Curated playlist
2024 deaths
- Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter once was lowered into a crippled nuclear reactor for 90 seconds at a time. He later ran for president.
- Jerry WestThe NBA logo is a silhouette of Jerry West, and he was never paid for it.
- Vernor VingeWhat happens when machines get smarter than the people who built them? Vernor Vinge kept asking.
- Raymond L. GarthoffRaymond Garthoff rejected the 1976 Team B claim that Soviet doctrine saw nuclear war as winnable.
- Maggie SmithOn the 1st of October 2024, theatres across the West End of London dimmed their lights for two minutes to honour Dame Maggie Smith. Broadway announced that its own theatres would follow with the same gesture. Few performers earn a tribute…
- O. J. SimpsonO. J. Simpson sat in the back of a white Ford Bronco on a Los Angeles freeway, and an estimated 95 million people watched it roll along. Commentators called it the most famous ride on American shores since Paul Revere's. The passenger was…
- Johnny GentleJohnny Gentle once toured Scotland with the unknown Silver Beetles. They later became the Beatles.
- John Boardman (art historian)John Boardman took over the Oxford chair once held by vase expert John Beazley. He widened it to Persia and China.
- Janet NelsonAfter her 1967 PhD, Janet Nelson's supervisor reportedly told a colleague not to speak of her.
- Akira ToriyamaAkira Toriyama, the Japanese manga artist behind Dragon Ball, made his final contribution to that story by changing one drawing. In chapter 103 of Dragon Ball Super, the warrior Piccolo is shown departing. Toriyama instructed his…
- Liam PayneLiam Payne, the English singer and songwriter who lived from 1993 to 2024, once performed in front of 26,000 people at a Wolverhampton Wanderers football match. He was still a child, and almost nobody beyond his home area knew his name.…
- Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman won the 2002 economics Nobel without ever taking an economics course.
- Yoshitaka MurayamaYoshitaka Murayama pitched Suikoden using a Chinese novel his boss might know.
- Jan AssmannEgyptologist Jan Assmann later admitted he no longer held his famous theory of monotheism in its original form.
- Richard V. AllenReagan's first National Security Advisor resigned after a check was found in an office safe.
- William AndersWilliam Anders fled Japanese bombers as a boy, then photographed Earth from the Moon.
- Dikembe MutomboDikembe Mutombo came to Georgetown to become a doctor, not a basketball star. A coach changed those plans entirely.
- Alexei NavalnyAlexei Navalny was screaming on a plane because he knew he was dying. He was poisoned with Novichok in 2020.
- Mário ZagalloMário Zagallo was the first person to win the World Cup as both a player and a manager. He led Brazil to the 1970 title.
- Salvatore SchillaciSalvatore Schillaci, known to Italians as Totò, ended the 1990 World Cup ranked above Lothar Matthäus and Diego Maradona as the best player of the tournament. Almost nobody saw that coming. He was a striker from a poor family in Palermo,…
- Hassan NasrallahHassan Nasrallah, the third secretary-general of Hezbollah, was buried in a secret location after his death, and his public funeral came only on the 23rd of February 2025. Estimates of the crowd that filled Beirut that day run from 450,000…
- Quincy JonesQuincy Jones taped a sign to the entrance of a recording studio in 1985, and it read "Check Your Ego at the Door." Behind that door waited most of the major American recording artists of the day. Jones needed every one of them to work as…
- Jim SimonsJim Simons, born James Harris Simons, once explained his dislike of publicity by borrowing a line from Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm. "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies. That's kind…
- Ratan TataRatan Tata spent three days standing outside the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel while an armed operation played out inside. The attack came in November 2008, carried out by terrorists from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Many lives were…
- Edward Jay EpsteinAs a graduate student, Edward Jay Epstein published a 1966 book criticizing the Warren Commission.
- Thomas P. StaffordApollo 10's lunar module spun out of control after Thomas Stafford flew it within nine miles of the Moon.
- Franz BeckenbauerFranz Beckenbauer won the World Cup as a captain, then again as a manager.