It was on this date, November 27, 1940, that Chinese-American martial artist, actor and creator of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee (李小龍) was born Lee Jun-fan (李振藩) in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the son of a Chinese opera star father and a half-Caucasian mother. Lee’s family returned to their home in Hong Kong after his birth, […]

Read about “Frailty” and doing what God commands, English experimental physicist Patrick Blackett, American film actress and director Jodie Foster, English Romantic poet Thomas Chatterton, Voltaire, American comedian Rodney Dangerfield, American poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, and more …

It was on this date, November 23, 1965, that American poet, historian, philosopher, and author Jennifer Michael Hecht was born on Long Island, in New York. By 1995 she had earned her Ph.D. in the History of Science from Columbia University, where she now teaches poetry in the Graduate Writing Program, while also teaching poetry […]

It was on this date, November 22, 1921, the American comedian Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Rodney Cohen to Jewish parents. Quipped Rodney, “When I was born I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother. … I was so ugly my mother used to feed me with a sling shot. … When I was […]

It was on this date, November 18, 1897, that English experimental physicist Patrick Blackett was born Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett in Kensington, London. From a childhood interest in model airplanes and wireless (crystal radio), he won entry to the Royal Naval College, Osborne, Isle of Wight. When World War I broke out, Blackett was assigned […]

Read about actor Richard Burton, science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr, feminist pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, feminist and atheist activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, French painter Claude Monet, German philosopher and theologian Albert the Great, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and more …

It was on this date, November 16, 1993, that the U.S. Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488). RFRA, as it is called, was introduced in March 1993 and was aimed at preventing laws that substantially burden a person's free exercise of their religion. Although invalidated at the […]

It was on this date, November 14, 1840, that the founder of French impressionist painting, Claude Monet was born. The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant). From his earliest days, Claude-Oscar Monet wanted to paint. He was enrolled in Le Havre secondary school of the […]

It was on this date, November 13, 1969, that Somali-born American feminist and atheist activist, writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born Ayaan Hirsi Magan in Mogadishu, Somalia. While her father, a leading figure in the Somalian Revolution, was in prison, Ayann’s grandmother had the 5-year-old young girl’s genitals ritually cut off in what […]

Dear son, Today is Veterans Day and you are spending, as a soldier, your first holiday honoring soldiers. We all are grateful to those who serve their country in uniform. We express it openly on this day. Now that day includes you. On this occasion, although I am technically unqualified to be anybody’s father, I […]