What Scot has never heard of this great inventor? Baird is the man who gave us Coronation Street and Scotsport. Baird was born in the seaside town of Helensburgh , in 1888.

Baird was given the credit for sending televised pictures for the first time, this was about 1924. Baird used the surplus supplies that had been left over from the First World War to put together his amazing project. He managed to transmit a Maltese cross shape several yards across a room. The first ever television star was named William Taynton, and when Baird swapped places with him, he became the second.

Sir James Balfour was a great champion of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland . He was born in a place called Pittendreich in the year 1528.Balfour was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church who changed and became a convert to the Calvinistic Protestant church in Scotland .

Balfour was alleged to have been involved in the assassination of Cardinal Beaton at Saint Andrews on the Eastern Coast of Scotland in the year 1546.

James Balfour was to spend a few years as a galley slave on a French ship when he was captured. Balfour eventually was released from his bondage when he renounced the Protestant faith. He was then to assist the mother of Mary Queen of Scots; her name was Mary of Lorraine. He took her side against the Protestant Nobles and was the Catholic Regents spy.

John Barbour was born in the North eastern Scottish city of Aberdeen , in the year 1325. He was a writer and was the person who penned the amazing books which depict the life of Scotland 's great freedom fighter and King, Robert the Bruce. Barbour tells the story with a no holds barred approach. This mammoth epic tale was to become one of the first Scottish Literary pieces. When John Barbour was Deacon of his home city Aberdeen , he was granted safe custody by Edward the third to study at Oxford University . While he was there he used his time to gain the release of King David the second who was the son of King Robert the Bruce. David had been captured at Neville's crossing in the year 1346.

This family and particularly Edward played a huge part in the very changing and often violent history of Scotland . Edward was the son of John Balliol who was King of Scotland in the years 1292-1296, Edward of England supported Edward Balliol's claim to the Scottish throne which had been taken from his father by the famous King Robert the Bruce.

Henry Balnaves was, born in the Fife town of Kirkcaldy in the year 1512; he became a very influential person in the cause of Protestantism in Scotland . Once he had converted from Catholicism he made it his lives work to covert as many Scots as possible. He started out working to establish his faith in the Protestant religion, and also to unite an Anglo-Scottish alliance to reform the church. He also wanted to have a vernacular bible which everyone could use. Balnaves was to suffer the torture of imprisonment by the Earl of Arran who had readopted the catholic faith. After a period of interment he was freed by an English army and then became a paid agent for England . He was again to suffer imprisonment when he was captured by a French force that had invaded and attacked Saint Andrews in the year of 1547. He was transported to his gaol in Rouen where he spent his time writing his book: The Confession of Faith . This work would not be published until after his death.

Alexander Graham Bell was a truly remarkable Scotsman. When he invented the telephone he didn't realise the amazing effect it would have on the world of communications. Bell had been born at 16 Charlotte Street in Scotland's Capital City , Edinburgh in the year 1847. Alexander Bells father Melivell was a teacher of speech, and had in fact written a book called ‘Standard Elocutionists' as well as several other publications on similar subjects.

Six companies of Highlanders were raised, which, from forming distinct corps unconnected with each other, and were treated as independent companies in their own right Three of these companies called large companies because they had100 men each. Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochnell, Lord Lovat, and Colonel Grant who was from Ballindalloch, were appointed captains of their individual companies. The three smaller companies, were only to the strength of 75 men, and were commanded by Colonel John Campbell of Carrick, Alexander Campbell and George Munro of Culcairn, under the commission of captain-lieutenants. To each of the six companies were attached two lieutenants and one ensign. These soldiers had to be different form ordinary recruits so they were issued with Red Coats, breeches and waistcoats, and were called ‘Saighdearan Dearg', or Red Soldiers; the independent companies, who were attired in tartan consisting mostly of black, green, and blue, were designated , The Black Watch, from the sombre, dark appearance of their dress.

James Bruce was born in the Stirlingshire town of Larbert in the year 1730. Bruce was a great adventurer and was known for his love of Africa . He reported to a very sceptical British nation that he had indeed found the Headstream of the Blue Nile , which was considered to be the source of the great Nile .

Bruce was much more refined than that other patriotic Scottish freedom fighter Sir William Wallace, where Wallace would race in with all his armour at full charge, Bruce played more of a waiting game. He decided when the time would be right to rid Scotland of the hated English yoke. Bruce waited until midsummer's day in 1314 when on the 24 th of June he took on and defeated King Edward the second of England at the field of Bannockburn , near the town of Stirling in Central Scotland . The English army boasted that they were the mightiest army in Christendom, but the Scots were not in awe of this claim and struck a deadly blow to the their troops. The English were superior in numbers and equipment, but the shrewd Bruce used all the tricks at his disposal to upset and humiliate the enemy sending them running for the safety of the border. Once they were gone Bruce was indeed fully King of Scotland.

Robert Burns had been an excise man at one time and used his travelling experience to good use in his poems. His first work was published in the year 1786, and it was in this very volume that the much loved ode ‘To a Mouse' is first seen. If it had not been for the success of this book Scotland would have lost Burns as he was contemplating emigrating to Jamaica with his family. The book was snapped up by a literature starved audience at a price they could afford.

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