James Hodgson (1915 - 2012)

James Day Hodgson (December 3, 1915 – November 28, 2012) was an American politician. He served as the Secretary of Labor and the Ambassador to Japan. James Hodgson was born in Dawson, Minnesota, the son of Fred Arthur Hodgson, a lumberyard owner, and his wife, Casaraha M. (née Day). He graduated from the University of Minnesota […]

Roberta Peters (1930 - 2017)

Roberta Peters was born Roberta Peterman in The Bronx, New York City, the only child of Ruth (née Hersch), a milliner, and Solomon Peterman, a shoe salesman. Her family was Jewish. Encouraged by tenor Jan Peerce, she started her music studies at age 13 with William Herman, a voice teacher known for his exacting and […]

Andy Marte (1983 - 2017)

Andy Marte signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Braves at the age of 16 in 2000, and succeeded at every level of the farm system. He was selected to appear in the All-Star Futures Game in 2003 and 2004. In 2005 Marte hit .275 with 20 home runs and 74 runs batted in […]

Loalwa Braz (1953 - 2017)

Loalwa Braz was born in Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro to a family of musicians: her father was an orchestra leader and her mother, a popular and classical pianist. She learned to play the piano at the age of four and started singing at 13. She lived in Paris from 1985 and in Geneva from 2010 […]

Miguel Ferrer (1955 - 2017)

Miguel Ferrer Miguel Ferrer, the actor best known for starring as Owen Granger on “NCIS: Los Angeles,” died Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, of cancer, according to multiple news sources. He was 61. Ferrer’s other notable roles were as FBI pathologist Albert Rosenfield in the cult classic television series “Twin Peaks” and as Vice President Rodriguez […]

Mary Tyler Moore (1936 - 2017)

Mary Tyler Moore Mary Tyler Moore, one of the most beloved and honored actresses in television history, died Wednesday in a Greenwich, Connecticut, hospital. The star of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was 80. Moore, who had been the CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, was diagnosed with […]

Gorden Kaye (1941 - 2017)

Gorden Kaye had appeared in a radio play directed by Alan Ayckbourn and also in a television play from Manchester. Ayckbourn suggested that he audition for the Bolton Octagon Theatre; he was offered a contract and his roles there included Pishchik in The Cherry Orchard followed by roles in The Homecoming, The Imaginary Invalid, Luther […]

Butch Trucks (1947 - 2017)

One of Trucks’ first bands was local Jacksonville band The Vikings, who made one 7-inch record in 1964. Another early band was The 31st of February which formed and broke up in 1968. This group’s lineup eventually included both Duane Allman and Gregg Allman. They recorded a cover of “Morning Dew”, by 1960s folk singer […]

Ernest Shackleton (1874 - 1922)

Ernest Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS (/ˈʃækəltən/; 15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was a polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic, and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Kilkea, Athy, County Kildare, Ireland, Shackleton and his Anglo-Irish family moved […]

Frank Wild (1873 - 1939)

Frank Wild was born in Skelton-in-Cleveland, North Riding of Yorkshire, the eldest of eight sons[2] and three daughters born to schoolteacher Benjamin Wild and his seamstress wife Mary (née Cook). The family came from Skelton close to Marton, birthplace of Captain James Cook, to whom the family claimed ancestry through Mrs Wild. Her father was […]

Frank Worsley (1872 - 1943)

Frank Arthur Worsley DSO OBE RD (22 February 1872 – 1 February 1943) was a New Zealand sailor and explorer who served on Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916, as captain of the Endurance. He also served in the Royal Navy Reserve during the First World War. Born in Akaroa, New Zealand, on 22 February […]

James Wordie (1889 - 1962)

James Wordie was born at Partick, Glasgow, the son of John Wordie, a carting contractor, and Jane Catherine Mann. He studied at The Glasgow Academy and obtained a BSc in geology from University of Glasgow. He graduated from St John’s College, Cambridge as an advanced student in 1912, and began research work. His occupation brought […]

Frank Hurley (1885 - 1962)

Frank Hurley was the third of five children to parents Edward and Margaret Hurley and was raised in Glebe, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. He ran away from home at the age of 13 to work on the Lithgow steel mill, returning home two years later to study at the local technical school and attend […]

Tom Crean (1877 - 1938)

Thomas “Tom” Crean (20 July 1877 – 27 July 1938), is an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer from Annascaul in County Kerry. He was a member of three major expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Captain Scott’s 1911–13 Terra Nova Expedition. This saw the race to reach the South Pole […]

Kathleen Scott (1878 - 1947)

Born Edith Agnes Kathleen Bruce at Carlton in Lindrick, Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire, she was the youngest of eleven children of Canon Lloyd Stuart Bruce (1829–1886) and Jane Skene (d. 1880). Kathleen Scott attended St George’s School, Edinburgh then the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1900 to 1902. She then enrolled at the Académie Colarossi […]

Robert Falcon Scott (1868 - 1912)

Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO, RN (6 June 1868 – 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–1904, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–1913. On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S […]

James Ritty (1836 - 1918)

James Jacob Ritty (29 October 1836 – 29 March 1918), saloonkeeper and inventor, opened his first saloon in Dayton, Ohio in 1871, billing himself as a “Dealer in Pure Whiskies, Fine Wines, and Cigars.” Some of Ritty’s employees would take the customers’ money and pocket it, rather than depositing the cash that was meant to […]

Sam Simon (1955 - 2015)

Samuel Michael “Sam” Simon (June 6, 1955 – March 8, 2015) was an American director, producer, writer, animal rights activist, boxing manager, tournament poker player, and philanthropist, most noted as co-developer of the television series The Simpsons. While at Stanford University, Simon worked as a newspaper cartoonist and after graduating became a storyboard artist at […]

John Shedd (1850 - 1926)

John Graves Shedd (July 20, 1850 – October 22, 1926) was the second president and chairman of the board of Marshall Field & Company. Born on a New Hampshire farm, John Shedd arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1871 and began working as a stock clerk for Marshall Field. By 1901, he had worked his way […]

Andrea Lawrence (1932 - 2009)

Andrea Lawrence was born in Rutland County, Vermont, to an alpine skiing family that owned and operated the Pico Peak ski area. At age 14 she made the national team, and at age 15 competed in the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where she placed eighth in the slalom, and sixth at the […]

Billy Vessels (1931 - 2001)

Billy Vessels led the Oklahoma Sooners to the national championship in 1950, scoring 15 touchdowns. In 1952 he won the Heisman Trophy. Playing under the legendary Bud Wilkinson, he became the first of five Sooners, followed by Steve Owens (1969), Billy Sims (1978), Jason White (2003) and Sam Bradford (2008), to win the award. During […]

Johnny Lattner (1932 - 2016)

Johnny Lattner starred in both football and basketball at Fenwick High School where he graduated in 1950. Fenwick, along with other Chicago-area Catholic schools, was a breeding ground for Notre Dame and Big Ten football programs, and Lattner held offers from top college football programs across the country. He initially considered the University of Michigan […]

Donald Lash (1912 - 1994)

Donald Lash (August 15, 1912 – September 19, 1994) was an American long-distance runner who won 12 national titles from 1934 to 1940, including seven consecutive men’s national cross-country championships, and who set a world’s record for the two-mile run in 1936. Born in Bluffton, Indiana, Lash grew up in Auburn, Indiana, where he graduated […]

Lefty Gomez (1908 - 1989)

Lefty Gomez made his major league debut on April 29, 1930. He pitched in only 15 games and finished the season with a 2-5 win-loss record, a 5.55 earned run average (ERA). Coming into the 1931 season, Gomez had good pitching velocity, but the Yankees were concerned about the pitcher’s slender frame of 6 feet […]

Waite Hoyt (1899 - 1984)

Waite Hoyt was born in Brooklyn, New York to Addison and Louise Benedum Hoyt and attended Erasmus Hall High School. Despite being a Dodgers fan, he was signed to a professional contract by New York Giants manager John McGraw when he was but 15. Because of his extreme youth, he was immediately nicknamed “The Schoolboy […]

Jerry Hoyt (1970 - 1970)

Gerald F. Hoyt (January 29, 1929 – July 10, 1955) was American racing driver from Chicago, mainly competing in the National Championship. He died in 1955 after crashing in a Sprint car race at Oklahoma City. In the 1955 Indianapolis 500 Jerry Hoyt surprised many, including himself, by winning the pole (first starting position) in […]

Thorsten Sellin (1896 - 1994)

Johan Thorsten Sellin (26 October 1896 – 17 September 1994) was a Swedish American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, a penologist and one of the pioneers of scientific criminology. Thorsten Sellin was born in Örnsköldsvik in Västernorrland County, Sweden and came to Canada with his parents when he was 17 years old. He received […]

Edwin Sutherland (1883 - 1950)

Edwin Sutherland’s historical importance rests upon his having introduced (in a 27 December 1939 speech to the American Sociological Association, titled The White Collar Criminal) the concept of white-collar crime, a concept which violated existing prejudices that aristocrats can do no wrong (which was famously expressed in the ancient legal view that a king could […]

Travis Hirschi (1935 - 2017)

Travis Warner Hirschi (April 15, 1935 – January 2, 2017) was an American sociologist and an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Arizona. He helped to develop the modern version of the social control theory of crime and later the self-control theory of crime. Travis Hirschi was born in Rockville, Utah. He attended […]

Jeremy Stone (1935 - 2017)

In 1963, Jeremy Stone began working on an arms control proposal for preventing anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. In 1964-1966 he was a research associate at the Harvard Center for International Affairs (CFIA) where he wrote two books: Containing the Arms Race: Some Specific Proposals (MIT Press, 1966) and Strategic Persuasion: Arms Control Through Dialogue (Columbia […]