Robert Schommer (1946 - 2001)

Robert A. Schommer (December 9, 1946 – December 12, 2001) was an American observational astronomer. He was a professor at Rutgers University and later a project scientist for the U.S. office of the Gemini Observatory Project at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. He was known for his wide range of research interests, […]

Roy Raymond (1947 - 1993)

Roy Larson Raymond (April 15, 1947 – August 26, 1993) was an American businessman who founded the Victoria’s Secret lingerie retail store. Raymond was an alumnus of Tufts University and Stanford Graduate School of Business. Roy Raymond worked for the Vicks company in their marketing department. On June 12, 1977, he opened the first Victoria’s Secret store at […]

Jamey Rodemeyer (1997 - 2011)

Jamey Rodemeyer (March 21, 1997 – September 18, 2011) was a bisexual teenager, known for his activism against homophobia and his videos on YouTube to help victims of homophobic bullying. His suicide was attributed to constant bullying, and led to the proposal of new cyberbullying legislation. Jamey Rodemeyer lived with his parents, Tim and Tracy Rodemeyer, […]

Charles Rocket (1949 - 2005)

Charles Rocket appeared from time to time with his friend Dan Gosch as superheroes “Captain Packard” and his faithful sidekick “Lobo”. In an RISD yearbook, the dynamic duo appeared in a photo at the Rhode Island State House with then-Governor Frank Licht.[citation needed] Rocket made several short films and fronted his band, the Fabulous Motels, […]

Dale Roberts (1986 - 2010)

Dale Roberts was born in Horden, County Durham. His mother was Isabella. He played for Cleveland Juniors Football Club and attended Easington Comprehensive School with fellow academy footballer Adam Johnson. He was with the Sunderland and Middlesbrough football academies, joining the latter in 2003 as a scholar and was part of Boro’s FA Youth Cup […]

Ruan Lingyu (1910 - 1935)

Ruan Lingyu was born to a working class family in Shanghai. Her father died when she was young, and her mother brought her up working as a housemaid. In 1926, to help make ends meet, Ruan signed up for the prominent Mingxing Film Company. She made her first film at the age of 16. The film, […]

Michael Ruppert (1951 - 2014)

Michael Ruppert (February 3, 1951 – April 13, 2014) was an American investigative journalist best known as the editor of the newsletter From The Wilderness (1999-2006) and author of the 2004 book Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. After graduating with honours in Political Science […]

Liam Rector (1949 - 2007)

Liam Rector (November 21, 1949 – August 15, 2007) was an American poet, essayist and educator. He had administered literary programs at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. He was also the director, most recently, of the […]

Cesare Pavese (1908 - 1950)

Cesare Pavese was born in Santo Stefano Belbo, in the province of Cuneo. It was the village where his father was born and where the family returned for the summer holidays each year. He started infant classes in Santo Stefano Belbo, but the rest of his education was in schools in Turin. His most important […]

Jan Potocki (1761 - 1815)

Jan Potocki (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjan pɔˈtɔt͡skʲi]; 8 March 1761 – 23 December 1815) was a Polish nobleman, Polish Army Captain of Engineers, ethnologist, Egyptologist, linguist, traveler, adventurer and popular author of the Enlightenment period, whose life and exploits made him a legendary figure in his homeland. Outside Poland he is known chiefly for his novel, […]

Phoebe Prince (1994 - 2010)

Phoebe Prince was born on 24 November 1994 in Bedford, England, United Kingdom, and moved to the seaside community of Fanore in County Clare, Ireland, when she was two. Prince attended Villiers Secondary School, a private school in County Limerick. She immigrated to the U.S. in the autumn of 2009 with her mother and four […]

Robert Enke (1977 - 2009)

Robert Enke was born on 24 August 1977 in Jena, where he grew up in a flat in the district of Lobeda. He was the youngest of three children born to Dirk Enke, a sports psychologist, and Gisela Enke. He began playing football from an early age, initially playing as a striker, before making the […]

Michael Dorris (1945 - 1997)

Michael Dorris was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Jim and Mary Besy (Burkhardt) Dorris. His father died before Dorris was born (reportedly by suicide during WWII), and Dorris was raised as an only child by his mother, who became a secretary for the Democratic Party. It has been reported that two maternal relatives also help […]

Thomas Disch (1940 - 2008)

Thomas Disch entered the field of science fiction at a turning point, as the pulp adventure stories of its older style began to be challenged by a more serious, adult, and often darker style. This movement, called New Wave, tried to show that the ideas and themes of science fiction could be developed beyond the […]

Jeanine Deckers (1933 - 1985)

While in the convent, Jeanine Deckers wrote, sang and performed her own songs, which were so well received by her fellow nuns and visitors that her religious superiors encouraged her to record an album, which visitors and retreatants at the convent would be able to purchase. In 1961, the album was recorded in Brussels at Philips; […]

Penelope Delta (1874 - 1941)

