“My father passed away peacefully tonight. He was known to his friends as Zbig, to his grandchildren as Chief and to his wife as the enduring love of her life.” This was how on May 26, 2017 MSNBC journalist Mika Brzezinski announced on Instagram the death of her father Zbigniew. Born in Warsaw on May 28, 1928, he died in Falls Church, Virginia, at the age of 89, and passed into history for two reasons.