Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917) It was on this date, October 15, 1917, that American historian Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. was born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger in Columbus, Ohio. The son of a prominent American historian of the same name (and taking his father’s middle name during his writing career), Arthur Jr. attended Phillips Exeter Academy […]

Columbus Discovers the New World (1492) It was on this date, Friday, October 12, 1492, that Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas. Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in September or October 1451, and was reared a Roman Catholic. He became a Portuguese subject and married a Portuguese noblewoman, but had no success in persuading […]

John Addington Symonds (1840) It was on this date, October 5, 1840, that British writer John Addington Symonds was born in Bristol. He was educated at Oxford and married Janet Catherine North (sister of botanical artist Marianne North), on 10 November 1864, producing four daughters. Having health problems throughout his life, Symonds gave up the […]

Stephan Jenkins (1964) It was on this date, September 27, 1964, that Stephan Jenkins, the front man for the pop music group Third Eye Blind, was born Stephan Douglas Jenkins in Oakland, California. After overcoming childhood dyslexia, and earning a degree in literature in 1987 from the University of California, Berkeley, Stephan Jenkins co-founded Third […]

Bill of Rights Passed by the U.S. Congress (1789) It was on this date, September 25, 1789, that the U.S. Congress passed and sent for ratification the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which came to be known as the Bill of Rights. To Freethinkers, the most important amendment is the first, yet when most […]

Tomás de Torquemada (d. 1498) It was on this date, September 16, 1498, that the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, Tomás de Torquemada, died in Ávila. Born on a date uncertain in 1420 in what is now Valladolid, Torquemada was a Dominican monk – one of the famed "hounds of the Lord" (domini canes) – in […]

September 11 (2001) It was on this date, September 11, 2001, that four US planes were hijacked, turned in flight, and crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, into the west wall of the Pentagon in Washington DC, and into a rural Pennsylvania field, in a suicide attack on […]

The Reign of Terror (1793) and the Churches It was on this date, September 5, 1793, that an 11-month Reign of Terror began in France. Sometimes called the Red Terror, to distinguish it from the equally brutal but little-mentioned White Terror which followed it, the Reign of Terror lasted until the execution of Maximilian Robespierre […]

It was on this date, August 26, 1740, that French paper-maker and chemist Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, was born, one of 16 children of a prosperous paper manufacturer. With his younger brother Jacques-Étienne, the Montgolfier brothers conducted experiments with paper and fabric bags filled with smoke and hot air, which eventually led to their co-invention of the […]

Claude Debussy (1862) It was on this date, August 22, 1862, that French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy was born Achille-Claude Debussy, the eldest of five children, in St. Germain-en-Laye. A prodigy, he entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10 and by 1902 his Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of […]