Curated playlist

2023 deaths

Horst-Dieter HöttgesBorussia Mönchengladbach let defender Horst-Dieter Höttges go, and he won a Bundesliga title with Werder Bremen.
Robert Lucas Jr.Robert Lucas's divorce deal gave his ex-wife half of any Nobel Prize awarded before October 31, 1995.
Walter CunninghamWalter Cunningham sat in the lunar module pilot seat on a spacecraft with no lunar module. It was Apollo 7.
Tina TurnerTina Turner crossed a Texas freeway on foot on the 1st of July 1976 with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket. She had slipped out of a hotel suite in Dallas after a fight, while her husband slept. Her destination was a nearby…
David GolumbiaDavid Alan Golumbia was born in Detroit in 1963 and died in Richmond on the 14th of September 2023. He was an American academic and author, and his working life was spent studying the technologies that many of his contemporaries embraced…
Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger made a secret trip to China in July 1971. It helped end 23 years of diplomatic isolation.
Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy bought a portable Olivetti Lettera 32 at a Knoxville pawn shop for $50, shortly before a trip to Europe in the early 1960s. Over the next five decades he typed about five million words on it. He kept it running by blowing…
Frank BormanA stranger's telegram told Apollo 8's Frank Borman, "You saved 1968." He commanded the first crew to orbit the Moon.
Chas NewbyChas Newby was born Charles Newby on the 18th of June 1941. In December 1960 he played bass for the Beatles on a handful of nights. Then the job passed to someone else. How did a temporary player end up on stage with the band, and why did…
Ken MattinglyKen Mattingly was pulled from Apollo 13 for measles he never got. He then helped from Mission Control to save the crew.
John JakesJohn Jakes wrote fiction at night while working as an advertising copywriter. His Kent series sold 55 million copies.
Nicholas CraftsNicholas Crafts, a British economist born in Nottingham on the 9th of March 1949, spent his career trying to put numbers on one of the most famous turning points in history. The Industrial Revolution is usually told through steam,…
Robert HanssenRobert Philip Hanssen, a veteran FBI agent, drove to Foxstone Park on the 18th of February 2001. The park sits near his home in the Washington suburb of Vienna, Virginia. He was there to leave a package of classified material at a dead…
Barbara LevickOnly Barbara Levick turned her 1950s Turkey research trips into a book.
Gordon MooreMoore's law began as a ten-year forecast that Gordon Moore wrote for a magazine. He never meant it as a law.
Sinéad O'ConnorSinéad O'Connor once walked into the Grammy Awards with the logo of the hip hop group Public Enemy painted on her shaved head. She was protesting because the first-ever Best Rap Performance award was being handed out off-screen. The…
Franklin Delano FloydFranklin Delano Floyd died of natural causes on the 23rd of January 2023, at the age of 79, while still on death row. He was an American murderer and child sex offender, and he spent most of his life moving under borrowed names. For years,…
Ted KaczynskiTed Kaczynski wrote a letter to The New York Times in 1995 and attached a promise to it. If the Times or The Washington Post printed his essay in full, he would "desist from terrorism." The essay ran to roughly 35,000 words and carried the…
Edward FredkinEdward Fredkin never finished college, yet MIT made him a full professor in 1968. Marvin Minsky recruited him.
Just FontaineJust Fontaine scored thirteen goals in six matches at the 1958 World Cup.
Mohamed Al-FayedMohamed Al-Fayed was nineteen years old when he sold bottles of Coca-Cola on the streets of Alexandria. He had been born in Egypt on the 27th of January 1929. By the end of his life he owned the Hôtel Ritz Paris, the Harrods department…
Yevgeny PrigozhinYevgeny Prigozhin died on the 23rd of August 2023, when a business jet crashed in Tver Oblast, north of Moscow. All ten people aboard were killed. The date fell exactly two months after Prigozhin had turned on Russia's military leadership…
Jimmy BuffettJimmy Buffett's first album, Down to Earth, sold just 324 copies after it appeared in August 1970. Decades later, he had sold over 20 million certified records worldwide. James William Buffett became a singer-songwriter, a bestselling…
Lisa Marie PresleyLisa Marie Presley was nine years old in August 1977 when her father, Elvis, died and left her a share of his estate. The will made her a joint heir beside two much older relatives: her 61-year-old grandfather, Vernon, and her 87-year-old…
Antonio CarbajalAntonio Carbajal played in five World Cups, and no footballer had done that before him.
Matthew PerryMatthew Perry spent a decade playing Chandler Bing on the NBC sitcom Friends, yet he later said he had no memory of three years of that work. By 2002, he and his five co-stars were each earning $1 million per episode. Millions of viewers…
Luis GaravitoLuis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos was sentenced to 1,853 years and 9 days in prison, the longest term ever handed down in Colombia. He was born on the 25th of January 1957 and died on the 12th of October 2023. Colombians called him La Bestia,…
Jeff BeckJeff Beck once rang his producer to ask for another try at a guitar solo, a couple of months after the album was finished. The producer was George Martin, and the album was Blow by Blow. Martin, bemused, answered: "I'm sorry, Jeff, but the…
Kevin MitnickKevin Mitnick was twelve years old when he asked a Los Angeles bus driver where he could buy a ticket punch. His stated reason was "a school project." The driver told him. Then a dumpster beside the bus company garage supplied the rest, a…