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Curated playlist

British Army personnel of World War II

  • Lew GradeLew Grade offered to make The Muppet Show in Britain after American networks turned Jim Henson down.
  • Geoffrey EltonGeoffrey Elton argued that Thomas Cromwell, more than Henry VIII, drove a revolution in English government.
  • Eric HobsbawmMI5 blocked Eric Hobsbawm from a BBC job in 1945 over his communism. He later became a celebrated historian.
  • Raymond WilliamsA teenage visit to a Soviet pavilion in Paris led Raymond Williams to read Karl Marx.
  • Dick JamesMusic publisher Dick James phoned in "Please Please Me" and won The Beatles their first national TV spot.
  • Robert MaxwellOxford United supporters had a chant for their chairman: “He's fat, he's round, he's never on the ground.” The chairman was Robert Maxwell, who used the club's old grounds, close to his office at Headington Hill Hall, to land his…
  • Randolph ChurchillRandolph Churchill, the only son of Winston Churchill, announced in a 1932 newspaper article that he planned to "make an immense fortune and become Prime Minister". He was twenty-one years old. He achieved neither ambition. Over the…
  • A. J. AyerA. J. Ayer once told Mike Tyson to talk like a rational man. The philosopher stepped in at a 1987 party.
  • Vincent CroninVincent Cronin's history books sold well, but scholars did not always welcome them.
  • Abba EbanAbba Eban changed his first name to the Hebrew word for "Father."

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