It was on this date, July 3, 1947, that Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and columnist Dave Barry—author of numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comedic novels—was born David McAlister Barry in Armonk, New York. The son of a minister and an alumnus of a Quaker-affiliated college, Barry avoided military service in the […]

It was on this date, June 24, 1842, that journalist, satirist and social critic Ambrose Gwinett Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, the tenth of thirteen children, but he grew up on an Indiana farm. He had little formal education, but loved reading in his father's library, and at 15 became a printer's apprentice. […]

It was on this date, June 22, 1633, that Florentine-Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 to 8 January 1642) was compelled by the Roman Catholic Inquisition to recant the theory he held that the earth travels around the sun. What seems obvious to us today was unscriptural, and therefore by definition untrue, in Galileo's […]

It was on this date, June 21, 1905, that French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris. Through his mother, Anne-Marie Schweitzer, Sartre was a great nephew of medical missionary Albert Schweitzer. He grew up fatherless and was reared by his grandfather, who called him Poulou. Working as a teacher from 1931 to 1945 […]

Rizal believed in peaceful reform – as well as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to a fair trial. He died an anti-clerical Catholic and was declared a national hero of the Philippines.

It was on this date, May 15, 1689, that English writer Lady Mary Wortley Montague was born Mary Pierrepont in London. Self-educated in her family’s extensive private library, Mary began writing prose and poetry at an early age. She taught herself Latin and translated Epictetus at age 20. Against her father’s wishes, she eloped with […]

"There is a rumour going around that I have found God," says Pratchett. "I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

It was on this date, April 2, 1947, that American author, teacher, and social critic Camille Paglia was born. She was brought up in New York by Italian immigrant parents and spent her earliest days on a farm before her educator-father moved the family to more urban surroundings. Paglia graduated Harpur College at Binghamton University […]

It was on this date, March 27, 1797, that French poet, playwright, and novelist Alfred de Vigny was born into an aristocratic family in the town of Loches in central France. His mother, a woman of strong will inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, saw to his early education. Although the French Revolution left the family in […]

It was on this date, March 9, 1749, that French writer, diplomat, journalist and revolutionist Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau was born. Before the French Revolution, Mirabeau was an officer in the army and was several times prosecuted for his courageous criticisms of the feudal system that kept the masses enslaved to the land. […]