Notable Deaths on August 27

Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, commonly known as Lord Mountbatten, was a British statesman, naval officer, and member of the British royal family. A maternal uncle of Prince Philip and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II, he served in the Royal Navy during both world wars and rose to become Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, in the later stages of the Second World War. He subsequently oversaw the transition of British India to independence as the last Viceroy and the first governor-general of independent India. As the last viceroy of India, Mountbatten also oversaw its partition into the Dominions of India and Pakistan and the integration of the princely states into India.

Rukirabasaija Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, commonly known as King Oyo of Tooro or King Rukidi IV, was the 13th Omukama of the Kingdom of Tooro in Uganda from 1995 until his death in 2026. At the time of his accession, Oyo was three years old, making him the world's youngest reigning monarch. He was the son of Omukama Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Rwamuhokya Olimi III and Omugo Best Kemigisa.

Stephen Ray Vaughan, also known abbreviated as SRV, was an American musician, best known as the guitarist and frontman of the blues rock trio Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Although his mainstream career spanned only seven years, he is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of blues music, and one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He was the younger brother of guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.

Haile Selassie I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. He completed graduate work at Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He was a professor at Atlanta University and over the course of his life wrote many books and articles. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra on August 27, 1963.

Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, later Duchess of Kent, was a Greek and Danish princess by birth and a British princess by marriage. A granddaughter of King George I of Greece and Queen Olga, she was the daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia. In 1934, she married Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary. They had three children: Edward, Alexandra, and Michael. She was widowed in 1942, when her husband was killed in a plane crash while on active service, and remained active in royal duties throughout her later life, attending public engagements across the Commonwealth, including the independence celebrations for Ghana and Botswana. She died in 1968, aged 61.

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a French-Swiss architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer who is described as one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland to French-speaking Swiss parents and acquired French nationality in 1930. He designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and the Americas during a five-decade career. He considered that "the roots of modern architecture are to be found in Viollet-le-Duc."

Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an American vaudevillian, singer, actress, and comedian who became famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns, her straight man, appearing with him on radio, television and film as the duo Burns and Allen.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee was an Indian film director, editor and writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema. Popularly known as Hrishi-da, he directed 42 films during his career spanning over four decades, and is named the pioneer of the 'middle cinema' of India. Renowned for his social films that reflected the changing middle-class ethos, Mukherjee "carved a middle path between the extravagance of mainstream cinema and the stark realism of art cinema".

Tiziano Vecellio, Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian, was an Italian Renaissance painter. The most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting, he was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.

Ernest Orlando Lawrence was an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for the Manhattan Project, as well as for founding the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Gertrude Elizabeth Vachon was an American-Canadian professional wrestler, better known as Luna Vachon. Over her 22-year career, she wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, the American Wrestling Association, and World Championship Wrestling. She was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, and Women's Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Charles Evans Hughes was an American politician, academic, and jurist who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the 36th governor of New York (1907–1910), an associate justice of the Supreme Court (1910–1916), and 44th U.S. secretary of state (1921–1925). He was the Republican nominee in the 1916 presidential election, narrowly losing to incumbent president Woodrow Wilson.

Francis Gregory Alan Morris was an American actor. He was best known for portraying Barney Collier on the television series Mission: Impossible and Lieutenant David Nelson on Vega$.

Bennett Alfred Cerf was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his weekly television appearances for 16 years on the panel game show What's My Line?

Cesare Pavese was an Italian novelist, poet, short story writer, translator, literary critic, and essayist. He is often referred to as one of the most influential Italian writers of his time.

John Laurens was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, best known for his efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for their freedom as U.S. soldiers.

Darryl R. Dawkins was an American professional basketball player and coach. A three-time NBA finalist center, he most notably played for the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets with brief tenures at the Utah Jazz and Detroit Pistons later on. His powerful dunks, which shattered two backboards in 1979, led the NBA to adopt breakaway rims.

Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez was a composer of Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of his predecessors like Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of expressive—and often imitative—movement between independent voices (polyphony) which informs much of his work. He further emphasized the relationship between text and music, and departed from the early Renaissance tendency towards lengthy melismatic lines on a single syllable, preferring to use shorter, repeated motifs between voices. Josquin was a singer, and his compositions are mainly vocal. They include masses, motets and secular chansons.

Margaret Bourke-White was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, representing corporate clients and highlighting the success of industrial capitalism with black and white images of steel factories and skyscrapers. In 1930, she became the first foreign photographer granted official access to document industrial sites in the Soviet Union during the first five-year plan. In 1933, she was commissioned to create the NBC photomural, a monumental photomural about radio for its rotunda at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, then considered the largest photomural in the world. The success of her corporate commissions led her to work at Fortune magazine in the 1930s. She took the photograph of the construction of Fort Peck Dam that became the cover of the first issue of Life magazine.

Valeri Borisovich Kharlamov was a Russian ice hockey forward who played for CSKA Moscow in the Soviet League from 1967 until his death in 1981. Kharlamov was a speedy, intelligent, skilled and dominant player, being named the Soviet Championship League most valuable player in 1972 and 1973. An offensive player who was considered very creative on the ice, he also led the league in scoring in 1972. He was also a gifted skater who was able to make plays at top speed. Kharlamov was considered one of the best players of his era, as well as one of the greatest players of all time.

Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist who was a key figure in the Spanish Golden Age (1492–1659) of Baroque literature. In the literature of Spain, Lope de Vega is often considered second only to Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes said that Lope de Vega was “The Phoenix of Wits” and “Monster of Nature”.

Pope Sixtus V, born Felice Piergentile, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 April 1585 to his death in August 1590. As a youth, he joined the Franciscan order, where he displayed talents as a scholar and preacher, and enjoyed the patronage of Pius V, who made him a cardinal. As a cardinal, he was known as Cardinal Montalto.

Francisco de Zurbarán was a Spanish Baroque painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname "Spanish Caravaggio", owing to the forceful use of chiaroscuro, in which he excelled.

Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic. Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15 years old. He worked as a journalist, editor, and critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere. He built a strong literary reputation, in part due to his 1842 collection The Poets and Poetry of America. This anthology, the most comprehensive of its time, included what he deemed the best examples of American poetry. He produced revised versions and similar anthologies for the remainder of his life, although many of the poets he promoted have since faded into obscurity. Many writers hoped to have their work included in one of these editions, although they commented harshly on Griswold's abrasive character. Griswold was married three times: his first wife died young, his second marriage ended in a public and controversial divorce, and his third wife left him after the previous divorce was almost repealed.

Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.

Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy whose death in Lincoln was falsely attributed to Jews. He is sometimes known as Little Saint Hugh or Little Sir Hugh to distinguish him from the adult saint, Hugh of Lincoln. The boy Hugh was not formally canonised, so "Little Saint Hugh" is a misnomer.

Tomás Luis de Victoria was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus as among the principal composers of the late Renaissance, and was "admired above all for the intensity of some of his motets and of his Offices for the Dead and for Holy Week". His surviving oeuvre, unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. As a Catholic priest, as well as an accomplished organist and singer, his career spanned both Spain and Italy. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer.

Hélder Pessoa Câmara was a Brazilian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Olinda and Recife from 1964 to 1985 during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He was declared a Servant of God in 2015.

Willie Murphy Crawford was an American professional baseball outfielder. He played in the major leagues with the Los Angeles Dodgers (1964–1975), St. Louis Cardinals (1976), Houston Astros (1977) and Oakland Athletics (1977). Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California. He batted and threw left-handed, and was the father of UCLA football player Willie Crawford who graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1988.

Malcolm Wilde Browne was an American journalist and photographer, best known for his award-winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.

Leonard Stephen Riggio was an American businessman. He served as executive chairman of book store chain Barnes & Noble and was its largest shareholder from 1971 until the sale of the company to the hedge fund Elliott Investment Management in 2019. Under his leadership the company expanded significantly from a single retail location on 105 Fifth Avenue in New York City to a nationwide chain with 600+ stores, which it did with acquisitions and mergers of competing chain stores including his takeover of B. Dalton in 1986, which was supported by a major investment from the Dutch retailer Vendex International and Drexel Burnham Lambert–issued junk bonds.

Cookie was a male pink cockatoo residing at Brookfield Zoo, near Chicago, Illinois, United States. He was believed to be the oldest member of his species alive in captivity, at the age of 82 in June 2015, having significantly exceeded the average lifespan for his kind. He was one of the longest-lived birds on record and was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living parrot in the world.

James Thomson was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for his poems The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence, and for the lyrics of "Rule, Britannia!"

Reşat Çiğiltepe was an officer of the Ottoman Army and the Turkish Army, having fought in the Balkan wars, and in World War 1 during the Gallipoli campaign and the Battle of Muş. He committed suicide on 27 August 1922 during the Battle of Dumlupınar, because he promised the commander of the Turkish forces, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, that he would capture the strategically-located village of Hacan located on a hill within 30 minutes. Because his unit failed to achieve that objective, he committed suicide. The village was captured 45 minutes after his death, and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Independence. He is one of the most honored heroes of the Turkish War of Independence.

Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, was an English novelist, published in the original editions as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel Mother and Son. Her works consist mainly of dialogue and focus on family life among the late Victorian or Edwardian upper middle class.

Helmi Üprus was an Estonian architectural and art historian. She trained in Romance languages, studied English and ethnography, and earned a master's degree in art history from the University of Tartu in 1936. She worked her way up to head the cultural history department of the Estonian National Museum, where she researched folk art. In 1947, she began working at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR. Persecuted by Stalinism she lost her job in 1950 and worked in a factory until Stalin's death. From 1953, she was the chief specialist in architecture and history for the government monument restoration service.

Arthur Bruce Heyman was an American professional basketball player. Playing for Duke University in college, in 1963 he was USBWA Player of the Year, AP Player of the Year, UPI Player of the Year, Sporting News Player of the Year, Helms Foundation College Player of the Year, a consensus first-team All-American, ACC Player of the Year, and ACC Athlete of the Year. That year he was the first overall pick in the first round of the 1963 NBA draft. He went on to have a 310-game professional career in the NBA and ABA.

Caesarius of Arles, sometimes called "of Chalon" from his birthplace Chalon-sur-Saône, was the foremost ecclesiastic of his generation in Merovingian Gaul. Caesarius is considered to be of the last generation of church leaders of Gaul who worked to integrate large-scale ascetic elements into the Western Christian tradition. William E. Klingshirn's study of Caesarius depicts Caesarius as having the reputation of a "popular preacher of great fervour and enduring influence". Among those who exercised the greatest influence on Caesarius were Augustine of Hippo, Julianus Pomerius, and John Cassian.

Samuel Clarke Pomeroy was a United States senator from Kansas in the mid-19th century. He served in the United States Senate during the American Civil War. Pomeroy also served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. A Republican, he also was the mayor of Atchison, Kansas, from 1858 to 1859, the second president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and the first president to oversee any of the railroad's construction and operations. Pomeroy succeeded Cyrus K. Holliday as president of the railroad on January 13, 1864.

Eric III Lamb was King of Denmark from 1137 until 1146. He was the grandson of Eric I and the nephew of Eric II, whom he succeeded on the throne. He abdicated in 1146, becoming the first Danish monarch to do so voluntarily. His succession led to a period of civil war between Sweyn III, Canute V, and Valdemar I.

Antonius Johannes Geesink was a Dutch 10th dan judoka. He was the first non-Japanese judoka to win gold at the World Judo Championships, a feat he accomplished in 1961 and 1965. He was also an Olympic Champion, having won gold at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Japan, and won a record 21 European Judo Championships during his career.

Emperor Chōkei was the 98th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He reigned from 1368 through 1383. His personal name was Yutanari (寛成) and his regal name roughly translates to "Long Celebration".

