Maury Travis (1965 - 2002)

Maury Travis (October 25, 1965 – June 10, 2002) was an American serial killer who committed suicide in a St. Louis county jail, after being arrested for murder. Travis was named in a Federal criminal complaint for the murders of two women. At the time of the murders, Travis was a waiter and on parole […]

Christopher Wilder (1945 - 1984)

Christopher Wilder was born on March 13, 1945, in Sydney, Australia, the son of an American naval officer and an Australian national. He nearly died at birth, but recovered, and almost drowned in a swimming pool at the age of two. In 1962 or 1963, he pleaded guilty to a gang-rape at a beach in […]

Liliuokalani (1838 - 1917)

Liliuokalani (Hawaiian pronunciation: [liliˌʔuokəˈlɐni]; born Lydia Lili‘u Loloku Walania Wewehi Kamaka‘eha (September 2, 1838 – November 11, 1917) was a composer of Hawaiian music, author and the last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii. She reigned from January 29, 1891 until the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893. She was born […]

John Hay (1838 - 1905)

John Milton Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, Hay’s highest office was United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was also […]

Helen Whitney (1875 - 1944)

Helen Whitney was the daughter of Clara Louise Stone, and her husband, John Milton Hay, who served as the United States Ambassador to Great Britain and United States Secretary of State. Helen Hay was a poet and an author of books for children. A number of her poems were published in Harper’s Magazine. One of her […]

Betsey Whitney (1908 - 1998)

Betsey Whitney was the middle daughter of prominent neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Williams Cushing and Katharine Stone Crowell, who hailed from a socially prominent Cleveland family. Dr. Cushing was descended from Matthew Cushing, an early settler of Hingham, Massachusetts. Dr. Cushing served as professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale Universities, and the family […]

Liz Tippett (1906 - 1988)

Mary Elizabeth Whitney Person Tippett (born Mary Elizabeth Altemus) (18 June 1906 – 30 October 1988) was a wealthy American socialite and philanthropist who was a champion horsewoman and for more than fifty years, a prominent owner/breeder of Thoroughbred racehorses. Born in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Liz Tippett was the daughter of Elizabeth Dobson and her husband Lemuel […]

Joan Payson (1903 - 1975)

Joan Payson was born in New York City, the daughter of Payne Whitney and Helen Julia Hay. Her brother was John Hay Whitney. She inherited a trust fund from her grandfather, William C. Whitney and on her father’s death in 1927, she received a large part of the family fortune. She attended Miss Chapin’s School, […]

Kenji Goto (1967 - 2015)

Kenji Goto was born on 23 October 1967 in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from Hosei University in Tokyo in 1991, he worked for a media production company before establishing Independent Press in 1996. He also worked with U.N. organizations including UNICEF and the U.N. Refugee Agency. Reporting from war-torn countries around […]

David Haines (1970 - 2014)

David Haines was born in East Yorkshire, moving to Perth, Scotland, as a child and prior to his capture resided in Sisak, Croatia, as a father of two. Haines had been an aircraft engineer in the Royal Air Force before turning to work in humanitarian aid in 1999. He helped victims of conflict in the […]

Margaret Hassan (1945 - 2004)

Margaret Hassan was born Margaret Fitzsimons in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland, to parents Peter and Mary Fitzsimons. However, soon after the end of World War II her family moved to London, England, where she spent most of her early life and where her younger siblings were born. At the age of twenty seven, she married […]

Kim Sun-il (1970 - 2004)

Kim Sun-il was fluent in Arabic, holding a graduate degree in that language from Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in February 2003. He also had degrees in English and theology, and had hoped to become a missionary in the Middle East. Kim arrived in Iraq on June 15, 2003, working for Gana General Trading Company, […]

Mattie Blaylock (1850 - 1888)

Mattie Blaylock was born Celia Ann Blaylock in Monroe Township, Johnson County, Iowa, near Fairfax, Iowa, to Henry Blaylock and Elizabeth “Betsy” Vance. She was their third child and second daughter. The family lived on a small farm that Henry had obtained in 1846. Henry and his wife were stern parents and adhered to the […]

Josephine Earp (1860 - 1944)

Josephine Earp (1860 – December 19, 1944) was the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp, a famed Old West lawman and gambler. She met Wyatt in 1881 in the frontier boom town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, when she was living with Johnny Behan, sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona. Josephine was born in New York to a Prussian […]

Laurie Show (1975 - 1991)

The murder of Laurie Show occurred on December 20, 1991. Show was a 16-year-old sophomore student at Conestoga Valley High School. Show’s body was discovered in her Lancaster, Pennsylvania home on December 20, 1991 by her mother Hazel Show, with Show’s throat cut. Classmates Lisa Michelle Lambert, Tabitha Buck, and Lawrence “Butch” Yunkin were charged with […]

Diane Whipple (1968 - 2001)

