Did you know
Arthur was Duke of Cornwall from birth, and he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in 1489.
Notable Deaths on April 2
1502 — Arthur
prince of Wales (born 1486)
April 2 has 98 recorded notable deaths across history, from 670 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
98 source records
670 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on April 2
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1917 American entry into World War I: President Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. Source
- 1800 Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna. Source
- 1863 American Civil War: The largest in a series of Southern bread riots occurs in Richmond, Virginia. Source
- 1921 The Autonomous Government of Khorasan, a military government encompassing the modern state of Iran, is established. Source
Did you know
Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front.
Did you know
Described as the first modern female head of a nation in Africa, she was the last female Ethiopian head of state until the 2018 election of Sahle-Work Zewde as president.
Did you know
The first church built under his tenure was the Garden Grove Community Church chapel which seated 500, and the second was the much larger Crystal Cathedral, which has a capacity of 2,200.
Did you know
In the 1950s, her main means of artistic expression shifted from print to sculpture, though she never gave up the former.
More major people who died on April 2
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1972
Franz Halder
German general (born 1884)
Franz Halder was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942.
1930
Zewditu I of Ethiopia (born 1876)
Zewditu was Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 until her death in 1930. She officially adopted the regnal name "Zewditu" at the beginning of her reign, which was triggered by the dethroning of Lij Iyasu in 1916.
2015
Robert H. Schuller
American pastor and author (born 1926)
Robert Harold Schuller was an American Christian televangelist, pastor, motivational speaker, and author. Over five decades, Schuller pastored his church in Garden Grove, California starting in 1955.
2012
Elizabeth Catlett
American-Mexican sculptor and illustrator (born 1915)
Elizabeth Catlett, born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett, also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora was an American and Mexican sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the 20th…
1272
Richard
1st Earl of Cornwall, English husband of Sanchia of Provence (born 1209)
Richard was an English prince who was King of the Romans from 1257 until his death in 1272. He was the second son of John, King of England, and Isabella, Countess of Angoulême.
2024
Larry Lucchino
American attorney and baseball executive (born 1945)
Lawrence Lucchino was an American lawyer and Major League Baseball executive.
2015
Manoel de Oliveira
Portuguese actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1908)
Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira was a Portuguese film director and screenwriter born in Cedofeita, Porto. He first began making films in 1927, when he and some friends attempted to make a film about World War I.
2009
Bud Shank
American saxophonist and flute player (born 1926)
Clifford Everett "Bud" Shank Jr. was an American alto saxophonist and flutist. He rose to prominence in the late 1940s into early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra.
1914
Paul Heyse
German author, poet, and translator, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1830)
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse was a German writer and translator.
1720
Joseph Dudley
English politician, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (born 1647)
Joseph Dudley was a colonial administrator, a native of Roxbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the son of one of its founders.
1995
Hannes Alfvén
Swedish physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1908)
Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD).
2024
John Barth
American writer (born 1930)
John Simmons Barth was an American writer best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction.
2012
Mauricio Lasansky
American graphic designer and academic (born 1914)
Mauricio Leib Lasansky was an Argentine artist and educator known both for his advanced techniques in intaglio printmaking and for a series of 33 pencil drawings from the 1960s titled "The Nazi Drawings." Lasansky, who…
1891
Ahmed Vefik Pasha
Greek playwright and politician, 249th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (born 1823)
Ahmed Vefik Pasha was an Ottoman statesman, diplomat, scholar, playwright, and translator during the Tanzimat and First Constitutional Era periods.
1891
Albert Pike
American lawyer and general (born 1809)
Albert Pike was an American author, poet, orator, editor, lawyer, jurist and Confederate States Army general who served as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in exile from 1864 to 1865.
670
Hasan ibn Ali the second Shia Imam (born 624)
Hasan ibn Ali was an Alid political and religious leader. The eldest son of Ali and Fatima and a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Hasan briefly ruled as caliph from January 661 until August 661.
1118
Baldwin I
king of Jerusalem
Baldwin I was the first count of Edessa from 1098 to 1100 and king of Jerusalem from 1100 to his death in 1118.
1827
Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus
German physician and educator (born 1776)
Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus Latinized as Ludovicus Henricus Bojanus was a Franco-German physician, comparative anatomist, and naturalist who spent most of his active career teaching veterinary medicine at Vilnius University…
1933
Ranjitsinhji
Indian cricketer (born 1872)
Colonel Kumar Sri Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji II, often known as Ranji or K. S. Ranjitsinhji, was an Indian cricketer who later became ruler of his native Indian princely state of Nawanagar, from 1907 to 1933.