Curated playlist
1939 births
- Michiyo YasudaMichiyo Yasuda took her first animation job to avoid work as a bank teller. She stayed for more than half a century.
- Ian McKellenIan McKellen came out as gay on BBC radio in 1988, while Parliament weighed Section 28.
- Marvin GayeMotown boss Berry Gordy refused to release Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
- Retha WarnickeHistorian Retha Warnicke argues Anne Boleyn was born in 1507, not 1501. Most historians long assumed the earlier date.
- Robert HilburnCritic Robert Hilburn rode a week of road dates with the Sex Pistols on their first U.S. tour.
- Lambert SchmithausenScholar Lambert Schmithausen wrote whole studies on whether plants can suffer. He tackled it in Buddhist texts in 1991.
- Tina TurnerTina Turner crossed a Texas freeway on foot on the 1st of July 1976 with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket. She had slipped out of a hotel suite in Dallas after a fight, while her husband slept. Her destination was a nearby…
- Joris BorghoutsAround 2000, budget cuts threatened Leiden University's Egyptology department. Its head, Joris Borghouts, pushed back.
- Dean CorllDean Corll was the man whose death a frightened caller reported to the Pasadena Police Department at 8:24 on the morning of the 8th of August 1973. The operator who answered was named Velma Lines. The caller was a teenager, and he blurted…
- Francis Ford CoppolaMarlon Brando won the Godfather role only after a screen test and a reduced fee.
- Phil SpectorPhil Spector's first number one song came from his father's gravestone.
- John F. MarszalekIn July 2008, historian John F. Marszalek took charge of Ulysses S. Grant's papers.
- Robert HansenBehind the headboard of a bed in an Anchorage home, investigators found an aeronautical chart marked with thirty-seven handwritten x symbols. The home belonged to Robert Hansen, a baker nicknamed the Butcher Baker. Between 1971 and 1983 he…
- Michael MoorcockMichael Moorcock created Elric as a reversal of the comfort fantasy that followed Tolkien.
- Stanislav PetrovStanislav Petrov did not report a Soviet warning of five incoming U.S. missiles in 1983. Ground radar showed nothing.
- Fritjof CapraFritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics was finished one month after a discovery it missed.
- Jimmie NicolJimmie Nicol was resting at home in West London in June 1964 when his telephone rang. He remembered it this way: "I was having a bit of a lie down after lunch when the phone rang." The voice on the line belonged to George Martin, the…
- Joel WhitburnJoel Whitburn began writing Hot 100 chart positions on index cards in 1958. Later came more than 200 books.