Notable Deaths on August 23

August 23 has 103 recorded notable deaths across history, from 30 BC to 2023. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Yevgeny Prigozhin

2023 — Yevgeny Prigozhin

Russian businessman, chief of Wagner Group (born 1961)

By · — Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 103 source records 30 BC – 2023

Major events on August 23

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1898 The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departs from London. Source
  2. 1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon. Source

Did you know about Yevgeny Prigozhin

Yevgeny Prigozhin led the Wagner Group, a private military company, and was a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until he launched a one-day rebellion in June 2023 and died in a plane crash two months later.

Did you know about Brock Peters

Brock Peters was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his lead role as Rev.

Did you know about Dmitry Utkin

Dmitry Valerievich Utkin was a Russian military officer and mercenary.

Did you know about Deodoro da Fonseca

Fonseca took office as provisional president after heading a military coup that deposed Emperor Pedro II and established the First Brazilian Republic in 1889, disestablishing the Empire.

Did you know about Kuroda Kiyotaka

Count Kuroda Kiyotaka was a Japanese politician and general who served as prime minister of Japan from 1888 to 1889.

More major people who died on August 23

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

2005 Brock Peters

Brock Peters

American actor (born 1927)
Brock Peters was an American actor, best known for playing the villainous "Crown" in the 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess, and Tom Robinson in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. He made his Broadway debut in the 1965 Norman Rosten play Mister Johnson. He was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his lead role as Rev. Stephen Kumalo in the 1972 Broadway revival of the musical Lost in the Stars. He received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1991 and a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992.
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2023 Dmitry Utkin

Dmitry Utkin

Russian army officer, founder of Wagner Group (born 1970)
Dmitry Valerievich Utkin was a Russian military officer and mercenary. He served as a special forces officer in the GRU, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was the co-founder and military commander of the Russian state-funded Wagner Group, with his military alias reportedly being Wagner. Utkin was a neo-Nazi. He rarely made public appearances, but was allegedly the commander of the private military company, while Yevgeny Prigozhin was its owner and public face. Utkin was awarded four Orders of Courage of Russia.
Wikipedia source
1892 Deodoro da Fonseca

Deodoro da Fonseca

Brazilian field marshal and politician, 1st President of Brazil (born 1827)
Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca was a Brazilian politician and military officer who served as the head of provisional government and the first president of Brazil. He was born in Alagoas in a military family, followed a military career, and became a national figure. Fonseca took office as provisional president after heading a military coup that deposed Emperor Pedro II and established the First Brazilian Republic in 1889, disestablishing the Empire. After his election in 1891, he stepped down the same year under great political pressure when he dissolved the National Congress. He died less than a year later.
Wikipedia source
1900 Kuroda Kiyotaka

Kuroda Kiyotaka

Japanese general and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Japan (born 1840)
Count Kuroda Kiyotaka was a Japanese politician and general who served as prime minister of Japan from 1888 to 1889. He was one of the genrō, or senior statesman of the Meiji era. Born in the Satsuma Domain to a samurai family, Kuroda was involved in the colonization of Hokkaido, the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, and the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877. After his tenure as prime minister, which ended due to his inability to revise the unequal treaties imposed on Japan, Kuroda also served as Minister of Communications and President of the Privy Council.
Wikipedia source
2013 Charles Lisanby

Charles Lisanby

American production designer and set director (born 1924)
Charles Alvin Lisanby Jr. was an American production designer who had a formative role for scenic design in early color television. During his career, Lisanby was nominated for sixteen Emmys and won three. In January 2010, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame at the nineteenth annual ceremony alongside Don Pardo, the Smothers Brothers, Bob Stewart, and Gene Roddenberry. Aside from his success in the entertainment industry, Lisanby was known for his friendship with the artist Andy Warhol.
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1831 Ferenc Kazinczy

Ferenc Kazinczy

Hungarian author and poet (born 1759)
Ferenc Kazinczy was a Hungarian author, poet, translator, neologist, an agent in the regeneration of the Hungarian language and literature at the turn of the 19th century. Today his name is connected with the extensive Language Reform of the 19th century, when thousands of words were coined or revived, enabling the Hungarian language to keep up with scientific progress and become an official language of the nation in 1844. For his linguistic and literary works he is regarded as one of the cultural founders of the Hungarian Reform Era along with Dávid Baróti Szabó, Ferenc Verseghy, György Bessenyei, Mátyás Rát and János Kis.
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2013 Tatyana Zaslavskaya

Tatyana Zaslavskaya

Russian sociologist and economist (born 1927)
Tatyana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya was a Russian economic sociologist and a theoretician of perestroika. She was the prime author of the Novosibirsk Report and several books on the economy of the Soviet Union and in sociology of the countryside. She was a member of the Consulting Committee to the President of Russia from 1991 to 1992 and also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Zaslavskaya was the founder of RPORC and also its director in the years from 1987 to 1992. In 2000 she was the Laureate of the Demidov Prize and the honorary president of the Levada Center.
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2013 Vesna Rožič

