Movies - 100 Greatest Britons

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	Movies - 100 Greatest Britons

In 2002, the BBC conducted a vote to discover the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. The poll resulted in some unlikely candidates including Guy Fawkes, Aleister Crowley, Johnny Rotten, and King Richard III. It also included two living Irish nationals (Bono and Bob Geldof) and James Connolly, the Scottish born Irish nationalist who was executed as a traitor in 1916.

The highest-placed Scottish entry was Alexander Fleming in 20th place, with the highest Welsh entry Owain Glyndŵr in 23rd. The resulting series, Great Britons, included individual programmes on the top ten, with viewers having further opportunities to vote after each programme. It concluded with a debate.

Other editions

Other countries produced similar shows locally, see also: Greatest Britons spin-offs

Germany ran their version on ZDF and called it Unsere Besten (Our Best).

The CBC ran The Greatest Canadian in 2004.

KRO (part of Omroep) ran the De Grootste Nederlander (The Greatest Dutchman).

The Discovery Channel (in conjunction with AOL) ran "The Greatest American" in May 2005 .

The South African Broadcasting Corporation ran the Great South Africans.

In Finland, YLE made a copycat called Suuret Suomalaiset (Great Finns) .

France has a version of the show, called Le Plus Grand Français (The Greatest Frenchman) on France 2

Belgium has 2 versions of the show. They are called 'De Grootste Belg and Le Plus Grand Belge.

The Greatest Britons List

Due to the nature of the poll used to select and rank the Britons, the results do not pretend to be an objective assessment. They are as follows:

# Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Prime Minister during World War II # Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), engineer, creator of Great Western Railway and other significant works # Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997), first wife of HRH Charles, Prince of Wales (1981-1996) and mother of Princes William & Harry of Wales. # Charles Darwin (1809-1882), naturalist, originator of the theory of evolution through natural selection and author of The Origin of Species. # William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright, thought of by many as the greatest of all writers in the English language. # Sir Isaac Newton, physicist # Queen Elizabeth I of England, monarch # John Lennon
(1940-1980), of The Beatles, musician # Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, naval commander # Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector # Sir Ernest Shackleton, polar explorer # Captain James Cook, explorer # Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts # Alfred the Great, King of Wessex # Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, military commander and statesman # Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister # Michael Crawford
, actor # Queen Victoria, monarch # Sir Paul McCartney, of The Beatles musician # Sir Alexander Fleming, pharmaceutical innovator # Alan Turing, pioneer of computing # Michael Faraday, scientist # Owain Glyndŵr, Prince of Wales # Queen Elizabeth II, monarch # Professor Stephen Hawking
, theoretical physicist # William Tyndale, English translator of the Bible # Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette # William Wilberforce, humanitarian # David Bowie
, musician # Guy Fawkes, English revolutionary # Leonard Cheshire, Baron Cheshire, aviator and charity organiser # Eric Morecambe
, comedian # David Beckham, footballer # Thomas Paine, political philosopher # Boudica, leader of Celtic resistance to the Roman Empire # Sir Steve Redgrave, Olympic rower # Sir Thomas More, English lawyer and politician # William Blake, author and printer # John Harrison, clock designer # King Henry VIII of England, monarch # Charles Dickens, author # Sir Frank Whittle, jet engine inventor # John Peel, broadcaster # John Logie Baird, television pioneer # Aneurin Bevan, politician # Boy George, musician # Sir Douglas Bader, aviator and charity campaigner # Sir William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland # Sir Francis Drake, English naval commander # John Wesley, Methodist leader # King Arthur, semi-mythical Celtic monarch # Florence Nightingale, nurse and charity campaigner # T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Arabist and soldier # Sir Robert Falcon Scott, polar explorer # Enoch Powell, politician # Sir Cliff Richard
, musician # Alexander Graham Bell, telephone pioneer # Freddie Mercury, musician # Dame Julie Andrews
, actress and singer # Sir Edward Elgar, composer # Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Queen consort # George Harrison
, of The Beatles musician # Sir David Attenborough
, broadcaster # James Connolly, Irish revolutionary # George Stephenson, railway pioneer # Sir Charlie Chaplin
, comic actor # Tony Blair, Prime Minister # William Caxton, English printer # Bobby Moore, footballer # Jane Austen, author # William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army # King Henry V of England, monarch # Aleister Crowley, mystic # Robert I, King of Scots # Bob Geldof, Irish musician # The Unknown Warrior, soldier of the Great War # Robbie Williams
, musician and former member of Take That # Edward Jenner, pioneer of vaccination # David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George, prime minister # Charles Babbage, mathematician and pioneer of computing # Geoffrey Chaucer, English author # King Richard III of England, monarch # J.K. Rowling, author # James Watt, developer of the steam engine # Sir Richard Branson, businessman and adventurer # Bono, Irish musician # John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), musician # Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, military commander # Donald Campbell, water speed world record challenger # King Henry II of England, monarch # James Clerk Maxwell, physicist # J.R.R. Tolkien, author and linguistics professor # Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer # King Edward I of England, monarch # Sir Barnes Wallis, aviation technology pioneer # Richard Burton
, actor # Tony Benn, politician # David Livingstone, missionary and explorer # Sir Tim Berners-Lee, internet pioneer # Marie Stopes, promoter of birth control
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