Freethought Almanac

Lighting a candle in toxic air.
2011-08-15
August 15: Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769) It was on this date, August 15, 1769, that Napoleone Buonaparte, later to become the French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte, was born in Ajaccio on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, now part of Italy. He entered a Parisian military academy and rose quickly to become one of the greatest military commanders in […]

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2011-08-13
August 13: Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro (1926) It was on this date, August 13, 1926, that Cuban revolutionist and President-for-life Fidel Castro Ruz was born in Mayari, Cuba. Educated from the first by Jesuits, Castro took a Ph.D. in law in 1945 at Colegio Belén, a Jesuit preparatory school, in Havana. After 1950, he practiced law. The Fulgencio Batista […]

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2011-08-11
August 11: Robert Green Ingersoll

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833) It was on this date, August 11, 1833, that the most eloquent advocate of Freethought, Robert Green Ingersoll, was born in Dresden, New York, the son of a Congregationalist minister. In Peoria, Illinois, he trained in the law before enlisting in the Union Army during the Civil War, where he was […]

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2011-07-21
July 21: Insulting Monkeys

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

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2011-07-11
July 11: John Quincy Adams

There are in this country... a certain proportion of restless and turbulent spirits who must always have something to quarrel about with their neighbors. These people are the authors of religious revivals.

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2011-06-28
June 28: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"The Supreme Being is best displayed by the fixed and unalterable order of nature." Rousseau was expelled from Geneva for "irreligion."

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2011-06-25
June 25: George Orwell

"In theory it is still possible to be an orthodox religious believer without being intellectually crippled in the process; but it is far from easy."

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2011-05-19
May 19: Executed for Adultery

The Catholic Church has been hypocritical in its position on divorce and adultery.

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2011-05-15
May 15: Votes for Women

A husband could beat his wife, or sell her, take all her property and her children. Down to the 19th century, women were denied the vote because the law specified only men.

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2011-05-14
May 14: Churches and Anti-Semitism

It was some consolation to the survivors of the largest pogrom in human history that a Jewish state was formed on this date in 1948.

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Ronald Bruce Meyer

Our Fearless Leader.


Daily Almanac

November 8: Church-State Separation + Edmund Halley

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, Combes at first studied for the priesthood. After becoming […]



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