It was on this date, December 8, 1832, that Norwegian poet, novelist, and dramatist Björnstjerne Björnson was born in Kvikne, Österdal, Norway, the son of a Lutheran pastor whose religion was as bleak as the village landscape. But after age six the family moved to pleasanter surroundings in Noesset, Romsdal, and Björnson eventually attended Christiania […]

It was on this date, December 8, 1886, that Mexican Socialist and muralist Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato. His father was a municipal councilor with liberal and anticlerical views. In 1892 the family moved to Mexico City and from 1898 to 1905 Rivera attended the Academía de San Carlos there. He excelled at drawing […]

It was on this date, December 7, 1863, that Italian composer Pietro Mascagni was born in Livorno. Today, he is chiefly remembered as composer of Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry), his one-act opera written, as he put it, for the heart and not the head. Mascagni’s opera was not only popular in its day — it […]

It was on this date, December 7, 1965, that Roman Catholic Pope Paul VI and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I (Αθηναγόρας Α’) simultaneously lifted the 900-year-old mutual excommunications that led to the split of their two churches in 1054. An excommunication in the Dark Ages actually meant something, whereas today it would be a laughing […]

It was on this date, December 6, 1877, that inventor and Atheist Thomas Alva Edison demonstrated the first sound recording at West Orange, New Jersey. On that occasion he recited “Mary had a Little Lamb” into a recording device using a needle to scratch a sound track onto a cylinder wrapped in tinfoil. To read […]

It was on this date, December 5, 1782, that the 8th President of the United States (4 March 1837 – 4 March 1841), and the first US President born in the United States, Martin Van Buren, was born in New York. Of Dutch ancestry, he attended the Dutch Reformed Church. A protégé of Aaron Burr […]

It was on this date, December 5, 1974, that the last episode of the ground-breaking BBC-TV comedy series, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” was shown on British television. The six-member writer/actor group included John Cleese, Graham Chapman (d. 1989), Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam. “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” was broadcast as 46 […]

It was on this date, December 4, 1795, that British historian Thomas Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan in Scotland. He was brought up in a strict Calvinist home and began his career as a teacher in 1813 while studying for the ministry. Carlyle abandoned his Christian beliefs in 1818 after reading Gibbon. After further study […]

It was on this date, December 4, 1835, that British writer Samuel Butler was born in Upton upon Severn in Langar Rectory, near Bingham, Nottinghamshire, England. Being the son and the grandson of clergymen, Butler began to study along the same lines, but in 1859 he refused to be ordained, traveled to New Zealand, and […]

It was on this date, December 3, 1857, that English author Joseph Conrad was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Berdichev (Berdyczów), Ukraine, a region that had been a part of Poland but was then under Russian rule. Nevertheless, Conrad is considered Polish-born. His father was a poet and translator of English and French literature, […]