Curated playlist
American people of Swedish descent
- David LynchDavid Lynch was born on the 20th of January 1946 at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, Montana, the son of a USDA research scientist and an English-language tutor. He died on the 16th of January 2025, four days before what would have been…
- Wes AndersonWes Anderson grew up in Houston, Texas, making silent films on his father's Super 8 camera, casting his brothers and friends as the talent. His first ambition, he has said, was not to direct movies at all but to become a writer. That early…
- Joan CrawfordJoan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, built one of the most tenacious careers in Hollywood history from a foundation of almost nothing. Her father abandoned the family when she was ten months old. Her schooling…
- Brie LarsonBrie Larson walked onto the stage of the 89th Academy Awards, accepted the envelope, and deliberately did not clap during a standing ovation for the winner. The silence said everything she chose not to say. It was a moment that captured…
- Tom BradyTom Brady arrived at the New England Patriots' old Foxboro Stadium as a sixth-round draft pick, carrying a pizza box and wearing the look of someone who had something to prove. Patriots owner Robert Kraft remembered the moment: Brady…
- Buzz AldrinBuzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 on the 21st of July 1969 (UTC), nineteen minutes after Neil Armstrong first touched the surface. His first words, spoken into the silence of the lunar landscape, were simply: "Beautiful view."…
- Brian WilsonBrian Douglas Wilson was born on the 20th of June, 1942, in Inglewood, California, and by the age of two he could reproduce a melody after hearing only a few verses of a march song. That detail, remembered by his father, points to…
- George AkerlofGeorge Akerlof walked into a used car lot and saw the entire economy differently. The year was 1970, and the article he published that year, "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," asked a deceptively simple…
- Jonathan FranzenJonathan Franzen was born on the 17th of August, 1959, in Western Springs, Illinois, and by the time he was in his early forties, he had managed to get his glasses stolen off his face at a London book launch party. That happened in 2010,…
- Rian JohnsonRian Craig Johnson was born on the 17th of December 1973, in Silver Spring, Maryland, and grew up to make one of the most divisive films in modern blockbuster history. He is the filmmaker who took charge of a billion-dollar franchise…
- Rasmus B. AndersonRasmus Bjørn Anderson was born on the 12th of January 1846 in the Town of Albion, Dane County, Wisconsin, to Norwegian immigrant parents who had crossed the Atlantic as part of a small band of Quaker sympathizers. His father died of…
- Mark HamillMark Richard Hamill was born on the 25th of September 1951, in Oakland, California, the son of a U.S. Navy captain who dismissed his son's passion for movies and comic books as something a boy should outgrow. That boy would go on to play…
- Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson grew up on a farm outside Selma, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, on land his family had worked since the 1870s. That is not a minor biographical footnote. It is the thread that runs through almost everything he…
- Jessica MeirJessica Ulrika Meir grew up watching Space Shuttle missions on television in rural Maine, where, as she put it, the stars shone so brightly they felt almost within reach. She knew no one who worked for NASA. She had no inside track. What…
- Joakim NoahJoakim Simon Noah was born in New York on the 25th of February, 1985. He played professional basketball for more than a decade. Though most of his career unfolded in the United States, he wore the colors of the France national team. At the…