Milestones

DIED

Dubbed “Pitbull” on account of his fearlessness as a freestyle motocross rider, Jeremy Lusk, 24, whose interest in motorcycles began when he was 3, died after sustaining head injuries during a backflip fall.

• It all started for ’60s girl group the Ronettes when they won a 1959 Apollo Theater talent contest. Estelle Bennett, 67, her sister Veronica and their cousin Nedra Talley parlayed that victory into a chart-topping career with such singles as “Be My Baby” and “Walking in the Rain.”

• Orlando (Cachaito) Lopez, 76, came from a Cuban family of at least 30 bass players, including the legendary Israel (Cachao) Lopez. Having toiled for years as an unknown in his solo career, Orlando saw his talent properly revealed to the world after he helped form the popular Buena Vista Social Club in the ’90s.

• Duke Ellington called Louie Bellson, 84, “the world’s greatest drummer,” a title Bellson earned at age 17 when he beat out 40,000 other contestants in a national drumming competition. He went on to play with numerous jazz greats, such as Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald.

• Appointed in 1969 as South Korea’s first Roman Catholic Cardinal, Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, 86, was a staunch opponent of authoritarian rule who gave refuge to activists in Seoul’s main cathedral during antigovernment protests in 1987.

• Having started in his family’s eponymous publishing house, Alfred Knopf Jr., 90, eventually struck out on his own and founded Atheneum Publishers in 1959.