I don’t get all gooey over US soldiers. No, I have never served in the military, although I could have been drafted to fill a body bag in Việt Nam. Yes, I applaud the admirable courage our soldiers show, and our veterans have shown, as well as their commendable devotion to duty. But that courage […]

Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922) It was on this date, November 11, 1922, that science fiction and satire writer Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Vonnegut enrolled at Cornell University as a biochemistry major, but left for the Air Force during World War Two. He was captured in May 1944 during the Battle of the […]

Friedrich von Schiller (1759) It was on this date, November 10, 1759, that Germany's second-greatest poet (after Goethe), Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, was born in Marbach, Württemberg, of pious Lutheran parents. Rather than study theology, Schiller went to military school, but was dismissed for writing an essay critical of religion (On the Relation Between […]

Richard Burton (1925) It was on this date, November 10, 1925, that Welsh actor Richard Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. in Pontrydyfen, the twelfth of thirteen children, born to a hard-drinking miner. He took his stage and screen name from a schoolmaster who helped him enter Oxford, Philip Burton, and studied acting there. […]

Ivan Turgenev (1818) It was on this date, November 9, 1818 (NS), that Russian Realist novelist, poet and playwright Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев), was born in Orel. He attended both Moscow and St. Petersburg Universities and received a Master's Degree in philosophy. He developed some sympathy for democracy in Russia, but made the […]

Carl Sagan (1934) It was on this date, November 9, 1934, that American astronomer and science author Carl Edward Sagan was born in New York City. Carl Sagan earned degrees in physics, astronomy and astrophysics. He taught at Cornell from 1968 and was a consultant on NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions to other […]

Edmund Halley (1656) It was on this date, November 8,* 1656, that British astronomer Sir Edmond Halley was born in Hagerston, Middlesex, England (now London), the son of a wealthy merchant. He was educated at Oxford and before graduating took his first astronomical field trip in 1676, to the British-controlled island of St. Helena, where […]

Émile Combes and Church-State Separation (1904) It was on this date, November 8, 1904, that leftist French statesman Émile Combes introduced a bill for the separation of Church and State into the legislature of France. Born Justin Louis Émile Combes in Roquecourbe in the Tarn Départment on 6 September 1835, Combes at first studied for […]

It was on this date, November 7, 1879, that Russian revolutionist Leon Trotsky (Лев Троцкий) was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн) in Yanovka, Ukraine, the son of an illiterate but prosperous Jewish farmer. To read more, go to THIS LINK. Originally published November 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.

Marie Curie (1867) It was on this date, November 7, 1867, that French chemist and nuclear physicist Marie Curie was born Maria Salomea Skłodowska in Warsaw, Poland. She was brought up a Catholic by her mother, but her father was a freethinker and provided her with some scientific training. She abandoned Catholicism before she was […]