October 31

Deaths

392 deaths recorded on October 31 throughout history

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Quote of the Day

“We become what we do.”

— Chiang Kai-Shek

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Events Births Deaths Holidays

Medieval 25

819

Chadaloh, Graf von Friaul und in der Baar

900

Roger, Graf von Maine

932

Al-Muqtadir

Al-Muqtadir became caliph at 13. He ruled the Abbasid Empire for 25 years while his mother and viziers held real power. He was killed by his own guards during a palace revolt at 37. His reign bankrupted the treasury and fractured the caliphate. He never actually ruled anything.

934

Wolfgang of Regensburg

Wolfgang of Regensburg gave away his entire inheritance to the poor when he became a priest. He was born into nobility in 934 and could've lived comfortably forever. Instead he became a missionary in Hungary, then a bishop, and spent his wealth building churches. He died in 994. They canonized him 18 years later. His feast day is still celebrated in Bavaria.

1005

Abe no Seimei

Abe no Seimei was Japan's most famous onmyōji, a practitioner of divination and magic. He advised emperors. Legends say he controlled demons. He lived to 84, which was ancient for the 10th century. His shrine in Kyoto still gets visitors.

1007

Heriger von Lobbes, flämischer Geistlicher und Komponist

1034

Deokjong

Deokjong ruled Korea for 18 years during the Goryeo Dynasty. He died at 18. He'd been king since birth. His regents made every decision. His name is in the records. His life isn't.

1120

Otto II., Graf von Scheyern

1147

Robert

Robert of Gloucester was the illegitimate son of Henry I and spent 19 years fighting a civil war to put his half-sister Matilda on the throne. He won battles, lost battles, was captured, was ransomed. He died in 1147 without seeing her crowned. His daughter married into the royal line. His grandson became Henry II.

1214

Eleanor of England

Eleanor of England died in Burgos, leaving behind a legacy as a formidable political partner to Alfonso VIII of Castile. She successfully introduced troubadour culture and refined courtly manners to the Castilian nobility, while her strategic marriage alliances ensured that her children ascended to the thrones of France, Portugal, and Leon.

1221

Ulrich II., Fürstbischof von Passau

1228

Eustace de Fauconberg, englischer Prälat, Treasurer of the Exchequer und Bischof von London

1253

Wilhelm, Bischof von Cammin

1320

Ricold of Monte Croce

Ricold of Monte Croce walked to Baghdad as a Dominican missionary in the 1280s, learned Arabic, and wrote one of the first European refutations of the Quran. He spent years trying to convert Muslims through argument. None converted. He died in 1320, having failed at his life's mission but leaving behind crucial translations.

1326

Juan de Haro, aristócrata español (n.

Juan de Haro, aristócrata español (n. ¿?).

1335

Marie of Évreux

Marie of Évreux married the Duke of Brabant and died at 32, probably in childbirth. She was Duchess Consort for nine years. Most medieval women's lives are recorded only in marriage and death dates. Hers too.

1336

Elisabeth von Ungarn, Dominikanerin und Prinzessin von Ungarn

1339

Francesco Dandolo, 52.

Francesco Dandolo, 52. Doge von Venedig

1448

John VIII Palaiologos

John VIII Palaiologos died as the penultimate Byzantine emperor, having spent his reign fruitlessly seeking Western military aid against the encroaching Ottoman Empire. His failure to secure lasting support from the Papacy left Constantinople isolated, accelerating the city's inevitable collapse just five years after his passing.

1449

Elisabeth von Brandenburg, Herzogin von Liegnitz und Teschen

1483

Johann zu Solms, Graf von Solms-Lich

1495

Wenzeslaus Brack, deutscher Frühhumanist und Wörterbuchautor

1500s 11

1512

Anna, Kurfürstin von Brandenburg

1517

Fra Bartolommeo

Fra Bartolommeo burned his own paintings in Savonarola's Bonfire of the Vanities, then became a monk for four years and didn't paint at all. When he started again, his style had completely changed — softer, more spiritual. He'd destroyed his early work himself. What survived came after silence.

1534

Alfonso I. d’Este, Herzog von Ferrara, Modena und Reggio

1537

Thomas Howard, englischer Adeliger

1541

Vicente de Valverde, spanischer Geistlicher

1562

Augustin Marlorat, französischer Reformator

1565

Johann Friedrich III., Herzog zu Sachsen

1567

Marie von Brandenburg-Kulmbach, Kurfürstin von der Pfalz

1574

Ulrich Sitzinger, deutscher Jurist, Politiker und Reformator

1589

Peter Stumpp

Peter Stumpp confessed under torture to being a werewolf who'd killed 14 children and eaten their flesh. He was a farmer in Germany. They broke him on the wheel, tore his flesh with hot pincers, and beheaded him in 1589. The werewolf belt he supposedly wore was never found. Torture produces confessions, not truth.

1599

Andreas Báthory, Bischof von Ermland und Fürst von Siebenbürgen

1600s 12

1605

Johann, Herzog von Sachsen-Weimar

1615

Marcantonio Memmo, Doge von Venedig

1622

Ulrich von Pommern, deutscher Geistlicher

1634

Erasmus Widmann, deutscher Organist und Komponist

1641

Cornelis Jol

Cornelis Jol had a wooden leg and terrorized the Caribbean for the Dutch West India Company. They called him 'Houtebeen' — Peg Leg. He captured 500 Spanish and Portuguese ships in ten years. He died attacking São Tomé, shot leading the assault at age 44. His leg is probably still there.

1644

Íñigo Vélez de Guevara, Conde de Oñate, spanischer Diplomat und Staatsmann

1644

Amador de La Porte, französischer Geistlicher, Großprior von Frankreich

1654

Francisco Correa de Arauxo, compositor y organista español (n.

Francisco Correa de Arauxo, compositor y organista español (n. 1584).

1659

John Bradshaw

John Bradshaw presided over Charles I's trial in 1649. He wore a reinforced hat in court—afraid of assassination. He sentenced the king to death, signed the warrant, and became president of the radical council. Eleven years later, the monarchy returned. Bradshaw was already dead. Cromwell too. Royalists dug up their bodies, hanged them at Tyburn, cut off their heads, and stuck them on spikes outside Westminster Hall. Bradshaw's head stayed there for 25 years. His hat's in a museum.

1661

Köprülü Mehmed Pasha

Köprülü Mehmed Pasha became Grand Vizier at 71. The Ottoman Empire was collapsing. He demanded absolute authority or he'd refuse the position. The sultan agreed. He executed corrupt officials by the hundreds. He personally strangled the former Grand Vizier. In five years, he stabilized the empire. He died in office at 86. His son succeeded him.

1664

Wilhelm Friedrich, Graf von Nassau-Dietz, Statthalter von Friesland, Groningen und Drenthe

1673

Kurt Christoph Graf von Königsmarck, niederländischer Generalleutnant

1700s 19

1713

Ferdinando de’ Medici, Erbprinz der Toskana

1718

Johanna Ursula von Geusau, deutsche Kirchenlieddichterin

1719

Domenico Piazoll, österreichischer Stuckateur

1723

Cosimo III de' Medici

Cosimo III ruled Tuscany for 53 years — longer than Louis XIV ruled France. He inherited a Renaissance powerhouse. He left behind a bankrupt state so depleted his son couldn't afford the coronation. He banned opera, expelled Jews, and taxed everything. The Medici dynasty died with his grandson.

1732

Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia

Victor Amadeus II became Duke of Savoy at 14, fought in four wars, switched sides twice, and was crowned King of Sicily in 1713. He traded Sicily for Sardinia in 1720. He abdicated in 1730 to his son, then tried to take the throne back. His son imprisoned him. He died in custody in 1732. The crown stayed with his son.

1733

Eberhard Louis

Eberhard Louis became Duke of Württemberg at 16 in 1692. He built a palace, kept a mistress for 20 years, and moved the capital to a new city he named after himself: Ludwigsburg. His wife lived separately. He died in 1733. His successor moved the capital back. The palace is still there. The city has 93,000 people.

1734

William North, 6.

William North, 6. Baron North, britischer Adeliger, General, Politiker und Verschwörer

1742

Ki no Kaion, japanischer Schriftsteller

1744

Leonardo Leo

Leonardo Leo wrote 50 operas, most of them lost. He composed for Naples, taught at the conservatory, died at 49, probably from angina. He wrote one Mass that's still performed. Pergolesi overshadowed him, then Mozart overshadowed everyone. Baroque Naples produced hundreds of composers. He was one of the better ones nobody remembers.

