Garibaldi wrote two years before his death and bluntly said, "Dear friends — Man created God, not God Man. Yours ever, Garibaldi."

Personalities Adams, Douglas (1952) Adams, John (1735) Adams, John Quincy (1767) Addams, Jane (1860) Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) Allen, Woody (1935) Altman, Robert (1925) Anders, Günther (1902) Angier, Natalie (1958) Anthony, Susan B. (1820) Arago, François (1786) Aristotle (d. 32BCE) Arnold, Matthew (1822) Arrhenius, Svante (1859) Asimov, Isaac (1920) Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1881) Augustine of […]

January January 1 Sir James George Frazer (1854) January 1 Huldrych Zwingli (1484) January 2 Isaac Asimov (1920) January 3 Franz Valery-Marie Cumont (1868) January 3 Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE) January 4 The Fabian Society Founded (1884) January 5 Umberto Eco (1932) January 5 Anabaptist Felix Manz Executed by “Baptism” (1527) January 6 Joan […]

Read about compelling Genesis as history, actor Charles Laughton, the failure of Nostradamus, humorist Dave Barry, Italian liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi, the government-favored religion of the Salvation Army, burning Jan Hus for his opinions and more …

It was on this date, June 23, 1858, that 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped from his Jewish parents in Bologna, Italy, by agents of the Inquisition, under the Dominican Father (Pier Gaetano) Feletti. The parents, Momolo and Marianna Mortara, later learned that their Christian maid, Anna Morsi, had secretly baptized the boy when he was […]

Here’s your Week in Freethought History: This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a reminder that, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times, we as freethinkers are neither unique nor alone in the world. Last Sunday, July 1, but in 1899, English-American actor Charles Laughton […]

Giuseppe Verdi (1813) It was on this date, October 10, 1813 – the same year as Richard Wagner – that Italian opera composer Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born in Roncole, Duchy of Parma, which was then under the occupation of Napoleon's army. This self-described "peasant from Roncole" began his education with local priests before […]

Boito’s only completed opera, “Mefistofele,” based on Goethe's “Faust,” infuriated the Italian clergy by his frivolous treatment of religion.