Curated playlist
1967 deaths
- Bill WeisbandWhy did the U.S. never charge Bill Weisband with spying? A spy trial would have exposed its codebreaking methods.
- Vivien LeighWhen Vivien Leigh died in 1967, every central London theater went dark for an hour.
- Roger B. ChaffeeRoger Chaffee passed his Navy pilot's eye exam only because a doctor let him retake it the next morning.
- J. Robert OppenheimerJ. Robert Oppenheimer gripped a post to steady himself as the first nuclear bomb went off.
- Ed White (astronaut)Ed White floated out of his capsule in 1965 and did not want to come back. He was the first American to walk in space.
- Langston HughesLangston Hughes's ashes rest beneath the floor of a Harlem research center.
- Gus GrissomDoctors nearly cut Gus Grissom from astronaut selection because he had hay fever.
- Che GuevaraChe Guevara signed Cuba's paper money with just one word: "Che." He was then president of the National Bank.
- John ColtraneA San Francisco congregation once worshipped John Coltrane as God incarnate.
- Clement AttleeClement Attlee told the King, "I've won the election," and the King replied that he already knew.
- Konrad AdenauerObservers said Konrad Adenauer became West Germany's first chancellor by one vote, his own. He was 73.
- Woody GuthrieWoody Guthrie often played a guitar that carried a blunt message: "This machine kills fascists." He was an American singer, songwriter and composer who wrote hundreds of country, folk and children's songs, along with ballads and improvised…
- Jayne MansfieldOn the 26th of May 1957, Jayne Mansfield played the violin on The Ed Sullivan Show, backed by a six-person band. Afterward she exclaimed, "Now I am really national. Momma and Dallas see the Ed Sullivan show!" According to Nielsen, the…
- Jack RubyAt 11:21 on Sunday morning, the 24th of November 1963, Jack Ruby stepped out of a crowd of reporters in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters. Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, was holding a revolver. A few feet away stood Lee Harvey…
- Mohammad MosaddeghIran's popular prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was buried in his own living room. He died in 1967 under house arrest.
- Brian EpsteinBrian Epstein never signed the contract that made him the Beatles' manager. He said they could tear it up.
- PuyiPuyi, the last emperor of China, was born in Beijing on the 7th of February 1906 and died on the 17th of October 1967. A commentator named Wen Yuan-ning once quipped that Puyi had been "made emperor three times without knowing why and…
- V. A. SundaramIn 1931 Gandhi's ambassador V. A. Sundaram met Albert Einstein in Caputh, a village outside Berlin.
- Ike DuffeyIke Duffey owned the team that won the last National Basketball League title.
- Ilse KochIlse Koch held no rank and no official post in Nazi Germany, yet by the end of the war she was among its most notorious figures. Her husband, Karl-Otto Koch, was the commandant of Buchenwald, and the press branded her the "Kommandeuse of…