1765

William Augustus, duc de Cumberland, prince britannique (° 26 avril 1721).

1765

Prince William

Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, commanded British forces at Culloden in 1746 and earned the name "Butcher" for how he treated the Jacobite wounded. He was George II's favorite son. He lost the Battle of Hastenbeck in 1757 and was stripped of command. He died in 1765 at 44. Scotland still hates him.

1765

Olivio Sozzi, italienischer Maler

1766

Franz von Som, Hamburger Jurist und Archivar

1767

Petrus Johannes Meindaerts, niederländischer Geistlicher, Erzbischof von Utrecht

1768

Francesco Maria Veracini

Francesco Maria Veracini threw himself out a window in 1722, trying to escape a jealous husband. He survived, shattered his leg, limped for the rest of his life. He was a virtuoso violinist, impossibly arrogant, claimed he'd never heard anyone play better than himself. He wrote 12 violin sonatas that are still considered unplayable. He died poor in Florence, still convinced of his genius.

1786

Princess Amelia of Great Britain

Princess Amelia of Great Britain never married, lived at court her entire life, and died at 75. She was George II's daughter and spent decades as a professional royal, attending functions and representing the crown. She left behind no children, no scandals, just 75 years of duty.

1793

Pierre Vergniaud, französischer Revolutionär und Politiker

1793

Jacques Pierre Brissot, escritor y dirigente político francés, personaje de la Revolución Francesa (n.

Jacques Pierre Brissot, escritor y dirigente político francés, personaje de la Revolución Francesa (n. 1754).

1793

Claude Fauchet, sacerdote revolucionario francés, personaje de la Revolución francesa (n.

Claude Fauchet, sacerdote revolucionario francés, personaje de la Revolución francesa (n. 1744).

1800s 31

1806

Kitagawa Utamaro

Kitagawa Utamaro made woodblock prints of women. He showed courtesans and geisha in private moments. The government censored him for depicting a historical figure. He died a year later. His prints influenced Impressionists decades after his death.

1806

Sophie Mereau, deutsche Schriftstellerin

1811

Christian Gotthilf Salzmann, deutscher Pfarrer und Pädagoge

1819

Engelbert Arndts, westfälischer Jurist, kaiserlicher Postmeister und Beamter

1820

John Lynch

John Lynch founded Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1786 and ran a ferry across the James River. He freed his slaves in his will and left money for their resettlement. He died in 1820. The city still bears his name.

1822

Jared Ingersoll, US-amerikanischer Jurist und Politiker

1822

Peter Puget, britischer Seefahrer

1830

Pachi Gorriti (José Francisco Gorriti), militar argentino (n.

Pachi Gorriti (José Francisco Gorriti), militar argentino (n. 1780).

1833

Johann Friedrich Meckel, anatomista alemán (n.

Johann Friedrich Meckel, anatomista alemán (n. 1781).

1836

Heinrich XIX., Fürst Reuß zu Greiz

1848

Stephen Watts Kearny, militaire américain (° 30 août 1794).

1852

Edward Bransfield, irisch-schottischer Seefahrer und Forscher

1855

Johann Jakob Stadler, Schweizer Landschaftsmaler

1858

Karl Thomas Mozart, compositor de música clásica alemán (n.

Karl Thomas Mozart, compositor de música clásica alemán (n. 1784).

1859

Allyre Bureau, homme politique, écrivain, traducteur, journaliste et compositeur français (° 16 avril 1810).

1860

Joseph Kornhäusel, österreichischer Architekt

1860

Thomas Cochrane

Thomas Cochrane was one of the greatest naval commanders in British history. He was also convicted of fraud, expelled from Parliament, and stripped of his knighthood. He fought for the independence of Chile, Brazil, and Greece after Britain rejected him. He was eventually pardoned and reinstated at 79. The Royal Navy erased him, then brought him back when they needed the legend.

1863

Joseph Calasanz von Arneth, österreichischer Archäologe und Numismatiker

1867

William Parsons, aristócrata y astrónomo irlandés (n.

William Parsons, aristócrata y astrónomo irlandés (n. 1800).

1869

Charles Anderson Wickliffe (en), juriste et homme politique américain, 14e gouverneur de Kentucky de 1839 à 1840 (° 8…

Charles Anderson Wickliffe (en), juriste et homme politique américain, 14e gouverneur de Kentucky de 1839 à 1840 (° 8 juin 1788).

1869

Charles A. Wickliffe

Charles Wickliffe was Governor of Kentucky, then Postmaster General under President Tyler. He owned slaves. He opposed abolition. After the Civil War, he went back to Kentucky and practiced law. He died in 1869, having watched everything he'd defended collapse. He left behind legal briefs and a world that had moved on.

1870

Mihály Mosonyi, ungarischer Komponist

1876

Franz Dorotheus Gerlach, deutscher Altphilologe und Althistoriker

1879

Joseph Hooker

Joseph Hooker lost the Battle of Chancellorsville despite outnumbering Lee two-to-one. Lincoln removed him from command three days before Gettysburg. He spent the rest of the war out West. He retired in 1868 and spent his last decade writing reports defending his decisions. He never commanded an army again.

1879

Jacob Abbott

Jacob Abbott wrote 180 books, mostly for children. His Rollo series taught morality through the adventures of a young boy. He founded a girls' school. He wrote biographies of historical figures designed for young readers. He was a Congregational minister who believed stories taught better than sermons. His books sold millions. Nobody reads them now.

1883

Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Swami Dayananda Saraswati drank poisoned milk served by his host's mistress, who feared he'd reveal her affair. He knew it was poisoned. He drank it anyway, forgave her, and died a month later. He'd spent 20 years reforming Hinduism — rejecting caste, child marriage, and idol worship. Arya Samaj has 3 million members now.

1884

Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie Bashkirtseff died of tuberculosis at 25, leaving an 84-volume diary. She wrote every day from age 13, documenting her ambitions, her art studies in Paris, her fury at being female. She painted, sculpted, spoke six languages, knew she was dying, worked faster. Her diary was published posthumously, became a sensation. She'd wanted to be famous. Death made her immortal.

1885

Juan Bautista Topete, spanischer Marineoffizier und Politiker

1886

Robert Oswald von Ulrici, deutscher Forstmann und Beamter

1894

Joaquim Vayreda i Vila, katalanischer Maler

1898

Joseph R. West, US-amerikanischer Offizier und Politiker

1900s 146

1900

Anna von Lieben, bekannt als Sigmund Freuds österreichische Patientin Cäcilie M.

1900

Wilhelm Küchler, deutscher Politiker

1902

Joseph Lingens, deutscher Politiker

1905

Josefina Holmlund, schwedische Malerin

1905

Bryan O'Loghlen

Bryan O'Loghlen was the first Australian-born Catholic to become premier of an Australian colony. He was Premier of Victoria in 1881, served for ten months, and passed the first Factory Act to regulate working conditions. He lost the next election. He died in 1905. His Factory Act stayed on the books for decades. It was copied by other states.

1913

William Evans-Gordon

William Evans-Gordon was a British MP who wrote the 1905 Aliens Act, restricting immigration from Eastern Europe. He founded the British Brothers League to oppose Jewish refugees. He lost his seat in 1907. He died six years later, largely forgotten. The law stayed on the books for 60 years.

1916

Charles Taze Russell

Charles Taze Russell predicted Christ would return in 1914. He'd been predicting dates for 40 years. October 1914 came. Nothing happened. He said the return was invisible. He died two years later on a train, wearing a Roman toga he'd requested for the occasion. Jehovah's Witnesses still teach 1914 was correct.

1916

Huang Xing

Huang Xing led the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, losing two fingers to a grenade while storming the governor's mansion. The revolt ended the Qing Dynasty. He refused the presidency, deferring to Sun Yat-sen. He died five years later at 42, broke and in exile. China got its republic anyway.

1916

Tina Blau, österreichische Malerin

1918

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele died of Spanish flu three days after his pregnant wife died of it. He was 28. His last drawing was of his wife. He'd spent his career painting twisted bodies and uncomfortable sexuality. Vienna's art world had called him pornographic. He painted people the way they felt, not the way they looked. The flu took him before the world caught up.

1920

Alphonse Desjardins

Alphonse Desjardins founded North America's first credit union in 1900 after learning a Montreal family had paid $5,000 in interest on a $150 loan. He started the caisse populaire movement from his living room. When he died in 1920, there were 187 credit unions in Quebec. Now there are 40,000 credit unions worldwide serving 375 million people.

