Curated playlist
2001 deaths
- September 11 attacksThe September 11 attacks, known around the world simply as 9/11, unfolded across a single Tuesday morning in 2001. Four airliners bound for California left airports in Boston, Washington and Newark that morning. Before the morning ended,…
- AaliyahAaliyah signed her first record deal at twelve. By 22 she had three albums and two films behind her.
- Poul AndersonPoul Anderson's typewriter now sits in a Berkeley bookshop. His widow donated it after he died in 2001.
- George HarrisonGeorge Harrison mortgaged his home to save Monty Python's Life of Brian. EMI Films had pulled its funding in 1978.
- Timothy McVeighTimothy McVeigh was driving on Interstate 35 in Noble County, Oklahoma, when state trooper Charles J. Hanger noticed his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis had no license plate. Hanger also noticed a bulge under the driver's jacket. McVeigh…
- Mohamed AttaMohamed Atta left behind at least eight variations of his name on documents, and al-Qaeda knew him by yet another, Abd al-Rahman al-Misri. He told some people he was from the United Arab Emirates. During flight training in Florida, he…
- Claude ShannonClaude Shannon built a mechanical mouse that learned its way through a maze. He named the 1950 machine Theseus.
- Herbert A. SimonHerbert Simon argued that people don't pick the best option, they settle for good enough. He called it satisficing.
- Henry Lee LucasHenry Lee Lucas, later nicknamed The Confession Killer, sat in a Texas jail in 1983 and wrote a note to the local sheriff. "I have killed for the past 10 years and no one will believe me," it began. "I cannot go on doing this. I also…
- Abe SilversteinAbe Silverstein, a NASA engineer, gave the Apollo program its name. He chose a Greek and Roman god of light and the sun.