Every age has its prophets – those Visionaries and Revolutionaries whose ideas and actions inform us of where we are and anticipate where we’re heading. Aaron Swartz was a prophet of the Information Age. As a child prodigy technological genius … Continue reading
It was in the 4th century immediately after the Roman Empire became a de facto Christian state that the first anti-homosexual laws appeared. Thereafter, for the next 1500 years, the criminalisation of homosexuality spread voraciously and plague-like across the whole … Continue reading
“If somebody kills themselves, they have the last word.” – Deborah Curtis Thirty-eight years ago today, Ian Curtis killed himself. Tragic rock’n’roll deaths, and suicides especially, are such obvious breeding grounds for romanticised cults. We’ve mythologized Cobain and Curtis to … Continue reading
This date is reserved for German humanitarian hero Armin T. Wegner, whose courageous actions on penalty of death bore undeniable photographic evidence of the systematic genocide of over one million Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. … Continue reading
A tribute to the Nicaraguan hero and freedom fighter Augusto César Sandino – murdered on this day – will appear here soon.
A tribute to Upton Sinclair – radical writer, lifelong crusader for social justice, and victim of the first ever American political smear campaign – will appear here shortly.
A man who helped to bring about the end of a brutal empire, whose tireless campaigning laid the groundwork for groups like Amnesty International, and who defeated Winston Churchill in an election – but who nobody has heard of – … Continue reading
Look at the camera and say ‘cheese’ and ‘thank you’ to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who died on this day in 1833, for it was Niépce who changed the way we view the world. Born in France 1765 into a middle-class family Niépce … Continue reading
A tribute to William Godwin – the father of philosophical anarchism – will appear here shortly.
In the 1960s space was the final frontier. But just half a century earlier, the final frontier was the South Pole. And 104 years ago today – his two companions lying frozen to death next to him – 43-year-old Captain … Continue reading
Today, on the anniversary of his death in 1650, we remember the life and work of French philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes. Although not overtly political, the work of Descartes succeeded in redefining much of philosophical thought, to the extent … Continue reading
The Bible, Genesis 2:20, states: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field”. But actually it wasn’t Adam. It was a Swedish botanist: Carl Linnaeus. My dad … Continue reading
As befits such a momentous world-shifting event, On This Deity proudly presents two overviews to mark the occasion of the death of Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Revolution he begat. These days we are constantly told that the Internet is the … Continue reading
What a magic carpet ride it’s been in recent years for our brothers and sisters in North Africa and the Middle East. Egypt’s Mubarak-led police state deposed, Libya’s mad dog Gaddafi fittingly gunned down in a sewer. And the struggle … Continue reading
On the evening of November 30th 1994, in the remote French village of Champot, revolutionary and avant-gardist Guy Debord enacted his final spectacle of deconstruction when he shot himself through the heart. He was 62. For the prime mover of … Continue reading
It happened in a quarry behind a prison camp on the outskirts of Châteaubriand. In three groups of nine, twenty-seven men were lined up. Behind them a pit to fall into. Before them a row of German guns. It was … Continue reading
Today we recall the social theorist and world-changer, Friedrich Engels – co-author of The Communist Manifesto and profound contributor to Das Kapital – but chiefly remembered as the lifelong friend, literary executor and “junior partner” of Karl Marx. At 24, Engels looked set … Continue reading
Today we honour Arthur Lee – the African American protest singer, metaphysical poet and leader of LA’s pioneering psychedelic refuseniks Love – who quit this planet on this day in 2006 after an arduous battle with cancer. Like Lou Reed, … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century – social critic, anarchist, utopian and eco-pioneer, Murray Bookchin – who died on this day in 2006 aged 85. For twenty-five years, he was the most prominent American … Continue reading
On 27 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh, an unkempt, unknown 37-year-old Dutchman, walked out of his lodgings in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, where he had been living and working since May. That day instead of his … Continue reading
Today we lament the tragically early death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned when his schooner sank in a sudden violent storm in the Gulf of La Spezia. He was twenty-nine years old. Ten days later, his body washed ashore and, … Continue reading
Today we salute the legendary Syd Barrett, erstwhile leader of the Pink Floyd and Psychedelic Frontiersman # 1, who quit this planet twelve years ago after decades of reclusive living and battles with mental illness. A true pioneering hero. WebRep currentVote … Continue reading
