Notable People in History
UK IMAGES and REFERENCE

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Charles Darwin was a scientist and known all over the world. He was born in Shropshire, England in 1809. As a young boy he was not considered to be very intelligent because of his continued study of insects and rocks, instead of learning what other people wanted him to learn.

Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was the Italian sailor and explorer who discovered America and whose date of birth is believed to be about 1446. He was at sea from his boyhood and knew a lot about ships, and he tried to convince people that as the world was round we ought to get to India by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.

Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)
Galileo, born in 1564, was one of the most distinguished of the early scientists. He was a professor of mathematics at Pisa in Italy, but he was also a great experimental physicist. He saw a lamp swinging in Pisa Cathedral, noted from his own pulse rate that it swung regularly, and saw how to use a swinging pendulum for measuring time.

King Henry VIII
Henry VIII was the second son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York and was born on 28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace, London. He was a popular young man in his early years and had a great fondness for hunting, dancing and entertainment. He became King Henry VIII of England and the second Tudor monarch when his father died in 1509.

Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was the only surviving son of a family of landowners in Huntingdonshire (now a district of Cambridgeshire) and became one of the most controversial figures in British history. He was a fanatical puritan and responsible for the English civil war, and he was the most important figure in the execution of King Charles I.

Robert Bakewell
Robert Bakewell was born in 1725 in Dishley, near Loughborough in Leicestershire and was one of the first people to try and improve the quality, well-being and condition of farm animals in Britain. His keen interest in farm animals came from working with his father who was an experienced tenant farmer.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, and baptised in Stratford church in 1564. He married Anne Hathaway, and they had three children - Susanna, and the twins Hamnet and Judith. Shakespeare went to London to seek his fortune and joined a company of players at one of the theatres outside the city.

Thomas Becket
In 1154 Theobold named Becket Archdeacon of Canterbury and he was responsible for other ecclesiastical offices at Lincoln Cathedral and St. Paul's Cathedral. He also held the post of Provost of Beverley. His efficiency in those posts led to Theobald recommending him to King Henry II for the vacant post of Lord Chancellor, to which Becket was appointed in January 1155.

Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Spencer Churchill was born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace. One of his ancestors was the first Duke of Marlborough who won the battle of Blenheim in the reign of Queen Anne. Churchill became one of the greatest men in British history. In his early years he was a soldier in India and the Sudan, and was captured by the Boers in South Africa while he was a war correspondent.