The British are certainly among the nations that have made the most significant contribution to world history. Among them, there is no shortage of perfectly recognizable figures in every part of the globe.
Winston Churchill
(born 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace, died 24 January 1965 in London) – British politician, speaker, strategist, writer, and historian, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 2002, he won the BBC poll for the most outstanding Briton in history.
Elizabeth II
Former Queen of the United Kingdom (born. 21 April 1926 in London, died 8 September 2022 in Balmoral) is a parliamentary monarchy with a government accountable to parliament. The current British monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who came to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. The capital of the country is London.
Her functions are mainly ceremonial, with the actual rule resting in the hands of the Prime Minister. The UK is a very centralized, with the Westminster Parliament handling most political affairs. In recent years, however, each country that makes up the UK apart from England has been given its own governmental bodies to deal with local affairs.
William Shakespeare
(Born probably 23 April 1564, baptism date: 26 April 1564, place of birth Stratford-upon-Avon, died 23 April 1616 there) was an English poet, playwright, and actor. Widely regarded as one of the greatest English literature writers and a theatre reformer. He wrote 40 plays, 154 sonnets, and many works in other genres.
Although he was famous during his lifetime, his fame grew mainly after his death. Only then was he noticed by prominent personalities. He is regarded as England’s national poet. He was one of the few playwrights to successfully create comedies and tragedies. His plays combine ease of assimilation with the complexity of his characters.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Writer. Graduated from Edinburgh Medical School and practiced medicine until 1890. He later took up writing exclusively. In addition to detective works, he wrote historical novels, science fiction, thrillers, and non-fiction books. His most important works include The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, and the multi-screen novel The Lost World, in which he created the character of the eccentric scientist George Challenger.
He was also involved in spiritualism, of which he was an ardent enthusiast and researcher for most of his life, from which he lost his friendship with Harry Houdini, who was involved in unmasking spiritualists. Doyle believed that Houdini himself was a powerful spirit medium, considering many of his tricks to be manifestations of paranormal forces and that his unmasking activities were simply getting rid of the competition (see: On the Edge of the Unknown by Doyle, published after Houdini’s death, in 1931). The affair has made these two erstwhile friends public enemies. A participant in the Boer War.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
(Born 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orania, now a South African territory, died 2 September 1973 in Bournemouth, England) is an English writer and philologist. As the author of the novel The Lord of the Rings, set in the mythical world of Middle-earth, he became one of the forerunners of modern fantasy literature. He is the author of many stories set in the mythical world.
For example – the fairy tale The Hobbit, the epic The Lord of the Rings, the mythology of the Silmarillion, and several short forms, fairy tale stories unrelated or loosely connected to the extraordinary mythology, the so-called Legendarium of Middle-earth. He published more than 100 works on philology and ancient literature and collaborated on the largest dictionary of the English language, published immediately after the First World War, the Oxford English Dictionary.
He knew (to varying degrees) more than 30 languages, mostly extinct, Germanic and Celtic. (Including German, Latin, ancient Greek, Gothic, Old Icelandic, Norse, Old Irish, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Russian, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, and the international language Esperanto; he also studied Polish, but found it a difficult language and could not speak it well).
Sir Isaac Newton
(Born 4 January 1643, died 31 March 1727) – English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, historian, Bible scholar, and alchemist. In his famous work Philosophize Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), he presented the law of universal gravitation and the laws of motion underlying classical mechanics.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher
(née Roberts, born 13 October 1925) – British politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, chemist, and lawyer. Her firmness toward striking miners and communist states earned her the nickname Iron Lady. The liberal economic policies of her cabinet were christened Thatcherism.
She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th century, having held the office for the most extended continuous period since Lord Liverpool’s term. She is also the only woman ever to have been elected leader of a governing party in the UK. Together with Margaret Beckett, she was the only woman to have served as a minister from the most critical group of ministries known as the Great Offices of State. One of the leading ‘Euro sceptics,’ she advocated limited European integration.
Famous Britons in science
You don’t have to be interested in physics, and all you need is a memory of primary school to recognize the name, Isaac Newton.
The famous scientist, who lived in the 17th and 18th centuries, was involved in mathematics, astronomy, history, philosophy, and alchemy, and additionally studied the Bible! However, it was to physics that he made his greatest contribution, formulating the law of universal gravity and the foundations of classical mechanics.
Famous Britons who contributed to world culture
To an equally large extent, famous Britons have influenced world literature.
The first to be mentioned is the one considered by many to be the most important playwright in the history of mankind – William Shakespeare. This famous writer and true theatre reformer is a cult figure today.
Britain’s greatest athletes
The British Isles is the cradle of football, popular practically worldwide. Famous Brits among footballers include returning to bygone times, 1966 world champions such as Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, and Gordon Banks.
The former is the Golden Ball winner from that same year. The same honour has also been bestowed upon Northern Irishman George Best and twice Englishman Kevin Keegan.
Finally, if you are interested, you will find famous pensioners in the UK who are well known throughout the UK.
