Simón Bolívar (1783) It was on this date, July 24, 1783, that South American liberator and president Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar - Simón Bolívar - was born in Caracas, Venezuela. His parents were wealthy, but they died early. Bolívar inherited a fortune that assured him of a quality education, partly in […]

Alan Hale and Comet Hale-Bopp (1995) It was on this date, July 23, 1995, that Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered by Alan Hale and, independently, by Thomas Bopp. Working as a shift supervisor in a construction materials company, Bopp, an amateur astronomer, observed the celestial event in Glendale, Arizona. A professional astronomer, Alan Hale made his […]

The famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial was a publicity stunt that exposed the imbecility of fundamentalism.

Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864) It was on this date, July 20, 1864, that Nobel-winning Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt was born in Folkärna, in the rural province of Dalarna, central Sweden. His father was a lawyer, his mother a devout Lutheran. While supporting himself as a teacher, Karlfeldt completed his University of Uppsala studies and […]

Like John Ruskin and Tennyson, he was a Rationalist, but he did not go out of his way to criticize religion.

Phyllis Diller (1917) It was on this date, July 17, 1917, that the comedienne and actress with the distinctive laugh, Phyllis Diller, was born Phyllis Ada Driver in Lima, Ohio. She was a San Francisco housewife with five children when her under-employed husband suggested she try to make a career of the comedic skits she […]

Donald Sutherland (1934) It was on this date, July 17, 1934, that actor Donald Sutherland was born Donald McNichol Sutherland in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The unusual-looking, lanky actor reached a height of 6'4" (1.93 m) by adulthood, and his distinctive voice seems to have been bequeathed to his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland. After […]

James McNeill Whistler (1833) It was on this date, July 11, 1834, that American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. His father was an Army Major and Whistler himself was educated at West Point, from which he was dismissed. Whistler was a leading proponent of the credo, “art for art’s sake” […]

John Chancellor (1927) It was on this date, July 14, 1927, that American news reporter, anchor, and NBC commentator John Chancellor was born in Chicago, Illinois. A high school drop-out, Chancellor got his first job as a copy boy at the Chicago Sun-Times. From there his assignments extended from the 1957 desegregation of Central High […]

William Osler (1849) It was on this date, July 12, 1849, the Anglo-American physician William Osler was born in Bond Head, Canada West (now Ontario). He took his MD in 1872 and taught medicine from 1874-1884. In 1889 he became the first professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and was one of the four […]