Curated playlist
1975 deaths
- Alvin HansenEconomist Alvin Hansen doubted Keynes at first, then embraced him. By December 1938 he was a full convert.
- Hugo DysonHugo Dyson complained so loudly at Inklings readings that Tolkien stopped reading to the group.
- Chiang Kai-shekWestern observers once called Chiang Kai-shek the Red General. In 1927 he purged thousands of suspected Communists.
- Elijah MuhammadElijah Muhammad, born Elijah Robert Poole, once said, "I seen enough of the white man's brutality to last me 26,000 years." He explained that before the age of 20 he had witnessed white people carry out the lynchings of three black men.…
- Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco was shot in the abdomen at 23 and was not expected to live. He ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975.
- Michael FlandersOxford refused Michael Flanders re-entry after polio left him in a wheelchair. He became a stage comedian instead.
- Mikhail BakhtinMikhail Bakhtin once tore up his own book prospectus to roll cigarettes.
- Dmitri ShostakovichStalin walked out of Dmitri Shostakovich's opera in 1936, and the next day Pravda attacked it.
- Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt's name is printed on journals, schools, scholarly prizes, humanitarian prizes, think-tanks and street signs. It also appears on stamps and monuments. She was born Johanna Arendt, and she grew into one of the most influential…
- Sam GiancanaSam Giancana, who once ran the Chicago Outfit, died on the night of the 19th of June 1975 in the basement kitchen of his house in Oak Park, Illinois. At around 11 p.m., his caretaker, Joseph DiPersio, found the body on the floor. A gunman…
- Haile SelassieIn 1992, the bones of Haile Selassie I were found beneath a concrete slab on the grounds of a palace. The man buried there had been born Tafari Makonnen. He had ruled Ethiopia as emperor from 1930 to 1974. How does a ruler of such rank end…
- Sarvepalli RadhakrishnanSarvepalli Radhakrishnan had just become President of India when some of his students and friends asked a simple favor. They wanted to celebrate his birthday, the 5th of September. He turned down the party and proposed something else. In…
- Sheikh Mujibur RahmanSheikh Mujibur Rahman's party won Pakistan's 1970 election, but the junta postponed parliament.
- D. P. Roy ChoudhurySculptor D. P. Roy Choudhury never opened his studios to a public exhibition in his lifetime.
- Theodosius DobzhanskyTheodosius Dobzhansky went from collecting butterflies in Kiev to writing a landmark book on evolution.