Milestones
DIED After he was elected in 2001, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa made it his first order of business to investigate corruption in his predecessor's administration, eventually revealing that former President Frederick Chiluba had stolen some $41 million from the state during his rule. Mwanawasa thereafter became known as a politician who was never afraid to challenge corruption and greed. He was one of the first African leaders to speak out against the Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe, lamenting the plight of the neighboring country as a "catastrophe." Two months after suffering a debilitating stroke, he died in Paris at age 59.
Long before A League of Their Own brought her story to life on the big screen, pitcher Dottie Collins was already the stuff of legend. During World War II, Collins played for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, mostly with the Fort Wayne Daisies. She pitched 17 shutouts during her six-year career. Always tenacious--she continued to play until she was several months pregnant--she was devoted to keeping the memory of the league alive. Collins spearheaded the effort to create the Baseball Hall of Fame exhibit that inspired the 1992 film. She was 84.
After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Hua Guofeng succeeded Mao as chairman of China's Communist Party. Though Hua's tenure at the head of the party was short-lived--he was all but powerless by 1978 and was formally replaced by the more radical Deng Xiaoping in 1981--it was his administration that brought an end to the violence of China's decade-long Cultural Revolution by arresting the extreme leftist Gang of Four, including Mao's widow, in 1976. Hua was 87.