Curated playlist
1994 deaths
- Disco King MarioDisco King Mario helped launch hip-hop without ever releasing a record. He threw Bronx park jams in the early 1970s.
- Richard NixonRichard Nixon was the only U.S. president to resign. He left office on the 9th of August, 1974, over Watergate.
- Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco began a theater revolution by studying an English textbook at age 40.
- Stuart RoosaStuart Roosa orbited the Moon 34 times alone while two crewmates walked on it. He also carried tree seeds in his pocket.
- John CandyJohn Candy, the Canadian actor and comedian, once gave a young Harvard student a piece of advice that the student credited with starting his career. That student was Conan O'Brien. He met Candy while studying at Harvard University and…
- John Wayne GacyOn the 21st of December 1978, an evidence technician named Daniel Genty crawled into a space measuring 28 by 38 feet beneath a ranch-style house outside Chicago. He worked his way to the southwest corner and began to dig. Within minutes he…
- Jack KirbyJack Kirby was drafted in 1943 and became a scout who drew reconnaissance maps in towns.
- Ralph EllisonA 1967 fire destroyed more than 300 pages of Ralph Ellison's second novel. He never finished it.
- Kim Il SungKim Il Sung stepped off a ship in 1945 as a 33-year-old Soviet captain. He ruled North Korea for more than 45 years.
- Kurt CobainKurt Cobain turned 14 on the 20th of February 1981, and his uncle put a choice in front of him. He could have a bicycle or a used guitar. Kurt took the guitar. Soon afterward he was attempting Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," then…
- Jeffrey DahmerJeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991. He became known as the Milwaukee Cannibal and the Milwaukee Monster. On the night of the 22nd of July 1991, police officers in a Milwaukee apartment pinned him to the…
- Geoffrey EltonGeoffrey Elton argued that Thomas Cromwell, more than Henry VIII, drove a revolution in English government.
- Donald SwannDonald Swann set J. R. R. Tolkien's poems to music, and Tolkien joined the recording.
- Rollo MayRollo May was named after a fictional boy in children's books. He disliked the name until he found a Norman conqueror.
- Jerome WiesnerJerome Wiesner, Kennedy's science advisor, told Wernher von Braun "No, that's no good" in front of the press.
- Earl StromNBA referee Earl Strom once ejected a team mascot, believed to be a first. Benny the Bull charged the court in 1974.
- Andrei ChikatiloOn the 20th of November 1990, four plainclothes police officers stepped up to a man leaving a cafe in Novocherkassk. He was carrying a large jar of beer and offered no resistance as they handcuffed him. The man was Andrei Chikatilo, a…
- Frederick CoplestonWorld War II closed Frederick Copleston's path to a Rome doctorate. He taught at Heythrop instead.
- Erich HoneckerErich Honecker voted for his own removal as East Germany's leader. The Politburo ousted him in October 1989.
- Linus PaulingLinus Pauling left high school without a diploma. He later won two unshared Nobel Prizes, a first in history.
- Gregory ScarpaGregory Scarpa Sr. sometimes left the numbers 666, the biblical number of the beast, on his victims' pagers. His longtime girlfriend Linda Schiro later recalled the habit. Scarpa was called the Grim Reaper and the Mad Hatter. He was a…