April 25
William J. Brennan (Quote)
“For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptibility of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.”
“If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.”
— Justice William J. Brennan Jr., born on April 25, 1906, in a speech given in 1985 rebutting the desire of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese to "resurrect the original meaning of constitutional provisions." Brennan died in 1997.
Annie Laurie Gaylor
© Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.
Björn Ulvaeus
On his date in 1945, Björn Kristian Ulvaeus — a singer, songwriter and producer best known as a member of the group ABBA — was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, to Aina (née Bengtsson) and Erik Gunnar Ulvaeus. His sister Eva Margareta was born three years later. He grew up in Västervik, became enamored with rock and roll and skiffle while playing the guitar and banjo.
After success and increasing popularity in Sweden in the mid-1960s with folk groups patterned on the Kingston Trio and Brothers Four, ABBA was formed. The name came from the first letters of the names of its members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Andersson and Lyngstad were married. Ulvaeus and Fältskog married in 1971 when she was 21 and he was 26. They had a son and daughter before divorcing in 1980. In 1981 he married music journalist Lena Källersjö, with whom he had two daughters. After 41 years together, they announced their separation in 2022. Ulvaeus married Christina Sas, 28 years his junior, in 2024. They had met in 2021 through her work as a product manager at Universal Music Group, ABBA’s record label.
ABBA became Sweden’s first winner of the Eurovision song contest in 1974 with “Waterloo” and kicked off huge commercial sales, estimated at 385 million records sold by 2018. During their active career from 1972-82, 20 of its singles hit the Billboard Hot 100 and made the Top 40. Included were “Nina, Pretty Ballerina,” “Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo,” “SOS,” “Mamma Mia,” “Fernando,” “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” “Take a Chance on Me” and “Angeleyes,” all from the ’70s.
The Musical “Mamma Mia!” by British playwright Catherine Johnson featured ABBA’s music and debuted in 1999, eventually grossing $4.5 billion worldwide. Its Broadway incarnation closed in 2015 after running for nearly 14 years. A rom-com film adaptation starring Meryl Streep was released in 2008. It grossed over $611 million on a budget of $55 million.
A 2025 review in The New Yorker headlined “The World That ABBA Made” starts like this: “It once seemed unlikely that four Swedes in sequins would become global pop icons. A new biography describes how the band became ubiquitous. There is probably not a second that goes by without an ABBA song being played somewhere in the world.” The piece describes tribute bands (one named Björn Again) on several continents, continuing “Mamma Mia!” stage productions and life-size holograms of “ABBAtars” fronting a live band at the ABBA Arena in London.
The virtual concert residency and stage show “ABBA Voyage” and the release of a 10-track studio album recorded between 2017-21 was announced in 2021. The 80-year-old Ulvaeus during an appearance at SXSW London in June 2025 shared plans to follow up “Voyage” and use artificial intelligence to help him navigate through some dead ends.
A member of Swedish Humanists, he calls himself a freethinker, a social liberal and “an agnostic leaning towards atheism. … I do not believe in the god that is described in the Middle East religions or in any other religions for that matter.” (Interview with Christer Sturmark, “Humanisten,” December 2005)
PHOTO: Ulvaeus in 2010; photo by Vasterviks kommun under CC 2.0.
“I know I might get punched in the face for saying these things, but my conviction is that less religion in the world would be better. … Religion is the root of so much misery in the world and I’ve always thought there is lack of criticism against it.”
— Wall Street Journal review headlined "ABBA Founder: Godlessness Makes Sweden's Pop Music Great" (Sept. 10, 2013)
Compiled by Bill Dunn
© Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.
