Curated playlist

1964 births

Christopher Kelly (historian)Historian Christopher Kelly argues that Attila the Hun was a thoughtful, effective leader. His 2009 book argued it.
Koichi IshiiSquare turned down Koichi Ishii's game idea before he finished pitching it.
Stephen ColbertAt a 2006 dinner, Stephen Colbert roasted President Bush to a cold room. His show's ratings jumped 37% the next week.
Nicolas CageNicolas Cage was 15 years old when he told his uncle, the director Francis Ford Coppola, "I'll show you acting." He wanted a screen test. What he got was silence in the car. His uncle had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene…
Marisa TomeiMarisa Tomei's first film role was a waitress with exactly one line. She later earned three Oscar nominations.
Guillermo del ToroAt about eight, Guillermo del Toro filmed a serial killer potato with a Super 8 camera. It sought world domination.
Kazushige NojimaKazushige Nojima joined Final Fantasy VII after its main character settings were already locked.
Paul BernardoPaul Kenneth Bernardo, who also used the name Paul Jason Teale, was born in Scarborough, Ontario, on the 27th of August 1964. Canadian newspapers would come to call him the Scarborough Rapist and the Schoolgirl Killer. On the 20th of…
Sandra BullockSandra Bullock holds a distinction that no other actor can claim. On the night before she collected the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Blind Side, she picked up the Razzie Award for Worst Actress for a different film, All About…
Nick SzaboIn 1998, Nick Szabo designed a digital currency called bit gold. It was never built but is called a Bitcoin precursor.
Terri IrwinTerri Irwin was reportedly hiking through Cradle Mountain in Tasmania with her two children on the morning of the 4th of September 2006. Her husband, the conservationist Steve Irwin, was killed that same morning. Today she is an American…
Keanu ReevesKeanu Reeves ended a 2019 late-night interview with a single sentence about death: “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.” The studio audience reacted emotionally, and host Stephen Colbert shook his hand before closing the show.…
Hiroyuki MoritaHiroyuki Morita danced the idol choreography himself before drawing it into Perfect Blue.
Yoshua BengioWhy has Yoshua Bengio, who helped build modern AI, spent recent years trying to slow it down?
Tom MorelloTom Morello, the American guitarist behind Rage Against the Machine, once made an entire festival crowd listen to nothing but noise. At Lollapalooza in 1993, his band walked onstage naked. Their mouths were covered with duct tape, and…
Courtney LoveCourtney Love walked on stage at the Reading Festival on the 26th of August 1994 as the singer of Hole. It was her first public performance since the death of her husband, the Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. MTV called the set "by turns…
Lenny KravitzLenny Kravitz won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance four years in a row, from 1999 to 2002. That run broke the record for wins in the category. It also set a record for consecutive wins in one category by a male…
Andy SerkisDoes an actor in a suit covered in tracking dots deserve an Oscar? Andy Serkis became that debate's living proof.
Chris CornellChris Cornell was born Christopher John Boyle, and the voice he grew into covered nearly four octaves, from C2 to A5. Critic Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that as the voice climbed, it could meet hard-rock turbulence with, at the…
Bobby FlayBobby Flay, born Robert William Flay, was eight years old when he asked for an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. His father thought a G.I. Joe would be a better present for a boy. Flay ended up with both. Today he is an American celebrity…
Eddie VedderEddie Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III on the 23rd of December 1964 in Evanston, Illinois. The surname the world knows him by was not the one he was born with. He grew up to become the lead vocalist, primary lyricist and one of…
Joss WhedonJoss Whedon earned more from a web musical than from directing The Avengers.
Shūkō MuraseShūkō Murase is a Japanese anime director and animator whose credits begin in the 1980s and reach all the way to a film dated 2026. He was born in 1964 and is a member of Sunrise. His name appears beside many different jobs: animation…
Jürgen KlinsmannJürgen Klinsmann scored sixteen goals in one match at age eight. He later lifted a World Cup with West Germany.
Salvatore SchillaciSalvatore Schillaci, known to Italians as Totò, ended the 1990 World Cup ranked above Lothar Matthäus and Diego Maradona as the best player of the tournament. Almost nobody saw that coming. He was a striker from a poor family in Palermo,…
Arvydas SabonisArvydas Sabonis was drafted by Portland in 1986 but did not play in the NBA until 1995. He was 30 by then.
Andrea YatesAndrea Yates, a woman from Houston, Texas, was alone with her five children on the morning of the 20th of June 2001. Her husband's mother was due to arrive one hour later to take over. In that hour, Yates drowned all five children in the…
Jack MaJack Ma rode his bicycle 17 miles every day for nine years to practice English.
Iain Stewart (geologist)Geologist Iain Stewart once let scientists cut the oxygen around him from 20 to 12 percent.
Dražen PetrovićDražen Petrović scored 112 points in one professional basketball game in 1985. He made all 22 of his free throws.
Šarūnas MarčiulionisThe Grateful Dead backed Lithuania's basketball team with tie-dyed jerseys. Šarūnas Marčiulionis lined up the sponsors.
Monica BellucciMonica Bellucci was 50 years old when she appeared in the 2015 James Bond film Spectre. That made her the oldest Bond girl in the history of the franchise. She was sceptical of the project at first. Director Sam Mendes argued that casting…