Curated playlist
1926 births
- Marilyn MonroeAn unimpressed studio head signed Marilyn Monroe specifically to keep her away from a rival studio.
- Jiang ZeminJiang Zemin once recited the Gettysburg Address in English to student protesters. He later led China from 1989 to 2002.
- Mel BrooksMel Brooks was 14 years old when he climbed onto a diving board at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate hotel in the Borscht Belt. He worked there as a pool-side tummler, an entertainer hired to keep the guests amused. On this day he wore a…
- Elizabeth IIElizabeth II was born only third in line to the throne. Edward VIII's abdication in 1936 made her heir.
- Gus GrissomDoctors nearly cut Gus Grissom from astronaut selection because he had hay fever.
- John ColtraneA San Francisco congregation once worshipped John Coltrane as God incarnate.
- Miles DavisMiles Davis called jazz dead near the end of his life. He had spent five decades helping define it.
- Henry J. KelleyA 1960 flight-path paper by Henry J. Kelley derived the basic mathematics behind backpropagation.
- Chuck BerryChuck Berry was buried with a cherry-red guitar bolted inside his coffin lid. The rock and roll pioneer died in 2017.
- Fidel CastroFidel Castro's yacht carried eighty-one men toward Cuba, but only nineteen safely reached the mountains.
- Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault's surgeon father expected him to become a surgeon too. He became a leading thinker on power instead.
- Poul AndersonPoul Anderson's typewriter now sits in a Berkeley bookshop. His widow donated it after he died in 2001.
- Bruno KoschmiderBruno Koschmider was a Hamburg entrepreneur who spent three hours of a night in 1960 reporting a fire that did almost no damage. Behind that complaint stood three young men from Liverpool. He was born in 1926 in the Free City of Danzig,…
- Chuck Cooper (basketball)The Celtics owner ignored other teams and drafted Chuck Cooper anyway. He was the first African American drafted.
- Thích Nhất HạnhMartin Luther King Jr. nominated a Vietnamese monk for the Nobel Peace Prize. His name was Thich Nhat Hanh.
- Pete RozellePete Rozelle became NFL commissioner at 33 on the 23rd ballot. Owners who could not agree on anyone else picked him.
- Alan GreenspanIn October 2008, Alan Greenspan told Congress his faith in free markets had a flaw.
- George MartinGeorge Martin called the Beatles' audition recording a "lousy tape" before he signed them.
- George LowAfter three astronauts died in the Apollo 1 fire, George Low took charge of fixing the spacecraft.
- David AttenboroughAt 11, David Attenborough sold newts to a university for three pence each.
- Jimmy SavileJimmy Savile ended the last weekly edition of Top of the Pops on the 30th of July 2006 with the words 'It's number one, it's still Top of the Pops.' After the closing credits, he turned off the studio lights. Savile had been a fixture of…
- Angus MaddisonAngus Maddison, a British economist born on the 6th of December 1926, spent his working life putting numbers on the long history of economic growth. His field was quantitative macroeconomic history, which measures how economies grow and…
- Hilary PutnamHilary Putnam invented a leading theory of the mind, then spent years taking it apart.
- Oliver SelfridgeIn 1959, Oliver Selfridge described software "demons" that shout answers, and the loudest wins.
- Ray SolomonoffRay Solomonoff's idea was matched by a Russian mathematician five years later, and the Russian got the credit.
- Efraín Ríos MonttEfraín Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80 years for genocide, and the ruling collapsed within days.
- James Samuel ColemanJames Coleman was arrested at a whites-only amusement park outside Baltimore with his family and a Black family.
- Harold Hunter (basketball)Harold Hunter became the first African American to sign with an NBA team, then was cut weeks later.