Curated playlist
Members of the Order of Merit
- J. J. ThomsonSeven of J. J. Thomson's students went on to win Nobel Prizes. His son George Paget Thomson won one too.
- Benjamin BrittenAfter fire destroyed his concert hall in 1969, Benjamin Britten had it rebuilt within a year.
- T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot compared an evening sky to a patient on a surgical table.
- Henry JamesNovelist Henry James was hissed at when he took a bow on his play's opening night in 1895.
- Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria by hiding on freight trains. It made him famous.
- David Lloyd GeorgeDavid Lloyd George had to be smuggled out of Birmingham disguised as a policeman.
- John GielgudJohn Gielgud was arrested months after being knighted. Backstage in Liverpool, he feared he could not face an audience.
- Thomas HardyThomas Hardy's heart and ashes were buried in two different places. The Abbey got his ashes, Stinsford his heart.
- Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher kept a portrait of her chemistry tutor on the wall at 10 Downing Street.
- Francis CrickFrancis Crick was editing a manuscript on his death bed. He co-deciphered the DNA double helix in 1953.
- Edward ElgarA 1901 London concert crowd demanded a double encore for Elgar's first Pomp and Circumstance march.
- Laurence OlivierLaurence Olivier's 1948 film Hamlet was the first non-American film to win Best Picture.
- Clement AttleeClement Attlee told the King, "I've won the election," and the King replied that he already knew.
- Lord KelvinIn 1845, at the University of Cambridge, an examiner named Robert Leslie Ellis is said to have sized up a graduating student. He reportedly told a fellow examiner, "You and I are just about fit to mend his pens." The student was William…
- Paul DiracPaul Dirac's 1928 equation predicted antimatter, and the positron appeared in 1932.
- Tom StoppardTom Stoppard arrived in England knowing not a word of Czech. He fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia as a child.
- David AttenboroughAt 11, David Attenborough sold newts to a university for three pence each.
- Bertrand RussellAt 89, philosopher Bertrand Russell went to jail for an anti-nuclear protest. Asked to behave, he said, "No, I won't."
- Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington photographed stars during a 1919 eclipse to test Einstein's theory.
- Lord MountbattenLord Mountbatten sat alone in his study at the Viceroy's House as midnight arrived on the 15th of August 1947. India and Pakistan were becoming independent nations, and he reflected that for a few minutes more he remained the most powerful…
- Florence NightingaleFlorence Nightingale broke into locked storage with a hammer to reach medicine for the wounded.
- Lawrence Alma-TademaAlma-Tadema's painting The Finding of Moses failed to sell at £252 in 1960 but fetched $35,922,500 in 2010.
- Roger PenroseRoger Penrose received half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that the formation of black holes is a robust prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The citation sounds like the summit of a single, tidy career.…
- Joseph ListerJoseph Lister was born on the 5th of April 1827, and he would later be called the father of modern surgery. Yet the surgeons of his youth spoke fondly of what they called the good old surgical stink. They wore operating gowns crusted with…