1925 births

Charles Eliot Silberman (January 31, 1925 – February 5, 2011) was an American journalist and author.
Silberman was born in Des Moines, Iowa. After service in the Pacific during World War II, he gained a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University in 1946 and also undertook graduate studies at Columbia. Subsequently, he taught at Columbia and City College of New York before joining Fortune magazine in 1953 where he remained until the early 1970s.He was the author of Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice (1978), a study of crime and the American criminal justice system.Silberman used econometric methods to measure the effectiveness in terms of criminal deterrence of two factors: the degree of punishment; and the probability of apprehension. A simple "expected loss" model would predict that deterrent effect would depend only on the result of multiplying the penalty by the probability of it occurring. Silberman concluded that contrary to this model, the likelihood of punishment had a greater effect in most situations. Silberman also stated, "Crime does more than expose the weakness in social relationships; it undermines the social order itself, by destroying the assumptions on which it is based."
Silberman's book Crisis in the Classroom: The Remaking of American Education is regarded as one of the leading investigations into and critiques of the performance of the American educational system and has been praised for its scope and insight.He was also the author of Crisis in Black and White and A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today.Silberman died on February 5, 2011, in Sarasota, Florida, aged 86. He had four sons and seven grandchildren.

Luiz Pacheco (May 7, 1925 in Lisbon – January 5, 2008 in Montijo) was a writer, publisher, polemicist and literary critic (mainly of Portuguese literature). He was proudest of his work as a publisher. The publishing house Contraponto, his creation, released works by many previously unpublished Portuguese writers (Herberto Helder, Natália Correia, Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos, Vergílio Ferreira, António Maria Lisboa), and introduced Sade to the Portuguese readers.

Erika Köth (15 September 1925 in Darmstadt – 20 February 1989 in Speyer) was a German operatic coloratura soprano, particularly associated with the roles of Zerbinetta and Zerlina.
Köth began a musical studies in Darmstadt with Elsa Blank in 1942, and after an interruption resumed them in 1945. She made her stage debut in Kaiserslautern as Philine in Mignon, in 1948, and then sang in Karlsruhe (1950–53). She made her debut at the Munich State Opera and the Vienna State Opera in 1953, and at the Berlin State Opera in 1961. She appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival (1955–64), as the Queen of the Night and Konstanze and Sophie, and in Bayreuth (1965–68), as the Woodbird. She also made guest appearances in Milan, Paris, London, etc.
Her repertory included: Susanna, Zerlina, Sophie, Despina, Queen of the Night, Lucia, Gilda, Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, and The Rake's Progress.
She had a small but piercing voice of great agility with a range extending remarkably high.
She can be seen on black-and-white video in the role of Rosina in a complete German performance of The Barber of Seville with Fritz Wunderlich, Hermann Prey, and Hans Hotter, and in a German performance of Don Giovanni, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Donald Grobe, Walter Berry, and Josef Greindl. Her discography also includes many operetta and lieder recordings.

Ignace Heinrich (31 July 1925 – 9 January 2003) was a French athlete who competed mainly in the decathlon. He was born in Ebersheim, Bas-Rhin, Alsace.He competed for France in the decathlon at the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London, Great Britain, winning a silver medal. He died in Carnoux-en-Provence.

Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art satirized automation and the technological overproduction of material goods.

Hale Smith (June 29, 1925 – November 24, 2009) was an American composer, arranger, and pianist.

José Beyaert (1 October 1925 – 11 June 2005) was a French professional cyclist who competed during the 1940s and 1950s, and was the 1948 Olympics road race champion. Beyaert moved to Colombia in 1952 and lived there for several years where he was the coach to the national cycling team. He also competed in the Vuelta a Colombia which he won on his first attempt in 1952. He finished second the following year and eighth the year after. He also rode in the 1950 Tour de France and finished 47th overall.

Ruth Slenczynska (born January 15, 1925) is an American pianist with Polish roots.

Mattiwilda Dobbs (July 11, 1925 – December 8, 2015) was an American coloratura soprano and was one of the first black singers to enjoy a major international career in opera. She was the first black singer to perform at La Scala in Italy, the first black woman to receive a long-term performance contract and to sing a lead role at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the first black singer to play a lead role at the San Francisco Opera.

Carlos Castañeda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was an American writer. Starting in 1968, Castaneda published a series of books that describe a training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus. While Castaneda's work was accepted as factual by many when the books were first published, the training he described is now generally considered to be fictional.The first three books—The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, A Separate Reality, and Journey to Ixtlan—were written while he was an anthropology student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles based on the work he described in these books.At the time of his death in 1998, Castaneda's books had sold more than eight million copies and had been published in 17 languages.