Notable Deaths on April 8

April 8 has 102 recorded notable deaths across history, from 217 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Pablo Picasso

1973 — Pablo Picasso

Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1881)

By · — Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 102 source records 217 – 2025

Major events on April 8

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 2002 The Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-110, carrying the S0 truss to the International Space Station. Astronaut Jerry L. Ross also becomes the first person to fly on seven spaceflights. Source
  2. 2026 Operation Eternal Darkness: Hours after a ceasefire to the Iran war, Israeli attacks on Lebanon kill at least 357 and injures more than 1200 people in the largest airstrikes of the Lebanon war. Source

Did you know about Pablo Picasso

Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Did you know about Caracalla

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known by his nickname Caracalla, was Roman emperor from 198 to 217 AD, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his father and then ruling alone after 211 AD.

Did you know about Annette Funicello

Annette Funicello began her professional career at age 12, becoming one of the most popular Mouseketeers on the original Mickey Mouse Club.

Did you know about Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, was an Italian statesman, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful patron of Renaissance culture in Italy.

Did you know about María Félix

Along with Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s and 1950s.

More major people who died on April 8

Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.

217 Caracalla

Caracalla

Roman emperor (born 188)
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known by his nickname Caracalla, was Roman emperor from 198 to 217 AD, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his father and then ruling alone after 211 AD. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor Septimius Severus and Empress Julia Domna. Severus proclaimed Caracalla co-ruler in 198, doing the same with his other son Geta in 209. The two brothers briefly shared power after their father's death in 211, but Caracalla soon had Geta murdered by the Praetorian Guard and became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Julia Domna had a significant share in governance, since Caracalla found administration to be mundane. His reign featured domestic instability and external invasions by the Germanic peoples.
Wikipedia source
2013 Annette Funicello

Annette Funicello

American actress and singer (born 1942)
Annette Joanne Funicello was an American actress and singer. She began her professional career at age 12, becoming one of the most popular Mouseketeers on the original Mickey Mouse Club. In her teenage years, Funicello had a successful career as a pop singer recording under the name "Annette". Her most notable singles are "O Dio Mio", "First Name Initial", "Tall Paul", and "Pineapple Princess". During the mid-1960s, she established herself as a film actress, popularizing the successful "Beach Party" genre alongside co-star Frankie Avalon.
Wikipedia source
1492 Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici

Italian ruler (born 1449)
Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, was an Italian statesman, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Lorenzo held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian Peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissance and the golden age of Florence. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. On the foreign policy front, Lorenzo manifested a clear plan to stem the territorial ambitions of Pope Sixtus IV, in the name of the balance of the Italic League of 1454. For these reasons, Lorenzo was the subject of the Pazzi conspiracy (1478), in which his brother Giuliano was assassinated. The Peace of Lodi of 1454 that he supported among the various Italian states collapsed with his death. He is buried in the Medici Chapel in Florence.
Wikipedia source
2002 María Félix

María Félix

Mexican actress (born 1914)
María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña was a Mexican actress and singer. Along with Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, her strong personality and taste for finesse garnered her the title of diva early in her career. She was known as La Doña, a name derived from her character in Doña Bárbara (1943), and María Bonita, thanks to the anthem composed exclusively for her as a wedding gift by her second husband, Agustín Lara. Her acting career consists of 47 films made in Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, and Argentina.
Wikipedia source
1950 Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky

Polish dancer and choreographer (born 1890)
Vaslav or Vatslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish ancestry. He is regarded as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. He is often associated with the Ballets Russes and its impresario Sergei Diaghilev, for which he choreographed such influential ballets as L'après-midi d'un faune (1912), Le Sacre du Printemps (1913), Jeux (1913), and Till Eulenspiegel (1916). He was celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations. He could dance en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time, and was admired for his seemingly gravity-defying leaps.
Wikipedia source
1143 John II Komnenos

John II Komnenos

Byzantine emperor (born 1087)
John II Komnenos or Comnenus was Byzantine emperor from 1118 to 1143. Also known as "John the Beautiful" or "John the Good", he was the eldest son of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina and the second emperor to rule during the Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire. As he was born to a reigning emperor, he had the status of a porphyrogennetos. John was a pious and dedicated monarch who was determined to undo the damage his empire had suffered following the Battle of Manzikert, half a century earlier.
Wikipedia source
622 Shōtoku

Shōtoku

Japanese prince (born 572)
Prince Shōtoku , also known as Prince Umayado/Umayato or Prince Kamitsumiya , was a semi-legendary regent and a politician of the Asuka period in Japan who served under Empress Suiko. He was the son of Emperor Yōmei and his consort, Princess Hashihito no Anahobe, who was also Yōmei's younger half-sister. But later, he was adopted by Prince Shōtoken. His parents were relatives of the ruling Soga clan and also he was involved in the defeat of the rival Mononobe clan. The primary source of the life and accomplishments of Prince Shōtoku comes from the Nihon Shoki. The Prince is renowned for modernizing the government administration and for promoting Buddhism in Japan. He also had two different families that fought over his custody.
Wikipedia source
1848 Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Italian composer (born 1797)
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer of the early Romantic era, best known for his over 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age, he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy Il Pigmalione, which may never have been performed during his lifetime.
Wikipedia source
2024 Ralph Puckett

