Curated category
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell was three years old, and one phrase was never out of his mouth: "what's the go o' that?" His mother recorded it in 1834, describing a boy…
- Christopher Kelly (historian)Christopher Kelly, a British-Australian classicist and historian born in London and raised in Sydney, has spent his career asking a question that most people…
- J. J. ThomsonJ. J. Thomson, born on the 18th of December 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, grew up in a household shaped by antiquarian books and a mother rooted in the…
- Lord ByronLord Byron got up at two in the afternoon. By the time he sat down to dinner, the house around him resounded with the unarbitrated quarrels of ten horses…
- Alfred, Lord TennysonAlfred Tennyson was born on the 6th of August 1809 in Somersby, a small village in Lincolnshire, and by the time he died on the 6th of October 1892, lines…
- Jawaharlal NehruJawaharlal Nehru was sworn in as prime minister at the stroke of midnight on the 15th of August 1947, and he raised the Indian flag at the Red Fort in Delhi.
- A. A. MilneA. A. Milne taught himself to read at the age of two. That detail feels right for a man who would spend his life in thrall to words, though the books that…
- Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of EssexRobert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, once walked into Queen Elizabeth's bedchamber at Nonsuch Palace one morning. She was not yet, in the words of one…
- Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton said his mother told him he was so small at birth that he could have fit inside a quart mug. He was born prematurely on Christmas Day, the…
- James Graham-CampbellJames Graham-Campbell entered the world on the 7th of February 1947. This date marks the beginning of a life that would eventually reshape our understanding…
- Kim PhilbyKim Philby died in Moscow on the 11th of May 1988, buried with the honours of a KGB General. His fourth wife, Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova, told a reporter that…
- Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov arrived in the United States in May 1940 aboard the SS Champlain, a Russian exile who spoke three languages and had already written nine…
- Francis BaconFrancis Bacon dictated his last letter from a borrowed bed in Highgate, his fingers, he wrote, so disjointed with sickness that he could not steadily hold a…
- Daniel YerginDaniel Howard Yergin was born on the 6th of February 1947 in Los Angeles, California, and by the time he finished his fourth book, he had written what would…
- Nicholas CraftsNicholas Francis Robert Crafts entered the world on the 9th of March 1949 in Nottingham, England. He attended Brunts Grammar School in Mansfield before…
- William DalrympleWilliam Dalrymple first arrived in Delhi on the 26th of January 1984, a teenager who had grown up on the shores of the Firth of Forth in North Berwick…
- John DrydenJohn Dryden was attacked at around 8 pm on the 18th of December 1679, beaten by hired thugs in Rose Alley behind the Lamb and Flag pub in Covent Garden.
- Austen ChamberlainAusten Chamberlain won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, yet never became prime minister. He served in Parliament for 45 years, led his party, and shaped…
- Oliver Locker-LampsonOliver Stillingfleet Locker-Lampson was born on the 25th of September 1880 into a family of poets, diplomats, and naval heroes, and he spent the next seven…
- Sogyal RinpocheSogyal Rinpoche was born Sonam Gyaltsen Lakar in 1947 in the Trehor region of Kham, Tibet, and would go on to become one of the most widely read Buddhist…
- James George FrazerJames George Frazer was born on the 1st of January 1854 in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of a chemist named Daniel F. Frazer.
- Chris WeitzChristopher John Weitz was born on the 30th of November 1969 in New York City. His mother Susan Kohner worked as an actress while his father John Weitz…
- Raymond WilliamsRaymond Henry Williams was born on the 31st of August 1921 in Pandy, a village just north of Llanfihangel Crucorney, near Abergavenny in Wales.
- Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell was born on the 18th of May 1872 in a country house called Ravenscroft, in Trellech, Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent liberal…
- Niels BohrNiels Bohr once described the tension at the heart of all good teaching as the struggle between "Klarheit und Wahrheit" - clarity and truth.
- Arthur EddingtonArthur Stanley Eddington stood at the center of one of the most dramatic moments in twentieth-century science. On the 29th of May 1919, during a total solar…
- Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of WillingdonFreeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon, was born on the 12th of September 1866 into a family with deep ties to the British establishment.