Did you know about F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald is most notable for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term that he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age.
Notable Deaths on December 21
December 21 has 68 recorded notable deaths across history, from 72 to 2024. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1940 — F. Scott Fitzgerald
American novelist and short story writer (born 1896)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
68 source records
72 – 2024
Today in history
Major events on December 21
See what else happened on this day in history.
Did you know about John Eisenhower
John Eisenhower was the second son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower.
Did you know about Giovanni Boccaccio
Boccaccio ranked among the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century.
Did you know about Albert King
Albert King was an American guitarist and singer, who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists ever.
Did you know about Jack Hobbs
Jack Hobbs is the leading run-scorer and century-maker in first-class cricket, with 61,760 runs and 199 centuries.
More major people who died on December 21
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
2013
John Eisenhower
American historian, general, and diplomat, 45th United States Ambassador to Belgium (born 1922)
John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower was a United States Army officer, diplomat, and military historian. He was the second son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. His military career spanned from before, during, and after his father's presidency, and he left active duty in 1963 and then retired in 1974. From 1969 to 1971, Eisenhower served as United States Ambassador to Belgium during the administration of President Richard Nixon, who was previously his father's vice president and also father-in-law to Eisenhower's son David.
1375
Giovanni Boccaccio
Italian author and poet (born 1313)
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he gained sufficient notoriety to be known simply as "the Certaldese". Boccaccio ranked among the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.
1992
Albert King
American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1924)
Albert King was an American guitarist and singer, who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists ever. He is perhaps best known for his popular and influential album Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and its title track. B. B. King, Freddie King, and he, all unrelated, were known as the "Three Kings of the Blues". The left-handed Albert King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists".
1963
Jack Hobbs
English cricketer and journalist (born 1882)
Sir John Berry Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches between 1908 and 1930. Known as "The Master", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century-maker in first-class cricket, with 61,760 runs and 199 centuries. A right-handed batsman and an occasional right-arm medium pace bowler, Hobbs also excelled as a fielder, particularly in the position of cover point. Hobbs was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century alongside Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Shane Warne, and Sir Viv Richards.
1549
Marguerite de Navarre
queen of Henry II of Navarre (born 1492)
Marguerite de Navarre, also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was a princess of France, Duchess of Alençon and Berry, and Queen of Navarre by her second marriage to King Henry II of Navarre. Her brother became King of France, as Francis I, and the two siblings were responsible for the celebrated intellectual and cultural court and salons of their day in France. Marguerite is the ancestress of the Bourbon kings of France, being the mother of Jeanne d'Albret, whose son, Henry of Navarre, succeeded as Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon king. As an author and a patron of humanists and reformers, she was an outstanding figure of the French Renaissance. Samuel Putnam called her "The First Modern Woman".
1964
Carl Van Vechten
American author and photographer (born 1880)
Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult years, Van Vechten engaged in numerous affairs with men during his lifetime.
1998
Ernst-Günther Schenck
German colonel and physician (born 1904)
Ernst-Günther Schenck was a German medical doctor and member of the SS in Nazi Germany. Because of a chance encounter with Adolf Hitler during the closing days of World War II, his memoirs proved historically valuable. His accounts of this period are prominent in the works of Joachim Fest and James P. O'Donnell regarding the end of Hitler's life, and were included in the film Downfall (2004). Schenck was not allowed to continue his medical career in post-war Germany.
1920
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
leader of the Dervish movement (born 1856)
Sayyid Moḥammad Abdallah Hassan was a Somali scholar, poet, military leader and religious, cultural and political figure who founded and headed the Taleh-based Dervish movement, which led a holy war against British, Italian and Ethiopian colonial intrusions in the Somali Peninsula. He was pejoratively known by the British Empire as the Mad Mullah. In 1917, the Ottoman Empire referred to him as the "Emir of the Somali People". Due to his successful completion of the Hajj to Mecca, his assertion of being the descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his complete memorization of the Quran, his name is preluded with honorifics such as Hajji, Hafiz, Emir, Sheikh, Mullah or Sayyid. His influence led him to being regarded as among the "Father of Somali nationalism".
