Curated playlist
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
- John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy spent hours in the water towing a burned crewman after a destroyer cut his boat in half.
- Jimi HendrixJimi Hendrix's first guitar was a one-string ukulele found in the garbage. He learned by ear to Elvis songs.
- MadonnaMadonna arrived in New York in 1978 with thirty-five dollars. It was her first plane ride and first taxi.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway, only 18, carried Italian soldiers to safety despite being seriously wounded by mortar fire.
- Kate HudsonKate Hudson reached the end of a long awards season in 2025 with a striking comparison. Her first brush with acclaim, she said, had felt like a "shock entrance, or invitation, into this world." This time was different. When you have been…
- Janet JacksonJanet Jackson was seen at the 1983 American Music Awards wearing a hoop earring with a key attached to it. She has worn variations of that earring in music videos and live shows ever since. The pair she wore between 1987 and 1990 is now on…
- Jim HensonJim Henson made the first Kermit from a halved table tennis ball and his mother's old coat.
- Paul SimonPaul Simon, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist, nearly gave one of his best-known songs the wrong name. While writing music for the film The Graduate, he toyed with calling a new song "Mrs. Roosevelt." Art Garfunkel passed the…
- Meghan, Duchess of SussexMeghan, Duchess of Sussex, was eleven years old when she first tried to change how a major company addressed the public. She and her classmates wrote a letter to Procter & Gamble. They urged the company to make a dishwashing-soap…
- L. Ron HubbardL. Ron Hubbard, the American writer who founded Scientology, once told his wife exactly what he wanted from life. In a letter, he declared: "I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form…
- Herbert HooverHerbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, once drew a remark from a Secret Service agent that few presidents have ever earned. The agent put it this way. "I've been traveling with Presidents since Roosevelt and never before…
- Linda McCartneyLinda McCartney was the first woman to put a photograph on the cover of Rolling Stone.
- Jack WhiteJack White, born John Anthony Gillis on the 9th of July 1975, once came close to becoming a Catholic priest. He described the moment to Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes in 2005. A seminary in Wisconsin had accepted him. Then, at the last second,…
- George ClooneyIn 1977, a teenage George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and did not make it past the first round of player cuts. No contract was offered. Clooney, an American actor and filmmaker, would go on to collect two Academy Awards, a…
- Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan posed for the October 2010 cover of Vanity Fair and then made a blunt request. "I want my career back," she told the magazine. She added, "I know that I'm a damn good actress." The plea carried weight because Lohan, an…
- Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass never knew his birthday, so he picked February 14. His mother had called him her Little Valentine.
- Gene VincentGene Vincent's hit "Be-Bop-a-Lula" was supposed to be the B-side. Radio stations played it over the A-side.
- Gwen StefaniGwen Stefani had a hit in 2005 that changed how Americans bought music. Her single “Hollaback Girl” rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It also became the first song downloaded one million times in the United States. The woman…
- Joseph HellerJoseph Heller's novel Catch-22 was first called Catch-18. It was renamed to avoid confusion with Mila 18.
- James TaylorJames Taylor, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist, was the last act on the bill at the Newport Folk Festival on the 20th of July 1969. Thousands of fans had stayed through the rain just to hear him. He got through only 15 minutes.…
- 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…
- Kevin SpaceyLate in the 1995 thriller Se7en, Kevin Spacey walks into the story as the serial killer John Doe, and most of the audience had no idea he was coming. His name was missing from the opening credits. It was missing from the film's…
- John MellencampJohn Mellencamp has fourteen top 20 hits in the United States, yet one of his proudest moments came from a different kind of endorsement. In 2015, at a gala honoring Bob Dylan, Mellencamp had performed Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" as a…
- Billy PrestonBilly Preston got his name on a Beatles single. The 1969 "Get Back" was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston."
- Tommy RoeTommy Roe's song "Sheila" got its name because his Aunt Sheila was visiting. It began as a poem for Freda.
- Benedict ArnoldBenedict Arnold is the one general missing from the victory monument at Saratoga. The monument has four niches. Three hold statues of Generals Gates, Schuyler and Morgan. The fourth niche is pointedly empty. The battle that monument…
- Richard LesterRichard Lester started college at 15 to study psychology, not film. MTV later called him Father of the Music Video.