Milestones Nov. 17, 1997

DIED. ANTON SZANDOR LAVEY, 67, melodramatic founder of the Church of Satan who played the devil onscreen; of pulmonary edema; in San Francisco. The role stuck: LaVey kept a pet tarantula and roamed the streets in a black cape.

DIED. BARON EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD, 71, banker-benefactor; of emphysema; in Geneva. The scion of the banking dynasty oversaw operations in Paris and Geneva and gave away much of what he made, most often to Israel.

DIED. SIR ISAIAH BERLIN, 88, British historian-philosopher of awesome erudition; in Oxford, England. The son of a Jewish timber merchant, Berlin became one of Oxford University's most eminent thinkers. His essays still dazzle, whether ruminating on determinism in Historical Inevitability, updating Mill in Two Concepts of Liberty or exploring Tolstoy's conflicted nature in The Hedgehog and the Fox. (See eulogy, below.)

DIED. VICTOR MILLS, 100, ingenious engineer who changed babies--and parenting--forever with the invention of the first mass-marketed disposable diaper; in Tucson, Ariz. Mills used his granddaughter as a guinea pig for the innovation that ushered in the throwaway culture. Hired by Procter & Gamble in 1926, he also worked on such household staples as Ivory soap and Pringles.

REVEALED. The identity of HELEN CATHCART, elusive royal biographer; following the death of her loyal assistant HAROLD ALBERT; in Midhurst, England. Cathcart, it turns out, was really Albert--clothed in literary drag to woo his predominantly female readership. Albert educated himself by reading, escaping a Dickensian childhood--absent father, reviled stepfather--to write Her Majesty, Prince Charles and other genteel accounts of royal life.

UNPLUGGED. MARS PATHFINDER lander and its plucky rover SOJOURNER; following a Sept. 27 blackout, probably brought on by exposure to the cold Martian elements. During their four-month tenure, the lander and rover transmitted more than 16,550 pictures.