It was on this date, November 25, 1835, that industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. Hard times in Scotland forced his family to emigrate to the US in 1848. Andrew naturally entered the textile industry as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill near Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He quickly graduated to the […]

It was on this date, November 24, 1632, that Portuguese-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to a family settled in Holland. The family were Portuguese crypto-Jews – that is, Jews forcibly converted to Christianity while secretly remaining Jewish. Spinoza was a bright student in the Talmud Torah school and might have become a […]

It was on this date, November 23, 1654, that French mathematician and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal had his famous religious conversion. The story goes that on the proverbial dark and stormy night, while Pascal was riding in a carriage across the Neuilly bridge in the Paris suburb, a sudden fright caused the horses to bolt, […]

There was a 1931 song in which the lyric, written by "Yip" Harburg, goes in part, They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me […]

It was on this date, November 22, 1819, that English Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans, who rose to fame under the pen-name “George Eliot,” was born in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire. She developed a strong religious sense under the teachers at Mrs. Wallington’s School at Nuneaton, and early on published some religious poetry. Her hunger for […]

It was on this date, November 21, 1965, that Icelandic vocalist Björk Gudmundsdottir, know around the globe as Björk, was born in Reykjavik. Her musical influences included jazz, rock, and classical music, plus the songs, sagas and poetry of Iceland. She was sent to music school at the age of 5, and by age 11 […]

It was on this date, November 21, 1694, that French writer François-Marie Arouet, who became famous as Voltaire, was born in Paris. His education began under a skeptical French Jesuit. When his father, a notary, insisted that he study for the law, Arouet instead began a literary career. After he published a witty satire on […]

It was on this date, November 20, 1752, that the poet generally regarded as the first Romantic poet in English, Thomas Chatterton, was born in Bristol, the posthumous son of a local schoolmaster. Poverty and rejection were the story of his life, but in the brief 17 years of his existence, Chatterton forged mediæval poetry […]

It was on this date, November 20, 1862, that Finnish philosopher and sociologist Edward (Edvard) Alexander Westermarck was born in Helsinki, the son of a university Latin professor. He learned English to study Darwin and other naturalists, and became a professor himself — at the London School of Economics and Political Science (1907-1931), at the […]

It was on this date, November 20, 1923, that South African novelist and short-story writer Nadine Gordimer was born the daughter of a Jewish-Lithuanian emigrant in Springs, outside of Johannesburg. Gordimer was educated in a convent school and spent a year at university, but took no degree. Her first short story was published when she […]