Curated playlist
1977 deaths
- Elvis PresleyA teacher told young Elvis Presley he had no aptitude for singing. He later sold an estimated 500 million records.
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was in a workhouse twice before he turned nine. By 26 he was among the world's highest-paid people.
- Joan CrawfordA 1938 ad called Joan Crawford "box office poison," but Mildred Pierce later won her an Academy Award.
- Bing CrosbyBing Crosby had to re-record "White Christmas" in 1947 because the 1942 master had worn out.
- J. Walter KennedyHow did a man with childhood polio, who never played sports, come to lead the NBA? That was J. Walter Kennedy.
- Vladimir NabokovNovelist Vladimir Nabokov also named butterfly species, and later genetic research backed his theory.
- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami PrabhupadaA. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was 69 years old when he boarded a freighter in 1965, bound for a country where he knew nobody. His luggage amounted to a suitcase, an umbrella, some dry cereal, forty Indian rupees, and two hundred…
- Oskar MorgensternOskar Morgenstern was born on the 24th of January 1902 in Görlitz, a town in the Prussian Province of Silesia. According to a rumor, his mother was a daughter of Emperor Frederick III. Whatever the truth of that story, the child grew up…
- Lutz Graf Schwerin von KrosigkHitler's finance minister was among the first to say "Iron Curtain" on radio, on 2 May 1945.
- Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun's V-2 rocket cost more lives to build than it took as a weapon.
- Gary GilmoreGary Gilmore, an American criminal, was shot by a firing squad at the Utah State Prison in Draper at 8:07 in the morning on the 17th of January 1977. Asked whether he had any last words, he answered, "Let's do it." Few condemned people…
- George de MohrenschildtGeorge de Mohrenschildt was a Russian-born petroleum geologist who, as a young man in New York, let a girl named Jacqueline Bouvier sit on his knee and call him Uncle George. She grew up to become First Lady. He grew up to become one of…