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 […]

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 […]

Greg Graffin (1965) It was on this date, November 6, 1965, that the lead singer for punk rock group Bad Religion, and a Ph.D. in Paleoanthropology from Cornell University, Greg Graffin, was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Aside from being co-founder of his own punk-rock group, Graffin is considered one of the five leading bone tissue […]

Sir Ludovic Kennedy (1919) It was on this date, November 3, 1919, that British writer and broadcaster Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ludovic Kennedy, the son of a sea captain who died in battle, saw action himself in World War II in the Royal Navy, then embarked on a successful career […]

Burt Lancaster (1913) It was on this date, November 2, 1913, that American actor Burt Lancaster was born Burton Stephen Lancaster, one of five children, in New York City. Lancaster had a tough life on the streets of New York and attended a Protestant church. There he was strongly influenced by its pastor and the […]

Larry Flynt (1942) It was on this date, November 1, 1942, that magazine publisher Larry Claxton Flynt was born in Salyersville, Kentucky. The publisher of around twenty sex magazines, Larry Flynt is known equally well for the most famous of them, the ground-breaking Hustler, and for his brushes with obscenity law. Flynt grew up poor […]

John Keats (1795) It was on this date, October 31, 1795, that British poet John Keats was born in London. His family was close, and when his father died in an 1804 riding accident, and his mother died of tuberculosis six years later, the 15-year-old Keats, two brothers and a sister, turned to each other. […]

John Adams (1735) It was on this date, October 30, 1735, that the second president of the United States, John Adams, was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard, where he first intended to study for the orthodox ministry, but the reality of orthodoxy sobered him and he turned to the law. […]

Bill Gates (1955) It was on this date, October 28, 1955, that the entrepreneur who became chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, the world's largest software firm, Bill Gates, was born in Seattle, Washington. Born William Henry Gates III, Bill Gates was an exceptional student. After co-founding Microsoft with friend Paul Allen, Gates used quasi-legal […]

Niccolò Paganini (1782) It was on this date, October 27, 1782, that Italian virtuoso violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini was born in Genoa. Like Mozart, who was born 26 years earlier, Paganini was a child prodigy, composing a sonata at age eight and performing onstage from the age of eleven. He learned much from his […]