James Gandolfini, TV’s Tony Soprano, Dies At 51

On this day in 2013, James Gandolfini, the actor best known for his role as New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano on the TV series “The Sopranos,” which debuted in 1999 and ran for six seasons, dies of a heart attack while vacationing in Rome, Italy. He was 51. The son of working-class parents of […]

Continue Reading

Swimmer Turned Movie Star Esther Williams Dies

On this day in 2013, Esther Williams, a champion teenage swimmer who went on to star in a series of hugely popular aquatic-themed movie-musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, dies at age 91 in Beverly Hills, California. Born on August 8, 1921, in Inglewood, California, Williams learned to swim as a child and worked at […]

Continue Reading

Country Music Star George Jones Dies

On this day in 2013, legendary country singer and songwriter George Jones, whose numerous hit songs include “White Lightning,” “Walk Through This World With Me” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” dies at age 81 in Nashville. In a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Jones had more than 140 Top 40 country hits, including […]

Continue Reading

Three People Killed, Hundreds Injured In Boston Marathon Bombing

On this day in 2013, two bombs go off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding more than 260 other people in attendance. Four days later, after an intense manhunt that shut down the Boston area, police captured one of the bombing suspects, 19-year-old Dzhohkar Tsarnaev; his older brother […]

Continue Reading

Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s First Female Prime Minister, Dies

On this day in 2013, Margaret Thatcher, the first–and so far only–female prime minister of the United Kingdom, dies in London at age 87 from a stroke. Serving from 1979 to 1990, Thatcher was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. She curbed the power of Britain’s labor unions, privatized state-owned industries, led […]

Continue Reading

Legendary Movie Critic Roger Ebert Dies

On this day in 2013, one of America’s best-known and most influential movie critics, Roger Ebert, who reviewed movies for The Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31 years, dies at age 70 after a battling cancer. In 1975, Ebert started co-hosting a movie review program on TV with fellow critic Gene […]

Continue Reading

Pauline Phillips, The Original Dear Abby, Dies At 94

On this day in 2013, Pauline Phillips, who for more than 40 years wrote the “Dear Abby” newspaper advice column, dies at age 94 in Minneapolis after battling Alzheimer’s disease. Using the pen name Abigail Van Buren, Phillips made her “Dear Abby” debut in 1956, and over the ensuing decades dispensed witty advice on a […]

Continue Reading

12 People Killed, 70 Wounded In Colorado Movie Theater Shooting

On this day in 2012, a 24-year-old gunman goes on a rampage at a movie theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora, killing 12 people—the youngest a 6-year-old girl—and injuring at least 70 others. The shooting took place shortly after the start of a crowded midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” which opened across […]

Continue Reading

Hardest word in hangman game

What’s the hardest word to solve in Hangman? If you guessed some freak of linguistics like “onomatopoeia,” “dybbuk,” or “benzodiazepine,” you’re barking up entirely the wrong arboriform growth. Take it from Jon McLoone, director of business development for Wolfram Research, the company behind popular mathematical modeling tool Mathematica. McLoone was inspired to investigate the English […]

Continue Reading

TV Legend Andy Griffith Dies

On this day in 2012, Andy Griffith, famous for his role as the good-hearted, small-town sheriff of fictional Mayberry, North Carolina, on the iconic 1960s TV sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show,” dies at age 86 at his North Carolina home. The actor also was known for his starring role in the 1980s-1990s TV drama “Matlock,” […]

Continue Reading