Curated category
20th-century American non-fiction writers
- John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963, while riding in a presidential motorcade.
- Donald TrumpDonald Trump was born on the 14th of June 1946 at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York, the fourth child of a family that was already wealthy.
- George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush carried a question with him for most of his adult life. Shot down over the Pacific in 1944, watching both crewmates die while he…
- Barack ObamaBarack Obama was born on the 4th of August 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, making him the only person to become…
- Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest on the 14th of October 1912, while on his way to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee.
- Jon ParelesJon Pareles was born in 1953 within the quiet borders of Connecticut. His early life unfolded through the keys of a piano and the mouthpiece of a jazz flute.
- John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a local produce market to survive. During the Great Depression, he and his first wife lived on fish and crabs he…
- Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
- Langston HughesLangston Hughes died on the 22nd of May 1967, and beneath the floor of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, his ashes rest under an…
- Roger EbertRoger Ebert typed his last blog post two days before he died on the 4th of April 2013, signing off with words that could have come from any of his 46 years…
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi was born on the 29th of October 1938 in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, into a Krymchak Jewish family, and by the time he was a teenager in Brooklyn…
- 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.
- Joseph StiglitzJoseph Stiglitz grew up in Gary, Indiana, a steel town whose economic fortunes would later give shape to many of the questions he spent a career trying to…
- Tom ShoneTom Shone spent five years as the Sunday Times film critic, from 1994 to 1999, sitting in darkened cinemas and wrestling with questions that most critics of…
- Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was born on the 19th of July, 1898, in Berlin, into an upper-middle-class Jewish family well integrated into German society.
- Linda McCartneyLinda McCartney was born Linda Louise Eastman in Manhattan on the 24th of September 1941, and by the time she died on the 17th of April 1998, she had been a…
- Tupac ShakurTupac Amaru Shakur was born on the 16th of June 1971, in East Harlem, Manhattan, not yet carrying the name the world would know him by.
- Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman died on the 16th of November 2006, and his last column ran in The Wall Street Journal the very next day.
- Arthur MendelArthur Mendel entered the world on the 6th of June 1905 in Boston. He grew up in a city rich with musical history before he ever stepped into a concert hall.
- Joseph CampbellJoseph Campbell once told a packed lecture hall that if you follow your bliss, a track that has been there all the while will open up beneath your feet.
- Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in October 1968 at age 21, speaking little English and carrying little money.
- Edmund WilsonEdmund Wilson Jr. sent a postcard. Not to a friend, not to an editor, but to strangers who wrote asking for his time. The card listed, in exhaustive detail…
- Joseph HellerJoseph Heller was born on the 1st of May, 1923, in Coney Island, Brooklyn, to poor Jewish immigrant parents from Russia.
- Paul SamuelsonPaul Samuelson stood at a lectern in a University of Chicago classroom on the 2nd of January, 1932, and later said that was the exact moment he was born as…
- Charles A. BeardCharles Austin Beard was born on the 27th of November 1874 in Knightstown, Indiana, and by the time he died in 1948, he had become the most controversial…
- Daniel YerginDaniel Howard Yergin was born on the 6th of February 1947 in Los Angeles, California, and by the time he finished his fourth book, he had written what would…
- W. E. B. Du BoisW. E. B. Du Bois died on the 27th of August 1963 in Accra, Ghana, at the age of 95. The very next day, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in…
- George Dyson (science historian)George Dyson was born on the 26th of March 1953 into a family of remarkable minds. His father was the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
- Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman was born on the 5th of March, 1934, in Tel Aviv, while it was still the British Mandate of Palestine. He would go on to win the Nobel…
- James M. BuchananJames McGill Buchanan Jr. was born on the 3rd of October 1919 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in a farmhouse with no indoor plumbing and no electricity.
- George SorosGeorge Soros was born György Schwartz on the 12th of August 1930 in Budapest, into a prosperous Jewish family that would spend the next decade and a half…
- Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce closed his last known letter with a single sentence: "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination." He wrote those words in…
- Michael CrichtonMichael Crichton stood 6 feet 9 inches tall, and he spent much of his life feeling out of place because of it. That restlessness never left him.
- Dennis Kennedy (author)Dennis Kennedy was born on the 1st of November 1940 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied literature, philosophy, and history at the University of San Francisco…
- Fletcher PrattMurray Fletcher Pratt stood before a grand jury in February 1916 after police arrested him for stealing less than twenty-five dollars from newspaper cash…
- B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner died on the 18th of August 1990 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just ten days after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the American…
- David BrinGlen David Brin was born on the 6th of October 1950 in Glendale, California. His parents were Selma and Herb Brin, who raised him as a Jewish child.
- Ernest BeckerErnest Becker was born on the 27th of September 1924 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents were Jewish immigrants who raised him before he joined the…
- Wilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was born on the 24th of March 1897 in Dobzau, Galicia, a corner of Austria-Hungary that is now part of Ukraine, and he died on the 3rd of…
- Elliot ForbesElliot Forbes entered the world on the 20th of August 1917, into a family that defined Boston's cultural elite. His father Edward Forbes directed Harvard's…
- Kareem Abdul-JabbarOn the road against Utah on the 5th of April 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar caught a pass from Magic Johnson and rose into his skyhook from 15 feet.
- Phil JacksonPhil Jackson holds eleven NBA championships as a head coach, a record no other coach in league history has matched. Born on the 17th of September, 1945, in…
- Elinor OstromElinor Ostrom was born in Los Angeles in 1933, and she died on the 12th of June 2012, the same day her last article was published.
- Roger LowensteinRoger Lowenstein grew up in Larchmont, New York, the son of a Columbia University law professor who spent his career writing critiques of American finance.
- Bruce CattonBruce Catton grew up in Benzonia, Michigan, listening to old men describe what it felt like to march into battle. He was born on the 9th of October, 1899…
- Walter LippmannWalter Lippmann was born on the Upper East Side of New York City on the 23rd of September 1889, and by the time he died eighty-five years later, he had done…
- James BurnhamJames Burnham was born on the 22nd of November 1905 in Chicago, Illinois. His father Claude George Burnham worked as an executive for the Burlington Railroad…
- Alan WattsAlan Wilson Watts was born on the 6th of January 1915 in Chislehurst, Kent, into a middle-class household at Rowan Tree Cottage, 3 Holbrook Lane, where his…
- Charley RosenCharley Rosen grew up in The Bronx with a body built for basketball and a mind built for argument. By the time he died in Kingston, New York, on the 13th of…