Curated playlist

1986 deaths

Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges directed Argentina's National Library while completely blind.
L. Ron HubbardL. Ron Hubbard, the American writer who founded Scientology, once told his wife exactly what he wanted from life. In a letter, he declared: "I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form…
Jean GenetIn 1949, facing a possible life sentence, Jean Genet was saved by a petition.
Vyacheslav MolotovFinns named the Molotov cocktail after Vyacheslav Molotov, who called bombing raids food deliveries.
Andrei TarkovskyIngmar Bergman called Andrei Tarkovsky the greatest of all filmmakers. Tarkovsky directed only seven feature films.
Simone de BeauvoirSimone de Beauvoir's partnership with Sartre began on a bench outside the Louvre.
Roy CohnThe AIDS Memorial Quilt panel made for Roy Cohn is plain white, and it carries four words. His name is lettered in black. Bully is red, Coward is yellow, and Victim is blue. His tombstone in Union Field Cemetery in Queens, New York, offers…
Jean MassinJean Massin trained as a Catholic priest before he became a historian. He left that life in 1952 to work as a critic.
Urho KekkonenOpponents once removed the chimney from a photo of Urho Kekkonen's birthplace. They wanted him to look poor.
Dick JamesMusic publisher Dick James phoned in "Please Please Me" and won The Beatles their first national TV spot.
Barry SealBarry Seal, born Adler Berriman Seal, was shot dead in a parking lot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the evening of the 19th of February 1986. The lot belonged to a Salvation Army center, and he had been on probation for just three weeks.…
Christa McAuliffeChrista McAuliffe had a short, blunt answer when a talk-show host asked her about her coming mission. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, she said: "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat. Just get…
Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was shut out of French academic jobs after his thesis. His teacher told him to go abroad, to Istanbul.
Margaret MastermanMargaret Masterman's 1965 critique pushed Thomas Kuhn away from the word paradigm.