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 […]

Albert Camus (1913) It was on this date, November 7, 1913, that French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, Algeria. Camus studied philosophy with the idea of teaching it, but also discovered theater and journalism, working at those endeavors full time by 1938. In World War Two (1941) he joined the French Resistance […]

Griff Rhys-Jones (1953) It was also on this date, November 6, 1953, that British comedian Griff Rhys-Jones was born in Cardiff, Wales. A partner and foil of Mel Smith, at one time Rhys-Jones had the distinction of being the richest comedian in British comedy. He is also one of the best educated: he attended Cambridge […]