1921

Albert Adamkiewicz, médecin germano-polonais (° 11 août 1850).

1922

César Canevaro, militar y político peruano (n.

César Canevaro, militar y político peruano (n. 1846).

1924

Robert Gersuny, österreichischer Chirurg

1925

José Ingenieros, médico, historiador, sociólogo, educador y escritor argentino (n.

José Ingenieros, médico, historiador, sociólogo, educador y escritor argentino (n. 1877).

1925

Mikhail Frunze

Bolshevik military commander Mikhail Frunze died in October 1925 after undergoing a controversial surgery for a stomach ulcer. His death removed a key rival to Stalin, allowing the Soviet dictator to consolidate power over the Red Army without opposition.

1925

Max Linder

Max Linder was the highest-paid film star in the world before Chaplin. Chaplin called him "the professor" and copied his gestures. Linder wore a top hat and tails, played a charming drunk, and made France laugh. World War I destroyed his health — he was gassed and invalided out. His career never recovered. He and his wife died together in a Vienna hotel in 1925. Double suicide. He was 42.

1926

Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini died on Halloween, 1926, which seems too neat to be true but is. The cause was peritonitis from a ruptured appendix — triggered, possibly, by a punch to the stomach delivered by a student who'd read that Houdini could take blows without flinching. He was 52. He'd spent years exposing fraudulent mediums and had made a pact with his wife Bess: whoever died first would try to send a message from the afterlife. She held séances every Halloween for ten years. Nothing came through.

1926

Charles Vance Millar, abogado canadiense (n.

Charles Vance Millar, abogado canadiense (n. 1853).

1926

Philip Schuster

Philip Schuster competed in gymnastics at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis — the only Olympics where most competitors were American because almost nobody else bothered to travel. He won a silver medal in the all-around team event. Forty-three years old when he died. The 1904 Games were so chaotic they included a marathon where the winner hitched a ride in a car.

1927

Paul Felix Aschrott, deutscher Jurist, Strafrechts- und Sozialreformer

1928

Albert Bartholomé, französischer Maler und Bildhauer

1928

José de la Caridad Méndez, El Diamante Negro, beisbolista cubano expatriado, que se destacó en las Ligas Negras de Es…

José de la Caridad Méndez, El Diamante Negro, beisbolista cubano expatriado, que se destacó en las Ligas Negras de Estados Unidos (n. 1887).

1929

Norman Pritchard, athlète anglo-indien (° 23 juin 1877).

1929

António José de Almeida

António José de Almeida was a doctor who became a radical, then president of Portugal for four years during the chaos of the First Republic. He survived 20 governments in 16 years—Portugal averaged one government every nine months. He left office in 1923, returned to medicine, and died six years later. The republic collapsed two years after that in a military coup. Salazar's dictatorship lasted 48 years. Almeida's democratic experiment had lasted 19. Nobody called it a success.

1929

José Relvas, portugiesischer Politiker

1929

Norman Pritchard

Norman Pritchard won two silver medals at the 1900 Paris Olympics in the 200-meter sprint and hurdles—the first Asian-born athlete to win Olympic medals. He was Anglo-Indian, born in Calcutta. He later moved to Hollywood and acted in silent films. India claims him; Britain claims him. He belonged to both and neither.

1929

Ilm-ud-din

Ilm-ud-din was hanged at 19 for killing a Hindu publisher who'd written a pamphlet about the Prophet Muhammad. The 1929 trial became a religious flashpoint in British India. Muhammad Ali Jinnah defended him. Thousands attended his funeral. He became a martyr for blasphemy laws that still execute people in Pakistan today.

1930

Alexandre Guillot, Schweizer evangelischer Geistlicher

1931

Octave Uzanne

Octave Uzanne collected books about fans. Not sports fans — actual handheld fans. He wrote entire volumes about them, cataloging their history across centuries. He predicted in 1894 that books would be replaced by phonographs — people would listen to novels through earphones while walking. He was eighty years old and a century early on audiobooks.

1932

Charles Terront, cycliste français (° 25 avril 1857).

1936

Ignacy Daszynski, homme politique polonais, Premier ministre en 1918 (° 26 octobre 1866).

1938

Robert Woolsey, acteur américain (° 14 août 1888).

1939

Albrecht von Württemberg, deutscher Heerführer

1939

Otto Rank

Otto Rank was Freud's favorite student until he wrote that birth trauma causes all neurosis. Freud called it nonsense. Rank moved to Paris, then New York, kept writing. He'd been Freud's secretary for 20 years, edited his journals, managed his career. One theory ended it all. He died in 1939, still arguing that everyone's damaged by being born.

1941

Herwarth Walden, deutscher Schriftsteller, Verleger, Galerist, Musiker, Komponist und Kunstförderer

1942

Elisar von Kupffer, escritor y artista estonio (n.

Elisar von Kupffer, escritor y artista estonio (n. 1872).

1943

Arthur Lossow, deutscher Textilunternehmer

1943

Albert Armitage, britischer Polarforscher

1943

Ramón de Cárdenas, abogado y dirigente deportivo español (n.

Ramón de Cárdenas, abogado y dirigente deportivo español (n. 1884).

1943

Max Reinhardt, productor cinematográfico y director de teatro y cine estadounidense de origen austrohúngaro (n.

Max Reinhardt, productor cinematográfico y director de teatro y cine estadounidense de origen austrohúngaro (n. 1873).

1944

Joseph Hubert Priestley

Joseph Hubert Priestley spent 40 years cataloging British mosses and liverworts. He published botanical surveys and contributed specimens to the British Museum. He died in 1944. His collections are still referenced.

1944

Henri de Gavardie, französischer Militär und Automobilrennfahrer

1945

Georg Forster, Schweizer Schullehrer und Politiker

1945

Ignacio Zuloaga, pintor español (n.

Ignacio Zuloaga, pintor español (n. 1870).

1946

Gabriel Gabrio

Gabriel Gabrio starred in silent films, then struggled when sound arrived. His voice didn't match his face. He worked through the transition anyway, appearing in dozens of French talkies. Fifty-nine when he died. Thousands of silent film actors lost their careers overnight because microphones revealed accents, lisps, or voices that shattered the illusion.

1946

Gabriel Gabrio (Édouard Lelièvre dit), acteur français (° 13 janvier 1887).

1948

Milly Steger, deutsche Bildhauerin

1949

Édouard Dujardin, französischer Schriftsteller

1949

Edward Stettinius Jr., US-amerikanischer Diplomat und Politiker

1952

U Chit Hlaing

U Chit Hlaing led Burma's Home Rule movement, spent years in British prisons, lived to see independence, then watched the military take over. He'd organized boycotts, built a political party, negotiated with the British for decades. He died in 1952, four years after independence, as Burma's democracy collapsed. He'd fought for freedom. He got chaos.

1952

Adolf Chybiński, polnischer Musikwissenschaftler und -pädagoge

1952

Alexander Alexandrowitsch Andronow, sowjetischer Physiker

1953

Robert d’Heilly, französischer Ruderer

1953

Ewald Banse, deutscher Geograf und Schriftsteller

1954

Pieter Boelmans ter Spill, niederländischer Fußballspieler

1955

Gyula Feldmann, ungarischer Fußballspieler und -trainer

1957

Lea Conti, actriz argentina (n.

Lea Conti, actriz argentina (n. 1883).

1957

Marcel Vallée, acteur français (° 15 janvier 1880).

1958

Maurice Rost, französischer Automobilrennfahrer und Flieger

1958

Joaquin Garcia Monge, écrivain costaricien, directeur de la Bibliothèque nationale du Costa Rica (° 20 janvier 1881).

1959

Jean Cabannes

Jean Cabannes studied the scattering of light in gases and liquids. His work helped explain why the sky is blue. He spent decades measuring how molecules interact with light. Most people who look at the sky have no idea why it's that color. He knew. He spent his life explaining what everyone sees but nobody understands.

1960

H. L. Davis

H. L. Davis won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936 for "Honey in the Horn," a novel about Oregon homesteaders that sold 80,000 copies. He grew up on ranches and wrote about the West without romanticizing it. He worked as a surveyor and sheepherder between books. He died in Mexico writing his sixth novel. The West made him, then he rewrote it.

1962

Gabrielle Renaudot, astrónoma francesa (n.

Gabrielle Renaudot, astrónoma francesa (n. 1877)

1962

Louis Émile Gratia, musicien et musicologue français (° 17 septembre 1878).

1962

Thomas Holenstein, Schweizer Politiker

1962

Louis Massignon, universitaire et islamologue français (° 25 juillet 1883).

