Curated category
1955 births
- Coke La RockCoke La Rock rapped at the earliest parties in The Bronx without anyone in the crowd knowing he was there. He performed out of sight from the audience.
- Peter Hedström (sociologist)Peter Hedström was born on the 14th of July 1955 in Norsjö, a small town in northern Sweden. Few would have predicted that this particular sociologist would…
- Bill GatesBill Gates was born on the 28th of October, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, and by age 31 he had become the world's youngest-ever billionaire.
- Eric SchmidtEric Schmidt was born on the 27th of April, 1955, in Falls Church, Virginia, into a family shaped by academia and government service.
- J. K. SimmonsJ. K. Simmons has accumulated more than 200 screen and stage credits since his 1986 debut, and yet for decades most audiences could not quite name him.
- John GrishamJohn Grisham did not set out to write 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers. He set out to survive. At 17, working an asphalt crew in Mississippi, he…
- Moses MaloneMoses Eugene Malone Sr. grew up in Petersburg, Virginia as an only child, raised almost entirely by his mother Mary, who had left school after the fifth…
- K. T. S. SaraoKaram Tej Singh Sarao entered the world on the 1st of April 1955 in the village of Chatha Gobindpura. This small settlement sits within the Sangrur district…
- DJ Kool HercDJ Kool Herc threw a party on the 11th of August, 1973, and the music that came out of it would change the world. The address was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the…
- David ChaumDavid Lee Chaum, born in 1955, sketched the blueprint for digital privacy long before most people had an email address. In 1982, the same year he finished…
- Kelsey GrammerKelsey Grammer was born on the 21st of February 1955 in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a place he would later describe simply as home, calling himself "a…
- Roland EmmerichRoland Emmerich was born on the 10th of November 1955 in Stuttgart, West Germany. He grew up in the nearby town of Sindelfingen while his father Hans ran a…
- Jeremy Black (historian)Jeremy Black was born on the 30th of October 1955. He would go on to publish more history books than most scholars manage to read in a lifetime.
- Mark David ChapmanMark David Chapman stood outside the Dakota apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for most of the day on the 8th of December 1980, talking…
- James S. ShapiroJames S. Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period.
- Raymond BensonRaymond Benson was born in Midland, Texas, in 1955, a place known for its oil fields and wide-open skies, far removed from the smoky London clubs and exotic…
- Maria DowlingMaria Dowling was born in 1955 and spent her career asking a question that most people never think to ask: what did it mean to be educated at the English…
- Lee SmolinLee Smolin dropped out of Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. That might seem like an unlikely starting point for one of the most provocative…
- Michel PlatiniMichel Platini scored nine goals in five matches at the 1984 European Championship, a record that stood for 37 years. That tournament, played on home soil in…
- Vladimir SorokinVladimir Sorokin was born on the 7th of August 1955 in Bykovo, a district of Moscow Oblast, and he went on to become one of the most provocative literary…