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Curated category

American agnostics

  • Albert EinsteinWhen Albert Einstein was five and sick in bed, his father brought him a compass. The trembling needle, always pointing the same way, convinced the boy that…
  • H. P. LovecraftH. P. Lovecraft died on the 15th of March 1937 in Providence, Rhode Island, virtually unknown to the reading public. He was 46 years old, hospitalized with…
  • John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a local produce market to survive. During the Great Depression, he and his first wife lived on fish and crabs he…
  • Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker three stories underground, surrounded by hanging cadavers.
  • J. Robert OppenheimerJ. Robert Oppenheimer stood in a control bunker near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the early morning hours of the 16th of July, 1945, holding a post to steady…
  • Enrico FermiEnrico Fermi paced off the distance that strips of paper were blown by a blast wave on the 16th of July 1945, and from that simple measurement he calculated…
  • Miles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was born on the 26th of May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, to a family that owned a 200-acre estate in Arkansas with a profitable pig farm.
  • Susan B. AnthonySusan B. Anthony was arrested on the 18th of November 1872 for the crime of casting a ballot. A U.S. Deputy Marshal came to her door in Rochester, New York…
  • Eugene O'NeillEugene O'Neill died the same way he was born: in a hotel room. As he whispered his last words at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston on the 27th of November 1953…
  • Aaron CoplandAaron Copland grew up above a Brooklyn shop at 628 Washington Avenue, in a family of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who had traveled through Scotland just to…
  • Arthur MillerArthur Miller died on the evening of the 10th of February 2005 - the fifty-sixth anniversary of the Broadway debut of Death of a Salesman.
  • Carl SaganCarl Sagan grew up in a modest Bensonhurst apartment with parents who, by his own account, "knew almost nothing about science." Yet it was precisely those…
  • Stan LeeStan Lee signed off his monthly column with a single word: "Excelsior!" It is also the New York state motto, which suited a man born Stanley Martin Lieber on…
  • Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman died on the 16th of November 2006, and his last column ran in The Wall Street Journal the very next day.
  • Carrie FisherCarrie Frances Fisher once wrote that no matter how she died, she wanted it reported that she had drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.
  • Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov arrived in the United States in May 1940 aboard the SS Champlain, a Russian exile who spoke three languages and had already written nine…
  • Joseph HellerJoseph Heller was born on the 1st of May, 1923, in Coney Island, Brooklyn, to poor Jewish immigrant parents from Russia.
  • Warren BuffettWarren Buffett's senior yearbook photo at Woodrow Wilson High School carried a single caption: "likes math; a future stockbroker." He was seventeen.
  • Edward TellerEdward Teller watched the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945 while almost everyone else lay face-down on the ground with their backs turned.
  • George R. R. MartinGeorge Raymond Richard Martin was born on the 20th of September, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of a longshoreman.
  • W. E. B. Du BoisW. E. B. Du Bois died on the 27th of August 1963 in Accra, Ghana, at the age of 95. The very next day, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in…
  • Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce closed his last known letter with a single sentence: "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination." He wrote those words in…
  • Ray KurzweilRay Kurzweil was born on the 12th of February 1948 in Queens, New York City, to parents who had fled Austria just before World War II.
  • Wilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was born on the 24th of March 1897 in Dobzau, Galicia, a corner of Austria-Hungary that is now part of Ukraine, and he died on the 3rd of…
  • Edwin HubbleEdwin Hubble grew up in Marshfield, Missouri, known more for his athletic prowess than his intellect, a boy who won seven first places and a third in a…