Curated playlist
1958 births
- Michael JacksonMichael Jackson bought a music catalog with most of the Beatles's material in 1985. He paid 47.5 million dollars.
- Kevin M. MurphyIn 2023, Google's expert witness Kevin M. Murphy said Apple gets 36% of its Safari default-search revenue.
- Shinji HashimotoKingdom Hearts began with an elevator conversation in Tokyo. Shinji Hashimoto met a Disney executive there.
- MadonnaMadonna arrived in New York in 1978 with thirty-five dollars. It was her first plane ride and first taxi.
- Prince (musician)Prince once changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol to protest his record label.
- Mike LazzoMike Lazzo started in a shipping room and ended up running the studio behind Adult Swim.
- Kazuhiro NakataKazuhiro Nakata is the Japanese voice of Agent Smith in all three Matrix films.
- Kate BushKate Bush's second UK number one came 44 years after her first. That gap beat Tom Jones's record of 42 years.
- Michelle PfeifferMichelle Pfeiffer was born on the 29th of April 1958 in Santa Ana, California, and by the early 1990s she ranked among the best-paid actresses in the world. Her start was far less certain. After her first leading role, in the 1982 musical…
- Kenneth PomeranzWhy did industrialization happen in Europe and not in China? Historian Kenneth Pomeranz answered in a 2000 book.
- Jamie Lee CurtisJamie Lee Curtis accepted a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September 2021, and she did not sound like a person winding down. "I feel so alive, like I'm this 14-year-old person just…
- Tomomi MochizukiTomomi Mochizuki directs anime under one name and writes under another. His writing alias is Gō Sakamoto.
- Charlie KaufmanEvery company rejected Charlie Kaufman's script for Being John Malkovich. Spike Jonze later agreed to direct it.
- Agustín CarstensMexico's finance secretary Agustín Carstens hedged 2009 oil earnings and made an $8 billion profit.
- Robert Eugene BrashersRobert Eugene Brashers died in January 1999, and while he lived, no investigator ever named him as a suspect in any of his murders. Investigators now link him to at least eight murders in Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas…
- Ice-TIce-T got his stage name when friends heard him recite novels by Iceberg Slim.
- Mark LewisohnA famous joke about Ringo Starr was long credited to John Lennon, but Mark Lewisohn found no record he said it.
- Jay TrianoJay Triano scored 2,616 career points at Simon Fraser University, the most in the program's history.
- Neil deGrasse TysonNeil deGrasse Tyson was nine years old when he visited the sky theater of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. He grew up to be an American astrophysicist, author and science communicator, born on the 5th of October 1958. Looking back, he…
- Gary OldmanGary Oldman needed 200 hours in a makeup chair to become Winston Churchill. The transformation also took 14 pounds of silicone rubber. Then came US$20,000 worth of Cuban cigars, which left the actor with nicotine poisoning. Oldman, an…
- Henry JenkinsMedia scholar Henry Jenkins began with the Marx Brothers, not the internet. His dissertation studied vaudeville comedy.
- Ali LarijaniOn the night between the 16th and the 17th of March 2026, an Israeli airstrike killed Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. His son Morteza died in the same strike, together with Alireza Bayat, the head…
- Cynthia DworkA technique built to make junk email costly later helped make bitcoin possible. Cynthia Dwork co-created it.