Curated playlist
American Freemasons
- Mark TwainMark Twain predicted he would die with Halley's Comet, and he did. He died the day after it passed closest to the Sun.
- Clark GableA Warner Bros. executive once rejected Clark Gable because his ears were too big. He said Gable looked like an ape.
- Donn F. EiseleDonn Eisele was in a hospital on January 27, 1966, exactly a year before the Apollo 1 fire.
- Louis B. MayerLouis B. Mayer pushed a junk cart as a boy, then became America's highest-paid man.
- Gus GrissomDoctors nearly cut Gus Grissom from astronaut selection because he had hay fever.
- Jack L. WarnerJack Warner once rushed onstage at the Oscars and took a trophy that was not his. The prize was for Casablanca.
- John WayneJohn Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison and got his new name from a dog.
- William WylerDirector William Wyler once made Henry Fonda do forty takes of one scene. His only note was the word again.
- Buzz AldrinBuzz Aldrin's first words on the Moon were "Beautiful view." Years later he was selling used cars.
- Wally SchirraAstronaut Wally Schirra refused Mission Control's request to wear helmets.
- Carl LaemmleCarl Laemmle paid to bring hundreds of Jews out of Nazi Germany.
- Scottie PippenScottie Pippen got no college scholarship offers, yet he ended up with six championship rings.
- Joseph SmithJoseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was held in a jailer's bedroom in Carthage, Illinois, on the 27th of June 1844. That day an armed mob with blackened faces stormed the building. Smith took the attackers for his…
- Benjamin FranklinIn 1728, a 22-year-old printer named Benjamin Franklin sat down and wrote his own epitaph. He pictured his body as the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and its lettering and gilding stripped away. It would lie in the earth as…
- Henry FordHenry Ford's Model T came in black because black paint dried quickest. Earlier Model Ts also came in red.
- Shaquille O'NealShaquille O'Neal twice broke steel backboard supports with his dunks. The NBA then redesigned its equipment.
- Edgar MitchellApollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell had a spiritual awakening on his way home from the Moon.
- Brigham YoungBrigham Young died in Salt Lake City on the 29th of August 1877, and his last words were a name repeated three times. "Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!" The man he called for was Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, who had been…
- Charles LindberghCharles Lindbergh stared at a huge field of glowing lights near Paris in May 1927 and took it for a giant industrial complex. He had just flown alone across the Atlantic, and the airfield he was hunting was not on his map. All he knew was…
- 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…
- Colonel SandersHarland David Sanders, known around the world as Colonel Sanders, was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville wearing a white suit and a black western string tie. It was the outfit he had worn in public for the last twenty years of his…
- Nathan Bedford ForrestNathan Bedford Forrest joined the Confederate Army as a private and left as a lieutenant general.
- Steve WozniakSteve Wozniak, nicknamed Woz, built his first computer in June 1971. A newspaper reporter destroyed it by stepping on the power supply cable. He had built the machine with his friend Bill Fernandez as a self-taught engineering project. It…