Curated category
1990 deaths
- Roald DahlRoald Dahl was born on the 13th of September 1916 at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, in Llandaff, Cardiff, the son of Norwegian immigrant parents who gave him…
- Jim HensonJim Henson made his first Kermit the Frog from a halved table tennis ball and fabric cut from an old coat that belonged to his mother.
- Aaron CoplandAaron Copland grew up above a Brooklyn shop at 628 Washington Avenue, in a family of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who had traveled through Scotland just to…
- Medard BossMedard Boss was born on the 4th of October 1903 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and he spent his career asking a question that most psychiatrists of his era…
- Oldřich NejedlýOn the 11th of June 1990, Oldřich Nejedlý died at the age of 80, just as that year's World Cup kicked off in Italy. Italy had also hosted the World Cup back…
- Arthur Samuel (computer scientist)Arthur Lee Samuel coined the term "machine learning" in 1959, and the computers of his era had almost no memory to spare.
- Samuel C. PhillipsSamuel C. Phillips was a general who flew fighters over occupied Europe, helped design the missiles that defined the Cold War, and then ran the program that…
- B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner died on the 18th of August 1990 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just ten days after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the American…
- Louis AlthusserLouis Althusser was born on the 16th of October 1918 in Birmendreïs, a town near Algiers in French Algeria, and he died on the 22nd of October 1990 in a…
- Robert Holmes à CourtRobert Holmes à Court built Australia's first billion-dollar private fortune starting from virtually nothing, and he did it in less than two decades.
- Ronald Evans (astronaut)Ronald Ellwin Evans Jr. is the last human being to orbit the Moon alone. On the 14th of December 1972, while his crewmates Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt…
- John Stewart BellJohn Stewart Bell was born in Belfast on the 28th of July 1928, into a working-class family where neither his parents nor any of his three older siblings had…
- Lev YashinLev Yashin won the Ballon d'Or in 1963 as a goalkeeper. That sentence alone deserves a pause. In the entire history of that award, given annually to the…
- Donald A. WollheimOn the 22nd of October 1936, a group from New York met with a group from Philadelphia in Philadelphia. This gathering became known as the first American…
- Armand HammerArmand Hammer died in Los Angeles in December 1990, aged 92, and was buried directly across the street from the headquarters of Occidental Petroleum - the…
- Lewis MumfordLewis Mumford was born on the 19th of October 1895 in Flushing, Queens, and spent the next nine decades becoming one of the most wide-ranging thinkers…
- Prince Naruhiko HigashikuniPrince Naruhiko Higashikuni held the office of Japanese prime minister for exactly 54 days. He took power on the 17th of August 1945, two days after Emperor…
- Larry O'BrienLarry O'Brien was riding in the motorcade in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963 when gunshots rang out. He watched President John F. Kennedy die.
- Viktor TsoiViktor Tsoi died on the 15th of August 1990, at 12:28 in the afternoon, on a highway in Latvia. His dark blue Moskvitch-2141 crossed into oncoming traffic at…