There are 2 entries for this date: Frederick II and Joseph Mazzini Wheeler.

On this date in 1712, "Enlightened Despot" Frederick II, King of Prussia, was born in Berlin. Frederick endured a severe military education at the hands of his unsympathetic father, who once beat him publicly when he was 18. Frederick was forced to witness the execution by decapitation of a friend with whom he had planned an escape from Prussia. When Frederick ascended the throne in 1740, he instituted many domestic reforms, including abolishing court serfdom, permitting freedom of speech and enforcing universal religious toleration, promoting education and the arts, improving infrastructure, and creating industries. Under his sway, his court was turned into an international hub of Enlightenment and culture. He separated from his wife, chosen for him in an arranged marriage, and is widely believed to have been gay. He corresponded for 40 years with Voltaire. He was admired for his military strategies and expansions. By the time he died, he had doubled the size of his country. Frederick the Great was the first to codify German law, and he reformed the criminal codes and abolished torture. While holding absolute power, he dedicated himself as "first servant of the state" and modernized Prussia. Frederick's collected writings fill 31 volumes. D. 1786.

On this date in 1850, Joseph Mazzini Wheeler was born in Great Britain. Wheeler, an atheist, is best known as the author of the monumental Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers (1889). Wheeler, who dedicated his life to freethought after moving to London in the early 1870s, was a close friend of freethought editor G.W. Foote. Wheeler also wrote Frauds and Follies of the Fathers (1888), Footsteps of the Past (1895), and co-authored Crimes of Christianity with G.W. Foote. He served for many years as vice-president of the National Secular Society, and was a frequent contributor to freethought periodicals. He served as subeditor of the National Secular Society's publication, The Freethinker, from its founding in 1881 to his death. D. 1898.