Diane Whipple was born in Princeton, New Jersey. She grew up and attended high school in Manhasset, New York, on Long Island. She was raised primarily by her grandparents, and was a gifted athlete from a young age. She became a two-time All-American lacrosse player in high school, and later at Penn State. She was […]

Jill Dando (1961 - 1999)

Jill Dando was born at Ashcombe House Maternity Home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. She was the daughter of Jack Dando (February 1918 – February 2009), who died in Weston-super-Mare on his 91st birthday, and Winifred Mary Jean Dando (August 1928 – January 1986), who died of leukaemia aged 58. Her only sibling, brother Nigel (born 1952), […]

Jill Meagher (1983 - 2012)

Gillian “Jill” Meagher was born as Gillian McKeon on 30 October 1982 in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. She spent her early childhood in Termonfeckin village to the north of Drogheda. Jill Meagher first moved to Australia when she was aged 9 when her father, George McKeon, worked in Perth. She spent several years in Perth, in […]

Agustín Lara (1897 - 1970)

Agustín Lara was born in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz. Later, the Lara family had to move to Mexico City, establishing their house in the borough of Coyoacán. After their mother died, Agustín and his siblings lived in a hospice run by their aunt. It was there that he had his first contact with music. Lara’s first musical composition […]

Carlos Gardel (1890 - 1935)

Carlos Gardel was born to unmarried 25-year-old laundress Berthe Gardès, the baby registered under the name Charles Romuald Gardès in Toulouse, France, on 11 December 1890. The father of the baby boy was listed on his birth certificate as “unknown”; eleven days later Berthe Gardès signed a statement establishing the baby’s father as Paul Laserre, […]

Javier Solís (1931 - 1966)

Javier Solís, born Gabriel Siria Levario, was the first of three children of Francisco Siria Mora, a baker/butcher, and Juana Levario Plata, a trader. Juana had a stall at a public market and as her spouse had allegedly abandoned her, she had little time save for work. After a time, she decided to leave her […]

Gabriel Figueroa (1907 - 1997)

Gabriel Figueroa Mateos (April 24, 1907 – April 27, 1997) was a Mexican cinematographer who worked both in Mexican cinema and Hollywood.His mother died after giving birth to him. His father, unable to cope with the loss of his wife, left Gabriel and his brother Roberto to be cared for by their aunts. He studied […]

Joaquín Pardavé (1900 - 1955)

At age 18, Joaquin Pardavé followed in the footsteps of his parents. He began his acting career in the operetta Los sobrinos del capitán Grant, in the company of his uncle Carlos Pardavé, when he asked to meet an actor. Later he joined the company of Jose Campillo, where he met and teamed for 12 […]

Joaquín Cordero (1922 - 2013)

Joaquín Cordero (Spanish pronunciation: [xoakin kordero];(August 16, 1922 – February 19, 2013) was a Mexican actor of the cinema, theatre and telenovelas. Shortly after his birth, Cordero’s family moved to Mexico City, and in the following years he studied in a seminary and even considered becoming a priest, but eventually he decided to pursue a law […]

Cordell Hull (1871 - 1955)

Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871 – July 23, 1955) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years (1933–1944) in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II. Hull received the Nobel Peace Prize […]

Norman Taurog (1899 - 1981)

Norman Taurog was born February 23, 1899 in Chicago, Illinois, to Arthur Jack Taurog and Anita (originally “Annie”) Taurog (née Goldsmith). His father’s naturalization records claim that Arthur was born in the Russian Empire in 1872 or 1873 and naturalized as a minor, while his mother was from New York. Later census records claimed that […]

David Selznick (1902 - 1965)

David Selznick was born David Selznick in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence Anna (Sachs) and silent movie producer and distributor Lewis J. Selznick. His parents were Lithuanian Jewish immigrants and he had four siblings. Selznick added the “O” to distinguish himself from an uncle with the same name. He studied at Columbia University in New […]

Deems Taylor (1885 - 1966)

Deems Taylor was born in New York City to JoJo and Katherine Taylor. He attended New York University. Taylor married three times. His first wife was Jane Anderson. They married in 1910 and divorced in 1918. In 1921, he married Mary Kennedy, who was an actress and a writer. They had a daughter, Joan Kennedy Taylor, […]

Ford Beebe (1888 - 1978)

Ford Beebe (November 26, 1888 – November 26, 1978) was a screenwriter and director. He entered the film business as a writer around 1916 and over the next 60 years wrote and/or directed almost 200 films. He specialized in B-movies – mostly Westerns – and action serials, working on the “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon” serials […]

Ernest Schoedsack (1893 - 1979)

Ernest B. Schoedsack was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on June 8, 1893. He ran away from home at age fourteen and worked with road gangs. He went to San Francisco, where he worked as a surveyor. He grew to be 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m), and his friends called him “Shorty.” Schoedsack began his […]