"About the last thing I ever thought I'd make an investment in is a sheep station, " he says.

FORBES: "We Weren't Hut People"

When Frederick William John Augustus Hervey became the seventh marquess on the death of his father in 1985 he inherited a useful pile of possessions, including a 57, 000-acre sheep station in Australia and four oil wells in Louisiana.

ECONOMIST: The Marquess of Bristol | The

This sent him to the animal research station at Ruakura among the sheep, and there, in an unsterile theatre, he began with much trial and error to remove the pituitary glands of unborn lambs.

ECONOMIST: Mont Liggins | The

In Fylingdales, among the black-faced sheep of northern Yorkshire, sits a radar station built by the U.S. If expanded, it could well become an outpost much needed to track missiles on their way to North America and to plot their interception.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Safire makes the case for a missile defense for allies and US