Curated playlist

1936 deaths

Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling turned down both a knighthood and the Poet Laureateship. He won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Irving ThalbergIrving Thalberg ran MGM's production, yet his name never appeared on screen while he lived.
Elsa EinsteinElsa Einstein was related to Albert Einstein in two separate ways at once. Their mothers were sisters, which made the two of them first cousins. Their fathers were also first cousins, which made them second cousins as well. Elsa was born…
George VNear the end of his life in January 1936, King George V of the United Kingdom asked his secretary a question. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin later described the scene. Each time the dying king regained consciousness, he had some kind…
John Francis HylanJohn Francis Hylan reached New York in 1887 with $3.50 and became its mayor.
Luigi PirandelloNobel winner Luigi Pirandello gave his medal to the government to be melted down.
Robert E. HowardRobert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, died at thirty with almost none of his work in a book.
Rasmus B. AndersonRasmus B. Anderson started the push to give Leif Erikson a day on the American calendar.
Marcel GrossmannMarcel Grossmann introduced Einstein to the geometry he needed for general relativity.
Ivan PavlovIvan Pavlov spent his early career studying how a dog's stomach works. His famous discovery came almost by accident.
Maxim GorkyWriter Maxim Gorky visited a Soviet labor camp that had been staged for him, and he did not notice.
Alexander GlazunovAlexander Glazunov conducted the disastrous 1897 premiere of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 1.
Albert FishAlbert Fish was caught because of a letter he mailed in November 1934 to the mother of a girl he had killed six years earlier. Mrs. Budd could not read, so her son read the pages aloud to her. The letter carried no signature. Police traced…
Miguel de UnamunoA famous 1936 speech by Miguel de Unamuno may have been invented. A historian says a 1941 magazine article wrote it.