The Great Briton of the Day is Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), explorer, orientalist, swordsman, polyglot, and writer, the first Englishman to see the Black Stone in Mecca; searched for the source of the Nile; wrote accounts of his adventures in savage regions.

News exists to decide what you know and how you should feel about that. The moment you lose sight of that fact, you're defenseless.

Do you ever get the feeling people are fighting a proxy war through us as well as against us?

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520-1598) was an English statesman, chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, Secretary of State, and Lord High Treasurer. He set as the main goal of English policy the creation of a united and Protestant British Isles defended by a strong navy.

Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) was an inventor and entrepreneur who combined waterpower, innovative machinery, semi-skilled labour, and cotton to create mass-produced yarn. He's known as the father of the modern industrial factory system.

Oh the irony.

From Wikipedia: Hale rockets were first used by the United States Army in the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. Although the British Army experimented with Hale rockets during the Crimean War of 1853–1856 they did not officially adopt them until 1867. In the American Civil War

William Hale (1797–1870) was an English inventor and rocket pioneer who patented a rocket that improved on the earlier Congreve rocket by removing the guidestick and vectoring part of the thrust through canted exhaust holes to cause spin, which improved its stability in flight.

Thomas Harold Flowers MBE (1905-1998) was an English engineer with the British General Post Office. During World War II, Flowers designed and built Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help decipher encrypted German messages.

Alfred the Great (c.849-899) was King of the West Saxons, and later of the Anglo-Saxons. He won a decisive victory against the invading Danes in the Battle of Edington in 878 preventing their conquest of England and leading to the establishment of the Danelaw.

Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954) was a computer scientist, cryptanalyst, and creator of the Turing machine, a mathematical model of a general-purpose computer. He also helped crack Enigma, the German ciphering system of WWII, and devised the Turing Test for AI.

George Washington (1732-1799, Virginia) was a soldier, a farmer, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States of America. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory against the British Empire.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a Boston Massachusetts-born polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a Boston Massachusetts-born polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Robert Stirling (1790-1878) was a Scottish clergyman and engineer who invented the Stirling engine, which converts heat into mechanical work more safely than the original boiler engines.

William Congreve (1772-1828) was an English Army officer, Tory politician, and a pioneer in the field of rocket artillery. He is famous for the development and use of Congreve rockets during the Napoleonic Wars.

William Congreve (1772-1828) was an English Army officer, Tory politician, and a pioneer in the field of rocket artillery. He is famous for the development and use of Congreve rockets during the Napoleonic Wars.

James Hargreaves (c.1720-1778) was a weaver, a carpenter, and the inventor of the spinning jenny in 1764, a key innovation in the industrialisation of textile manufacturing.

Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) was an English inventor who created the atmospheric engine, the first practical fuel-burning steam engine in 1712.

https://t.co/Fh6BRjwviK

William Dampier (1651-1715) was an explorer, pirate, privateer, and naturalist, the first Englishman to explore parts of Australia, and the first man to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian.