Curated playlist
1896 births
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 believing his work was forgotten. The Great Gatsby later sold millions.
- André BretonSurrealist founder André Breton once wrote that firing a revolver blindly into a crowd was the simplest surrealist act.
- Hugo DysonHugo Dyson complained so loudly at Inklings readings that Tolkien stopped reading to the group.
- Lev VygotskyLev Vygotsky's work was banned in the Soviet Union after he died at 37. His ideas on learning still spread worldwide.
- Roger SessionsComposer Roger Sessions won a Pulitzer Prize for a whole career, then another for one concerto.
- Jean PiagetMarking intelligence tests in Paris, Jean Piaget noticed that young children's errors followed patterns.
- Dziga VertovThe term cinéma vérité was taken from Dziga Vertov's newsreel series Kino-Pravda, meaning "film truth".
- Imre NagyHungary's Imre Nagy once informed for Stalin's NKVD police, then led a revolt against Soviet rule.
- H. F. M. PrescottH. F. M. Prescott wrote a novel about a Tudor uprising that has never gone out of print.
- Boris PodolskyPhysicist Boris Podolsky may have sold Soviet agents a public science law for $300.
- Rudolph NissenSurgeon Rudolph Nissen wrapped Albert Einstein's aneurysm in cellophane in 1948.
- V. A. SundaramIn 1931 Gandhi's ambassador V. A. Sundaram met Albert Einstein in Caputh, a village outside Berlin.