Curated playlist
1995 deaths
- Dean MartinDean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, delivered one of his sharpest hometown jokes in a 1967 spy spoof. In The Ambushers, his secret agent Matt Helm is about to be executed and is offered a last cigarette. Helm tells the man who hands it…
- Harold WilsonAt ten, Harold Wilson told his mother he would be prime minister. He went on to win four general elections.
- Dr. HepcatIn 1948, Austin station KVET hired Dr. Hepcat as Texas's first black disc jockey. He chose the name himself.
- Ginger RogersGinger Rogers and Fred Astaire were only supporting players in Flying Down to Rio, a film meant for other stars.
- Nathan RosenNathan Rosen co-authored the first known wormhole paper in July 1935. He was Albert Einstein's assistant at the time.
- SelenaSelena Quintanilla-Pérez was 23 years old when she died on the 31st of March 1995, and major television networks interrupted their regular programming to announce it. She was a singer from Texas who performed Tejano music, a…
- Fred WestFred West was at work in Stroud on the 24th of February 1994 when police arrived at his home, 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, with a search warrant. The officers were looking for one missing girl, the West family's eldest daughter,…
- Ann DunhamStanley Ann Dunham grew up answering to a name that other children found funny. She kept using it through high school, "apologizing for it each time she introduced herself in a new town." By the time she reached college, she was going by…
- Eugene WignerPhysicist Eugene Wigner found that neutron radiation could make the graphite in a reactor swell.
- Kray twinsThe Kray twins were convicted of murder in 1969, yet crowds of thousands lined up to applaud when Reggie Kray was buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery in October 2000. Ronald and Reginald Kray were identical brothers from Haggerston in East…
- Nicolas SlonimskyA book of scales that was largely ignored became a favorite of John Coltrane. Nicolas Slonimsky wrote it in 1947.
- Jonas SalkJonas Salk, the American virologist who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines, was once asked a simple question by the television personality Ed Murrow: who owns the patent? Salk answered, "Well, the people I would say.…
- Roger ZelaznyA story by Roger Zelazny traveled to Mars in 2008. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" rode on a DVD aboard the Phoenix lander.
- James Samuel ColemanJames Coleman was arrested at a whites-only amusement park outside Baltimore with his family and a Black family.
- Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar sailed from India to England in 1930, and on that first sea voyage he worked out a number that would outlive him. The number was 1.44. It is the greatest mass, counted in suns, that a white dwarf star can have. A…