Georg von Boeselager was a German nobleman and an officer in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, who led the Nazi security warfare operations in the Army Group Centre Rear Area on the Eastern Front, calling for extreme measures, including deporting all males in "gang-infested areas" and shooting those who remained.

Francis Marion Smith was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California. He was known nationally and internationally as "Borax Smith" and "The Borax King", as his company produced the popular 20-Mule-Team Borax brand of household cleaner.

Chen Liting was a Chinese playwright, drama and film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He was one of the most prominent film directors and screenwriters in pre-Communist China, together with Shi Dongshan, Cai Chusheng, and Zheng Junli. His most famous film was Women Side by Side (1949).

Pascal Chaumeil was a French director and screenwriter. He started out as an assistant director in the 1980s, working with directors such as Pierre Tchernia and Luc Besson. He was nominated for two César Awards, both for the film Heartbreaker (2010). He died in 2015.

Herman Potočnik was an Austrian officer, electrical engineer and astronautics theorist. He is regarded as a pioneer and visionary of modern space flight and is remembered mainly for his work concerning the long-term human habitation of space.

Arthur II, of the House of Dreux, was Duke of Brittany from 1305 to his death. He was the first son of John II and Beatrice, daughter of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence.

Eise Jeltes Eisinga was a Frisian astronomer who built the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in his house in Franeker, Dutch Republic. The orrery still exists and is the oldest functioning planetarium in the world.

Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, also known by the honorary title Allama Mashriqi, was a British Indian, and later, Pakistani mathematician, logician, political theorist, Islamic scholar and the founder of the Khaksar movement.

Bengt Holbek was a Danish folklorist known for his unorthodox approach to folklore theory. He wrote one of the definitive works of fairy tale scholarship entitled Interpretation of Fairy Tales (1987).

Neville Edward Alexander OLS was a proponent of a multilingual South Africa and a former revolutionary who spent ten years on Robben Island as a fellow prisoner of Nelson Mandela.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton was a Nova Scotia-born judge, author, novelist, and Conservative MP in Britain. He was the first internationally bestselling fiction author from what is now Canada.

William Norman Peach known as Bill Peach, was an Australian television journalist who hosted the ABC current affairs program This Day Tonight from 1967 to 1975.

Reginald West, 6th Baron De La Warr and 3rd Baron West was an English nobleman and politician.

Piotr Gamrat of Sulima arms was Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland.

William Whiting Boardman was a politician and United States Representative from Connecticut.

William Chapman Ralston was a San Francisco businessman and financier, and the founder of the Bank of California.

Kusumoto Ine was a Japanese physician. She was the first female doctor of Western medicine in Japan.

Emil Christian Hansen was a Danish mycologist and fermentation physiologist.

Frank Harris was an Irish-American editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day.

Wilhelmus Hubertus "Wiel" Nolens was a Dutch politician and a Roman Catholic priest.

Hubert Pál Álgyay was a Hungarian engineer and lecturer.

Brian Samuel Epstein was an English music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1961 until his death in 1967.

Erika Julia Hedwig Mann was a German actress and writer, daughter of the novelist Thomas Mann.

Manuela Ruiz Penella, better known as Emma Penella, was a Spanish film and television actress.

Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov was a Russian author of children's books and satirical fables. He wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems.

Geliy Mikhailovich Korzhev-Chuvelyov was a Soviet and Russian painter.

David Charles Thomas was a Welsh professional golfer and renowned golf course architect.

Benno Pludra was a German children's author. He was born in Mückenberg, now Lauchhammer-West.

Jacques Friedel ForMemRS was a French physicist and material scientist.

Valeri Petrov, was a popular Bulgarian poet, screenwriter, playwright and translator of paternal Jewish origin.

Kazi Zafar Ahmad was a Bangladeshi politician of the Jatiya Party, who was Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1989 to 1990.

Milton Robert Carr was an American lawyer, academic, and politician from Michigan.

Juan Manuel Izquierdo Viana was a Uruguayan professional footballer who played as a centre-back.