Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
Bell's invention of the first working telephone heralded the era of mass communications. Bell moved
to the US in 1871, where he developed his interests in sign language and transmitting speech (both his
mother and wife were deaf). Bell was granted a patent for the telephone on 7 March 1876, yet, somewhat ironically, never allowed one in his study.
Tim Berners-Lee (1955- )
Berners-Lee is the British computer scientist and MIT professor who invented the World Wide Web.
Berners-Lee had originally developed a hypertext-based system at CERN in 1980. In 1989, commenting on combining hypertext with the internet, he noted "I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and -ta-da! - the World
Wide Web."
1
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe (born 23 July 1989) is an English actor who made his acting debut at age ten
in BBC One's television movie David Copperfield (1999). Radcliffe has starred in eight Harry Potter films since 2001. The release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (released as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States) took place in 2001.
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer-songwriter, vocal
coach and occasional actor. He was a member of the pop group Take That. Williams left the group in
1995 to launch his solo career. Williams has sold more than 57 million albums worldwide. He is the
best-selling British solo artist in the United Kingdom. In 2004, he was voted as the "Greatest Artist of
the 1990s."
2
J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE, FRSL (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/; born 31 July 1965), pen names J. K. Rowling and
Robert Galbraith, is a British novelist, screenwriter and film producer best known as the author of
the Harry Potter fantasy series. The books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and
sold more than 400 million copies.[1] They have become the best-selling book series in history[2] and
been the basis for a series of films over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts[3] and maintained creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment.[4]
Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary
for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed
train from Manchester to London in 1990.[5] The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her
mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband and relative poverty until she finished
the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in 1997. There were six sequels,
the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in 2007. Since then, Rowling has written four books
for adult readers, The Casual Vacancy (2012) and—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the
crime fiction novels The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) and Career of Evil (2015).[6]
Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on state benefits to
multi-millionaire status within five years. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling living author, with
sales in excess of £238M.[7] The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at
£600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK.[8] Time magazine named her as a
runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has
given her fans.[9] In October 2010, Rowling was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by
leading magazine editors.[10] She has supported charities including Comic Relief, One Parent Families,
Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group).
3
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet, (born 5 October 1975), is an English actress and singer. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of
Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been
nominated twice for an Emmy Award for television acting, winning once for her performance in the
2011 miniseries Mildred Pierce, in which she played the title role. In 2012 she received the Honorary
César Award.
Brought up in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received her
first notable critical praise. She achieved recognition for her subsequent work in a supporting role
in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and for her leading role in Titanic (1997), the highest-grossing film in
the world at the time.
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Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, FRIC (née Roberts; 13 October
1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British stateswoman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from
1979 to 1990 and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longestserving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to have held the office. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising
politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known
as Thatcherism.
Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science
in his 1970 government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and became the first woman to lead a major political party in
the United Kingdom. She became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election.
On moving into 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives
intended to reverse high unemployment and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent
and an ongoing recession.[nb 1] Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned
companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her
first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until victory in the 1982 Falklands
War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983.
Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987. During this period her support for a Community
Charge (referred to as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the
Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher (of Kesteven in the County of
Lincolnshire) which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. After a series of small strokes in 2002,
she was advised to withdraw from public speaking. Despite this, she managed to pre-record a eulogy
to Ronald Reagan prior to his death, which was broadcast at his funeral in 2004. In 2013, she died of
another stroke in London at the age of 87.
5