1963

Mesut Cemil

Mesut Cemil played the tanbur, a long-necked Turkish lute his father had modernized. He composed 400 pieces, fusing Ottoman court music with Western harmony. He died at 61, having recorded almost nothing. His students reconstructed his compositions from memory.

1963

Henry Daniell, actor británico (n.

Henry Daniell, actor británico (n. 1894).

1964

Tuomas Bryggari

Tuomas Bryggari served in Finland's Parliament from 1919 to 1939. He was a farmer who entered politics after Finland's independence. He died in 1964 at 83. Most politicians serve, then disappear.

1964

Theodore Freeman, astronaute américain (° 18 février 1930).

1966

Antônio Carneiro Leão, educador e escritor brasileiro (n.

Antônio Carneiro Leão, educador e escritor brasileiro (n. 1887).

1966

Ruth von Ostau, deutsche Schriftstellerin

1966

Heribert Meisel, österreichischer Sportjournalist

1967

« Chicuelo » (Manuel Jiménez Moreno dit), matador espagnol (° 15 avril 1902).

1967

George Salter, deutsch-US-amerikanischer Gewerbegrafiker und Bühnenbildner

1968

Elsa Nöbbe, deutsche Malerin

1969

Lola Membrives, actriz argentina (n.

Lola Membrives, actriz argentina (n. 1888).

1969

Carlos Arroyo del Río, político ecuatoriano (n.

Carlos Arroyo del Río, político ecuatoriano (n. 1893).

1970

Francisco Gómez de Llano, político español (n.

Francisco Gómez de Llano, político español (n. 1896).

1970

Heinrich Blücher, deutscher Autor und Philosoph

1972

Lee Bartlett, US-amerikanischer Speerwerfer

1972

Bill Durnan

Bill Durnan caught with both hands. He'd wear two gloves, switch the stick between them, confused shooters for a decade. He won six Vezina Trophies in seven years, retired at 35, said his nerves couldn't take it anymore. He vomited before games, lost 15 pounds every season, quit at his peak. He's still the only ambidextrous goalie in NHL history.

1972

Marcia Healy

Marcia Healy acted in silent films in the 1920s, then disappeared from Hollywood. She did a few talkies in the early 1930s and retired. She died at 68, having spent 40 years not being an actress. Most silent film stars didn't survive the transition to sound—they just stopped and lived quiet lives.

1973

Malek Bennabi

Malek Bennabi wrote that the Muslim world suffered from "colonizability"—a psychological condition that made colonization possible. He argued Muslims had to rebuild their intellectual foundations before they could rebuild their societies. He wrote 20 books, mostly in French, from exile in Cairo. He died at 67, his ideas still circulating through Algeria and beyond.

1973

Lucha Reyes, cantante peruana de valses criollos (n.

Lucha Reyes, cantante peruana de valses criollos (n. 1936).

1973

Merlyn Oliver Evans, britischer Maler und Grafiker

1975

Sachin Dev Burman

Sachin Dev Burman composed music for 89 Bollywood films. He sang in 13 of them himself. His son became a composer too, even more famous. They worked on films together. Father and son, same industry, same songs. The son is still working. The father's music still plays.

1975

SD Burman

S.D. Burman composed music for over 100 Hindi films. He sang in his own compositions. He had a stroke in 1968 and kept working from his bed. He finished the score for 'Abhimaan' while hospitalized. He died in 1975. His son continued his unfinished work. The music didn't stop.

1975

S. D. Burman

S.D. Burman composed music for 'Guide' while recovering from a heart attack. Sang some of the songs himself from his hospital bed. The film won international awards. He'd scored over 100 Bollywood films. Created a style that mixed Bengali folk music with Hindi film songs. His son became a composer too. Together they scored 300 films across fifty years.

1975

Gabino Coria Peñaloza, poeta y escritor argentino, autor del tango Caminito (n.

Gabino Coria Peñaloza, poeta y escritor argentino, autor del tango Caminito (n. 1881).

1975

Wilhelm Werner, deutscher Tischler und Kunstsammler

1976

Bruno Uher, österreichischer Komponist

1977

C.B. Colby

C.B. Colby wrote over 200 books for children about guns, military history, and survival skills. He wrote about fighter planes, submarines, and how to tie knots. He was a World War II veteran who turned his service into a writing career. He died at 73, having taught a generation of boys how things worked.

1978

Waldemar Liungman, schwedischer Folklorist

1980

Jan Werich

Jan Werich co-founded Prague's Liberated Theatre in 1927 and spent the next decade mocking fascism through satire so sharp that Nazi officials attended performances to take notes. After the war, communists shut him down for mocking them too. He became a film actor instead, beloved by Czechs who remembered when his jokes were dangerous.

1980

Edelmiro Farrell, militar y dictador argentino (n.

Edelmiro Farrell, militar y dictador argentino (n. 1887).

1981

Bernhard Günther, deutscher Politiker

1981

Georges Guignard, französischer Automobilrennfahrer

1983

Sharof Rashidov

Sharof Rashidov ran Uzbekistan for 24 years as Communist Party boss, transforming it into the Soviet Union's cotton empire through forced quotas and fabricated harvest reports. The "Uzbek Affair" exposed after his 1983 death revealed billions in fraud—cotton that never existed, bribes reaching Moscow, entire falsified economies. His corruption was so vast it helped destabilize the USSR itself.

1983

Lu Jiaxi

Lu Jiaxi taught himself mathematics while working in a factory. He published papers on combinatorics and coding theory without formal training. Chinese universities hired him based on his work. He died at 48, having built a career from books and obsession. His theorems are still cited.

1983

Kirill Gun, sowjetischer Schauspieler

1983

George Halas

George Halas founded the Chicago Bears, coached them for 40 years, and played end in the early days. He was there when the NFL had 14 teams and players worked second jobs. He helped write the rules. He won six championships. He died owning the team. He didn't build a franchise—he built the league itself.

1984

Pierre Dufresne, acteur québécois (° 7 avril 1927).

1984

Scott Clifton, amerikanischer Schauspieler

1984

John Collier, US-amerikanischer Hürdenläufer

1984

Hermann Haake, deutscher Politiker

1984

Eduardo De Filippo

Eduardo De Filippo wrote, directed, and starred in plays about working-class Naples. His family were actors; he grew up backstage. He wrote in Neapolitan dialect, not standard Italian. His plays were about poverty, dignity, and survival. He made local stories universal. Dialect was supposed to limit his audience. It made him timeless.

1984

Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi was warned the morning of October 31, 1984, that her Sikh bodyguards might be a threat. She reportedly said: 'You can't be suspicious of everyone.' Minutes later, two of those guards shot her sixteen times in the garden of her New Delhi residence. The assassination triggered anti-Sikh riots across India that killed at least 3,000 people. Her son Rajiv was sworn in as Prime Minister within hours. She had governed India for fifteen of the previous eighteen years. She was 66.

1984

Friedrich Meinzolt, deutscher Jurist

1985

Omar O'Grady, engenheiro e político brasileiro (n.

Omar O'Grady, engenheiro e político brasileiro (n. 1894).

1985

Nikos Engonopoulos

Nikos Engonopoulos painted surrealist works and wrote poetry that mixed ancient Greek mythology with modern Athens. He was part of Greece's Generation of the '30s. Fought in World War II, kept painting through dictatorship. His work hung in Greek museums but rarely traveled. He died at 78. Greece claimed him. Surrealism was international. He stayed home.

1985

Poul Reichhardt

Poul Reichhardt appeared in 100 Danish films over 50 years. Every Dane knew his face. He sang, acted in comedies and dramas, did television. Never worked outside Denmark. Didn't need to. A country of five million supported a full career. He was their Jimmy Stewart. The rest of the world never heard of him.

1985

Henri Schaller, Schweizer Geistlicher, Journalist und Zeitungsverleger

1985

Anton Christoforidis (Αντώνης Χριστοφορίδης), boxeur grec (° 26 mai 1917).

1985

Anton Christoforidis

Anton Christoforidis fought Joe Louis for the light-heavyweight title in 1941, lost a decision, never got another shot. He was Greek-born, Turkish-raised, fought out of Cleveland, beat everyone except Louis. He fought through World War II, retired with a 65-11 record, ran a restaurant in Ohio. He'd been one punch away from a championship. Louis was too good.

