"It has taken nearly 2000 years for the married woman to get back that personal independence which she enjoyed under the later Roman Law, but lost through the influence which Christianity exercised on European legislation. And it may be truly said that she regained it, not by the aid of the churches, but despite the opposition."

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889) It was on this date, November 14, 1889, that the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, was born in Allahabad, central India, the son of a successful and politically active Hindu lawyer. He grew up in a wealthy family under the British occupation and was educated at Harrow, a leading […]

Richard Burton (1925) It was on this date, November 10, 1925, that Welsh actor Richard Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. in Pontrydyfen, the twelfth of thirteen children, born to a hard-drinking miner. He took his stage and screen name from a schoolmaster who helped him enter Oxford, Philip Burton, and studied acting there. […]

The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, it's just the best we have. (Carl Sagan)

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 […]

Albert Camus (1913) It was on this date, November 7, 1913, that French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, Algeria. Camus studied philosophy with the idea of teaching it, but also discovered theater and journalism, working at those endeavors full time by 1938. In World War Two (1941) he joined the French Resistance […]

Lombroso was an outspoken Atheist and materialist, and became an honorary associate of the British Rationalist Press Association.

J.B.S. Haldane (1892) It was on this date, November 5, 1892, that British biochemist and geneticist John Burdon Sanderson Haldane was born in Scotland. Educated at Eton and Oxford, J.B.S. Haldane was not only broadly knowledgeable in science, but he had a well developed social conscience. This led him to follow Marxism for a time […]

The reign of Amenhotep III is generally considered Egypt's Golden Age, yet historians call it an age of heresy. "If I knew where God is," says one inscription, "I would certainly make an offering to him."