went to jail for an anti-nuclear protest. Asked to behave, he said, "No, I won't."
Niels BohrNiels Bohr passed out in the bomb bay of a British plane over Norway. His flying helmet was too small for him to wear.
Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington photographed stars during a 1919 eclipse to test Einstein's theory.
Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead walked into his Gifford lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1927 and lost his audience within a week. The astronomer Arthur Eddington had given the series the year before, and he had held a crowd of 600 people…
Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of WillingdonLord Willingdon quit a Bombay yacht club after it refused his Indian friends.
Srinivasa RamanujanSrinivasa Ramanujan was ill in a hospital at Putney when G. H. Hardy came to visit him. Hardy had ridden there in taxi cab number 1729. He remarked that the number seemed rather dull, and he hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. Ramanujan…
Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar sailed from India to England in 1930, and on that first sea voyage he worked out a number that would outlive him. The number was 1.44. It is the greatest mass, counted in suns, that a white dwarf star can have. A…