Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Roy B. White and Rebecca Winters

CONVICTED. BOBBY FRANK CHERRY, 71, former Ku Klux Klan activist; of first-degree murder in the deaths of four young girls in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church; in Birmingham. Sentenced to life in prison under 1963 Alabama law, Cherry, who bragged about his deed, was the third man to be convicted of the crime that shamed pro-segregationist whites and galvanized civil rights leaders (a fourth died before being tried). Of the 39-year march toward justice, Sarah Collins Rudolph, the sister of victim Addie Mae Collins, said, "It was a long time."

RESIGNED. SANDY BALDWIN, 62, first female president of the U.S. Olympic Committee; after admitting to misrepresenting her academic credentials in her biography; in Colorado Springs, Colo. Baldwin, who said she had a doctorate but in fact did not finish her dissertation--she was called to care for her younger siblings after her parents died--said, "I should have changed it a long time ago, but once it was published, it got paralyzing."

DIED. STEPHEN JAY GOULD, 60, groundbreaking evolutionary biologist and award-winning author; of cancer; in New York City (see Eulogy).

DIED. NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE, 71, French-born model and self-taught artist best known for her colorful papier-mache sculptures of huge, voluptuous women, called nanas, a French term akin to "broad"; after battling emphysema and asthma; in La Jolla, Calif. A member, with Christo, of the Nouveaux Realistes, she first won fame in the early 1960s for her "shooting" pieces, for which she would fire a gun at her sculptures and paintings in galleries. Among her most famous installations is the Tarot Garden--a park in Garavicchio, Italy, featuring 22 monumental pieces inspired by tarot card characters.

DIED. DAVE BERG, 81, longtime Mad magazine artist and creator of "The Lighter Side of..." comic strip; of cancer; in Marina del Rey, Calif. Unlike much of the raffish satire in Mad, Berg's strips took gentle jabs at absurdities of American life, such as naive car owners prone to getting conned by auto mechanics.

DIED. WALTER LORD, 84, popular historian and author of A Night to Remember, the seminal account of the Titanic disaster, upon which 1997's Oscar-winning film was based; after a battle with Parkinson's disease; in New York City. As a boy, Lord became fascinated with the sinking of the world's biggest ship after finding a slim volume on the tragedy in his aunt's home. His meticulous approach to reconstructing events--he interviewed 63 of the survivors--turned the 1955 book into a best seller.

DIED. SAM SNEAD, 89, plainspoken golf great known for his straw hat and smooth swing, called the "sweetest" in the game; in Hot Springs, Va. Slammin' Sam, as he was dubbed, learned to play in a cow pasture using sticks as clubs. He won a record 81 PGA Tour events (17 of them after he had turned 40), including three PGA championships, three Masters and a British Open. "Watching Sam Snead practice hitting golf balls," said fellow pro John Schlee, "is like watching a fish practice swimming."

DIED. RICHARD MUDD, 101, who spent his life trying to clear the name of his grandfather Samuel Mudd, convicted in 1865 of abetting Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, in part by setting Booth's broken leg after the assassination; in Saginaw, Mich. States passed resolutions proclaiming the elder Mudd's innocence, and Presidents Carter and Reagan wrote letters saying they believed it. Still, they said, they could not officially overturn the decision of the military court.