1986

Robert S. Mulliken

Robert Mulliken spent his career calculating how electrons behave in molecules—work so tedious his colleagues called it "molecular arithmetic." He developed a theory explaining chemical bonds using quantum mechanics. Nobody cared for 20 years. Then computers arrived. His calculations became the basis for computational chemistry. He won the Nobel Prize in 1966 at 70. Every drug designed on a computer uses his equations. He died at 90, having turned chemistry into math and math into medicine.

1986

Bruno Snell, deutscher Altphilologe

1987

Joseph Campbell, escritor estadounidense (n.

Joseph Campbell, escritor estadounidense (n. 1904).

1987

Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth aired on PBS in 1988, the year after he died, and introduced his ideas to millions of people who had never heard of the hero's journey or the monomyth. He'd recorded the conversations with Bill Moyers in 1985 and 1986 at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch, the home of the franchise Campbell had most directly inspired. He died in October 1987 at 83, having spent his last decades in lectures and books synthesizing mythology, psychology, and comparative religion into something that felt, to many readers, like a personal philosophy.

1987

Natalie Beer, österreichische Schriftstellerin

1988

Alfred Pellan

Alfred Pellan studied in Paris in the 1920s and brought modernism back to Quebec. He painted abstracts, murals, and set designs. He taught for 30 years. He died in 1988. In Quebec, he's considered one of the great 20th-century painters. His work sells for six figures. Outside Quebec, he doesn't exist.

1988

Warwara Popowa, sowjetische Schauspielerin

1988

John Houseman

John Houseman was 70 when he won an Oscar for The Paper Chase, playing a terrifying law professor. He'd produced Citizen Kane at 39. He co-founded the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles. He spent 40 years behind the camera before he became famous in front of it. He acted for 20 more years.

1989

Conrad Beck, Schweizer Komponist

1991

Eugene Avon Anderson, US-amerikanischer Wrestler

1991

Ewald Bucher, deutscher Politiker

1991

Gene Anderson

Gene Anderson wrestled for 30 years as part of The Minnesota Wrecking Crew with his "brother" Ole Anderson. They weren't related. They won 23 tag team championships. Gene retired in 1985. He died six years later of a heart attack. He was 58. Ole kept wrestling without him.

1991

Joseph Papp

Joseph Papp produced Hair, A Chorus Line, and for the Colored Girls off-Broadway, then moved them to Broadway and made millions. He spent it all on Shakespeare in the Park — free theater in Central Park every summer since 1962. Lost money every year. Didn't care. Produced 600 plays in 40 years. Died of cancer at 70. The free Shakespeare continues without him.

1992

Gary Rippingale

Gary Rippingale died in a car crash at 18, three months after signing with the Nottingham Panthers. He'd been named Britain's most promising young ice hockey player. He never played a professional game. The Panthers retired his number anyway. He's the only player honored for what he might have done.

1993

River Phoenix

River Phoenix collapsed outside the Viper Room at 1 a.m. on Halloween. His brother called 911. Johnny Depp's club. Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers was there. Phoenix had been filming for six weeks straight. He was 23. He'd finished three-quarters of Dark Blood. They couldn't finish it. The film sat in a vault for 19 years.

1993

Erich Romanovsky, österreichischer Komponist und Organist

1993

Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini made films the way he dreamed — literally. He kept a notebook by his bed for thirty years and drew his dreams every morning, then raided those notebooks for images. 8½, La Dolce Vita, Amarcord: none of them follow a conventional plot. All of them feel like memories from someone else's life that you somehow recognize. He died in October 1993, one day after his 50th wedding anniversary, from a stroke suffered while watching a documentary about himself.

1995

Joel Mason, US-amerikanischer American-Football-Spieler und Basketballtrainer

1995

Rosalind Cash

Rosalind Cash turned down the role of Aunt Esther on Sanford and Son because she didn't want to play maids or stereotypes. She was in The Omega Man, played Mary Mae Ward on General Hospital for five years, and was nominated for an Emmy in 1983. She died of cancer at 56. She never compromised.

1996

Grachan Moncur II., US-amerikanischer Jazzbassist

1996

Marcel Carné

Marcel Carné directed Children of Paradise in 1945 while France was under Nazi occupation. The film took two years to shoot during wartime. It's three hours long, a love story set in 19th-century Paris. He made a romantic epic while his country was occupied. The Nazis never realized what he was doing. It became the greatest French film ever made.

1997

Aimable (Aimable Pluchard dit), accordéoniste français (° 10 mai 1922).

1997

Hans Bauer, deutscher Fußballspieler

1997

Bram Appel, niederländischer Fußballspieler und -trainer

1997

George Roth

George Roth won gold on the rings at the 1932 Olympics. He was 21. He taught gymnastics for decades after. Olympic careers used to be one moment, then a lifetime of teaching.

1998

Elmer Vasko

Elmer Vasko played 13 NHL seasons, won a Stanley Cup with Chicago in 1961, was known for hits that left opponents unconscious. He was 6'2" and 210 pounds when most players were 5'9". He broke bones for a living. The league didn't track hits then. Teammates said he averaged 10 a game. He died at 62. His brain was never studied.

1998

María de la Purísima Salvat Romero

María de la Purísima Salvat Romero was a nun in Castellón when the Spanish Civil War started. Militiamen executed her and 11 other sisters in 1936. She was 10. The Catholic Church canonized her in 2001. She's the youngest saint of the 20th century.

1999

Greg Moore

Greg Moore won five CART races before he turned 24. He was fast, fearless, and everyone said he'd be champion. On October 31, 1999, his car hit a wall at 220 mph during practice at Fontana. The crash was violent but survivable. The deceleration killed him. He was 24. CART never raced at Fontana again.

1999

Howard Ferguson, irischer Komponist

1999

Didier Méda, französischer Freestyle-Skier

2000s 148

2000

Ring Lardner

Ring Lardner Jr. went to prison for contempt of Congress in 1950 — one of the Hollywood Ten who refused to testify about communism. Blacklisted for fifteen years. He wrote scripts under pseudonyms for $500 each. Then he co-wrote "M*A*S*H" in 1970 and won an Oscar. He was 55. He'd already won one in 1942 for "Woman of the Year." Prison was the intermission.

2000

Watanabe Kazuki

Kazuki Watanabe, the charismatic frontman of the visual kei band Raphael, died at nineteen from an accidental drug overdose. His sudden passing dissolved one of Japan's most promising rock acts, leaving behind a devoted fanbase and a catalog that defined the late nineties' underground music scene.

2000

Kazuki Watanabe

Kazuki Watanabe played guitar for Melt-Banana, a Japanese noise-rock band that sounded like a video game being murdered. Songs lasted 90 seconds. He played thousands of notes per minute. The band toured constantly. He died in a car accident in 2000 at 19. The band kept going without him for 20 more years.

2000

Thomas Gifford, US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller

2001

Solange Chaput-Rolland, animatrice, écrivaine et femme politique québécoise (° 14 mai 1919).

2001

Régine Cavagnoud

Régine Cavagnoud won the Super-G World Championship in 2001, then crashed during a training run in Germany three weeks later. She collided with a coach on the slope. Her helmet cracked. She died two days later, 31 years old. France lost its only female Alpine world champion the same season she'd won the title.

2002

Michail Stasinopoulos

Michail Stasinopoulos was a judge, a legal scholar, and briefly — for 18 months in 1974-75 — President of Greece during the transition from dictatorship to democracy. He was a caretaker, a steady hand. He left office when elections were held. He lived another 27 years, quietly. He'd been president during the most fragile moment in modern Greek history.

2002

Raf Vallone

Raf Vallone was a soccer player and philosophy student before he became an actor at 30. He never trained, just started taking roles, became an international star. He played opposite Sophia Loren, worked with Visconti, spoke five languages, did his own stunts into his 70s. He made 90 films. He'd wanted to be a lawyer.

2002

Lionel Poilâne

Lionel Poilâne baked bread using 19th-century methods, wood-fired ovens, and natural yeast. He turned his father's bakery into a luxury brand, shipped sourdough to restaurants worldwide, charged $15 a loaf. He died in a helicopter crash at 57, flying his own aircraft off the Brittany coast. His daughter was 18. She took over the bakery the next day.

2002

Amsi Kern, bayerische Volksschauspielerin

2002

Juri Aronowitsch, russisch-israelischer Dirigent

2002

Jean-Marie Fortier, prélat québécois, évêque de Gaspé de 1965 à 1968 puis archevêque de Sherbrooke de 1968 à 1996 (° …

Jean-Marie Fortier, prélat québécois, évêque de Gaspé de 1965 à 1968 puis archevêque de Sherbrooke de 1968 à 1996 (° 1er juillet 1920).

