"The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"

It was on this date, June 4, 1945, that American writer and independent scholar Susan Jacoby was born. A journalist for the Washington Post and other publications for over 25 years, and author of the Post’s weekly column, “The Spirited Atheist,” Jacoby has authored the 1984 Pulitzer Prize finalist Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, […]

It was on this date, May 24, 1844, that Samuel F.B. Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought,” which inaugurated long-distance coded communication over the first telegraph line strung from Baltimore, Maryland, to his colleague Alfred Vail and an astonished Congress at the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington, […]

Divorce was finally, officially forbidden by the Council of Trent. This ushered in about two centuries of adultery, natural and unnatural vice, and flagrant prostitution.

Even though the motto was conceived by a cleric, recommended for its religious purpose, and adopted precisely to acknowledge God, several federal courts have it is not a religious phrase!

If she really "said yes" to God when the gun was pointed at her, where was Cassie Bernal's God when she needed him to save her life?

“We hear that the cleric Hubert ... does not scruple to spend his days with actresses ... and that he is for ever committing murders and adulteries, vile fornications and intolerable outrages.”

Although Henry had a reputation as a powerful, persuasive orator, the “Liberty or Death” speech was in fact invented for his biography by the biographer, William Wirt.

Read about comedian Paula Poundstone, the Vatican recognizing Israel, Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius, Swiss Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli, American science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, the founding of the Fabian Society, and more … (concludes the series)

Read about the first Jubilee, decoder of hieroglyphics Jean François Champollion, poet Matthew Arnold, stealing Christmas, The Scariest Movie of All Time, German-American entertainer Marlene Dietrich, non-believers in Westminster Abbey, and more …