Curated playlist
United States Navy officers
- Arthur E. BrysonArthur E. Bryson and Henry J. Kelley developed an early version of backpropagation.
- Roger B. ChaffeeRoger Chaffee passed his Navy pilot's eye exam only because a doctor let him retake it the next morning.
- Robert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy won the California Democratic primary on the 5th of June 1968, and around midnight a gunman shot him. Kennedy died 25 hours later. The shooter was Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian who acted in retaliation for…
- Johnny CarsonUri Geller failed on Johnny Carson's show, and it made him famous. Carson had asked James Randi for help.
- Gene CernanGene Cernan wrote his daughter's initials in the lunar dust before leaving the Moon. He was the last person there.
- 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…
- Neil ArmstrongNeil Armstrong's astronaut application came about a week late, until a colleague slipped it into the pile.
- John Young (astronaut)John Young walked on the Moon and later commanded the first Space Shuttle mission. He is the only person to do both.
- Kenneth LayKenneth Lay, the founder of Enron, was pronounced dead at 3:11 in the morning at Aspen Valley Hospital in Colorado. Officers from the Pitkin County Sheriff's Department had been called to his house in Snowmass at 1:41 that same morning. It…
- James TobinJames Tobin proposed a tax on currency trading to throw sand in the wheels of speculation.
- Edgar MitchellApollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell had a spiritual awakening on his way home from the Moon.
- L. Sprague de CampL. Sprague de Camp turned the word extraterrestrial into a noun. He also coined E.T. in a 1939 magazine article.
- Joseph Francis SheaJoe Shea's 1962 analysis steered NASA toward its Moon landing plan. He had joined the agency only months earlier.
- Richard F. Gordon Jr.Richard Gordon orbited the Moon 45 times on Apollo 12 but never walked on it.
- James Iredell WaddellJames Iredell Waddell fired the last shots of the Civil War in Arctic waters. He fought on after land battles ended.
- George HalasGeorge Halas skipped the SS Eastland in 1915 because he was running late. The ship capsized, killing 844 passengers.
- Erik PrinceErik Prince, the founder of the private military contractor Blackwater, once defended his company with a line that has followed him ever since. "No one under our care was ever killed or injured. We kept them safe, all the while we had 30…
- Daniel Patrick MoynihanDaniel Patrick Moynihan once shined shoes in Penn Station, which now has a train hall named for him.
- Maxime FagetEngineer Max Faget decided a spacecraft returning from orbit should look nothing like an aircraft.
- Red AuerbachBoston restaurants once banned cigar smoking for everyone except Red Auerbach.