For more than 50 years, comedian Jack Benny was a star of radio, the stage and screen. His radio show, The Jack Benny Program, was a forerunner of the sitcom genre.
1894-1974
Dennis Brutus was a poet whose works center on his sufferings and those of his fellow blacks in South Africa.
1924-2009
1851-1931
Gerald Ford became the 38th president of the United States following Richard Nixon's resignation, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.
1913-2006
Dian Fossey was a zoologist best known for researching the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest from the 1960s to the '80s, and for her mysterious murder.
1932-1985
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Howard Hawks directed Only Angels Have Wings, Sergeant York, Scarface, Bringing Up Baby and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
1896-1977
Curtis Mayfield was a singer-songwiter known for his racially conscious soul and funk who had a number one album with his score for the film Superfly.
1942-1999
1937-2006
Jason Robards Jr. was an intense stage and film actor, and a frequent interpreter of Eugene O'Neill's work. He starred in the 1960 television production The Iceman Cometh, and later starred in films like Philadelphia and Magnolia.
1922-2000
Percy Sutton was a Freedom Rider, civil rights activist and prominent African-American lawyer best known for representing Malcolm X.
1920-2009
Sworn in as the 33rd president after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's sudden death, Harry S. Truman presided over the end of WWII and dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.
1884-1972
Weegee was a photographer noted for his gritty yet compassionate images of the aftermath of New York street crimes and disasters.
1899-1968