Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Heather Won Tesoriero and Rebecca Winters

RESIGNED. HARVEY PITT, 53, as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; in Washington. The embattled Bush appointee, whose 15-month tenure was marked by missteps and corporate scandals, exited on election night, following embarrassing revelations about his appointee to head a new accounting-oversight board, William H. Webster.

DIED. LONNIE DONEGAN, 71, Scottish rock and blues musician who in the 1950s introduced Britain to "skiffle"--a precursor to rock 'n' roll that combines folk, jug band, country, jazz and blues--inspiring musicians like John Lennon, Van Morrison and Pete Townshend; after a long battle with heart ailments; in Peterborough, England. Among his hits were Rock Island Line and Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (on the Bedpost Overnight)?

DIED. RUDOLF AUGSTEIN, 79, influential founder and publisher of the liberal, often combative postwar German newsweekly Der Spiegel, which quickly moved away from Nazi-era press restrictions to champion tough investigative journalism; of pneumonia; in Hamburg. Augstein went to prison for treason in 1962 in what became known as the Spiegel Affair: after the magazine published an article critical of NATO, police arrested journalists, an act that drew international scorn and helped lead to the downfall of West German Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss.

DIED. LAWRENCE RAINEY SR., 79, former Mississippi sheriff acquitted in 1967 of conspiracy in the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner; of cancer; in Meridian, Miss. The case, in which seven Ku Klux Klansmen were convicted, inspired the film Mississippi Burning.

DIED. VINNETTE CARROLL, 80, the first African-American woman to direct a Broadway show; in Fort Lauderhill, Fla. After directing the 1972 musical revue Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope, Carroll conceived Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, a Tony-winning, gospel-tinged tale of the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

DIED. JONATHAN HARRIS, 87, the dastardly, bumbling Dr. Zachary Smith on TV's campy '60s sci-fi series Lost in Space; in Los Angeles. As the pompous "intergalactic environmental psychologist" stuck on a spaceship with the galaxy-exploring Robinson family, Harris delighted fans with his melodrama ("Oh, the pain, the pain") and alliterative insults ("Neanderthal ninnies!")