Great Britons

[Brian Ellis]

http://bbcworld.com/content/template_clickpage.asp?pageid=2376&home=1

The BBC World TV has recently been doing a viewers poll on who was the Greatest Briton of all times. They ran a weekly 45 min programme on each of the 10 shortlisted candidates. who were:

Charles Darwin 3
Isambard Brunel 4
Diana, Princess of Wales 9
Oliver Cromwell 5
Horatio Nelson 8
William Shakespeare 1
Elizabeth I 6
Sir Isaac Newton 2
Sir Winston Churchill 7
John Lennon 10

(In the order in which the biogs appeared on TV.)

The figures I have appended represent the order of "greatness" that I rank them. I can assure you that this is not the order that other viewers believed. For example, my #1, Shakespeare, came in 4th, while Newton was 1st. Diana was 9th, according to my views, but came in 3rd!

Anyone like to give their ideas?

PS You can see the full results if you can tune in to BBC World at 1810 GMT this evening. 45 minutes of entertainment!

[The PIT]

I'd remove Diane from the list all together to be honest. Dunno who'd you replace her with though.

[dbdg]

Same here, why they loved Diana I do not know.

Replace Diana with BlackAdder.

[KvHagedorn]

What about Alfred the Great? Seems like people have a rather short attention span over there.. too much American culture seeping in?

[KvHagedorn]

And why the hell would anyone pick Isambard Brunel over Christopher Wren?

[gt40]

Diana? Great???

[thop]

Same thing is going on with Great Germans here.

[lecter]

Hmm, do you have a link for that? I'm just wondering if someone like Adolf Hitler can be considered a "Great" German...would this term qualify for people that contributed to the progress of their country or the world or just changed the way we look at things?

[KRSESQ]

I was a little surprised to see Cromwell placed ahead of Churchill. Just what is the average Brit's opinion of Cromwell and his rule, anyway?

Kevin

[KvHagedorn]

Cromwell was Britain's Napoleon.

btw, where's Victoria? When she was alive and for some years after she was revered pretty highly, I think. Don't know that she actually did much. The current queen is not a bad lady herself.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by thop
Same thing is going on with Great Germans here.

Who's on the list? Mine would be:

1) Martin Luther
2) Charlemagne
3) Frederick the Great
4) Otto von Bismarck
5) Johannes Guttenberg
6) Johann Sebastian Bach
7) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8) Ludwig van Beethoven
9) Richard Wagner
10) Konrad Adenauer

I probably forgot someone important..

[KvHagedorn]

I know who I forgot.. Hermann (Arminius), who in 9AD united the Germans to defeat the invading Romans. Without him, Germany might have been Romanized like France, and the German language may not have survived. This probably puts him on top of the list.

[THE_Editor]

Barry Sheene !!

[thop]

There is no final list yet, the audience has still to make up the final list from 300 choices. You can see the list here: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/41/0,2857,A,00.html

And Hitler obviously isn't on it. First, because he was not German (but Austrian), and second for obvious reasons. But the list is not 100% exact anyway because Mozart is technically Austrian as well. (The Austrians were pissed we put him on the list ).

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by thop
There is no final list yet, the audience has still to make up the final list from 300 choices. You can see the list here: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/41/0,2857,A,00.html

And Hitler obviously isn't on it. First, because he was not German (but Austrian), and second for obvious reasons. But the list is not 100% exact anyway because Mozart is technically Austrian as well. (The Austrians were pissed we put him on the list ).

Some of those people do NOT belong on that list.. geez. Claudia Schiffer is certainly prettier than old Field Marschall Blücher, but she doesn't belong on the list with him. Did she save Europe from Napoleon? Pfft. Likewise with most of the actors and such.. and where are some of the more ancient ones like those I mentioned? Hermann deserves to be there, in fact he should be #1, and Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) was technically a German. And where is Gottfried von Strassburg? Just because France stole German territory, Germans born there at the time are ineligible?