Curated playlist
2017 deaths
- Gene CernanGene Cernan wrote his daughter's initials in the lunar dust before leaving the Moon. He was the last person there.
- Helmut KohlGerman cartoonists drew Chancellor Helmut Kohl as a pear. He still reunited Germany in 1990.
- Charles MansonOn the first day of testimony in his 1970 murder trial, Charles Manson arrived with an X carved into his forehead.
- Chuck BerryChuck Berry was buried with a cherry-red guitar bolted inside his coffin lid. The rock and roll pioneer died in 2017.
- Magic AlexA plastic box of random blinking lights won Magic Alex a lab from the Beatles. Lennon stared at it for hours on LSD.
- Chester BenningtonChester Bennington left his own birthday party early to record an audition. That audition opened the way to Linkin Park, and with it a place among the most recognizable rock voices of the 2000s. Yet the same singer fought a pain that he…
- Jerry FodorPhilosopher Jerry Fodor argued that thinking works like a language inside the brain. He called it Mentalese.
- Richard F. Gordon Jr.Richard Gordon orbited the Moon 45 times on Apollo 12 but never walked on it.
- Chris CornellChris Cornell was born Christopher John Boyle, and the voice he grew into covered nearly four octaves, from C2 to A5. Critic Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that as the voice climbed, it could meet hard-rock turbulence with, at the…
- Manuel NoriegaManuel Noriega received his first payment from the United States in 1955, and it came to just $10.70. He belonged to a socialist youth group then, and the money is reported to have been a reward for informing on his comrades. By the 1980s…
- Stephen PaddockStephen Paddock spent the night of the 1st of October 2017 in a hotel room above a crowd of about 22,000 people. They had gathered for a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. By the end of that night, 60 of them were dead and…
- Hubert DreyfusIn 1964, the RAND Corporation hired philosopher Hubert Dreyfus to review artificial intelligence.
- Stanislav PetrovStanislav Petrov did not report a Soviet warning of five incoming U.S. missiles in 1983. Ground radar showed nothing.
- Jeremy Noble (musicologist)Musicologist Jeremy Noble published only a fraction of his research. Colleague Stanley Sadie still called him important.
- Chuck BlazerChuck Blazer, a top FIFA official, had never played soccer. He began by coaching his son's youth team in 1976.
- Daniel LichtDaniel Licht scored every season of Dexter but wouldn't call it his big break. He began on clarinet at age eight.
- William BaumolEconomist William Baumol explained why string quartets keep getting pricier.