2002

Raymond Savignac, affichiste français (° 6 novembre 1907).

2003

Kamato Hongo, supercentenaria japonesa.

Kamato Hongo, supercentenaria japonesa. (n. 1887/1893)

2003

Richard Neustadt

Richard Neustadt wrote Presidential Power in 1960 after watching Eisenhower struggle with the limits of command. He argued presidents don't actually have power — they have persuasion. Kennedy read it, then hired him. Every president since has quoted the book. Neustadt spent 40 years teaching at Harvard that the Oval Office is weaker than it looks.

2003

Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer

Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer gave his first Carnatic music concert at 13 and his last at 94. He performed for 81 years without interruption. He sang for Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and five other prime ministers. He refused to record commercially until he was 70. He left behind 300 recordings made in his final 25 years.

2003

José Juncosa, footballeur puis entraîneur espagnol (° 2 février 1922).

2004

Valentin Nikolayev, lutteur soviétique puis russe (° 6 avril 1924).

2004

Eugen Glombig, deutscher Politiker

2005

Hal Anger

Hal Anger invented the gamma camera in 1957. It detects radiation inside the human body and creates images of organs and tumors. It's still the basis for nuclear medicine imaging. Millions of scans have been done with his invention. He made cancer visible. He never became famous for it.

2005

Amrita Pritam

Amrita Pritam wrote about Partition — the violence, the loss, the women. Her poem 'Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu' is recited across Punjab. She wrote novels, poetry, essays in Punjabi for 60 years. She was the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award. She never stopped writing about 1947.

2005

Paul Reynard, französisch-US-amerikanischer Maler

2005

William O. Baker, US-amerikanischer Chemiker

2005

Mary Wimbush

Mary Wimbush played Julia Pargetter on The Archers for 35 years, the BBC radio soap that's run since 1951. She recorded her final episode three weeks before she died. Listeners heard her voice for months after. The show killed her character off-air, with a quiet funeral. 11 million people mourned someone they'd never seen.

2005

Helmut Brennicke, deutscher Schauspieler, Regisseur, Hörspielsprecher, Schauspiellehrer und Autor

2005

John "Beatz" Holohan

John Holohan was driving the band van when it flipped on a highway in Arizona. He was 31. Bayside's guitarist was injured. Holohan died at the scene. The band had been on tour for months. They canceled the rest of the dates. Their next album was dedicated to him. They're still playing.

2006

Michel Bernstein, producteur de musique, réalisateur artistique et compositeur français (° 1er avril 1931).

2006

Peter Fryer

Peter Fryer quit the Communist Party in 1956 after the Daily Worker censored his reports from Hungary showing Soviet tanks crushing protesters. He'd been a true believer for 15 years. He published what they'd killed in a book called "Hungarian Tragedy." He spent the rest of his life writing about the betrayals of the left. The tanks made him a heretic.

2006

Amrita Pritam

Amrita Pritam wrote "Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu" in 1947, a poem asking the dead poet Waris Shah to witness Partition's violence. It became the most famous Punjabi poem of the 20th century. She'd fled Lahore with one suitcase. She published 100 books in 60 years and became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award. She asked a ghost to bear witness because the living wouldn't.

2006

P. W. Botha

P.W. Botha suffered a stroke in 1989 while still president. He resigned. F.W. de Klerk replaced him and released Mandela six months later. Botha refused to testify at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He refused to apologize. He called it a "circus." They fined him and gave him a suspended sentence. He lived in the Wilderness, a town on the coast. He died there at 90. He never expressed regret.

2007

Raymond William Robert « Ray » Gravell, joueur de rugby gallois (° 12 septembre 1951).

2007

Ray Gravell

Ray Gravell played rugby for Wales 23 times, cried during the national anthem every match, wore his heart on his sleeve and his opponents on the ground. He was a center, built like a tank, hit like one too. He became a broadcaster after rugby, spoke Welsh on the BBC, championed the language until he died at 56. Wales gave him a state funeral. He'd made crying manly.

2007

Robert Goulet, cantante y actor estadounidense (n.

Robert Goulet, cantante y actor estadounidense (n. 1933).

2007

Modest Cuixart, pintor español, fundador del grupo Dau al Set (n.

Modest Cuixart, pintor español, fundador del grupo Dau al Set (n. 1925).

2007

Jacques Heuclin, homme politique français (° 10 juillet 1946).

2007

Erdal İnönü

Erdal İnönü was a physicist before he became Prime Minister of Turkey. He published papers on quantum mechanics. He entered politics in his 50s. He served as Prime Minister twice in the 1990s. He died at 81. His physics papers are still cited.

2008

Hermann Sodermanns, deutscher Fußballspieler

2008

Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel recorded 9,000 hours of interviews with ordinary Americans — waitresses, steelworkers, jazz musicians — asking them about their lives. He published their words verbatim in books that became oral histories of the 20th century. He won a Pulitzer at 72 for The Good War. He kept interviewing people until he was 96. America told its own story because he held the microphone.

2008

John Daly, producteur de cinéma britannique (° 16 juillet 1937).

2009

Claude Lévi-Strauss, antropólogo, filósofo y lingüista belga-francés (n.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, antropólogo, filósofo y lingüista belga-francés (n. 1908).

2009

Qian Xuesen

Qian Xuesen helped found NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Then McCarthyism accused him of communist ties. The U.S. detained him for five years, stripped his security clearance, deported him to China in 1955. He built China's ballistic missile program from nothing. His DF-5 could reach American cities. The Pentagon called his deportation the stupidest mistake in American history.

2009

Mustafa Mahmud

Mustafa Mahmud was an atheist doctor who became Egypt's most famous Islamic philosopher after a spiritual crisis at 40. He wrote 89 books reconciling science and faith, hosted a TV show for 30 years, and built a mosque with a free medical clinic. Millions watched him explain evolution and the Quran in the same breath. He lost God, found Him, then made them coexist.

2009

Tom Wheatcroft

Tom Wheatcroft made a fortune in construction, then bought Donington Park racing circuit in 1971. He built the Donington Grand Prix Exhibition, one of the world's largest collections of racing cars. He spent millions preserving racing history. He turned nostalgia into a museum.

2010

Maurice Lucas

Maurice Lucas punched Darryl Dawkins during the 1977 NBA Finals, stopping the 76ers' intimidation campaign cold. Portland won the championship. Lucas had grown up in Pittsburgh projects and wasn't scared of anyone. He played 14 seasons as an enforcer who protected smaller teammates. He died of bladder cancer at 58. Former players still call him the toughest man they ever met.

2010

Ted Sorensen

Ted Sorensen wrote John F. Kennedy's inaugural address — 'Ask not what your country can do for you.' He was thirty-two. He'd been writing Kennedy's speeches for eight years, since the senator hired him straight out of law school. After Dallas, he left politics. He wrote books. He practiced law. But everyone remembered fourteen words.

2010

Manfred Bock, deutscher Leichtathlet

2010

Heinrich Riebesehl, deutscher Fotograf

2010

Maurice Lucas, baloncestista estadounidense (n.

Maurice Lucas, baloncestista estadounidense (n. 1952).

2010

Pierre-Luc Séguillon, journaliste de télévision français (° 13 septembre 1940).

2010

Max Barandun, Schweizer Leichtathlet

2010

Michel d’Aillières, französischer Politiker

2010

Christa Herklotz, deutsche Skilangläuferin

2011

Ali Saibou, militaire et homme d'état nigérien, chef de l'État nigérien de 1987 à 1993 (° 1940).

2011

Alberto Anchart, actor y comediante argentino (n.

Alberto Anchart, actor y comediante argentino (n. 1931).

2011

Liz Anderson, US-amerikanische Country-Sängerin und -Songschreiberin

2011

Flórián Albert

Flórián Albert won the Ballon d'Or in 1967 as a midfielder for Ferencváros, becoming the only Hungarian to ever receive the award. He played his entire career for one club in Budapest, turning down offers from Real Madrid and Juventus. He wanted to stay home. After retirement, he worked as a sports journalist and never regretted the money he didn't make.

2011

Roberto Lippi

Roberto Lippi raced cars in Italy for decades, competing in sports car championships through the 1950s and 60s. He died in 2011 at 85, having outlived most of his competitors by decades. Racing was more dangerous then. Surviving it was the real victory.

2012

Guy Chambily, chef d'entreprise et dirigeant de football français (° 6 novembre 1932).

