Curated playlist
1910 births
- Jean GenetIn 1949, facing a possible life sentence, Jean Genet was saved by a petition.
- Akira KurosawaRashomon won Venice's Golden Lion in 1951 after its own studio entered it reluctantly.
- Lee EastmanLee Eastman bought Buddy Holly's music catalogue for Paul McCartney. He had asked McCartney which artists he loved most.
- Jean AnouilhJean Anouilh's play Antigone opened in occupied Paris in 1944 and censors passed it. Many heard resistance in it.
- Nathuram GodseA US vice-consul, not a soldier, grabbed Gandhi's killer. Herbert Reiner Jr. seized Nathuram Godse in 1948.
- Ronald CoaseRonald Coase faced twenty skeptical senior economists in 1960 and gradually won them over.
- Mother TeresaMother Teresa once summed herself up in a handful of short sentences. "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world." The woman who said this was born Anjezë…
- Fritz LeiberFritz Leiber is credited with coining the term "sword and sorcery".
- A. J. AyerA. J. Ayer once told Mike Tyson to talk like a rational man. The philosopher stepped in at a 1987 party.
- Margaret MastermanMargaret Masterman's 1965 critique pushed Thomas Kuhn away from the word paradigm.
- Louis SlotinAt 3:20 on the afternoon of the 21st of May 1946, Louis Slotin stood in a laboratory at Los Alamos. The air around him suddenly glowed blue. Everyone in the room felt a wave of heat roll across them. Slotin tasted something sour, and his…
- Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar sailed from India to England in 1930, and on that first sea voyage he worked out a number that would outlive him. The number was 1.44. It is the greatest mass, counted in suns, that a white dwarf star can have. A…