Lesson 18 Outstanding People of Great Britain

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Great Britain is famous for its poets, writers and scientists. Among them are Shakespeare, D.Defoe, Jonathan Swift, R.Burns, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelly, Walter Scott, Henry Bessemer, James Cook and many others.

The name of William Shakespeare, a great English poet, dramatist and philosopher, is known in the whole world. His works are truly immortal. His popularity all over the world grows from year to year. Deniel Defoe, the founder of the early bourgeois realistic novel, is also well-known. His novel “Robinson Crusoe” is a glorification of human labour, a triumph of man over nature. Robert Burns was the most democratic poet of the 18^th century. His birthday is celebrated in Scotland as a national holiday. Henry Bessemer is one of the greatest inventors of the 19^th century. He invited the new process of steel production, the so-called Bessemer process, James Cook is a famous English Navigator and discover of new lands. Charles Darwin is a well-known English scientist. He was the author of the theory of origin and development of life on the Earth. Another great English scientist Isaac Newton was the discoverer of the Law of Gravitation. These and many other English writers, scientists, travelers and inventors made great contribution to world literature and science.

Answer the Questions:

1. What was William Shakespeare?

2. What was Daniel Defoe? What did he found?

3. What was Robert Burns?

4. What was Henry Bessemer? What did he invent?

5. What was James Cook? What did he discover?

6. What did Isaac Newton discover?

Isaac Newton (1642 –1727)

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Isaac Newton is one of the greatest men in the history of science. He was born in a small village of Woolsthorpe in England. His father was a poor farmer. When the boy was fourteen his father died. Newton left school and helped his mother on the farm. But the boy did not like farming, he was fond of poetry and mathematics. So Newton was sent back to school where he studied well and made his first scientific experiments. After he left school Newton studied at Cambridge University.

In autumn of 1660, Cambridge University was closed. The Great Plague spread in England and Newton had to return to the village and stay there for eighteen months. At home he went on with his studies. When he was twenty–one Newton formulated the binomal theorem.

After graduation Newton lectured on mathematics at Cambridge University. Newton’s greatest discovery is the law of gravitation.

In 1703 his countrymen elected Newton President of the Royal Society. On February 28, 1727 he attended his last meeting of the Royal Society. On March 20, 1727 he died and was buried in Westminster Abby. There is a monument to Newton in Trinity Collage at Cambridge with the inscription:

Newton, Who Surpassed All Men of Science.