Penelope Delta moved to Frankfurt, Germany in 1906, when her husband went to run the offices of the Khoremis-Benakis cotton business there, and her first novel Gia tin Patrida (For the Sake of the Fatherland) was published in 1909. The novel is set in Byzantine times, and Delta started corresponding with the historian Gustave Schlumberger, […]

Brad Delp (1951 - 2007)

Brad Delp was born in Peabody, Massachusetts on June 12, 1951 to French-Canadian immigrants, and raised in Danvers, Massachusetts. In 1969, guitarist Barry Goudreau introduced Delp to Tom Scholz, who was looking for a singer to complete some demo recordings. Eventually Scholz formed the short-lived band Mother’s Milk (1973–74), including Delp and Goudreau. After producing a […]

Ryan Halligan (1989 - 2003)

Ryan Halligan was born on December 18, 1989 in Poughkeepsie, New York, the son of John P. and Kelly Halligan. His family moved to Essex Junction, Vermont, where Halligan attended Hiawatha Elementary School and, later, Albert D. Lawton Middle School. He was described by his father as a “gentle, very sensitive soul,” who experienced some developmental […]

Paul Gruchow (1947 - 2004)

Paul Gruchow (May 23, 1947 – February 22, 2004) was an American author, editor, and conservationist from Montevideo, Minnesota. A student of poet John Berryman, he is well known for his strong support of rural communities, as expressed in his first book, “Journal of a Prairie Year” published by University of Minnesota Press. His essays […]

Justin Fashanu (1961 - 1998)

Justin Fashanu began his career as an apprentice with Norwich City, turning professional towards the end of December 1978. He made his league debut on 13 January 1979, against West Bromwich Albion, and settled into the Norwich side scoring regularly and occasionally spectacularly. In 1980, he won the BBC Goal of the Season award, for […]

Ed Flanders (1934 - 1995)

Ed Flanders was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Bernice (née Brown) and Francis Michael Grey Flanders. His mother was killed in an automobile accident when he was 14. After graduating from Patrick Henry High School (where he played hockey) in 1953, he enlisted in the United States Army, where he served as an […]

Tom Evans (1947 - 1983)

In July 1967, the Iveys (Pete Ham, Ron Griffiths, Mike Gibbins and Dave Jenkins) went to Liverpool at the suggestion of their manager, Bill Collins, to recruit a replacement for Dave Jenkins, their rhythm guitarist and frontman. They discovered Tom Evans singing with Them Calderstones and invited him to London to audition for the band. […]

Charmaine Dragun (1978 - 2007)

Charmaine Dragun graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts with a degree in broadcast journalism. She began her career as a radio journalist and newsreader at Perth radio stations 6PR and 96FM. She was nominated for Young Journalist Of The Year and won both the Australian and state Best radio Reports award. Dragun switched […]

Vic Chesnutt (1964 - 2009)

Around 1985, Vic Chesnutt moved to Athens and joined the band, La-Di-Das, with future member of the Dashboard Saviors Todd McBride. After leaving that group, he began performing solo on a regular basis at the 40 Watt Club; it was there that he was spotted by Michael Stipe of R.E.M.. Stipe went on to produce […]

Christine Chubbuck (1944 - 1974)

Christine Chubbuck worked for WVIZ in Cleveland for a year in 1966/1967, and attended a summer workshop in radio and television at New York University in 1967. In 1968, Chubbuck worked for a few months for public television stations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Canton, Ohio, before moving on to spend four years as a hospital […]

Tyler Clementi (1991 - 2010)

Tyler Clementi was born on December 19, 1991, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. A graduate of Ridgewood High School, he was a violinist; he played with the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra and participated in the Bergen Youth Orchestra as concertmaster. A few days before leaving home to attend college at Rutgers, Clementi told his parents that he was […]

Oscar Apfel (1878 - 1938)

Osca Apfel was born in Cleveland, Ohio. After a number of years in commerce, he decided to adopt the stage as a profession. He secured his first professional engagement in 1900, in his hometown. He rose rapidly and soon held a position as director and producer and was at the time noted as being the […]

Alvin Neelley (1953 - 2005)

Alvin Neelley was born in 1953 in Georgia, where he was a car thief during his teenage years. He met his second wife, Judith Ann Adams, when he was 26 years old and she was 15. Alvin divorced his first wife shortly before eloping with Judith Adams (1980). Lisa Ann Millican, a 13-year-old girl from Cedartown, […]

Wallace Carothers (1896 - 1937)

After receiving his Ph.D., Wallace Carothers stayed at the University of Illinois for two years as an instructor in organic chemistry. In 1926 Carothers moved to Harvard University. In 1927, DuPont decided to fund fundamental, pure research: research not deliberately aimed at the development of a money-making product. Carothers traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, to discuss the possibility […]

Jeremy Blake (1971 - 2007)

A graduate of the both School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA ’93) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA 95), Jeremy Blake was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 2000, 2002 and 2004. His “Winchester” series, inspired by the story of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House, was shown at the San […]