Johnny Carson

Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.

The conservative comedian spoke out for gay rights and gun control, and got boycotted and ostracized by friends on the right, including Ronald Reagan.

A remarkable blues musician emerged from obscurity in 1959, but something about him just didn’t seem right.

The polarizing dessert that people love to hate became a Christmas mainstay thanks, in part, to the U.S. Postal Service.

On the laughing emptiness at the center of the Republican Party.

The 'Gone With the Wind' film legend, who died at age 104, went up against a broken Hollywood studio system—and helped change the industry forever.

'The Population Bomb' made dire predictions—and triggered a wave of repression around the world.