Since the very first issue of TIME, the Milestones section has marked important moments of the week and celebrated the lives of those who died recently. Staffers, critics and those who knew the late, great figures share what made those people special. Here are a few of 2014’s most notable Milestones obituaries for the people who made our culture what it is today.

Lev Grossman on Maya Angelou: “In her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou, who died May 28 at 86, tells the story of her life up to the age of 17. She describes herself as “a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.” Although the book has been assigned to countless high school students, its unsparing account of black life in the South during the Depression and of…