John Beggs (1847 - 1925)

John Irvin Beggs was born in Philadelphia on September 17, 1847, the son of James and Mary Irvin Beggs. Both of his parents were of Scottish descent but had emigrated to the United States from Northern Ireland.  His early life was spent around Philadelphia. After his father died when he was seven years old, Beggs […]

Leon Hess (1914 - 1999)

Hess was born on March 14, 1914 to a Jewish family in Asbury Park, New Jersey. His parents were Ethel and Mores Hess, who was a kosher butcher who emigrated from Lithuania and – after arriving in the United States – worked as an oil delivery man in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Hess worked as […]

Lawrence Dale Bell (1894 - 1956)

Lawrence Dale “Larry” Bell (April 5, 1894 – October 20, 1956) was an American industrialist and founder of Bell Aircraft Corporation.  Bell was born in Mentone, Indiana and lived there until 1907, when his family moved to Santa Monica, California. He joined his older brother Grover and stunt pilot Lincoln Beachey as a mechanic in […]

Marcel Dassault (1892 - 1986)

Marcel Dassault was born was Marcel Bloch on January 22, 1892 in Paris. Both his parents were Jewish.  He was educated at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He graduated from the Breguet School and Supaéro.  Dassault invented a type of aircraft propeller used by the French army during World War I and founded the Société […]

Bob Rhoads (1879 - 1967)

Bob Rhoads In the midst of the 1908 pennant race, Sporting Life declared that “Robert S. Rhoades of Cleveland is one of the most dependable of modern pitchers. … His habits are good, his conduct exemplary, and in all ways is he a credit to his club and profession.”1 Embodied in this passage are two […]

Dusty Springfield (1939 - 1999)

Dusty Springfield Call me a crazy old physiognomist, but my theory is that you can always spot a lesbian by her big thrusting chin. Celebrity Eskimo Sandi Toksvig, Ellen DeGeneres, Jodie Foster, Clare Balding, Vita Sackville-West, God love them: there’s a touch of Desperate Dan in the jaw-bone area, no doubt the better to go […]

Kirk Kerkorian (1917 - 2015)

Kirk Kerkorian Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, an eighth-grade dropout who built Las Vegas’ biggest hotels, tried to take over Chrysler and bought and sold MGM at a profit three times, has died. He was 98. He died Monday night in Beverly Hills. The reserved, unpretentious Kerkorian spent much of his life trying to stay out of […]

Dick Van Patten (1928 - 2015)

Dick Van Patten The round-faced actor who found lasting fame as the patriarch on TV’s “Eight is Enough,” has died. Van Patten’s rep confirmed the news of his death to FOX411. The actor died Tuesday in Santa Monica, California, of complications from diabetes. He was 86. Born in New York, the veteran entertainer began his […]

Chris Squire (1948 - 2015)

Chris Squire The co-founder and longtime bassist of prog rock icons Yes and the only member of the group to feature on every studio album, has passed away just over a month after revealing that he was suffering from a rare form of leukemia. Squire was 67. Current Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes first tweeted the news, “Utterly […]

Eli Lilly (1838 - 1898)

Eli Lilly (July 8, 1838 – June 6, 1898) was an American soldier, pharmaceutical chemist, industrialist, entrepreneur, and founder of the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation. Lilly enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War; he recruited a company of men to serve with him in an artillery battery, was later promoted […]

Eben Byers (1880 - 1932)

The son of industrialist Alexander Byers, Eben Byers was educated at St. Paul’s School and Yale College, where he earned a reputation as an athlete and ladies’ man. He was the U.S. Amateur golf champion of 1906, after finishing runner-up in 1902 and 1903. Byers eventually became the chairman of the Girard Iron Company, which […]

James Howard Marshall (1905 - 1995)

Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, J. Howard Marshall II attended George School, a private high school in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and then studied liberal arts at Haverford College, both Quaker institutions, graduating in 1926. While at George School and Haverford he edited the school newspapers, captained the debate teams and was an All American soccer player and […]

Henry J. Heinz (1844 - 1919)

Founder Henry John Heinz began packing foodstuffs on a small scale at Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1869. There he founded Heinz Noble & Company with a friend, L. Clarence Noble, and began marketing horseradish. The company went bankrupt in 1875, but the following year Heinz founded another company, F & J Heinz, with his brother John […]

Elwood Haynes (1857 - 1925)

Elwood Haynes (October 14, 1857 – April 13, 1925) was an American inventor, metallurgist, automotive pioneer, entrepreneur and industrialist. He invented the metal alloys stellite and martensitic stainless steel and designed one of the earliest automobiles made in the United States. He is recognized for having created the earliest American design that was feasible for […]

George Dewey Hay (1895 - 1968)

