Curated playlist
1892 births
- J. R. R. TolkienOn his 21st birthday, Tolkien proposed by letter to a woman who was already engaged.
- Manilal GandhiManilal Gandhi edited a weekly newspaper in Durban for thirty-six years. He was Mohandas Gandhi's son.
- Jack L. WarnerJack Warner once rushed onstage at the Oscars and took a trophy that was not his. The prize was for Casablanca.
- Mahadev DesaiMahadev Desai kept a daily diary for twenty-five years as Gandhi's secretary. It fills twenty-two volumes.
- Ōten ShimokawaŌten Shimokawa drew on film with ink and rubbed figures away with his fingers.
- Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco was shot in the abdomen at 23 and was not expected to live. He ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975.
- Josip Broz TitoTito once wrote to Stalin: stop sending assassins to murder me. He said five had already been caught.
- Mátyás RákosiHungary's Communist ruler Mátyás Rákosi was freed from prison in 1940 in exchange for old battle flags.
- Haile SelassieIn 1992, the bones of Haile Selassie I were found beneath a concrete slab on the grounds of a palace. The man buried there had been born Tafari Makonnen. He had ruled Ethiopia as emperor from 1930 to 1974. How does a ruler of such rank end…
- Richard AldingtonRichard Aldington replaced banned words in his war novel with asterisks so readers could see the censoring.
- Erwin PanofskyIn 1934, Erwin Panofsky argued a famous Flemish painting was really a legal contract.
- Louis de BroglieCould matter behave like a wave, as light can behave like a particle? Louis de Broglie asked this in 1924.
- MirabehnMirabehn warned of Himalayan forest loss decades before the Chipko Movement. The Forest Department ignored her.