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.
Richard BurtonRichard Burton, the Welsh actor born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr., once received a cable from Laurence Olivier. Olivier was shocked by Burton's affair with Elizabeth Taylor, and his message was blunt. It read: “Make up your mind, dear heart.…
Che GuevaraChe Guevara signed Cuba's paper money with just one word: "Che." He was then president of the National Bank.
Martin BormannOn the 16th of August 1999, the ashes of Martin Bormann were scattered over the Baltic Sea. German authorities chose open water partly so that neo-Nazis would have no tomb to turn into a monument. More than half a century after the war,…
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.
Roger WatersThe Dark Side of the Moon, with lyrics written entirely by Roger Waters, spent 736 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, a run that lasted until July 1988. Waters is an English singer-songwriter, musician and political activist,…
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…
Ayn RandWhen Ayn Rand died in New York City on the 6th of March 1982, her funeral included a six-foot floral arrangement shaped like a dollar sign. The tribute suited a woman who had turned self-interest into a moral code. She was born Alisa…
Gilles DeleuzeGilles Deleuze never trimmed his fingernails. He once explained that he lacked "normal protective fingerprints", and so could not "touch an object, particularly a piece of cloth, with the pads of my fingers without sharp pain". It is a…
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.
Jim JonesJim Jones was an American preacher who founded the Peoples Temple. On the 18th of November 1978, 912 people died at his jungle commune in Jonestown, Guyana. Among them were 304 children. Jones called the event "revolutionary suicide," a…
Billy JoelWilliam Martin Joel, better known as Billy Joel, left Hicksville High School in 1967 without a diploma. He had missed a crucial English exam after playing a late-night gig at a piano bar, where he earned money to help support his mother…
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.
Pol PotIn 1977, Pol Pot told Yugoslav television that he had been born into a "poor, peasant family." By then he was running Democratic Kampuchea, the one-party state that the Khmer Rouge had built across Cambodia. Pol Pot was born Saloth Sâr. He…
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.
Christopher HitchensOn the 8th of October 2011, Christopher Hitchens collected the Richard Dawkins Award at the Texas Freethought Convention. It was his final public appearance. Christopher Eric Hitchens, a British and American author and journalist, had been…
John RawlsJohn Rawls, an American philosopher, wrote a book of roughly 600 pages that protesters held up in front of government officials at Tiananmen Square in 1989. It was a dense academic treatise called A Theory of Justice. More than 300,000…
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.