Curated playlist
1884 births
- Louis B. MayerLouis B. Mayer pushed a junk cart as a boy, then became America's highest-paid man.
- Harry S. TrumanHarry Truman became president knowing nothing about the atomic bomb. He had been vice president for only 82 days.
- Édouard DaladierCheering Parisians greeted Édouard Daladier in 1938, and he privately called them fools.
- Sulaiman NadviSulaiman Nadvi finished a life of the Prophet that his teacher left unfinished at death.
- Bronisław MalinowskiBronisław Malinowski pitched a tent in the middle of a village and stayed.
- Rudolf BultmannRudolf Bultmann told students it hardly mattered what Jesus did in his life.
- Stanley Unwin (publisher)Publisher Stanley Unwin paid his ten-year-old son a shilling to review The Hobbit. The boy's verdict was favorable.
- George SartonGeorge Sarton buried his Civil Guard coat and manuscripts in a Belgian garden in 1914.
- Hideki TojoHideki Tojo shot himself in the chest as American soldiers surrounded his house.
- Otto RankA 1924 book about birth split Otto Rank from Sigmund Freud. Rank put the shock of birth before Freud's Oedipus complex.
- İsmet İnönüİsmet İnönü said no to Winston Churchill inside a railroad car in 1943. Churchill wanted Turkey to join the Allies.
- Jakob LaubPhysicist Jakob Laub found Einstein still working at a patent office in 1908. He called it a "stair joke of history."
- Yevgeny ZamyatinYevgeny Zamyatin smuggled his banned novel We out of the Soviet Union. He wrote to Stalin and left in 1931.
- Isoroku YamamotoIsoroku Yamamoto, the admiral who commanded Japan's Combined Fleet through the opening years of World War II, once gave his prime minister a forecast that sounded like a boast and read like a warning. In mid-1941, Prime Minister Fumimaro…
- A. MerrittAuthor A. Merritt was a major influence on H. P. Lovecraft. His day job was editing a Sunday magazine.
- Peter DebyeA unit of measurement, a lunar crater and a minor planet all carry Peter Debye's name.