Curated playlist
1911 births
- Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan preached small government, then signed California's largest tax hike.
- Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams wanted to be sewn into a canvas sack and dropped into the sea.
- Mitsuyo SeoAnimator Mitsuyo Seo was jailed as a leftist in 1931, then made a film of Momotarō bombing Pearl Harbor.
- Joan Turville-PetreJoan Turville-Petre, an English philologist, was married on the 7th of January 1943 with no guests in attendance. Two friends did stand beside the couple as witnesses: J. R. R. Tolkien and his wife Edith. The groom, Gabriel Turville-Petre,…
- Ginger RogersGinger Rogers and Fred Astaire were only supporting players in Flying Down to Rio, a film meant for other stars.
- John Archibald WheelerJohn Archibald Wheeler spent decades calling a dying star a "gravitationally completely collapsed object."
- Lucille BallLucille Ball's real-life pregnancy became an I Love Lucy episode, and CBS banned the word "pregnant."
- Konstantin ChernenkoSoviet leader Konstantin Chernenko's obituary ran on page two. Page one celebrated his successor, Gorbachev.
- Narayan ApteNarayan Apte stood beside Nathuram Godse when Gandhi was shot in 1948. He was hanged for it in 1949.
- Jack RubyAt 11:21 on Sunday morning, the 24th of November 1963, Jack Ruby stepped out of a crowd of reporters in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters. Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, was holding a revolver. A few feet away stood Lee Harvey…
- Klaus FuchsKlaus Fuchs, a German-born theoretical physicist, gave a plain reason for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Rudolf Peierls, a fellow scientist, visited him in detention shortly after the news of his arrest broke and asked him…
- Åke OhlmarksTolkien wrote a guide to names because of a Swedish translator. Åke Ohlmarks had altered The Lord of the Rings.
- Eric WilliamsEric Williams turned a public park into a university. In 1955 he began lecturing in Woodford Square.
- Sjafruddin PrawiranegaraSjafruddin Prawiranegara led Indonesia's republic from the jungle after Dutch forces captured its leaders.