Skip to content
Curated playlist

20th-century atheists

  • George OrwellGeorge Orwell was a pen name, chosen from a shortlist in 1932. He was born Eric Arthur Blair in British India.
  • Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
  • Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev spent four hours in 1956 tearing down Stalin's reputation. He had helped carry out Stalin's purges.
  • Keira KnightleyKeira Knightley stood on a plank for two days and refused a stunt double.
  • Katharine HepburnKatharine Hepburn bought out her own studio contract after theater owners called her box office poison.
  • Marilyn MonroeAn unimpressed studio head signed Marilyn Monroe specifically to keep her away from a rival studio.
  • Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf's father let her read whatever she liked in his vast library.
  • Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin once trained to be a Russian Orthodox priest. He later led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death.
  • Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
  • Roman PolanskiRoman Polanski survived the Holocaust by pretending to be Catholic. As a boy in Poland, he memorized prayers to hide.
  • Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre asked to be dropped as a Nobel nominee, then won anyway. His 1964 letter went unread.
  • Emma ThompsonEmma Thompson is the only person to win Oscars for both acting and screenwriting.
  • Che GuevaraChe Guevara signed Cuba's paper money with just one word: "Che." He was then president of the National Bank.
  • Mao ZedongMao Zedong once worked as a library assistant in Peking. He later founded the People's Republic of China.
  • Albert CamusAlbert Camus thanked his old schoolteacher right after his mother when he won the Nobel Prize.
  • Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini was named after a Mexican president. His socialist father chose the name to honor Benito Juárez.
  • Xi JinpingXi Jinping's father was imprisoned by the party he helped build. Xi later became China's most powerful leader since Mao.
  • Erwin SchrödingerErwin Schrödinger formulated his wave equation at a Swiss sanatorium in Arosa. He was ill with tuberculosis.
  • Richard FeynmanRichard Feynman's last words, spoken after a long coma, were "This dying is boring." The remark suited an American theoretical physicist who never lost his taste for blunt, irreverent honesty. He was a man who treated authority, ceremony…
  • Rudolf CarnapRudolf Carnap argued that most deep philosophical questions were meaningless.
  • Konstantin ChernenkoSoviet leader Konstantin Chernenko's obituary ran on page two. Page one celebrated his successor, Gorbachev.
  • Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died in 2009, and for four days the world did not know.
  • Vladimir LeninLenin's name came from no person, and the N in N. Lenin stood for nothing. One theory points to the Lena River.
  • Henry Stephens SaltHenry Salt's essay on vegetarianism, found in a London restaurant, changed why Gandhi ate as he did.
  • Alan TuringAlan Turing once chained his tea mug to a radiator pipe at Bletchley Park so it could not be stolen.
  • Claude ShannonClaude Shannon built a mechanical mouse that learned its way through a maze. He named the 1950 machine Theseus.
  • Stephen HawkingDoctors gave Stephen Hawking two years to live at age 21, but he died at 76.
  • Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" in a 1941 story, thinking it was just a natural term.
  • Mátyás RákosiHungary's Communist ruler Mátyás Rákosi was freed from prison in 1940 in exchange for old battle flags.
  • Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky escaped Siberia hidden in a load of hay. He later built the Red Army.
  • Peter KropotkinAnarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin refused a cabinet seat in Russia's Provisional Government.
  • Vladimir MayakovskyPoet Vladimir Mayakovsky once threw tea at his audiences. He later wrote propaganda posters for the Communist Party.
  • Jacques LacanIn 1963, psychoanalysts stripped Jacques Lacan of the right to train new analysts.
  • B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner proposed steering missiles with pigeons. The birds pecked at a screen showing the target.
  • Alexandre KojèveAlexandre Kojève wrote a 900-page manuscript for Stalin. Whether it ever reached Moscow remains unknown.
  • Bertrand RussellAt 89, philosopher Bertrand Russell went to jail for an anti-nuclear protest. Asked to behave, he said, "No, I won't."
  • Vinayak Damodar SavarkarVinayak Savarkar jumped from a ship's window at Marseille and swam to shore.
  • Jane Ellen HarrisonA lecture on Athenian gravestones in Glasgow drew 1,600 people. The speaker was classicist Jane Ellen Harrison.
  • A. J. AyerA. J. Ayer once told Mike Tyson to talk like a rational man. The philosopher stepped in at a 1987 party.
  • Linus PaulingLinus Pauling left high school without a diploma. He later won two unshared Nobel Prizes, a first in history.
  • Richard B. SpencerRichard B. Spencer led a torch-lit march in Charlottesville in May 2017.

Queue