Curated playlist
1996 deaths
- Ella FitzgeraldElla Fitzgerald walked onstage at the Apollo Theater planning to dance, then chose to sing. She was 17 in 1934.
- Carl SaganCarl Sagan once asked a librarian for a book on stars and got one about movie stars.
- François MitterrandFrançois Mitterrand, who ended France's death penalty, once urged rejecting mercy in 80% of cases.
- Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur wrote and recorded the album The Don Killuminati in three days. Mixing took four more.
- James Burke (gangster)James Burke, nicknamed Jimmy the Gent, spent his criminal life beside the Lucchese crime family without ever being allowed to join it. He was born on the 5th of July 1931. He is believed to have organized the 1978 Lufthansa heist. His…
- Pete RozellePete Rozelle became NFL commissioner at 33 on the 23rd ballot. Owners who could not agree on anyone else picked him.
- Babrak KarmalBabrak Karmal led Afghanistan but could not order his own intelligence service.
- Timothy LearyTimothy Leary escaped prison in September 1970 by climbing a telephone wire over the wall.
- Amos TverskyAmos Tversky ran toward a live explosive to save a frozen soldier. The shrapnel stayed in his body for life.
- Edison DenisovEdison Denisov trained as a mathematician before he wrote a note of music. Shostakovich gave him composition lessons.
- Brian DaleyBrian Daley died hours after toasting the finished Return of the Jedi radio drama. He was 48 and never heard it air.
- Paul ErdősPaul Erdős, the Hungarian mathematician born in 1913, spent most of his adult life living out of a suitcase. Time magazine called him "The Oddball's Oddball". His biographer Paul Hoffman went further and described him as "probably the most…