Famous Scots and Scotland’s Story
Famous Scots and Their Legacy
Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone. He began the Bell Telephone Company in 1877, and by 1885 more than 150,000 people in the USA had telephones. In 1915 he made the first telephone call across the United States from New York to San Francisco. After he died in Canada, at the age of seventy-five, all the telephones in North America were quiet for one minute to remember him.
Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie’s family left Scotland when he was eleven and went to the USA. Carnegie worked hard, and by the 1880s he had many businesses and was very rich – the richest man in the world. When he stopped working, he gave his money to other people. Carnegie’s money built schools, universities, and other buildings in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. Today his money still helps millions of people around the world every year.
Scottish Travelers and Explorers
Many Scots love to visit other countries and do new things. David Livingstone (1813-1873) went to Africa to begin schools and to tell Africans about Christianity. He was the first European to see the Victoria Falls, between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the first to go across Africa from the Atlantic in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east.
Scots in Space: Alan Bean
Alan Bean (1932-) is a Scottish American. When he went to the moon in 1969 – only the fourth man to walk on the moon – he took some tartan with him. Scots like to go to new places!
Sean Connery: A Film Icon
Who is the most famous Scot in the world today? To many people it is the film star Sean Connery (1930-). Sean Connery did a lot of different jobs before he began working in television and cinema. Then in 1962 he was James Bond in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. After this he was famous everywhere. He made six more James Bond films, and made many other films after that. To many people, his best film is The Untouchables (1987). Connery does not make films now and does not live in Scotland, but he loves Scotland very much and does not want it to be part of the United Kingdom.
Scotland Today and Tomorrow
The story of Scotland is interesting and sometimes exciting, but it is not an easy story. Some Scots, like Sean Connery, want Scotland to be just Scotland, and not part of the United Kingdom. Scotland is still a country of rich and poor. The past is important, but many Scots also want to think about Scotland today and tomorrow. The Scots in the USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand love the old things – the music, the dancing, the tartans. But many of the Scots in Scotland want their country to look to the future, not the past. Scotland, they say, can be like Norway – a country with five million people and with a lot of money from oil. Scotland has money from oil, fish farming, visits from tourists, banks, computers, and many other businesses. And there is new life here: new business, new cinema, new music. Things are changing in Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament
Today there is a Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. It is in an interesting new building on the Royal Mile. People from every town and city in Scotland come here to talk about their country. Some Scots want Scotland to speak for itself, in Europe and in the world.
Looking to Scotland’s Future
What is in the future for Scotland? Nobody knows. But it is always going to be a beautiful, special place. Perhaps one day you can walk along the Royal Mile, climb the hills, or travel to the islands, and see it for yourself.