Notable Deaths on February 11

February 11 has 100 recorded notable deaths across history, from 55 to 2026. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Whitney Houston

2012 — Whitney Houston

American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress (born 1963)

By · Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 100 source records 55 – 2026

Major events on February 11

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1861 American Civil War: The United States House of Representatives unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state. Source
  2. 1979 The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Source

Did you know about Whitney Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer, actress, film producer, and record producer.

Did you know about Eleanor Powell

Powell is known as one of the most versatile and athletic female dancers of the Hollywood studio era.

Did you know about Rick Huxley

In January 1964, they had their first UK top-ten single, "Glad All Over", which knocked the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK Singles Chart.

Did you know about Kevin Randleman

Randleman's background was in collegiate wrestling, in which he became a two-time NCAA Division I and a three-time Big Ten wrestling champion out of Ohio State University.

Did you know about Neil Bonnett

Lawrence Neil Bonnett was an American NASCAR driver who compiled 18 victories and 20 poles over his 18-year career.


More major people who died on February 11

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

1982 Eleanor Powell

Eleanor Powell

American actress and dancer (born 1912)
Eleanor Torrey Powell was an American dancer and actress. Best remembered for her tap dance numbers in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s, she was one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's top dancing stars during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Powell appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and most prominently, in a series of movie musical vehicles tailored especially to showcase her dance talents, including Born to Dance (1936), Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), Rosalie (1937), and Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940). She retired from films in the mid-1940s but resurfaced for the occasional specialty dance scene in films such as Thousands Cheer. In the 1950s she hosted a Christian children's TV show and eventually headlined a successful nightclub act in Las Vegas. She died from cancer at 69. Powell is known as one of the most versatile and athletic female dancers of the Hollywood studio era.
2013 Rick Huxley

Rick Huxley

English bass player (born 1940)
The Dave Clark Five, also known as the DC5, were an English rock and roll band formed in 1958 in Tottenham, London. Drummer Dave Clark was the group's leader, producer and co-songwriter. In January 1964, they had their first UK top-ten single, "Glad All Over", which knocked the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK Singles Chart. It peaked at No. 6 in the United States in April 1964. Although this was their only UK No. 1, they topped the US chart in December 1965, with their cover of Bobby Day's "Over and Over". Their other UK top-ten hits include "Bits and Pieces", "Can't You See That She's Mine", "Catch Us If You Can", "Everybody Knows", "The Red Balloon", "Good Old Rock 'n' Roll", and a version of Chet Powers' "Get Together".
2016 Kevin Randleman

Kevin Randleman

American mixed martial artist and wrestler (born 1971)
Kevin Christopher Randleman was an American mixed martial artist, amateur and professional wrestler, and former UFC Heavyweight Champion. Randleman's background was in collegiate wrestling, in which he became a two-time NCAA Division I and a three-time Big Ten wrestling champion out of Ohio State University. Randleman competed in the heavyweight and light heavyweight classes in MMA. In addition to competing in the UFC, Randleman also fought for other organizations such as PRIDE, WVR, and Strikeforce. He was previously associated with Mark Coleman's Team Hammer House, before training at Randy Couture's gym in Las Vegas, Nevada. On May 16, 2020, the UFC announced that Randleman would be inducted into the pioneer wing of the UFC Hall of Fame. Randleman is the first fighter to be posthumously inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.
1994 Neil Bonnett

Neil Bonnett

American race car driver (born 1946)
Lawrence Neil Bonnett was an American NASCAR driver who compiled 18 victories and 20 poles over his 18-year career. Bonnett was a member of the Alabama Gang, and started his career with the help of Bobby and Donnie Allison. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s with his performances in cars owned by Jim Stacy and Wood Brothers Racing, becoming one of the top competitors in the 1980s. The Alabama native currently ranks 47th in all-time NASCAR Cup victories. He appeared in the 1983 film Stroker Ace and the 1990 film Days of Thunder. Bonnett hosted the TV show Winners for TNN from 1991 to 1994, and was a color commentator for CBS, TBS, and TNN in the years until his death. Bonnett's racing career was interrupted in 1990 when he suffered a severe brain injury in a crash that left him with amnesia and chronic dizziness. While working towards a much-anticipated comeback to the NASCAR circuit, Bonnett died as a result of injuries he sustained in a crash during a practice run for the 1994 Daytona 500. He lost control of his vehicle and collided with the outside wall in turn four, resulting in massive head injuries that proved fatal.
2015 Jerry Tarkanian

