Curated playlist
Founders of religions
- JesusJesus left no writings of his own. Almost everything known about him comes from accounts by others.
- MosesMichelangelo's statue of Moses has horns because of a mistranslation. A Latin Bible turned ray of light into horned.
- AkbarAkbar could not read, yet he built a library of over 24,000 volumes.
- Henry VIIIHenry VIII broke England from Rome after the pope would not annul his first marriage.
- AbrahamAbraham is revered by billions, yet most scholars now read him as literature, not history.
- John CalvinJohn Calvin called his own central teaching a decree dreadful indeed. He preached it anyway.
- AkhenatenAkhenaten, a pharaoh of Egypt, erased the old gods and kept one sun disc. He built a new capital on empty land.
- John WesleyJohn Wesley thought saving souls outside a church was almost a sin. In 1739 he preached in a brickyard anyway.
- Thomas CranmerThomas Cranmer thrust his right hand into the flames first. He said it was punishment for signing his recantations.
- Maximilien RobespierreRobespierre was executed without trial in 1794 by the movement he had helped build.
- Guru NanakWherever Guru Nanak went, the locals could not tell whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim. He wore clothing associated with both Muslim fakirs and Hindu sadhus. Guru Nanak was an Indian spiritual teacher, mystic and poet. Today he is honoured…
- MuhammadMuhammad had lost his father, mother and grandfather by age eight. He founded a religion that spread across Arabia.
- The BuddhaNo written record of the Buddha survives from his lifetime. Ashoka's edicts name him in the 3rd century BCE.
- Martin LutherMartin Luther married a nun who had been smuggled out of her convent in herring barrels.
- MahaviraMahavira spent twelve and a half years without sitting down. He stood through monsoons.
- ConfuciusTold his stables had burned, Confucius asked only, "Was anyone hurt?" He did not ask about the horses.
- OrpheusOrpheus walked into the underworld to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice. He lost her when he looked back.
- John KnoxJohn Knox was chained to a French galley bench and vowed he would preach again in St Andrews.
- LaoziLaozi's name is not a name at all, but a title meaning old teacher. Tradition credits him with the Tao Te Ching.
- ZoroasterA sculpture of Zoroaster, completed in 1896 by Edward Clark Potter, towers over the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State at East 25th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Potter intended it to stand for the judicial wisdom of…
- Adi ShankaraAdi Shankara, now called India's most important philosopher, was probably unknown in his own time.