975
Al-Mu'izz
Fatimid caliph (born 932)
Abu Tamim Ma'ad al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah was the fourth Fatimid caliph and the 14th Ismaili imam, reigning from 953 to 975. It was during his caliphate that the center of power of the Fatimid dynasty was moved from Ifriqiya to Egypt. The Fatimids founded the city of Cairo in 969 as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt during his reign. The Al-Mu'izz Street in Cairo is named after him, it is considered to be the most important historical street in Cairo and it includes monumental buildings from the Fatimid era as well as the later Ayyubid, Memluk and Ottoman eras.
1001
Hugh of Tuscany
Italian margrave (born 950)
Hugh, called the Great, was the Margrave of Tuscany from 969 until his death in 1001, and the Duke of Spoleto and Margrave of Camerino from 989 to 996. He was known for his restoration of the state apparatus in Tuscany after decades of neglect from various Margraves, whose main interests lay elsewhere. Hugh was also noted for his support of the new Ottonian dynasty, and has been praised for his justice by the contemporary theologian Peter Damian in his De principis officio. Hugh's rule has also been remembered for its close cooperation with the Papal States in the resolution of territorial disputes and his generosity in gifting marchesal (public) lands for the foundation of monasteries of the Catholic Church.
2019
Andrew Clennel Palmer
British engineer (born 1938)
Andrew Clennel Palmer was a British engineer who worked on offshore geotechnical problems of submarine pipeline design and the study of the properties of ice. He spent much of his career as a teacher and academic researcher, at the University of Liverpool, Cambridge University, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and the National University of Singapore, punctuated by work in industry, while also serving as an expert witness and as a member of various industrial and academic committees.
1988
Nikolaas Tinbergen
Dutch-English ethologist and ornithologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1907)
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals. He is regarded as one of the founders of ethology, the study of animal behaviour, and an important figure in the development of that discipline into its contemporary form, behavioral ecology.
1597
Peter Canisius
Dutch priest and saint (born 1521)
Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit priest known for his strong support for the Catholic faith during the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland and the British Isles. The restoration of the Catholic Church in Germany is largely attributed to the work there of the Jesuits, which Canisius led. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church.
2009
Edwin G. Krebs
American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918)
Edwin Gerhard Krebs was an American biochemist. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia University in 1989 together with Alfred Gilman and, together with his collaborator Edmond H. Fischer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 for describing how reversible phosphorylation works as a switch to activate proteins and regulate various cellular processes.
1646
Sophie Axelsdatter Brahe
Danish noblewoman (born 1578)
Sophie Axelsdatter Brahe was a Danish noblewoman and landowner. She is notable for being the first confirmed owner of Gunhild Cross. She was married to nobleman Holger Rosenkrantz, with whom she had 13 children, and raised 10 of her nieces and nephews, including Anne Gøye. She was also known for her accounting, of which her books are held in the Karen Brahe library, and landowning.
2013
Edgar Bronfman Sr.
Canadian-American businessman and philanthropist (born 1929)
Edgar Miles Bronfman was a Canadian-American businessman. He worked for his family's distilled beverage firm, Seagram, eventually becoming president, treasurer and CEO. As president of the World Jewish Congress, Bronfman initiated diplomacy with the Soviet Union, which resulted in the Soviet government legitimizing the Hebrew language in the USSR and contributed to Soviet Jews being legally able to practice their religion and immigrate to Israel.
1807
John Newton
English soldier and minister (born 1725)
John Newton was an English evangelical Anglican cleric and slavery abolitionist. He had previously been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. Newton served as a sailor in the Royal Navy and was a servant for a time in West Africa. Newton is noted for being author of the hymns "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".
2006
Saparmyrat Nyýazow
Turkmen engineer and politician, 1st President of Turkmenistan (born 1940) (date death announced)
Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov was a Turkmen politician and dictator who led Turkmenistan from 1985 until his death in 2006. He was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan from 1985 until 1991 and supported the 1991 Soviet coup attempt. He continued to rule Turkmenistan as the first president for 15 years after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
1937
Ted Healy
American comedian and actor (born 1896)
Ted Healy was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor. Though he is chiefly remembered as the creator of the Three Stooges and the style of slapstick comedy that they later made famous, he had a successful stage and film career of his own and was cited as a formative influence by several later comedy stars.