2012

John H. Reed

John Reed served as Governor of Maine from 1959 to 1967. He was a Republican moderate who expanded education funding and environmental protection. He died at 90. He'd governed in an era when both parties agreed on infrastructure and schools. That world is gone.

2012

John Fitch

John Fitch finished second at Le Mans in 1953, losing by four minutes. He survived a crash at the 1955 Le Mans disaster that killed 83 people. He invented the Fitch Barrier—yellow barrels filled with sand that absorb impact on highways. He saved thousands of lives with barrels after failing to save them with speed. He died at 95, his invention on every American freeway.

2012

Brian Cobby

Brian Cobby recorded the speaking clock for British Telecom in 1985—the voice that told callers "At the third stroke, the time will be..." He said it 20 million times a day for 15 years. People called just to hear him. He received marriage proposals. He never got royalties, just a one-time fee. His voice is still the one older Britons hear in their heads when checking the time.

2012

June Blundell

June Blundell was married to Denis Blundell, who served as Governor-General of New Zealand from 1972 to 1977. She performed ceremonial duties alongside him. She died in 2012 at 90. She'd been the representative of the Queen's representative, twice removed from power.

2012

Mitch Lucker, cantante estadounidense (n.

Mitch Lucker, cantante estadounidense (n. 1984).

2012

Gae Aulenti

Gae Aulenti transformed the Gare d'Orsay train station into the Musée d'Orsay, turning 19th-century industrial architecture into one of Paris's most visited museums. She designed showrooms for Fiat and Olivetti, making corporate spaces feel like art galleries. She chain-smoked through client meetings and refused to work with anyone who couldn't keep up. She made train stations more beautiful than the art they held.

2012

Alfons Demming, évêque allemand (° 29 février 1928).

2012

Fernando Díaz-Plaja, periodista e historiador español (n.

Fernando Díaz-Plaja, periodista e historiador español (n. 1918).

2012

Teri Shields

Teri Shields put her daughter Brooke in a Playboy publication at age 10 and defended it in court. She managed Brooke's career through "Blue Lagoon" and "The Blue Lagoon," taking 15% of everything. They didn't speak for years. Brooke forgave her before she died. She turned her daughter into a commodity and called it love.

2012

Konstantin Vyrupayev, lutteur soviétique puis russe (° 10 octobre 1931).

2012

عبد الرزاق الحمامي، مخرج تونسي.

2013

Johnny Kucks

Johnny Kucks pitched a complete-game shutout in Game 7 of the 1956 World Series at age 23, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers 9-0. He won 18 games that season. Arm trouble ended his career at 28. He became a successful insurance salesman in New Jersey. He peaked before he could legally rent a car and spent 50 years selling policies.

2013

Bobby Parker

Bobby Parker wrote "Watch Your Step" in 1961, a guitar riff so distinctive that Carlos Santana borrowed it for "Oye Como Va" a decade later. Parker never sued. He played chitlin circuit clubs for 50 years, never had a hit, and influenced everyone who did. He died in D.C., where he'd played the same venues for decades. The riff outlived the recognition.

2013

Gérard de Villiers

Gérard de Villiers published 200 spy novels featuring Malko Linge, an Austrian prince who worked for the CIA. He sold 150 million copies in 20 languages. He was banned in several countries for revealing real intelligence operations. French intelligence officers read his books to learn what he knew. Fiction kept exposing facts.

2013

Soja Alexandrowna Abramowa, sowjetisch-russische Prähistorikerin

2013

Jean Otth, artiste contemporain suisse (° 16 novembre 1940).

2013

Chris Chase

Chris Chase was a Copacabana showgirl who became a ghostwriter for celebrities who couldn't write their own memoirs. She co-wrote books for Betty Ford, Mamie Eisenhower, and Arlene Francis. She acted in two Broadway shows and wrote theater criticism for the Herald Tribune. She knew everyone's secrets and sold them with permission.

2013

Jagadish Ghimire

Jagadish Ghimire wrote 18 books in Nepali and spent three years in prison for criticizing the monarchy. He organized literacy programs in rural villages and taught farmers to read using his own poetry. He died at 67 from complications of diabetes. His students taught their children using his books. The monarchy fell; his words didn't.

2013

Chris Chase

Irene Kane modeled and acted in the early '50s, appearing in Kubrick's first film. Then she became Chris Chase, a writer. She wrote for The New York Times and published memoirs. Two names, two careers, one life spent reinventing herself every time the industry changed.

2013

Trevor Kletz

Trevor Kletz spent 40 years studying industrial accidents and concluded most happened because someone ignored a simple safety rule to save time. His books on chemical plant safety became required reading after Bhopal killed 3,800 people. He calculated that Piper Alpha could've been prevented for £100,000. It killed 167 and cost £2 billion. He made safety boring enough to save lives.

2013

Andres Narvasa

Andres Narvasa served as Chief Justice of the Philippines from 1991 to 1998, during a period of political instability after the Marcos dictatorship. He wrote over 300 opinions. He died in 2013. He'd tried to rebuild a judiciary that had been corrupted for decades.

2014

Patrick Partridge, arbitre de football anglais (° 30 juin 1933).

2014

José Manuel Briceño Guerrero, filósofo, escritor y profesor universitario venezolano (n.

José Manuel Briceño Guerrero, filósofo, escritor y profesor universitario venezolano (n. 1929).

2014

Marina Cárdenas, cantante de boleros nicaragüense (n.

Marina Cárdenas, cantante de boleros nicaragüense (n. 1946).

2014

David Manker Abshire

David Abshire co-founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 1962. He served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO and as special counselor to Reagan during Iran-Contra. He died at 87. He'd spent 50 years shaping American foreign policy from think tanks and advisory roles.

2014

Hitoshi Motoshima

Hitoshi Motoshima was mayor of Nagasaki when he said in 1988 that Emperor Hirohito bore responsibility for World War II. A right-wing extremist shot him in the chest a year later. He survived, served another term, and never retracted the statement. He'd been 13 when the atomic bomb fell. He blamed the man who started the war, not the one who ended it.

2014

John Forzani

John Forzani played two seasons for the Calgary Stampeders, then opened a sporting goods store with his brothers in 1974. Forzani's became Canada's largest sporting goods retailer with 350 stores and $1.3 billion in annual revenue. He sold it in 2011 for $771 million. He played football for two years and sold sneakers for 40. The store outlasted the career.

2014

Michael Alsbury

Michael Alsbury was the co-pilot on SpaceShot Two's test flight in 2014. The spacecraft broke apart at 50,000 feet. He died in the Mojave Desert. The pilot survived. Private spaceflight isn't safe yet.

2014

Brad Halsey

Brad Halsey pitched five seasons in the majors. He won 16 games across three teams. He was out of baseball at 28. He died at 33 — heart attack, sudden, gone. Five years in the big leagues, five years after, then nothing. Baseball doesn't prepare you for what comes after.

2014

Marc Wiel, urbaniste français (° 2 août 1940).

2014

Jean-Pierre Roy, joueur et analyste de baseball québécois (° 26 juin 1920).

2014

Käbi Laretei, pianiste esto-suédois (° 14 juillet 1922).

2015

Ryūzō Saki, écrivain japonais (° 14 avril 1937).

2015

Thomas Blatt, auteur polono-américain, survivant de la Shoah (° 15 avril 1927).

2015

Ants Antson, patineur de vitesse estonien (° 11 novembre 1938).

2015

Hans-Otto Kröner, deutscher Klassischer Philologe

2015

Hans Teuscher, deutscher Schauspieler

2015

Gus Savage

Gus Savage served in Congress for 12 years representing Chicago's South Side. He was a newspaper publisher first, then entered politics at 60. He died at 90, decades after leaving office.

2015

Gregg Palmer, actor estadounidense (n.

Gregg Palmer, actor estadounidense (n. 1927).

2016

Silvio Gazzaniga, sculpteur italien (° 23 janvier 1921).

2016

Vladimir Zeldine (Влади́мир Миха́йлович Зе́льдин), acteur russe (° 10 février 1915).

2017

Mario Das Neves, político argentino (n.

Mario Das Neves, político argentino (n. 1951).

2017

Mircea Drăgan, réalisateur et scénariste roumain (° 3 octobre 1932).

2017

Alain Mottet, acteur français (° 30 décembre 1928).

2018

Tadeusz Kraus, footballeur puis entraîneur tchécoslovaque puis tchèque (° 22 octobre 1932).

2018

Florence Malraux, assistante de réalisation française (° 28 mars 1933).

2018

Roger Bootle-Wilbraham, homme politique britannique (° 2 avril 1945).

