Curated playlist
1934 births
- Gene CernanGene Cernan wrote his daughter's initials in the lunar dust before leaving the Moon. He was the last person there.
- Charles MansonOn the first day of testimony in his 1970 murder trial, Charles Manson arrived with an X carved into his forehead.
- Seymour DrescherHistorian Seymour Drescher argued Britain ended the slave trade while it was still profitable.
- Carl SaganCarl Sagan once asked a librarian for a book on stars and got one about movie stars.
- Yu-Chi HoA paperwork error sent Yu-Chi Ho to electrical engineering instead of mechanical. He decided to stay.
- Bill RussellBill Russell won eleven NBA championships in thirteen seasons. No team has matched that record since.
- Judi DenchJudi Dench won an Oscar for a role that lasted about eight minutes. She played Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.
- Mitsuteru YokoyamaKatsuhiro Otomo hid four characters numbered 25 to 28 in Akira to honor Mitsuteru Yokoyama.
- Alexei LeonovAlexei Leonov's spacesuit swelled in space until he could not fit back inside. He let air out through a valve.
- Heinz EdelmannHeinz Edelmann was expelled from Czechoslovakia at twelve, then designed Yellow Submarine.
- Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman won the 2002 economics Nobel without ever taking an economics course.
- Rodney StarkRodney Stark, once "personally incapable of religious faith," called himself an "independent Christian" in 2007.
- Maureen CleaveMaureen Cleave heard John Lennon say the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now."
- Donald SterlingThe NBA banned Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life in 2014 after a private recording of him became public.
- Manuel NoriegaManuel Noriega received his first payment from the United States in 1955, and it came to just $10.70. He belonged to a socialist youth group then, and the money is reported to have been a reward for informing on his comrades. By the 1980s…
- Diana Wynne JonesDiana Wynne Jones began writing mostly to keep her sanity. Her first book was a farce for adults, not a fantasy.
- Audre LordeAudre Lorde answered questions about her feelings by reciting a poem. She was a nearly blind child in Harlem.
- Edward FredkinEdward Fredkin never finished college, yet MIT made him a full professor in 1968. Marvin Minsky recruited him.
- Brian EpsteinBrian Epstein never signed the contract that made him the Beatles' manager. He said they could tear it up.
- Alfred SchnittkeAlmost completely paralyzed, composer Alfred Schnittke wrote his Ninth Symphony with his left hand.
- Yuri GagarinYuri Gagarin answered liftoff with one word: Poyekhali, or "Off we go."
- John KeeganJohn Keegan taught war for 26 years but never fired a shot in anger. Illness left the historian unfit for service.
- Oleg KaluginIn 1959, Newsweek ran a photograph of Oleg Kalugin, introduced to readers as a 24-year-old student in the United States. He told the magazine: "I like Americans very much. But after seven months here I am convinced more than ever that the…
- VaváVavá scored in two World Cup finals in a row, and no one else did it for sixty years.
- Jane GoodallJane Goodall had no university degree when she began studying chimpanzees. Cambridge still let her earn a doctorate.
- Brigitte BardotBrigitte Bardot, known to the world by her initials B.B., was once praised by French president Charles de Gaulle as “the French export as important as Renault cars.” That is a striking thing to say about an actress. It is stranger still…