Vesna Rožič

Slovenian chess player (born 1987)
Vesna Rožič was a Slovenian chess player. She received the FIDE title of Woman International Master (WIM) in April 2006. Rožič was ranked the second best Slovenian female chess player, after Anna Muzychuk. She won the Slovenian women's championship in 2007 and 2010. In 2007, Rožič also became the Mediterranean women's champion in Antalya. In team events, she represented Slovenia in four Women's Chess Olympiads, four Women's European Team Chess Championships, six Women's Mitropa Cups and four European Girls U18 Team Championships. In the Women's Mitropa Cup, Rožič won two team golds, four team silvers and two individual gold medals.
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1367 Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz

Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz

Spanish cardinal (born 1310)
Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz more commonly Gil de Albornoz ; c. 1295/1310 – 23 August 1367), was a Spanish curial cardinal, archbishop of Toledo from 13 May 1338 to 17 December 1350. Grand Penitentiary from December 1352 to August 23, 1364. Cardinal priest with the title of San Clemente from December 17, 1350, to December 1356. Cardinal bishop of Sabina from December 1356 to August 23, 1364. Cardinal legate and vicar general from 30 June 1353 to 1357, who led as condottiere Papal States mercenary armies in two campaigns to reconquer territory in Italy, and statesman.
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1967 Nathaniel Cartmell

Nathaniel Cartmell

American runner and coach (born 1883)
Nathaniel John Cartmell, also known as Nat and Nate, was an American athlete who won medals at two editions of the Olympic Games. Importantly, Nate was on first racially integrated Men's Medley relay team that won Olympic gold medal at the 1908 London Olympics, which Nate helped form and featured Nate's fellow University of Pennsylvania alumnus and former teammate, Dr. John Baxter Taylor Jr., the first black athlete in America to win a gold medal in the Olympics. Nate is also known for being the first head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team
Wikipedia source
1994 Zoltán Fábri

Zoltán Fábri

Hungarian director and screenwriter (born 1917)
Zoltán Fábri was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. His films The Boys of Paul Street (1969) and Hungarians (1978) were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His 1965 film Twenty Hours shared the Grand Prix with War and Peace at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1969 film The Toth Family was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1975 film 141 Minutes from the Unfinished Sentence was entered into the 9th Moscow International Film Festival, where he won a Special Prize for Directing.
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1927 Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Italian anarchist convicted of murder (born 1888)
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists, controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison, on the same day as Celestino Medeiros, who had confessed to the crime. Most historians consider their conviction unfair due to prejudice against immigrants and radicals.
Wikipedia source
1927 Nicola Sacco

Nicola Sacco

Italian anarchist convicted of murder (born 1891)
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists, controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison, on the same day as Celestino Medeiros, who had confessed to the crime. Most historians consider their conviction unfair due to prejudice against immigrants and radicals.
Wikipedia source
1999 James White

James White

Irish author (born 1928)
James White was a Northern Irish author of science fiction. He was born in Belfast and returned there after spending some early years in Canada. After a few years working in the clothing industry, he worked at Short Brothers Ltd., an aircraft company based in Belfast, from 1965 until taking early retirement in 1984 as a result of diabetes. White married Margaret Sarah Martin, another science fiction fan, in 1955 and the couple had three children. He died of a stroke.
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1880 William Thompson

William Thompson

British boxer (born 1811)
William Abednego Thompson, also known as Bendigo Thompson and mononymously as Bendigo, was an English bare-knuckle boxer who won the heavyweight championship of England from James Burke on 12 February 1839. He was inducted into The Ring magazine Hall of Fame in 1955, the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. His nickname of "Bendigo" lives on in the name of a city and creek in Australia.
Wikipedia source
1926 Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Italian actor (born 1895)
Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaele Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, known professionally as Rudolph Valentino or just as Valentino, was an Italian-born actor and dancer. Dubbed the Latin Lover, he became one of the most iconic stars of American silent cinema and an enduring symbol of old Hollywood glamour. Rising to international fame in the early 1920s, Valentino was celebrated for his exotic screen persona, romantic intensity, and expressive performances, which helped redefine male stardom during the silent era.
Wikipedia source
2003 Jack Dyer

Jack Dyer

Australian footballer and coach (born 1913)
John Raymond Dyer Sr. OAM, nicknamed Captain Blood, was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Richmond Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) between 1931 and 1949. One of the game's most prominent players, he was one of 12 inaugural "Legends" inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. He later turned to coaching and work in the media as a popular broadcaster and journalist.
Wikipedia source
-30 Caesarion

Caesarion

Egyptian king (born 47 BC)
Ptolemy XV Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion, was the last pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, reigning with his mother Cleopatra VII from 44 BC to 30 BC. He nominally reigned as sole pharaoh for a few days after his mother's death, although Alexandria had already fallen and Caesarion remained in hiding until his execution by Octavian, who would become the first Roman emperor as "Augustus".
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1990 David Rose

David Rose

American pianist and composer (born 1910)
David Daniel Rose was a British-American songwriter, composer, arranger, pianist, and orchestra leader. His best known compositions were "The Stripper", "Holiday for Strings", and "Calypso Melody". He also wrote music for many television series, including It's a Great Life, The Tony Martin Show, Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven, Bonanza, Leave It to Beaver, and Highway Patrol, some under the pseudonym Ray Llewellyn.
Wikipedia source

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