2018

Enzo Apicella, auteur de bandes dessinées italien (° 26 juin 1922).

2018

Ron Grable, US-amerikanischer Automobilrennfahrer

2018

Willie McCovey

Willie McCovey's first major league game: four hits off future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. He hit 521 home runs over 22 years, won MVP, made six All-Star teams. He never won a World Series. He came to bat in Game 7 of the 1962 Series with runners on and lined out to end it. One foot different and everything changes.

2018

Alain Baptizet, réalisateur, producteur et spéléologue français (° 1957).

2018

Esquerdinha, footballeur brésilien (° 6 mai).

2019

Florence Giorgetti, actrice française (° 15 février 1944).

2019

Maurice Laval, journaliste français (° 8 septembre 1920).

2019

Alfredo Molano Bravo, sociologue, journaliste et écrivain colombien (° 1944).

2019

Amjad Nasser, journaliste, écrivain et poète jordanien (° 1955).

2019

Yánnis Spanós, compositeur et parolier grec (° 26 juillet 1934).

2019

Thomas Schmidt, deutscher Hörfunkmoderator

2019

Anil Adhikari, homme politique indien (° 1948 ou 1949).

2019

Tarania Clarke, footballeuse jamaïcaine (° 3 octobre 1999).

2020

Marc Fosset, guitariste de jazz français (° 17 mai 1949).

2020

Betty Dodson, écrivaine, formatrice en éducation sexuelle, graveuse et artiste visuelle américaine (° 24 août 1929).

2020

Iba Der Thiam, homme politique sénégalais (° 26 février 1937).

2020

Eduardo Castelló, cycliste sur route espagnol (° 4 mars 1940).

2020

Gérard Caron, designer français (° 30 août 1938).

2020

Horacio Serpa Uribe, homme politique colombien (° 4 janvier 1943).

2020

Sean Connery

Sean Connery wore a toupee in every Bond film. He was 31 when he was cast, a Scottish bodybuilder who'd never worn a tuxedo. He did five films, quit, came back for one more, quit again. He spent 40 years trying to be seen as something other than 007. He never quite managed it.

2020

MF Doom

MF DOOM wore a mask for his entire career. Nobody knew what he looked like. He sent imposters to perform as him. He died on Halloween 2020. His family didn't announce it for two months. The mystery was the point.

2020

Huda Naamani, écrivaine féministe, poétesse, éditrice et artiste libanaise (° 2 juin 1930).

2020

Jacques Golliet, homme politique français (° 14 décembre 1931).

2021

Michel Robidoux, musicien canadien (° 10 juillet 1943).

2021

Catherine Tizard, política neozelandesa (n.

Catherine Tizard, política neozelandesa (n. 1931).

2021

Dorothy Manley, britische Leichtathletin

2021

Doğan Akhanlı, écrivain turc (° 18 mars 1957).

2021

Jean-Marie Chevalier, économiste français (° 4 juin 1941).

2021

Antonia Terzi, ingénieure italienne (° 29 avril 1971).

2021

Włodzimierz Trams, basketteur polonais (° 12 mai 1944).

2021

Peter Philpott

Peter Philpott took 36 wickets in eight Tests for Australia. He was a leg-spinner. He played in the 1960s when Australia had better spinners. He coached after. Cricket has room for journeymen.

2022

Philippe Alexandre, journaliste français (° 14 mars 1932).

2022

Keith Taylor, homme politique britannique (° 1er août 1953).

2022

Andrew Prine, (° 14 février 1936).

2023

Ernesto Ferrero, écrivain italien (° 6 mai 1938).

2023

José Luis Dolgetta, footballeur international vénézuélien (° 1er août 1970).

2023

Tyler Christopher, acteur américain (° 11 novembre 1972).

2023

Ken Mattingly

Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from Apollo 13 three days before launch because he'd been exposed to measles. He never got sick. He spent the mission in the simulator, figuring out how to restart a dead spacecraft. His procedure saved the crew. He flew to the moon twice after that.

2023

Lea Ackermann, deutsche Ordensschwester und Frauenrechtlerin

2023

Aldo Vastapane, homme d'affaires belge (° 1er février 1926).

2023

Elmar Wepper, acteur allemand (° 16 avril 1944).

2023

Kōichi Yamamoto, homme politique japonais (° 4 septembre 1947).

2025

Armand Mattelart, sociólogo belga (n.

Armand Mattelart, sociólogo belga (n. 1936)

Deaths

Chadaloh, Graf von Friaul und in der Baar

Roger, Graf von Maine

Al-Muqtadir

Abū Zaid al-Balchī, islamischer Universalgelehrter

Oscytel, archevêque d'York (° inconnue).

Otto I., Herzog von Schwaben und Bayern

Wolfgang of Regensburg

Abe no Seimei

Heriger von Lobbes, flämischer Geistlicher und Komponist

Deokjong

Otto II., Graf von Scheyern

Robert

Eleanor of England

Ulrich II., Fürstbischof von Passau

Eustace de Fauconberg, englischer Prälat, Treasurer of the Exchequer und Bischof von London

Wilhelm, Bischof von Cammin

Ricold of Monte Croce

Juan de Haro, aristócrata español (n.

Marie of Évreux

Elisabeth von Ungarn, Dominikanerin und Prinzessin von Ungarn

Francesco Dandolo, 52.

John VIII Palaiologos

Elisabeth von Brandenburg, Herzogin von Liegnitz und Teschen

Johann zu Solms, Graf von Solms-Lich

Wenzeslaus Brack, deutscher Frühhumanist und Wörterbuchautor

Anna, Kurfürstin von Brandenburg

Fra Bartolommeo

Alfonso I. d’Este, Herzog von Ferrara, Modena und Reggio

Thomas Howard, englischer Adeliger

Vicente de Valverde, spanischer Geistlicher

Augustin Marlorat, französischer Reformator

Johann Friedrich III., Herzog zu Sachsen

Marie von Brandenburg-Kulmbach, Kurfürstin von der Pfalz

Ulrich Sitzinger, deutscher Jurist, Politiker und Reformator

Peter Stumpp

Andreas Báthory, Bischof von Ermland und Fürst von Siebenbürgen

Johann, Herzog von Sachsen-Weimar

Marcantonio Memmo, Doge von Venedig

Ulrich von Pommern, deutscher Geistlicher

Erasmus Widmann, deutscher Organist und Komponist

Cornelis Jol

Íñigo Vélez de Guevara, Conde de Oñate, spanischer Diplomat und Staatsmann

Amador de La Porte, französischer Geistlicher, Großprior von Frankreich

Francisco Correa de Arauxo, compositor y organista español (n.

John Bradshaw

Köprülü Mehmed Pasha

Wilhelm Friedrich, Graf von Nassau-Dietz, Statthalter von Friesland, Groningen und Drenthe

Kurt Christoph Graf von Königsmarck, niederländischer Generalleutnant

Ferdinando de’ Medici, Erbprinz der Toskana

Johanna Ursula von Geusau, deutsche Kirchenlieddichterin

Domenico Piazoll, österreichischer Stuckateur

Cosimo III de' Medici

Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia

Eberhard Louis

William North, 6.

Ki no Kaion, japanischer Schriftsteller

Leonardo Leo

William Augustus, duc de Cumberland, prince britannique (° 26 avril 1721).

Prince William

Olivio Sozzi, italienischer Maler

Franz von Som, Hamburger Jurist und Archivar

Petrus Johannes Meindaerts, niederländischer Geistlicher, Erzbischof von Utrecht

Francesco Maria Veracini

Princess Amelia of Great Britain

Pierre Vergniaud, französischer Revolutionär und Politiker

Jacques Pierre Brissot, escritor y dirigente político francés, personaje de la Revolución Francesa (n.

Claude Fauchet, sacerdote revolucionario francés, personaje de la Revolución francesa (n.

Kitagawa Utamaro

Sophie Mereau, deutsche Schriftstellerin

Christian Gotthilf Salzmann, deutscher Pfarrer und Pädagoge

Engelbert Arndts, westfälischer Jurist, kaiserlicher Postmeister und Beamter

John Lynch

Jared Ingersoll, US-amerikanischer Jurist und Politiker

Peter Puget, britischer Seefahrer

Pachi Gorriti (José Francisco Gorriti), militar argentino (n.

Johann Friedrich Meckel, anatomista alemán (n.

Heinrich XIX., Fürst Reuß zu Greiz

Stephen Watts Kearny, militaire américain (° 30 août 1794).

Edward Bransfield, irisch-schottischer Seefahrer und Forscher