Today we recall the Ukrainian revolutionary leader, Nestor Makhno, who died on this day in 1934 in poverty, illness and oblivion. Fellow exiles who’d watched Makhno drink and cough himself to death in the slums of Paris could scarcely believe … Continue reading
There is no shortage of events to remember on July 4th. So I’m extremely pleased that On This Deity finds room today to celebrate the life and commemorate the death of Gregory Bateson. The first time I encountered Gregory Bateson’s … Continue reading
Today we honour that great poet and masterful singer, Jim Morrison, whose life was taken from him forty-six years ago today as he lay sleeping in his bath. He packed the life of an adventurous seventy-year-old into his twenty-seven short … Continue reading
Today we contemplate the extraordinary life and legacy of Mikhail Bakunin, the revolutionary colossus and leading spirit of 19th-century anarchism who on this day in 1876 died in poverty and defeat at the age of sixty-two. Out-manoeuvred and out-cast from the … Continue reading
Today we lament the tragic and untimely passing of rock’n’roll’s most revolutionary vocal stylist – the beautiful Tim Buckley – wrenched away from this planetary existence on this day in 1975, aged just 28. Had he survived his tragic fate, who knows … Continue reading
On this day in 1936, Alexander Berkman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Suffering from poor health and broken dreams, it was a sad and discomfiting end to the noble life of this seemingly inexorable revolutionary who, … Continue reading
Not with any spectacular knock-out blow did today’s subject achieve his legacy in the pantheon of American anarchist luminaries. He wasn’t a “propaganda-by-the-deed” anti-hero like Alexander Berkman; nor was he an inspiring, fiery, superstar orator like Emma Goldman. Despite being … Continue reading
On this day in 1381, 20,000 peasants and townsmen from Kent and Essex stormed into London, led by John Ball an itinerant priest and Wat Tyler a craftsman. They had come to present the young King Richard II with a … Continue reading
On this day in 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway of his home while his wife and young children watched in horror as he bled to death on the doorstep. Lynchings were still an ugly … Continue reading
Today we celebrate and give thanks to Thomas Paine who, in his lifetime, contributed profoundly and fundamentally to the American and French Revolutions. His words crystallised and brought to the forefront the struggles of Britain’s Industrial Revolution working class. His … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Switzerland’s Carl Gustav Jung, the analytical psychologist who – like the artist William Blake and the civil rights leader Malcolm X – has risen to become a modern day World Prophet of the West not … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the great rock’n’roll hero Dee Dee Ramone, who died on this day in 2002 aged fifty. What can we do but kneel at the grave of this hoodlum culture hero and give thanks to him … Continue reading
At 12:44am on the 31st of May 1996, Dr. Timothy Leary sat bolt upright in bed startling the small group of friends and family who had gathered to keep him company during his final days. He had been diagnosed with … Continue reading
Let’s today raise a fist in tribute to folk singer, anarchist, activist, historian and storyteller extraordinaire, Utah Phillips, who died 10 years ago on this day aged seventy-three. A Mark Twain-meets-Howard Zinn with a guitar, Phillips dedicated himself to unearthing … Continue reading
Today we pay our respects to that towering giant of French letters, visionary poet, epic novelist, revolutionary playwright, Romantic, mystic and political activist – Victor Hugo. An unqualified hero to his countrymen, when he died on this day in 1885 … Continue reading
Today we celebrate, rejoicing with arms outstretched at the audacious and heroic actions of America’s Charles Lindbergh, whose 30-hour flight from America’s east coast to Paris eighty-seven years ago in a single-engine monoplane even shorter than a Spitfire turned him … Continue reading
It was a bright morning in Dublin on May 12th 1916, and a great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainham Jail. As spring was turning to summer, a city still coming to terms with the death and destruction of the … Continue reading
“In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of ‘revolutionary’; and it is they alone who are masters.” – Paul Gauguin When artist Paul Gauguin’s 54-year-old dead body was lowered swiftly into his grave … Continue reading
On this day in 1763, one of the most significant Indian rebellions in the history of Colonial America began when a confederacy of tribes under the leadership of Chief Pontiac attacked British forces at Fort Detroit. Pontiac’s war would rage … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to author, naturalist, abolitionist, poet, prophet and unrepentant individual – Henry David Thoreau. When he died on this day in 1862 from tuberculosis aged 44, this giant in the American pantheon was still virtually unknown. Indeed, … Continue reading
