Curated playlist
2023 deaths
- Horst-Dieter HöttgesThe nickname 'Eisenfuß,' iron foot, followed Horst-Dieter Höttges for most of his career as a defender in the West German Bundesliga. Höttges was a sweeper and right-back defined by physical aggression in the tackle rather than by finesse…
- Robert Lucas Jr.Robert Emerson Lucas Jr. was born on the 15th of September 1937 in Yakima, Washington, the eldest child of a family that ran an ice creamery. When that business collapsed during the Great Depression, the family moved to Seattle, and Lucas…
- Walter CunninghamWalter Cunningham sat in the lunar module pilot seat on the 11th of October 1968, aboard a spacecraft with no lunar module attached. Apollo 7 was the first crewed mission the Apollo program had ever flown. Its eleven days of system tests…
- David GolumbiaDavid Alan Golumbia entered the world in Detroit during 1963. His early years unfolded within that industrial city before he moved toward higher education. He pursued advanced studies to build a foundation for his future career as an…
- Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger arrived in New York City on the 5th of September, 1938, a 15-year-old Jewish refugee who had fled Germany with his family just weeks before. He had grown up in Fürth, Bavaria, watched Hitler Youth gangs beat him and his…
- Frank BormanFrank Borman received a telegram after returning from the Moon. It was from a stranger, and it said simply: "Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968." That single line captures what Borman's most famous mission meant to a country that had spent…
- Chas NewbyCharles Newby stood in a Liverpool rehearsal room on the 17th of December 1960. The Beatles needed a bassist after Stuart Sutcliffe left for Hamburg to pursue art school. Pete Best recommended his former bandmate from The Black Jacks.…
- Ken MattinglyKen Mattingly came closest to the Moon without ever landing on it. Born on the 17th of March, 1936, in Chicago, Illinois, Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II spent a lifetime in aviation, engineering, and space exploration, yet one of his most…
- John JakesJohn William Jakes sold his first short story in 1950, and by the time he died in Sarasota on the 11th of March 2023, he had put tens of millions of books into readers' hands. The Kent Family Chronicles alone sold 55 million copies. The…
- Nicholas CraftsNicholas Francis Robert Crafts entered the world on the 9th of March 1949 in Nottingham, England. He attended Brunts Grammar School in Mansfield before moving to Trinity College Cambridge. The young student graduated with a Bachelor of…
- Barbara LevickBarbara Mary Levick made two solo trips to Turkey in the mid-1950s, a young woman travelling alone through Anatolia at a time when the field of epigraphy was dominated by Scottish men. She was working on her doctoral thesis, supervised by…
- Gordon MooreGordon Earle Moore was born on the 3rd of January, 1929, in a world where the idea of a transistor had not yet been publicly demonstrated. By the time he died on the 24th of March, 2023, the prediction he had typed up for a magazine in…
- Edward FredkinEdward Fredkin bought chemistry supplies at age 10, made his own fireworks in Los Angeles, and got in trouble because fireworks were illegal. That detail captures something essential about the man. He was constitutionally incapable of…
- Just FontaineJust Fontaine scored thirteen goals at the 1958 FIFA World Cup. Not across a tournament run that stretched years or multiple competitions. Thirteen goals in six matches, across a single World Cup in Sweden. No player, in any World Cup…
- Antonio CarbajalAntonio Félix Carbajal Rodríguez walked onto the pitch at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on the 24th of June 1950, a 21-year-old goalkeeper from Mexico City facing the host nation of Brazil in front of one of the largest crowds…