Curated category
Critics of the Catholic Church
- Charles DickensCharles Dickens earned six shillings a week pasting labels onto pots of boot blacking in a tumble-down warehouse overrun with rats.
- George OrwellGeorge Orwell did not exist on any birth certificate. The man behind the name was Eric Arthur Blair, born on the 25th of June 1903 in Motihari, in the Bengal…
- Fyodor DostoevskyFyodor Dostoevsky stood in Semyonov Place in Saint Petersburg on the 23rd of December 1849, waiting to be shot. He had been split into a three-man group with…
- James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on the 2nd of February 1882 at 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin, and died 58 years later in Zurich after surgery…
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker three stories underground, surrounded by hanging cadavers.
- H. G. WellsIn 1898, Joseph Conrad hailed a fellow writer with the phrase "O Realist of the Fantastic!" The man he addressed was Herbert George Wells, born in Bromley…
- Denis DiderotDenis Diderot was born on the 5th of October 1713 in Langres, Champagne, the son of a cutler named Didier Diderot. He died on the 31st of July 1784, having…
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo died on the 22nd of May 1885, at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo in Paris. He was 83 years old, and he died of pneumonia.
- John CalvinJohn Calvin once described God's predestination as a decree dreadful indeed, writing in Latin, "Decretum quidem horribile, fateor." This was a man who could…
- Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini was named after a Mexican president. His father, a blacksmith and a socialist, chose the name Benito for the liberal Mexican leader Benito…
- John MiltonJohn Milton sold the rights to one of the greatest poems in the English language for five pounds. On the 27th of April 1667, he handed Paradise Lost to the…
- Baruch SpinozaBaruch Spinoza was born on the 24th of November 1632 into an Amsterdam family that had survived the Portuguese Inquisition by hiding their faith for…
- David HumeDavid Hume was born on the 7th of May 1711 in a tenement on the north side of Edinburgh's Lawnmarket, into a family that was, by his own account, far from…
- Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell died on the 3rd of September 1658, the same date on which he had won his greatest victories at Dunbar and Worcester.
- Thomas CranmerThomas Cranmer was born on the 2nd of July 1489 in the village of Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England, a younger son from a modest gentry family with deep…
- Maximilien RobespierreMaximilien Robespierre was born in Arras on the 6th of May 1758. Thirty-six years later, on the 28th of July 1794, he was executed without trial, sent to the…
- Martin LutherMartin Luther stood before the Diet of Worms on the 17th of April 1521, a German priest summoned to answer for his own books. The Emperor Charles V presided.
- John FoxeJohn Foxe published a book on the 20th of March 1563 that would make him, in the words of one contemporary observer, England's first literary celebrity.
- John WycliffeJohn Wycliffe died in his church at Lutterworth, but the men who hated him would not let his body rest. In 1428, more than forty years after his death, his…
- Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was born on the 21st of December, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, into a household where Italian was spoken by his grandparents and gas…
- Edmund SpenserEdmund Spenser died in London on the 13th of January 1599, and according to Ben Jonson, he died "for want of bread". That claim was almost certainly false.
- ErasmusDesiderius Erasmus woke before dawn, ink already on his fingers, and on a busy day he wrote or answered as many as forty letters in his own hand.
- Huldrych ZwingliHuldrych Zwingli celebrated his first Mass in his hometown of Wildhaus on the 29th of September 1506, a young priest who, by his own admission, had studied…
- Protestant ReformersProtestant Reformers were the theologians whose careers, writings, and public actions reshaped Christianity across Europe in the 16th century.
- Hilary MantelHilary Mantel stood at the podium at the Guildhall in London in 2009 and told the audience she was "happily flying through the air." She had just won the…
- John KnoxJohn Knox was born sometime between 1505 and 1515 in Haddington, a small county town in East Lothian, Scotland. He died on the 24th of November 1572.
- Lorenzo VallaLorenzo Valla entered the world in Rome around 1407. His father Luciave della Valla worked as a lawyer within the Papal Curia.
- David StarkeyDavid Starkey was born on the 3rd of January 1945 in Kendal, Westmorland, with two club feet, into a household that often had no income coming in at all.
- Julian (emperor)Julian, the Roman emperor who ruled from 361 to 363, is remembered by a name he did not choose: the Apostate. To the Christians who survived his reign and…