Early in the morning of 5th May 2011, the last living soldier and genuine veteran of World War One quit this planet at the inspiring age of 110. Claude Stanley Choules signed up to the Royal Navy in 1915 when … Continue reading
He’s been called the “prophet of his generation,” “America’s Plato,” “the Sage of Concord” and “the single most influential figure in American literary history.” Today we celebrate a true colossus – Ralph Waldo Emerson – who died on this day in … Continue reading
On this day in 1792, Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier – better known as Tiradentes – was hanged in Rio de Janeiro, his body then chopped into pieces, which were displayed along the road between Rio and Vila Rica. His head … Continue reading
Yes, he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know” – flamboyant, dynamic and notorious for his scandalous love affairs and aristocratic excesses. A proto-rock star, he was the most famous literary figure of his day – capturing the imagination of Europe … Continue reading
On the 18th of April 1955 Albert Einstein died in Princeton Hospital, New Jersey. He was 76 years old. One of the chief architects of the modern era, there are few other individuals whose impact on human culture has been … Continue reading
Seven score and twelve years ago today at 7.22am, Abraham Lincoln died – nine hours after an assassin’s bullet entered the back of his head. This self-educated, rough-hewn lawyer from Illinois with virtually no administrative or military experience had for … Continue reading
Today we commemorate everyone’s favourite Groucho Marxist – the radical activist, Abbie Hoffman. Co-founder of the Yippies and author of Steal This Book and Revolution for the Hell of It, Hoffman was one of the most colourful and iconic figures … Continue reading
Today we lament the death of the great Mexican revolutionary, natural anarchist and prophet – Emiliano Zapata – tragically betrayed and ambushed on this day in 1919 by federal forces after an heroic 9-year struggle to bring self-reliance and autonomy … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to that uproarious lord of mischief, Malcolm McLaren, who popped his clogs 8 years ago today. What more can be said of this tiresome entrepreneurial maverick haberdasher who practiced his trade in the dying embers of … Continue reading
Today we commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. – the inspirational leader, moral arbiter and emblematic martyr of the U.S. civil rights movement. A prophet who led America out of its Jim Crow darkness, for thirteen turbulent years, this devout Baptist preacher harnessed … Continue reading
On this day in 2000 the world lost a great champion of freedom, creativity, and our inalienable right to increase both of these by partaking of nature’s rich pharmacy. Terence McKenna was a thinker, explorer, writer and raconteur obsessed with … Continue reading
Today we celebrate the extraordinary scholar, philosopher, mystic and prophet, Emanuel Swedenborg, who left this world – just as he had predicted – two hundred and forty-four years ago today. Prophecy it was that brought greatest fame to Swedenborg, probably his … Continue reading
Today we acknowledge the anniversary of the death of Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, the first hero in space, the first human in space. How ironic then it was that such a hero could be dispatched not on a space flight but … Continue reading
In the middle of the 19th century, the barely-united states of America was in grave trouble. Stymied by its inability to reconcile a mandate for economic growth that depended largely on that “peculiar institution” of slavery, the so-called “Land of … Continue reading
On 25th March 1969 Yoko Ono and John Lennon staged their first ‘bed-in’ for peace. Married five days earlier in Gibraltar, the Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton – inviting the world’s press to come and interview them about … Continue reading
We in the West tend to recall only the great Mahatma Gandhi when we think of India’s long and gruelling fight for freedom from the British Raj. But today we pay tribute to another extraordinary Indian Independence revolutionary – Bhagat … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the sustained visionary genius of Leo Fender, whose extraordinary deployment of Edisonian technology catapulted the previously minstrels-only 6-string guitar to the forefront of the post-war rock ‘n’ roll revolution. Yes, it must be understood that … Continue reading
“On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think.” Those were the words of Friedrich Engels at the funeral of his close friend and creative collaborator, Karl Marx. The … Continue reading
When a man is one hundred years ahead of his time, only the esteemed company that he keeps give his general contemporaries any inkling that his curious methods and zany lifestyle might be anything more than a splendid eccentricity. Throughout … Continue reading
On this day 1969, in his hometown of Miami, Florida, controversial Doors singer Jim Morrison finally abandoned all notions of changing society through his role as a pop singer and entertainer. Instead, profoundly inspired by three successive viewings of the … Continue reading
