October 14, 2008

2008Robert Furman, American engineer and intelligence officer (born 1915)^[†]

Robert Ralph Furman was a civil engineer who during World War II was the chief of foreign intelligence for the Manhattan Engineer District directing espionage against the German nuclear energy project. He participated in the Alsos Mission, which conducted a series of operations with the intent to place all uranium in Europe into Allied hands, and at the end of the war rounded up German atomic scientists to keep them out of the Soviet Union. He personally escorted half of the uranium-235 necessary for the Little Boy atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian. He was also a key figure overseeing the construction of The Pentagon building. After the war he founded Furman Builders Inc., a construction company that built hundreds of structures, including the Potomac Mills shopping mall in Woodbridge, Virginia.

2008Kazys Petkevičius, Lithuanian basketball player and coach (born 1926)^[†]

Kazys Petkevičius was a Lithuanian basketball player who competed for the Soviet Union in the 1952 Summer Olympics and in the 1956 Summer Olympics. He played for Žalgiris in Kaunas and later for Spartak Leningrad in Leningrad.