Jerry Tarkanian

American basketball player and coach (born 1930)
Jerry Tarkanian was an American basketball coach. He coached college basketball for 31 seasons over five decades at three schools. He spent the majority of his career coaching with the UNLV Runnin' Rebels, leading them four times to the Final Four of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, winning the national championship in 1990. Tarkanian revolutionized the college game at UNLV, utilizing a pressing defense to fuel its fast-paced offense. Overall, he won over 700 games in his college coaching career, only twice failing to win 20 games, while never having a losing season. Tarkanian was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
1994 Paul Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend

Austrian-Swiss philosopher and academic (born 1924)
Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian philosopher best known for his work in philosophy of science. He started his academic career as lecturer in philosophy of science at the University of Bristol (1955–1958); afterward, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for three decades (1958–1989). At various points in his life, he held joint appointments at the University College London (1967–1970), the London School of Economics (1967), the FU Berlin (1968), Yale University (1969), the University of Auckland, the University of Sussex (1974), and the ETH Zurich (1980–1990). He gave lectures and lecture series at the University of Minnesota (1958–1962), Stanford University (1967), the University of Kassel (1977), and the University of Trento (1992).
1829 Alexander Griboyedov

Alexander Griboyedov

Russian poet, playwright, and composer (born 1795)
Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov was a Russian diplomat, playwright, poet, and composer. His one notable work is the 1823 verse comedy Woe from Wit. He was Russia's ambassador to Qajar Persia, where he and all the embassy staff were massacred by an angry mob in the aftermath of the ratification of the Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828), which confirmed the cession to Russia of Persia's northern territories comprising Transcaucasia and parts of the North Caucasus. Griboyedov played a pivotal role in the ratification of the treaty. The immediate cause for the incident was Griboyedov giving refuge to Armenians who had escaped from the harems of the Persian shah and his son.
2014 Tito Canepa

Tito Canepa

Dominican-American painter (born 1916)
Tito Enrique Canepa Jiménez was a leading Dominican painter of the generation that came of age in the 1930s and 1940s. Canepa's artistic identity was shaped in New York City, where he lived from the age of 21, never returning to stay in his native country. Despite this distance, or perhaps because of it, as León David has pointed out, his works always evince a certain dominicanidad without his setting out to achieve it as a goal — a dominicanidad that is never folkloric. Of the three modernist Dominican painters of the 1930s and 40s singled out by Rafael Díaz Niese as most significant — Canepa, Colson and Suro — Canepa is the one whose artistic activity developed in the most continuous absence from his native country, and the one longest resident in New York. Cánepa is accented in Spanish but not in the original Ligurian.
1905 Mary Pitman Ailau

Mary Pitman Ailau

high chiefess of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi
Mary Ann Kinoʻole Kaʻaumokulani Pitman, later Mary Pitman Ailau, was a high chiefess of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi of part Native Hawaiian and American descent. She was raised and educated in Hilo and Honolulu and served as a maid of honor and lady-in-waiting of Queen Emma, the wife of Kamehameha IV. In 1861, she left for the United States with her family, and she lived for the next twenty years in New England. She visited her distant cousin King Kalākaua during his state visit to the United States in 1875. She returned in 1881 to Hawaiʻi where she married musician John Keakaokalani Ailau, better known as Jack Ailau. In later life, she invested in Hawaiian curio shops selling artifacts of Hawaiiana; many of her collections are preserved in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.
1947 Martin Klein

Martin Klein

Estonian wrestler and coach (born 1884)
Martin Klein was an Estonian wrestler who competed for the Russian Empire at the 1912 Summer Olympics. He won the silver medal in the middleweight class, becoming the first Olympic medalist born in the territory of modern Estonia. In the semi-final against the reigning world champion Alfred Asikainen, the two grappled for 11 hours and 40 minutes on a sunny day outdoors, until Klein managed to pin Asikainen. Klein was so exhausted from the bout – the longest wrestling match ever recorded – that he was unable to wrestle for the gold the next day, leaving Swedish wrestler Claes Johansson with the gold medal.
1986 Evelio Javier