Do you remember where you were when you heard the news that Bill Hicks was dead? I was at the corner of Kentish Town Road and Hawley Road, on my way to a pub in Camden Town. My friend Justin … Continue reading
Today we reflect on the brief but luminous life of John Keats – struck down by tuberculosis on this day in 1821 at the age of 25. Little known and lowly regarded in his lifetime, the dying poet – resigned … Continue reading
Seventy-six years ago today, three German students were executed by guillotine in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison for their crimes of high treason against Hitler’s Third Reich. Just four days earlier, 24-year-old Hans Scholl and his 21-year-old sister Sophie were arrested after … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to America’s extraordinary 1960s ‘Black Muslim’ leader and future World Prophet Malcolm X – assassinated 53 years ago – whose audacious and inflammatory words, infamous autobiography and extraordinary TV appearances as the Nation of Islam’s spokesman … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to a true colossus – the abolitionist, writer, orator and America’s first black leader of national stature, the inimitable Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, separated in infancy from his mother and shunted from one pitiless Maryland … Continue reading
Today marks the anniversary of the death of the Italian Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno. Most of us associate the initiation of modern cosmology with Nicolaus Copernicus (the first to convincingly place the Sun instead of the Earth at the centre … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the man known as the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. Vicente Guerrero was one of the leading revolutionary generals in Mexico’s 11-year war of independence and, as the republic’s second president, abolished slavery … Continue reading
Today we salute one of the turn-of-the-century’s great revolutionary heroes, Peter Alexeyevich Kropotkin. Born into extraordinary wealth and nobility – a Russian prince, no less – Kropotkin surrendered his birthright and all that came with it for the life of … Continue reading
Today, we commemorate the indefatigable, controversial and visionary Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle, a literary giant of his time whose biography of Frederick the Great so a-flamed the German imagination that it was even studied as part of the … Continue reading
On the 2nd of February 1970, after a long life in which he travelled far and wide, Bertrand Russell died less than a hundred miles from his Welsh birthplace. To some he was the most important philosopher of the 20th … Continue reading
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the death and celebrate the life of William Butler Yeats. Poet and politician, mystic and modernist, revolutionary and traditionalist, WB Yeats lived a life filled with glorious contradiction. A man of … Continue reading
Today we pay our respects to the great singer, actor, scholar, All-American athlete and human rights activist, Paul Robeson, who died on this day 1976. In the 1930s and 40s, this son of an escaped slave was the most famous … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to culture hero, writer and visionary thinker, John Ruskin, who died 118 years ago aged 80. The most brilliant and influential art critic of his age, and arguably any other, Ruskin dared to challenge – and successfully … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Pierre-Sylvain Maréchal, the visionary French revolutionary, militant Atheist and proto-anarchist whose iconoclastic and blasphemous new calendar – the “Honest Man’s Almanac” – so outraged pre-Revolutionary France that he was, in 1788, sentenced to jail for … Continue reading
On this day in 1945, Raoul Wallenberg was summoned to Red Army headquarters in Budapest, Hungary. Before setting off, he confided to one of his closest associates: “I do not know whether I am a guest of the Soviets or … Continue reading
Let us today pay tribute to Blue Cheer’s astounding debut LP VINCEBUS ERUPTUM, their teenage master class in colossally loud avant-garde guitar dynamics released exactly 50 years ago and arguably the first rock album genuinely deserving of the description ‘Heavy … Continue reading
The murder of revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on 15th January 1919 at the hands of the proto-Nazi Freikorps marked the end of the Spartacist Week – the failed workers’ uprising in Berlin. Incredibly their murder was ordered … Continue reading
On this day in 1943, Carlo Tresca – Italian-American anarchist leader and thorn in the side of just about everyone – was assassinated on the streets of New York City. One of the most colourful figures of the American labour … Continue reading
Henry Miller called him “the living symbol of protest.” In 1957, Kenneth Rexroth wrote that he was the only remaining poetic voice of America’s early twentieth-century revolutionary conscience. Today we are commemorating American poet and novelist, Kenneth Patchen – who … Continue reading
Due to unforeseen circumstances, today’s guest contributor was unable to deliver their tribute to Albert Camus. This piece will be appear at a later date.
