Curated category
1920 births
- Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr.Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr. once declared of Black appeal radio: 'I slapped this baby's bottom and brought it to life!' Gibson was born on the 13th of May…
- Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II was born Karol Józef Wojtyła on the 18th of May 1920, in the small Polish town of Wadowice. By the time he died on the 2nd of April 2005…
- Christopher John DewhurstSir Christopher John Dewhurst was born on the 2nd of July 1920. He died on the 1st of December 2006, having spent his working life as a British gynecologist.
- John A. GarratyJohn Arthur Garraty was born on the 4th of July, 1920, a date that would seem almost too on-the-nose for a man who spent his career writing American history.
- Norm DruckerNorm Drucker was born on the 4th of July, 1920, in New York City, and died on the 6th of February, 2015. In the span of those 94 years, he became one of the…
- Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books, and on top of that he sent an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. He once said the only thing about…
- Timothy LearyTimothy Francis Leary was arrested 36 times between the 1960s and 1970s, a record that tells you something about how seriously the American establishment…
- Rosalind FranklinRosalind Franklin died on the 16th of April 1958, at age 37, one day before the world's fair in Brussels opened its doors to reveal a five-foot model of a…
- Ravi ShankarRavi Shankar was "horrified." At the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, he watched Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar on stage.
- Gail HalvorsenGail Halvorsen reached into his pocket one day in July 1948 and pulled out two sticks of gum. He had just met about thirty children standing behind a…
- Dick JamesDick James held a telephone receiver to his record player on the 27th of November 1962. He played "Please Please Me" down the line to Philip Jones, the…
- Hans HolzerHans Holzer wrote more than 120 books. That alone is a staggering output for any author. But Holzer was not writing thrillers or cookbooks.
- Éric RohmerÉric Rohmer wore a false moustache to the New York premiere of one of his films. The man who would be called "the most durable filmmaker of the French New…
- Lawrence KleinLawrence Robert Klein was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on the 14th of September 1920, and he would go on to reshape how governments and central banks understand…
- Gilbert PlassGilbert Norman Plass stood at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago in 1942. He worked as an associate physicist during those critical…
- Sheikh Mujibur RahmanSheikh Mujibur Rahman stood before a million people at the Ramna Race Course in Dhaka on the 7th of March 1971 and told them: "This time the struggle is for…