3. Richard Francis Burton
Sir Richard Francis Burton was a British adventurer, from a time when being a professional adventurer was still an actual career. A truly epic figure, Sir Richard was a spy, geographer, soldier, translator, fencer, historian, writer and polyglot who, at one count, had a working knowledge of almost 30 African and Asian languages. In addition to a genuinely impressive skill set, Sir Richard was also extremely progressive by his era’s standards concerning racial and sexual taboos. Burton spoke openly about sexuality and translated the Kama Sutra into English for publication.
A highlight of Sir Richard’s career was a disguised trip to Mecca at a time when no whites were allowed to visit it upon pain of death. He also was on the first European expedition to the African Great Lakes to search for the source of the Nile. Interestingly, Burton was strongly opposed to the ethnocentrism of colonial Britain, and he enjoyed interacting with and learned from the local cultures in Britain’s empire.
As if being a real-life action hero and anti-colonialist progressive weren’t enough, Sir Richard was also a roughly handsome man with a face that fit his heroic life. While the long, thick mustache is rather unfortunate by our modern beauty standards, one can see the strong chiseled face behind the mustache.
