Curated playlist
1909 births
- Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco began a theater revolution by studying an English textbook at age 40.
- Elia KazanIn 1952, Elia Kazan gave a congressional committee the names of eight former colleagues.
- Nathan RosenNathan Rosen co-authored the first known wormhole paper in July 1935. He was Albert Einstein's assistant at the time.
- Oldřich NejedlýFIFA raised Oldřich Nejedlý's 1934 World Cup total from four goals to five in 2006.
- Francis Bacon (artist)Critics suspect painter Francis Bacon destroyed about as many paintings as the roughly 590 that survive.
- Hans SuessHans Suess's mail kept getting mixed up with Dr. Seuss's. Both men lived in La Jolla, California.
- Alex RaymondAlex Raymond, an American cartoonist who lived from 1909 to 1956, sent a world-famous polo player into space on a rocket. The destination was Mongo, a planet on course to collide with Earth. That adventure became the comic strip Flash…
- Homi J. Bhabha"I am burning with a desire to do physics." A student at Cambridge wrote those words to his father, and he meant every one of them. The student was Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the Indian theoretical physicist who is widely credited as the father…
- Rollo MayRollo May was named after a fictional boy in children's books. He disliked the name until he found a Norman conqueror.
- Adam RapackiPoland's foreign minister Adam Rapacki asked the United Nations in 1957 for a nuclear-free zone in Europe.
- Roger RevelleIn 1957, Roger Revelle warned that humans were running a huge experiment on Earth.
- Colonel Tom ParkerColonel Tom Parker managed Elvis Presley, and after Presley died, a journalist asked him what he planned to do next. Parker answered: "Why, I'll just go right on managing him!" The reply fit the man. He saw Presley's name as a business…