Curated playlist
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
- Stephen KingA minivan hit Stephen King on a Maine road in June 1999. A dog in the back distracted the driver.
- 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.
- William McKinleyWilliam McKinley won the presidency in 1896 campaigning from his front porch. Crowds came by train to Canton, Ohio.
- James StewartJames Stewart gave his Oscar to his father for the shop window.
- Robert MitchumRobert Mitchum, the American film actor and singer, gave critic Roger Ebert a picture that never faded. Ebert named him his favorite movie star and praised his "deep, laconic voice and his long face and those famous weary eyes." Ebert saw…
- Ulysses S. GrantIn 1859, Ulysses S. Grant freed an enslaved man worth at least $1,000 that he desperately needed.
- Al GoreAl Gore won the 2000 popular vote but lost the presidency by 537 Florida votes.
- Benjamin HarrisonBenjamin Harrison beat Grover Cleveland, then lost the White House back to him.
- Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was slashed with a sword as a boy for refusing to polish a British officer's boots.
- John WayneJohn Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison and got his new name from a dog.
- Woodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson ordered his own supporters to vote against his League of Nations treaty.
- Tom WaitsTom Waits accepted his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 with a joke at his own expense. “They say that I have no hits and I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing!” The man who inducted him, Neil…
- Andrew JohnsonAndrew Johnson kept his presidency by a single Senate vote in May 1868. The Senate fell one vote short of removing him.
- Neil ArmstrongNeil Armstrong's astronaut application came about a week late, until a colleague slipped it into the pile.
- Harry S. TrumanHarry Truman became president knowing nothing about the atomic bomb. He had been vice president for only 82 days.
- Jamie Lee CurtisJamie Lee Curtis accepted a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September 2021, and she did not sound like a person winding down. "I feel so alive, like I'm this 14-year-old person just…
- Bill GatesBill Gates and Paul Allen wrote software for a computer they did not have. Their Altair demo worked the first time.
- George Armstrong CusterGeorge Armstrong Custer, born on the 5th of December 1839, graduated from West Point in 1861 ranked 34th out of 34. In four years at the academy he piled up 726 demerits, one of the worst conduct records in its history. A roommate observed…
- Carrie FisherCarrie Fisher once asked to be reported as drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.
- Irvin McDowellIrvin McDowell told politicians his troops weren't ready, and they sent him to fight anyway.
- Rosa ParksRosa Parks was forty-two years old on the evening she stayed in her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, and she spent decades insisting that weariness had nothing to do with it. She rejected the picture of herself as old or physically worn…
- Maxwell AndersonMaxwell Anderson was fired from Whittier College for backing a jailed student.
- James M. BuchananEconomist James M. Buchanan argued that politicians act from self-interest like everyone else.
- Horace GreeleyHorace Greeley could not breathe for the first twenty minutes of his life. He later founded the New-York Tribune.
- James IrwinAfter walking on the Moon, astronaut James Irwin spent years searching for Noah's Ark.
- Amanda SeyfriedAmanda Seyfried has headlined films that together took in more than $2.4 billion at the worldwide box office. In 2022, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She holds a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe…
- Leonidas PolkLeonidas Polk died with three small books in his pocket, each titled Balm for the Weary and Wounded. Each had been inscribed to a different general, Johnston, Hardee and Hood in turn, “with the compliments of Lieutenant General Leonidas…
- Richard Taylor (Confederate general)Richard Taylor became a Confederate lieutenant general without ever attending a military academy.
- George F. KennanGeorge Kennan spent decades disowning the Cold War policy he made famous. Containment, he said, was not military.
- James Earl RayJames Earl Ray escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary on the 23rd of April 1967 by hiding in a truck that carried bread out of the prison bakery. Thirty-one years later, on that same date, he died. In the years between, he became the…
- Albert FishAlbert Fish was caught because of a letter he mailed in November 1934 to the mother of a girl he had killed six years earlier. Mrs. Budd could not read, so her son read the pages aloud to her. The letter carried no signature. Police traced…
- David FarragutLashed to the mast so he would not fall, David Farragut led a fleet into a mined bay.
- Nathan Bedford ForrestNathan Bedford Forrest joined the Confederate Army as a private and left as a lieutenant general.