Curated playlist
1918 births
- Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela wore a Springbok shirt to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final. He gave the trophy to an Afrikaner captain.
- Jocko HendersonRadio host Jocko Henderson sold his song publishing rights rather than risk the fate of Alan Freed.
- Anwar SadatAnwar Sadat was shot dead by his own soldiers at a parade celebrating his war.
- Ingmar BergmanAt nine, Ingmar Bergman traded his tin soldiers for a magic lantern. He soon staged Strindberg puppet plays.
- Robert SeamansRobert Channing Seamans Jr. sat down for his last television interview in the autumn of 2007, speaking about the guidance and navigation system that helped carry Apollo astronauts to the Moon. He did not see it aired. The episode of the…
- Richard FeynmanRichard Feynman's last words, spoken after a long coma, were "This dying is boring." The remark suited an American theoretical physicist who never lost his taste for blunt, irreverent honesty. He was a man who treated authority, ceremony…
- Katherine JohnsonKatherine Johnson was the mathematician an astronaut asked for by name. NASA was using electronic computers for the first time to calculate John Glenn's orbit of the Earth. Officials turned to Johnson to verify the machine's numbers,…
- James TobinJames Tobin proposed a tax on currency trading to throw sand in the wheels of speculation.
- Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Solzhenitsyn watched Moscow's victory fireworks from a prison cell. He was a decorated Red Army captain.
- Bruria KaufmanBruria Kaufman spent five years working alongside Albert Einstein in Princeton. She co-wrote two articles with him.
- Martin EsslinMartin Esslin fled Vienna in 1938 and later named a whole theater movement.
- Cheddi JaganCheddi Jagan governed British Guiana for only 133 days before Britain removed him.
- Louis AlthusserLouis Althusser used a police officer's shout on the street to explain how ideology shapes every person.
- Franco ModiglianiEconomist Franco Modigliani won a student prize from Mussolini himself. Later he fled Italy and won a Nobel Prize.
- Robert EttingerA 1931 Amazing Stories tale about a frozen professor stayed with 12-year-old Robert Ettinger.