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Curated playlist

20th-century deaths from tuberculosis

  • George OrwellGeorge Orwell was a pen name, chosen from a shortlist in 1932. He was born Eric Arthur Blair in British India.
  • Vivien LeighWhen Vivien Leigh died in 1967, every central London theater went dark for an hour.
  • Harilal GandhiHarilal Gandhi appeared at his father's funeral in such poor health that few of the mourners recognized him. He was the eldest son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi, born into a family whose name is known across the world. Yet his own…
  • Anton ChekhovAnton Chekhov's body traveled to Moscow in a railway car meant for oysters. The detail offended his friend Maxim Gorky.
  • Lev VygotskyLev Vygotsky's work was banned in the Soviet Union after he died at 37. His ideas on learning still spread worldwide.
  • Franz KafkaFranz Kafka asked his friend Max Brod to burn everything he had written. Brod refused.
  • Erwin SchrödingerErwin Schrödinger formulated his wave equation at a Swiss sanatorium in Arosa. He was ill with tuberculosis.
  • Gavrilo PrincipGavrilo Princip weighed only about 40 kilograms when he died in a Habsburg prison on the 28th of April 1918. Tuberculosis and prolonged malnutrition had worn the Bosnian Serb student down to almost nothing. Nearly four years earlier, this…
  • Thomas AllinsonIn 1891, physician Thomas Allinson walked from Edinburgh to London in fifteen days.
  • Muhammad Ali JinnahHow did Muhammad Ali Jinnah, once called an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, end up creating Pakistan?
  • El LissitzkyEl Lissitzky made a tank poster while dying of tuberculosis in 1941. The artist urged Soviet people to build more tanks.

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