Alex Traub

His tales of violence and squalor in his native Ozarks had the timeless quality of fables and inspired several movies.

At 7, she bore witness to one of American history’s most violent spasms of racial violence. She was 106 when the nation reckoned with the crime.

He reimagined “Once Were Warriors,” a novel about a Maori family, as a film that became a worldwide phenomenon. He went on to direct Hollywood movies.

He was an architect with no training as an actor whose life was changed by a chance encounter. He inspired rave reviews and a New Yorker short story.

He had a losing record in the N.B.A., but gained acclaim coaching a Liberty team that featured stars like Teresa Weatherspoon and Becky Hammon.

She rose from a junior high school teacher to the state’s top official, and helped persuade Toyota to build its first American factory in Georgetown, Ky.

Besides his work with pop stars and jazz greats, he is credited with helping to invent the six-string contrabass guitar.

She spat in a policeman’s face at the Stonewall Riot, ran a nursing service during the AIDS crisis and boycotted Pride parades when they welcomed corporations.

His blunt debating and imaginative theorizing about artificial intelligence and the human mind made him a leading scholar. But sexual-harassment allegations ended his career.

He and Tommy Boyce formed a hit songwriting duo of the 1960s, and were best known for the unexpectedly popular tunes of a made-for-TV boy band.