Did you know about Dana Andrews
Carver Dana Andrews was an American film actor who became a major star in what is now known as film noir and later in Western films.
Notable Deaths on December 17
December 17 has 99 recorded notable deaths across history, from 779 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1992 — Dana Andrews
American actor (born 1909)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
99 source records
779 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on December 17
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1989 Fernando Collor de Mello defeats Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of the Brazilian presidential election, becoming the first democratically elected President in almost 30 years. Source
- 1951 The American Civil Rights Congress delivers "We Charge Genocide" to the United Nations. Source
Did you know about Kaspar Hauser
In 2024, a scientific study ruled out Hauser's princely descent by comparing mitochondrial DNA haplotypes with the House of Baden.
Did you know about James McCaffrey
James McCaffrey starred as the lead character in the short lived series Swift Justice, which was cancelled after only a season.
Did you know about Otto Graham
With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the AAFC and NFL playoffs.
Did you know about Sammy Baugh
Sammy Baugh played college football for the TCU Horned Frogs, where he was a two time All-American prior to being selected by the Redskins in the first round of the 1937 NFL draft.
More major people who died on December 17
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1833
Kaspar Hauser
German feral child (born 1812?)
Kaspar Hauser was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. His claims, and his subsequent death from a stab wound, sparked much debate and controversy both in Nuremberg and abroad. Theories propounded at the time identified Hauser as a member of the grand ducal House of Baden, hidden away because of dynastic intrigue. However, there were also allegations that Hauser was an impostor. In 2024, a scientific study ruled out Hauser's princely descent by comparing mitochondrial DNA haplotypes with the House of Baden.
2023
James McCaffrey
American actor (born 1958)
James Perry McCaffrey was an American actor. He starred as the lead character in the short lived series Swift Justice, which was cancelled after only a season. Additionally, he had roles such as Jimmy Keefe on Rescue Me (2004–2011), and Captain Arthur O'Byrne in New York Undercover (1994–1997). He also had main roles and recurring roles in a number of television series as well as appearing in feature films. In addition, he did voice acting, such as his voice role as Max Payne in the Max Payne video game series.
2003
Otto Graham
American football player and coach (born 1921)
Otto Everett Graham Jr. was an American professional football player who was a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons. Graham is regarded by critics as one of the most dominant players of his era and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, having taken the Browns to league championship games every year between 1946 and 1955, making ten championship appearances, and winning seven of them. With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the AAFC and NFL playoffs. Long-time New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, a friend of Graham's, once called him "as great of a quarterback as there ever was."
2008
Sammy Baugh
American football player and coach (born 1914)
Samuel Adrian Baugh was an American professional football quarterback who played 16 seasons with the Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL). Baugh also played safety on defense and was the team's punter. He played college football for the TCU Horned Frogs, where he was a two time All-American prior to being selected by the Redskins in the first round of the 1937 NFL draft. With the Redskins, Baugh won NFL Championships in 1937 and 1942 and led the NFL in completion percentage eight times, passing yards four times, and passing touchdowns twice. In addition to being an outstanding quarterback, he led the NFL in punting average five times and in defensive interceptions with 11 in 1943.
1562
Eleonora di Toledo
Grand Duchess of Tuscany (born 1522)
Eleanor of Toledo was a Spanish noblewoman who became Duchess of Florence as the first wife of Cosimo I de' Medici. A keen businesswoman, she financed many of her husband's political campaigns and important buildings like the Pitti Palace. She ruled as regent of Florence during his frequent absences: Eleanor ruled during Cosimo's military campaigns in Genoa in 1541 and 1543, his illness from 1544 to 1545, and again at times during the war for the conquest of Siena (1551–1554). She founded many Jesuit churches. She is credited with being the first modern first lady or consort.
2005
Jack Anderson
American journalist and author (born 1922)
Jack Northman Anderson was an American newspaper columnist, syndicated by United Features Syndicate, considered one of the founders of modern investigative journalism. Anderson won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his investigation on secret U.S. policy decision-making between the United States and Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. In addition to his newspaper career, Anderson also had a national radio show on the Mutual Broadcasting System, acted as Washington bureau chief of Parade magazine, and was a commentator on ABC-TV's Good Morning America for nine years.
2014
Dieter Grau
German-American scientist and engineer (born 1913)
Dieter Grau was a German-born American aerospace engineer and member of the "von Braun rocket group", at Peenemünde (1939–1945) working on the V-2 rockets in World War II. He was among the engineers who surrendered to the United States and traveled there, providing rocketry expertise via Operation Paperclip, which took them first to Fort Bliss, Texas. Grau was sent by the U.S. Army to White Sands in 1946 to work on the assemblage and testing of the V-2. His wife joined him there in 1947. While von Braun was on standby at Fort Bliss, Grau and other German aerospace engineers busily launched V-2s for U.S. scientists to analyze. A total of 67 V-2s were launched at White Sands.
