Curated playlist

American atheists

Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino turned down Speed and Men in Black to write Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam.
H. P. LovecraftH. P. Lovecraft died in 1937 virtually unknown to readers. His monsters later became global touchstones.
Katharine HepburnKatharine Hepburn bought out her own studio contract after theater owners called her box office poison.
Marilyn MonroeAn unimpressed studio head signed Marilyn Monroe specifically to keep her away from a rival studio.
Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
Jack NicholsonJack Nicholson improvised one line in the 1980 horror film The Shining, and it was not in the script.
Clint EastwoodPresident Reagan quoted Clint Eastwood's line "Go ahead, make my day" to Congress.
Leon FestingerPsychologist Leon Festinger joined a doomsday group to see what believers do when the prophecy fails.
Tyler, the CreatorAt the age of seven, Tyler Gregory Okonma, known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, was already making albums that did not exist. He pulled the covers out of CD cases and made new ones for imaginary records, each with a tracklist and…
Jack LondonJack London lost four front teeth to scurvy in the Klondike. It also gave him the wolf dog of The Call of the Wild.
Bruce LeeBruce Lee appeared in his first film as a baby. By 18, he had been in 20 films in Hong Kong.
Sammy Davis Jr.Sammy Davis Jr. once answered a simple golf question with a line that became his signature. Playing a round with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. Davis replied, "Handicap?" and then went on: "Talk about handicap. I'm a…
Rudolf CarnapRudolf Carnap argued that most deep philosophical questions were meaningless.
Jim JonesJim Jones was an American preacher who founded the Peoples Temple. On the 18th of November 1978, 912 people died at his jungle commune in Jonestown, Guyana. Among them were 304 children. Jones called the event "revolutionary suicide," a…
Billy JoelWilliam Martin Joel, better known as Billy Joel, left Hicksville High School in 1967 without a diploma. He had missed a crucial English exam after playing a late-night gig at a piano bar, where he earned money to help support his mother…
Steve DitkoSteve Ditko covered Spider-Man's face because it looked too young. He reasoned a full mask would add mystery.
ND StevensonA class assignment at art school became the webcomic Nimona. It later became a National Book Award finalist.
Elizabeth OlsenElizabeth Olsen is an American actress who once considered dropping her surname. Her middle name, Chase, was the alternative she had in mind. The reason was simple. Her older sisters, the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, were already…
Marvin MinskyIn 1951, Marvin Minsky built the first randomly wired neural network learning machine. He called it SNARC.
Frank ZappaAs a boy, Frank Zappa spread mercury across his bedroom floor with a hammer. His father brought it home from work.
Eugene WignerPhysicist Eugene Wigner found that neutron radiation could make the graphite in a reactor swell.
John Forbes Nash Jr.John Forbes Nash Jr., an American mathematician, once mailed letters to embassies in Washington, D.C., announcing that he was founding a government. He signed them John Nash, Emperor of Antarctica, a title he believed he was in line to…
James WatsonJames Watson put his name to a scientific paper that fills just two pages of the journal Nature, pages 737 and 738 of volume 171. Watson, an American molecular biologist, wrote it with Francis Crick in 1953. Its subject was DNA, and its…
Jack BlackJack Black is an American actor, comedian, singer and musician, and in 2025 he attached his name to the shortest song ever to reach the Billboard Hot 100. "Steve's Lava Chicken", from A Minecraft Movie, lasts just 34 seconds. It edged out…
Maxwell AndersonMaxwell Anderson was fired from Whittier College for backing a jailed student.
Claude ShannonClaude Shannon built a mechanical mouse that learned its way through a maze. He named the 1950 machine Theseus.
Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" in a 1941 story, thinking it was just a natural term.
Herbert A. SimonHerbert Simon argued that people don't pick the best option, they settle for good enough. He called it satisficing.
Yann LeCunYann LeCun spent a postdoc year under Geoffrey Hinton, then shared a Turing Award with him.
George SorosAt 14, George Soros posed as the Christian godson of a government official to survive the Nazi occupation of Hungary.
Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce's last known letter said he was leaving for an unknown destination. He then vanished at age 71.
George GamowGeorge Gamow added Hans Bethe's name to a physics paper as a prank. Bethe had not written a word of it.
Stephen PaddockStephen Paddock spent the night of the 1st of October 2017 in a hotel room above a crowd of about 22,000 people. They had gathered for a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. By the end of that night, 60 of them were dead and…
Eddie VedderEddie Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III on the 23rd of December 1964 in Evanston, Illinois. The surname the world knows him by was not the one he was born with. He grew up to become the lead vocalist, primary lyricist and one of…
Joss WhedonJoss Whedon earned more from a web musical than from directing The Avengers.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner proposed steering missiles with pigeons. The birds pecked at a screen showing the target.
Amos TverskyAmos Tversky ran toward a live explosive to save a frozen soldier. The shrapnel stayed in his body for life.
Erich FrommErich Fromm argued that falling in love is not love at all. His 1956 book The Art of Loving became a bestseller.
Chelsea ManningChelsea Manning is an American activist and whistleblower who, as a young Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, copied nearly 750,000 classified or sensitive military and diplomatic documents and passed them to WikiLeaks. To carry the files…
Phoebe BridgersPhoebe Bridgers ended her Saturday Night Live performance by smashing her guitar on a fake stage monitor. Moments earlier she had played "Kyoto" and "I Know the End" for a national television audience. Bridgers was born in Pasadena,…
Jodie FosterJodie Foster was a teenager when she acted as a French interpreter at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival. The film was Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or that year, and the journalists in the room came away impressed. By…
John RomeroJohn Romero hid his own voice and severed head inside Doom II. The final boss's reversed roar was his voice.
John McCarthy (computer scientist)John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" in the summer of 1956. He also created the language Lisp.
Robert EttingerA 1931 Amazing Stories tale about a frozen professor stayed with 12-year-old Robert Ettinger.
Judea PearlJudea Pearl gave computers a way to reason when facts are incomplete.
Richard B. SpencerRichard B. Spencer led a torch-lit march in Charlottesville in May 2017.
Richard LesterRichard Lester started college at 15 to study psychology, not film. MTV later called him Father of the Music Video.
Linus PaulingLinus Pauling left high school without a diploma. He later won two unshared Nobel Prizes, a first in history.
Linda RonstadtLinda Ronstadt sings harmony on Under African Skies, a track on Paul Simon's album Graceland, and its second verse contains a line written for her. The line reads, "Take this child, Lord, from Tucson, Arizona...." Simon's tribute suits a…