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Curated playlist

1920 births

  • Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr.Joseph Gibson helped turn a money-losing Atlanta station into America's first Black-owned radio station.
  • Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II visited the man who shot him in 1981 and called him a brother.
  • Christopher John DewhurstChristopher John Dewhurst chaired the first international symposium on gender identity in 1969.
  • John A. GarratyHistorian John A. Garraty let his subject's grandson argue back in the footnotes.
  • Norm DruckerNorm Drucker is the only referee ever to eject Wilt Chamberlain from an NBA game. It happened on January 3, 1962.
  • Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" in a 1941 story, thinking it was just a natural term.
  • Timothy LearyTimothy Leary escaped prison in September 1970 by climbing a telephone wire over the wall.
  • Rosalind FranklinRosalind Franklin died one day before her virus model went on show at the Brussels world's fair.
  • Ravi ShankarRavi Shankar was horrified when Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire. The sitar master saw instruments as part of God.
  • Gail HalvorsenGail Halvorsen handed two sticks of gum to Berlin children in July 1948. He was a young Air Force pilot.
  • Dick JamesMusic publisher Dick James phoned in "Please Please Me" and won The Beatles their first national TV spot.
  • Yul BrynnerA few days after Yul Brynner died, a thirty-second warning from him appeared on all the major American television networks and in other countries. The Russian and American actor looked straight into the camera. He said: "Now that I'm gone,…
  • Hans HolzerHans Holzer wrote more than 120 books, and every one was about ghosts and the afterlife. He was born in Vienna in 1920.
  • Éric RohmerÉric Rohmer wore a false moustache to the New York premiere of one of his films.
  • Lawrence KleinLawrence Klein's model correctly predicted a postwar boom when many expected a depression.
  • Gilbert PlassGilbert Plass was a Canadian physicist who warned a magazine audience about a warming planet in 1953. He told Time that "for centuries to come, if man's industrial growth continues, the earth's climate will continue to grow warmer." Plass…
  • Sheikh Mujibur RahmanSheikh Mujibur Rahman's party won Pakistan's 1970 election, but the junta postponed parliament.

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