Curated playlist
1924 births
- George H. W. BushAfter being shot down in 1944, George H. W. Bush asked why he alone had been spared. Both of his crewmates died.
- Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando sold back his Godfather profit points for $100,000, a sum that cost him an estimated $11 million.
- Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter once was lowered into a crippled nuclear reactor for 90 seconds at a time. He later ran for president.
- William Mann (critic)How did a critic raised on Bach and Mozart end up defending the Beatles? William Mann did it at The Times.
- Atal Bihari VajpayeeAtal Bihari Vajpayee ordered nuclear tests, then rode a bus to Lahore.
- Bulat OkudzhavaBulat Okudzhava claimed to know only seven chords, yet he wrote about 200 songs.
- David LandesBefore he taught at Harvard, David Landes decoded Japanese messages.
- Deke SlaytonOne heart test grounded astronaut Deke Slayton in 1962. He then picked the crews who flew to the Moon.
- A. K. WarderA. K. Warder's 1963 Pali primer treated Pali as its own language, not a weaker form of Sanskrit.
- Christopher TolkienChristopher Tolkien admitted he had to invent some passages in his father's book The Silmarillion.
- Ernest BeckerErnest Becker won a Pulitzer Prize two months after he died. He never knew he had won for The Denial of Death.
- George MikanThe NBA widened its foul lane to slow down one player, George Mikan. The rule was formally dubbed "The Mikan Rule."
- Black DahliaMore than 500 people have confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short, and some of them were not yet born when she died. Short was an American woman from Boston who was found murdered in Los Angeles in January 1947. The press soon gave her…
- Vincent CroninVincent Cronin's history books sold well, but scholars did not always welcome them.