George Dewey Hay Rightfully given credit as the founder of WSM’s Grand Ole Opry, George Dewey Hay was a remarkable visionary and colorful romantic who played a vital role in the commercializing and promotion of country music. Following service in the army, the Indiana native made his way to Memphis, where he worked as a […]

Dave Thomas (1932 - 2002)

Dave Thomas was born on July 2, 1932 in Atlantic City, New Jersey to a young unmarried woman he never knew. He was adopted at 6 weeks by Rex and Auleva Thomas,[2] and as an adult became a well-known advocate for adoption, founding the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. After his adoptive mother’s death when […]

Donald Beardslee (1943 - 2005)

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1943, Beardslee was the oldest of three children whose father died when he was 11. He was sent to a military school at age 15 and joined the U.S. Air Force at 19, where he served for four years as an aircraft mechanic. He and another airman were caught […]

Napoleon Beazley (1976 - 2002)

Napoleon Beazley (August 5, 1976 – May 28, 2002) was a convicted murderer executed by lethal injection by the State of Texas for the murder of 63-year-old Texas businessman John Luttig in 1994. Beazley shot Luttig in his garage on April 19, 1994 in order to steal his family’s Mercedes-Benz car. Beazley also shot at […]

Kenneth Biros (1958 - 2009)

Kenneth Biros Biros admitted to killing 22 year old Tami Engstrom during February 1991 in a fit of rage. Biros then cut up the body and spread numerous parts over a wide territory encompassing portions of northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania.  Biros was convicted of aggravated murder, attempted rape, aggravated robbery and felonious sexual penetration […]

Kenneth Lee Boyd (1948 - 2005)

After leaving school in the ninth grade, Boyd later joined the United States Army and volunteered for a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1967. Two years later he received an honorable discharge. After his first marriage had ended in divorce, he married Julie. This second marriage, which resulted in three boys, had a series […]

David Brewer (1959 - 2003)

David Brewer Eighteen years after David M. Brewer was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering Sherry Byrne, her mother and husband watched the state inject three drugs into Brewer’s body to end his life. “I hope that David Brewer today saw my daughter’s face and her plea for mercy as he left this world,” […]

Jack Carter (1922 - 2015)

Jack Carter Carter was born in New York City, New York, in 1922 to a Jewish family. Carter served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. He hosted an early television variety program called Cavalcade of Stars on the DuMont Network. He was lured to NBC to host his own program […]

Boxcar Willie (1931 - 1999)

Boxcar Willie Boxcar Willie was perhaps the most successful invented character in the history of country music. With his kitschy persona and stage act — highlighted by his amazingly accurate impersonation of a train whistle — Willie played into the stereotype of the lovable, good-natured hobo who spent his life riding the rails and singing […]

Merle Travis (1917 - 1983)

Merle Travis Grammy Award-winning country music artist. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1977. He wrote the hit single, “Sixteen Tons,” in addition to several other hit records. He was well known for his legendary guitar work, and made an art form of his unique style of finger-picking. He was […]

Eddie Grant (1883 - 1918)

Eddie Grant Eddie Grant was a typical Deadball Era third baseman: mediocre offensively (as attested by his lifetime .249 batting average and .295 slugging percentage) but defensively reliable, particularly against the bunt. “As a batter [Grant] was noted for his ability to sacrifice,” remembered Mike Donlin, “and he could lay back near third base and […]

Gregory Bryant-Bey (1955 - 2008)

Gregory Bryant-Bey Bryant-Bey was sent by his mother to New York City to live with a woman who “adopted” him. The woman allegedly beat him regularly, and forced him to care for her daughter. When Bryant-Bey was 13, his mother brought him back to Toledo, then left him in the care of her ex-husband. Bryant-Bey […]

Robert Anthony Buell (1940 - 2002)

Robert Anthony Buell Executed this morning by lethal injection for the July 1982 abduction and slaying of 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison of Marshallville. Buell, a former loan specialist with the city of Akron’s Planning Department, was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville. Buell, 62, gave a one-minute statement […]

Timothy Carr (1970 - 2005)

Timothy Don Carr (May 30, 1970 – January 25, 2005), a 34-year-old white male, was executed by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia on January 25, 2005. Carr was found guilty of the 1992 murder of Keith Patrick Young, a 17-year-old white male. Carr, who was 22-years old when […]

Desmond Keith Carter (1967 - 2002)

Desmond Keith Carter (October 15, 1967 – December 10, 2002) was convicted of the 1992 murder of Helen Purdy and executed in 2002 by the State of North Carolina at the Central Prison in Raleigh.  Desmond Carter was born in the state of Rhode Island and lived with his grandmother since his mother moved away […]

Oba Chandler (1946 - 2011)

Oba Chandler (October 11, 1946 – November 15, 2011) was an American man convicted and executed for the June 1989 triple murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound. Concrete blocks had been tied to their necks and duct tape […]