Ralph Puckett

American Army officer, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1926)
Ralph Puckett Jr. was a United States Army officer. He led the Eighth Army Ranger Company during the Korean War and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on November 25, 1950, when his company of 51 Rangers was attacked by several hundred Chinese soldiers at the battle for Hill 205. He later served in the Vietnam War and retired from the army in 1971 as a colonel. After being appointed on July 19, 1996, he served as the Honorary Colonel of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
Wikipedia source
1920 Charles Griffes

Charles Griffes

American pianist and composer (born 1884)
Charles Tomlinson Griffes was an American composer for piano, chamber ensembles and voice. His initial works are influenced by German Romanticism, but after he relinquished the German style, his later works make him the most famous American representative of musical Impressionism, along with Charles Martin Loeffler. He was fascinated by the exotic, mysterious sound of the French Impressionists, and was compositionally much influenced by them while he was in Europe. He also studied the work of contemporary Russian composers such as Scriabin, whose influence is also apparent in his use of synthetic scales.
Wikipedia source
1586 Martin Chemnitz

Martin Chemnitz

Lutheran theologian and reformer (born 1522)
Martin Chemnitz was a second-generation German, Evangelical Lutheran, Christian theologian, and a Protestant reformer, churchman, and confessor. In the Evangelical Lutheran tradition he is known as Alter Martinus, the "Second Martin": Si Martinus non fuisset, Martinus vix stetisset goes a common saying concerning him. He is listed and remembered in the Calendar of Saints and Commemorations in the Liturgical Church Year as a pastor and confessor by both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.
Wikipedia source
1364 John II

John II

French king (born 1319)
John II, called John the Good, was King of France from 1350 until his death in 1364. When he came to power, France faced several disasters: the Black Death, which killed between a third and a half of its population; popular revolts known as Jacqueries; free companies of routiers who plundered the country; and English aggression during the Hundred Years' War that resulted in catastrophic military losses, including the Battle of Poitiers of 1356, in which John was captured.
Wikipedia source
2013 Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

English politician, first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1925)
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Wikipedia source
2015 Jayakanthan

Jayakanthan

Indian journalist and author (born 1934)
D. Jayakanthan, popularly known as JK, was an Indian writer, journalist, orator, filmmaker, critic and activist. Born in Cuddalore, he dropped out of school at the age of 9 and went to Madras, where he joined the Communist Party of India. In a career spanning six decades, he authored around 40 novels, 200 short stories, apart from two autobiographies. Outside literature, he made two films. In addition, four of his other novels were adapted into films by others.
Wikipedia source
1608 Magdalen Dacre

Magdalen Dacre

English noble (born 1538)
Magdalen Dacre, Viscountess Montagu was an English noblewoman. She was the daughter of William Dacre, 3rd Baron Dacre of Gilsland, and the second wife of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. Magdalen, a Roman Catholic, was a Maid of Honour to Mary I of England and was bridesmaid at Mary's wedding to Philip II of Spain in Winchester Cathedral. Despite being Catholic, she managed to remain in high regard with Elizabeth I, the Protestant half-sister who succeeded Mary.
Wikipedia source
632 Charibert II

Charibert II

Frankish king (born 607)
Charibert II, a son of Clotaire II and his junior wife Sichilde, was the first King of Aquitaine from 629 to his death, with his capital at Toulouse. There are no direct statements about when Charibert was born exactly, the only known fact being that he was "a few years younger" than his half-brother Dagobert. His father Clotaire evidently had a bigamous marriage and he was the offspring of the junior wife.
Wikipedia source
1992 Daniel Bovet

Daniel Bovet

Swiss-Italian pharmacologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1907)
Daniel Bovet was a Swiss-born Italian pharmacologist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of drugs that block the actions of specific neurotransmitters. He is best known for his discovery in 1937 of antihistamines, which block the neurotransmitter histamine and are used in allergy medication. His other research included work on chemotherapy, sulfa drugs, the sympathetic nervous system, the pharmacology of curare, and other neuropharmacological interests.
Wikipedia source
2012 Jack Tramiel

Jack Tramiel

Polish-American businessman, founded Commodore International (born 1928)
Jack Tramiel was a Polish-American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64 are some home computers produced while he was running the company. Tramiel later formed Atari Corporation after he purchased the remnants of the original Atari, Inc. from its parent company. He was one of six people spotlighted when the computer was denoted "Machine of the Year" by Time magazine in 1982.
Wikipedia source
1997 Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro

American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1947)
Laura Nyro was an American songwriter and singer. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry (1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and the 5th Dimension recording her songs. Wider recognition for her artistry was posthumous, while contemporaries such as Elton John idolized her. She was praised for her emotive three-octave mezzo-soprano voice.
Wikipedia source

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