Who Died Today

Series produced by Jonathan Thomas Stratman

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A fresh look at history's dead characters. It's a chance to meet people you've never met and really get to know people you only thought you knew. Ho Chi Minh ... who knew he worked as a pastry chef in Harlem in the 1920s?Frank T. Hopkins ... they made the movie "Hidalgo" about him ... who knew his shocking secret? Who was the fourth man to die in the Buddy Holly crash, and why isn't anybody talking about him?

Dynamic three-minute, filler-length episodes, keyed to specific dates throughout the year. You'll discover a fresh point of view on history's dead characters. Who they really were, how they really lived ... what they left behind. Some are obscure, many––though overlooked or overshadowed––were center stage in the unfolding, human drama or comedy that is history and life.


50 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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The true story of American Black cowboy, George Fletcher and Indian cowboy, Jackson Sundown, at the 1911 Pendleton Roundup.

Bought by KZYX


  • Added: Apr 13, 2015
  • Length: 02:49
  • Purchases: 1
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Nearly thirty years on, a surprising good look for the "bad" Beach Boy.

Bought by KUT


  • Added: Dec 22, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
  • Purchases: 1
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So ... who was Amy Beach? Simply one of the greatest American composers many of us have never heard.

  • Added: Dec 03, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
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The Greeks may have invented wrestling, but it took one man ... Gorgeous George ... to really put the shine on it.

  • Added: Dec 01, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
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He was America's first rock star ... and we knew him as Johnny Ace

  • Added: Nov 18, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
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He was one of the pioneers of jazz on the violin. Though largely self taught, his career lasted some 77 years, and he recorded hundred of albums. p...

  • Added: Nov 21, 2011
  • Length: 06:00
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His father was the only one of Custer's men to survive at Little Big Horn and his mother was the daughter of a Sioux chief. Viggo Mortensen played ...

  • Added: May 04, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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Officially the last American to be killed in World War I. In a cruel twist of fate, Henry Gunther "cheated life" by dying needlessly on a field in ...

Bought by WRVG - Georgetown College Student Radio and KTRL


  • Added: Oct 09, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
  • Purchases: 2
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A true, Russian space hero died today. As a matter of fact, the very first Russian space hero. And as it turns out, she was the first space martyr....

Bought by KPIK-LP


  • Added: Nov 12, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
  • Purchases: 1
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His too-short life story reads like adventure fiction.

  • Added: Oct 14, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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His was a life that nearly didn't happen. He fell under a boxcar, his left arm mangled as a child, yet went on to own and manage one of the greates...

  • Added: May 05, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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Explorer, naturalist, writer ... in his too-short life, Lewis helped to make this country ... literally ... what it is today. From sea to shining s...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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One night, entering a clearing, he and a companion came face to face with a well-armed Nazi patrol. Desperately outnumbered, he took an amazing cha...

  • Added: Apr 18, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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When he finally went home to Viet Nam, he began using a name from an I.D. card he had purchased: Ho Chi Minh ... which means "bringer of light." An...

  • Added: Dec 09, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
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You may not know his name, but chances are good you could sing, hum or whistle one of his tunes.

  • Added: Nov 12, 2010
  • Length: 03:00
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Not THAT Martha Washington, but a 29-year-old Passenger Pigeon who spent her entire life in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. Of billions of birds f...

  • Added: Apr 19, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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As a child in the 1930s, Irwin predicted he would travel to the moon ... at a time when anything written on the topic was clearly labeled "science ...

  • Added: Aug 10, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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Although she was physically tiny ... just four foot eleven ... we saw her on television living an outrageous sort of large life, an amazing roller ...

  • Added: Jul 19, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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More of what listeners want to know about the British novelist who produced six classic novels in a lifespan of just 47 years. She's been dead for ...

  • Added: Jul 11, 2011
  • Length: 03:00
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Who was Sim Webb? Well, fifty-seven years earlier, April of 1900, he was the man who lived. It happened like this ...

  • Added: Jul 04, 2011
  • Length: 03:00