Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, Jeninne Lee-St. John, Carolina Miranda, Julie Rawe

EXHUMED. The body of EMMETT TILL, African- American teenager whose 1955 murder near Money, Miss., after he allegedly whistled at a white female store clerk helped galvanize the civil rights movement; to collect evidence for an investigation reopened last year after a documentary filmmaker told authorities he believed several who participated in the 14-year-old's murder are still alive; in Alsip, Ill. The clerk's husband and his half brother were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury but later admitted their involvement to Look magazine.

CONVICTED. MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY, 41, former chief of Russian oil giant Yukos, who became the country's wealthiest oligarch after the collapse of the Soviet Union; on charges including tax evasion and fraud; ending a nearly yearlong trial that critics claimed was part of a politically motivated campaign by the Kremlin to deter the billionaire from financing opposition to Vladimir Putin; in Moscow. Khodorkovsky, whose dwindled fortune was once estimated at $15 billion, was sentenced to nine years in jail.

APPOINTED. STANISLAW DZIWISZ, 66, as Archbishop of Krakow, Poland; by Pope Benedict XVI; in Rome. Pope John Paul II's longtime personal secretary and confidant, Dziwisz will take over the job his former boss held before being elected to the papacy in 1978.

ASSASSINATED. SAMIR KASSIR, 45, outspoken Lebanese journalist and critic of Syrian control in Lebanon; in a car bombing in Beirut. The first attack on a prominent Lebanese opposition figure since the killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February, it came less than a week after the anti-Syrian opposition won a clear victory in the first round of Lebanon's parliamentary elections. Syria, still influential despite its withdrawal of troops under international pressure, denied involvement in the murder, which reignited national outrage and prompted calls for the resignation of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.

DIED. OSCAR BROWN JR., 78, jazz singer, songwriter and playwright who infused his work with the sociopolitical truths of black American life; of complications from a blood infection; in Chicago. Brown, an actor on TV shows like Brewster Place and Roc, recorded such albums as 1960's Sin & Soul ... and Then Some and produced the stage revue Opportunity, Please Knock, employing high-profile gang members in the cast. "I wanted to present a picture of black culture," he said, "to anyone who could hear it."

DIED. GEORGE MIKAN, 80, pro basketball's first powerful big man, whose graceful, ambidextrous hook shots elevated the sport's profile during the 1940s and '50s and led the Minneapolis Lakers to five titles in the team's first six years; of kidney failure; in Scottsdale, Ariz. The 6-ft. 10-in. DePaul graduate so dominated the newly formed NBA that he forced the league to change its rules, expanding the 6-ft. "key" to thwart his offensive dominance, and once prompted Madison Square Garden officials to promote a 1949 game as "Geo. Mikan vs. Knicks."

DIED. ARNIE MORTON, 83, restaurateur who in 1960, with Hugh Hefner and Victor Lownes, launched the first Playboy Club and then founded Morton's, the steak-house restaurants; of cancer; in Deerfield, Ill. His original Chicago eatery, opened in 1978, got a boost after Frank Sinatra dined there one night, and the newly dubbed "steak house for the rich" soon expanded to other cities.

DIED. LESLIE SMITH, 87, co-founder of Lesney Products, maker of Matchbox cars; in north London. After World War II, he established a die-casting shop with a fellow veteran and sold his first toy, a small brass road roller, in 1952. The next year Lesney introduced its first Matchbox cars--cement mixers, dump trucks and road rollers--and a decade later was selling 50 million of them a year.

DIED. HERBERT WARREN WIND, 88, writer of elegant prose on golf for the New Yorker and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED; of pneumonia; in Bedford, Mass. The author of 14 books, he coined the term Amen Corner to describe three consecutive treacherous, prayer-inducing holes on the back nine at Augusta National, home of the Masters.