To: Alan Whirlwind who wrote (25218 ) 1/1/1999 2:38:00 PM From: goldsnow Read Replies (4) | Respond to of 116764
Poll: Shakespeare Is Greatest Briton Friday, 1 January 1999 L O N D O N (AP) A BRITISH Broadcasting Corp. readers poll has chosen playwright William Shakespeare as Britain's personality of the Millennium, the organization said Friday. Britain's World War II leader Winston Churchill was second, with England's earliest typographer, William Caxton, in third place. The poll was organized by Radio 4's "Today" news program. Listeners voted by telephone on their choice to find a short list of six. Initial nominees included Elizabeth I and Henry VIII as well as some light-hearted entries such as Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and the puppet Miss Piggy from the Muppets. Listeners then were asked to determine the final placings of the six. "Even though many thousands of listeners voted for other nominees, I think most people would agree that Shakespeare should be there or thereabouts," said "Today" editor Rod Liddle. Shakespeare polled 11,717 votes, Winston Churchill 10,957, and Caxton 7,109, Liddle said. Biologist Charles Darwin, whose 19th century theory of evolution by natural selection changed mankind's view of nature, was fourth with 6,337 votes. Physicist Isaac Newton, who in the 17th century developed the modern world's understanding of mathematics and physics, was fifth with 4,664 votes. Albert Einstein said that Newton's book, "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" was "perhaps the greatest intellectual stride that it has ever been granted to any man to make." Oliver Cromwell, leader of the victorious English Parliamentary forces who defeated and beheaded Charles I in England's 17th century civil war, was sixth with 4,653 votes.