On the first day of 1994, 3,000 indigenous Mayan Indian guerrillas came down from the mountains of the southern province of Chiapas and declared war against the Mexican government. The insurgents – representing some of the poorest and most exploited … Continue reading
On this day in 1896, José Rizal – the “George Washington of the Philippines” – was executed by the Spanish Army following a false conviction for rebellion, sedition and conspiracy. Rizal had devoted all of his brief adult life to liberating … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Rainer Maria Rilke, who died of leukaemia on this day in 1926 at the age of fifty-one. In the age of disillusionment, Rilke was a mystic who pondered the Big Questions – life, love, meaning … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to James Brown – the legendary Godfather of Soul and self-proclaimed ‘Hardest Working man in Show Business’ – whose death on Christmas Day 2006 robbed us of a true World Artist and Culture Hero of the highest … Continue reading
On this day in 1888 in Arles in southern France, Vincent van Gogh performed the most infamous act of self-mutilation in art history. He cut off part of his left ear lobe. From that point on, the world pointed, laughed … Continue reading
The cover of Phil Ochs 1969 album, Rehearsals For Retirement, is one of the most powerful images of any 60s album. Ochs is pictured in front of the flag with a Revolutionary War rifle slung over his shoulder. Beneath … Continue reading
A tribute to Czech revolutionary hero Václav Havel will appear here shortly.
“I swear before you, I swear before the God of my fathers, I swear by my fathers, I swear by my honour, I swear by my country that I will not rest, body or soul, until I have broken the … Continue reading
Today we lament the death of Sitting Bull – arguably the most famous-ever Native American – murdered by Indian “police” during a bungled effort to arrest the legendary 59-year-old Sioux chief. Five years earlier, Sitting Bull had received a vision … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Beatle John Lennon, who was on this day in 1980 shot to death outside his New York City apartment building. It is not the role of this On This Deity entry to heap upon Lennon’s … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the extraordinary English poet, novelist, translator and scholar, Robert Graves – a literary giant, who died thirty-two years ago on this day. Seemingly effortlessly, Robert Graves’ career straddled vast tracts of time, his biography featuring … Continue reading
Today we lament the tragic suicide eighty-five years ago of Vachel Lindsay, the Visionary Illinois poet whose intriguingly itinerant ‘Johnny Appleseed’ lifestyle, visionary essays and paintings, slew of gritty epic, para-religious poems, and the extravagant and declamatory public manner in which … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to and recall the shocking circumstances surrounding the murder of Fred Hampton – 21-year-old deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and considered by many to be the most inspiring young African-American leader to emerge in the wake … Continue reading
Today we honour a controversial World Martyr. A man so fervently opposed to racism that he was willing to die for it… but also to kill for it. A white man who killed white men – and sacrificed his own life … Continue reading
We today commemorate – with wonder, awe and several mega-caveats – the brief bizarre life and equally bizarre death, of Sweden’s controversial King Charles XII, who met death on this day in 1718, during his second invasion of Norway. That Charles’ … Continue reading
Today we lament the death of Black Kettle, chief of the Southern Cheyenne, killed 147 years ago when Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led the 7th Cavalry in a surprise dawn attack on the sleeping Cheyenne camp – massacring over … Continue reading
Today we remember the inspirational life of the anarchist military leader, Buenaventura Durruti, who died on this day 1936 in a mysterious and hotly disputed shooting accident. For although his death occurred a mere four months into the Spanish Civil … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the legendary labour organiser, protest songwriter and folk hero, Joe Hill, executed on this day 1915 in Utah following a notorious and highly controversial murder trial. A prominent and much-loved member of radical trade unionists … Continue reading
An alternative "On This Day", On This Deity aims to bring light to and celebrate Culture Heroes, Outsider Icons, Beloved Immortals and Revolutionary Events in history.
Disclaimer: These are spirited and informed opinion pieces. Photos have been credited wherever possible, which hasn’t often been the case. Please contact me (via Comments) if you are the photographer of any pictures used by On This Deity and would like your photo to be credited or removed.