Evelio Javier

Filipino politician (born 1942)
Evelio Bellaflor Javier was a Filipino lawyer and politician. He served as governor of the province of Antique and was an opponent of the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. His assassination on February 11, 1986, was one of the causes of the People Power Revolution that overthrew Marcos. Evelio Javier's brother, Exequiel Javier, served as congressman from 1987 to 1998 and from 2001 to 2010 and governor from 1998 to 2001, and 2010 to 2015. In 2018, Javier was identified as a Motu Proprio human rights violations victim of the Martial Law Era by the Human Rights Victims Claims Board.
1901 Milan I of Serbia (born 1855)

Milan I of Serbia (born 1855)

Milan Obrenović IV reigned as the Prince of Serbia from 10 June 1868 until 1882, and then King of Serbia, a title he held until his abdication on 6 March 1889. Most important events during Milan's reign was the First and Second Serbian–Ottoman War and the Serbo-Bulgarian War. At the beginning of his reign, the Principality of Serbia was still de jure part of the Ottoman Empire, but became fully independent in 1878 with the Treaty of Berlin (1878). In 1882, the Principality was elevated to the status of a kingdom, and Milan became a king.
2002 Frankie Crosetti

Frankie Crosetti

American baseball player and coach (born 1910)
Frank Peter Joseph Crosetti, nicknamed "The Crow", was an American baseball player. From 1932 to 1948, he spent his entire seventeen-year Major League Baseball playing career with the New York Yankees at shortstop. After his retirement as a player, he became third base coach with the franchise for an additional twenty seasons. From 1932 to 1968, Crosetti won a combined total of 17 World Series Championships, 8 as a player, and 9 as a coach, the most by any individual. Crosetti is tied with NHL legend Jean Béliveau for the most combined championships in sports.
2010 Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

English fashion designer, founder of his eponymous brand (born 1969)
Lee Alexander McQueen was a British fashion designer. Known for his unconventional designs, he was one of the most influential fashion designers in the world from the 1990s until his death by suicide in 2010. His brand, Alexander McQueen, is now owned by Gucci and remains active. McQueen was presented with four British Designer of the Year awards as well as being named the International Designer of the Year. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003 for his work in fashion.
1862 Elizabeth Siddal

Elizabeth Siddal

English poet and artist's model (born 1829)
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, better known as Elizabeth Siddal, was an English artist, art model, and poet. Siddal was perhaps the most significant of the female models who posed for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and she fundamentally influenced and personified their ideal of beauty. Walter Deverell and William Holman Hunt painted Siddal, and she was the model for John Everett Millais's famous painting Ophelia (1852). Early in her relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Siddal became his muse and model, and he portrayed her in many of his early artworks.
2025 Betsy Arakawa

Betsy Arakawa

American classical pianist (born 1959)
Betsy Machiko Arakawa Hackman was an American classical pianist and businesswoman. Born in Hawaii, she performed with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra at the age of eleven and later worked for the television game show Card Sharks as a production assistant. She met Gene Hackman in the 1980s, marrying him in 1991 and assisting with his novels. In 2001, she co-founded a linens and home furnishings store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she and Hackman lived; the couple were also business partners in a local Asian restaurant.
1948 Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein

Russian director and screenwriter (born 1898)
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1945/1958). In its decennial poll, the magazine Sight and Sound named his Battleship Potemkin the 54th-greatest film of all time.
2011 Chuck Tanner

Chuck Tanner

American baseball player and manager (born 1928)
Charles William Tanner was an American professional baseball player and manager. A left fielder and pinch hitter who appeared in 396 games in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1955 and 1962, he was known for his unwavering confidence and infectious optimism. As a manager for all or parts of 19 seasons, he led the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series championship in 1979. In his last baseball job, he served as a senior advisor to Pirates general manager Neal Huntington.
2015 Bob Simon

Bob Simon

American journalist (born 1941)
Robert David Simon was an American television correspondent for CBS News. He covered crises, war, and unrest in 67 countries during his career. Simon reported the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, the Israeli–Lebanese Conflict in 1982, and the student protests in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he and four of his TV crew were captured and imprisoned by Iraq for 40 days. He published a book about the experience titled Forty Days.

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