2014
Oleh Lysheha
Ukrainian poet and playwright (born 1949)
Oleh Lysheha was a Ukrainian poet, playwright, translator and intellectual. Lysheha entered Lviv University in 1968, where during his last year, he was expelled for his participation in an "unofficial" literary circle, Lviv Bohema. As punishment, Lysheha was drafted into the Soviet army and internally exiled. During the period 1972-1988, he was banned from official publication, but in 1989 his first book Great Bridge was published. For "The Selected Poems of Oleh Lysheha," Lysheha and his co-translator James Brasfield from Penn State University, received the 2000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Lysheha is the first Ukrainian poet to receive the PEN award.
2015
Hal Brown
American baseball player and manager (born 1924)
Hector Harold Brown was an American professional baseball player and right-handed pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball from 1951 through 1964 for the Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees and Houston Colt .45s. Brown was a knuckleballer with outstanding control who worked as both a starting pitcher and as a relief pitcher. He played for all or portions of eight seasons (1955–1962) with the Orioles, posting a 62–48 won–lost record, and was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 1991. He was a veteran of the United States Army Air Forces who served in the European theatre of World War II.
2006
Larry Sherry
American baseball player and coach (born 1935)
Lawrence Sherry was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a right-handed relief pitcher from 1958 to 1968, most prominently as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Detroit Tigers. He was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1959 World Series as the Dodgers won their first championship since relocating from Brooklyn just two years earlier. After his playing career, Sherry managed in the minor leagues before serving as a major league coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the California Angels.
2013
Fred Bruemmer
Latvian-Canadian photographer (born 1929)
Fred Bruemmer, D.Litt. was a Latvian Canadian nature photographer and researcher. He spent his life travelling extensively throughout the circumpolar regions and to other remote parts of the globe. His works have been centered mostly on the Arctic, its people and its animals. He also conducted research and published on animals in many other areas of the globe. He spoke nine languages and wrote more than a thousand articles for publications around the world, including Canadian Geographic, Natural History, National Geographic and Smithsonian. Fred Bruemmer lived in Montreal, Quebec.
1917
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
English physician and activist (born 1836)
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was an English physician and suffragist. She is known for being the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon and as a co-founder and dean of the London School of Medicine for Women, which was the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors. She was the first female dean of a British medical school, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in Britain.
2008
Gregoire
Congolese chimpanzee, oldest recorded (born 1942)
Gregoire was, up until his death, Africa's oldest known chimpanzee. For the last eleven years of his life, he was a resident of the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in the Republic of the Congo. He was observed to have a pair bond relationship with the chimpanzee Clara. Previously he had been confined by himself for more than 40 years in a cage at the Brazzaville Zoo before being rescued by staff of the Jane Goodall Institute and airlifted to the Sanctuary during a time of war.
2012
Daniel Inouye
American captain and politician (born 1924)
Daniel Ken Inouye was an American attorney, soldier, and statesman who represented Hawaii in the United States Senate from 1963 until his death in 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the most-senior member of the Senate when he died. He is the second-longest serving U.S. senator in history. Prior to his tenure in the Senate, Inouye served in the Hawaii Territorial Legislature and the United States House of Representatives from 1959 to 1963.
2010
Captain Beefheart
American singer-songwriter (born 1941)
Don Van Vliet, known by his stage name Captain Beefheart, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. Leading a rotating ensemble known as the Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock, and avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms and absurdist wordplay. He possessed a distinctive gravelly voice and a wide vocal range.
2020
Jeremy Bulloch
English actor (born 1945)
Jeremy Andrew Bulloch was an English actor. In a career that spanned six decades, he gained recognition for originating the physical portrayal of Boba Fett in the Star Wars franchise, appearing as the character in the films The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Bulloch returned to the franchise for a cameo as Captain Colton in 2005's Revenge of the Sith.
1273
Rumi
Persian jurist, theologian, and poet (born 1207)
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, commonly known as Rumi, was a Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. His family hailed from Balkh. Rumi is an influential figure in Sufism, and his thought and works loom large both in Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. Today, his translated works are enjoyed all over the world.
2013
Janet Rowley
American geneticist and biologist (born 1925)
Janet Davison Rowley was an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers, thus proving that cancer is a genetic disease. Rowley spent the majority of her life working in Chicago and received many awards and honors throughout her life, recognizing her achievements and contributions in the area of genetics.
2024
Igor Kirillov
Russian general (born 1970)
Igor Anatolyevich Kirillov was a Russian lieutenant general. He was the head of the Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces. He held a Candidate of Military Sciences degree. He was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation and was a Hero of Labour of the Russian Federation (2021), becoming the first person to receive both honors.