Notable Deaths on February 19

February 19 has 87 recorded notable deaths across history, from 197 to 2020. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Deng Xiaoping

1997 — Deng Xiaoping

Chinese politician, paramount leader and 1st Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China (born 1904)

By · — Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 87 source records 197 – 2020

Major events on February 19

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1948 The Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence convenes in Calcutta. Source
  2. 1960 China successfully launches the T-7, its first sounding rocket. Source

Did you know about Deng Xiaoping

Emerging as China's most influential figure after Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng consolidated political power and guided the country into an era of reform and opening up that transitioned the nation toward a socialist market economy.

Did you know about Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature.

Did you know about Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Gopal Krishna Gokhale was an Indian political leader and a social reformer during the Indian independence movement, and political mentor of Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi.

Did you know about Charles Trenet

Trenet is also noted for his work with musicians Michel Emer and Léo Chauliac, with whom he recorded "Y'a d'la joie" (1938) for the first and "La Romance de Paris" (1941) and "Douce France" (1947) for the latter.

Did you know about Larry Coryell

Coryell was also a music teacher and a writer, penning a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine from 1977 to 1989.

More major people who died on February 19

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

2016 Harper Lee

Harper Lee

American author (born 1926)
Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). An earlier draft of Mockingbird, set at a later date, Go Set a Watchman, was published in July 2015 as a sequel. A collection of her short stories and essays, The Land of Sweet Forever, was published on October 21, 2025.
Wikipedia source
1915 Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Indian philosopher and politician (born 1866)
Gopal Krishna Gokhale was an Indian political leader and a social reformer during the Indian independence movement, and political mentor of Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and the founder of the Servants of India Society. Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale campaigned for Indian self-rule and social reforms. He was the leader of the moderate faction of the Congress that advocated reforms by working with existing government institutions, and a major member of the Poona Association or the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.
Wikipedia source
2001 Charles Trenet

Charles Trenet

French singer-songwriter (born 1913)
Louis Charles Augustin Georges Trenet was a renowned French singer-songwriter who composed both the music and the lyrics for nearly 1,000 songs over a career that lasted more than 60 years. These songs include "Boum!" (1938), "La Mer" (1946) and "Nationale 7" (1955). Trenet is also noted for his work with musicians Michel Emer and Léo Chauliac, with whom he recorded "Y'a d'la joie" (1938) for the first and "La Romance de Paris" (1941) and "Douce France" (1947) for the latter. He was awarded an Honorary Molière Award in 2000.
Wikipedia source
2017 Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell

American jazz guitarist (born 1943)
Larry Coryell was an American jazz guitarist, widely considered the "godfather of fusion". Alongside Gábor Szabó, he was a pioneer in melding jazz, country and rock music. Coryell was also a music teacher and a writer, penning a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine from 1977 to 1989. He collaborated with a number of other high-profile musicians, including Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Miroslav Vitouš, Billy Cobham, Lenny White, Emily Remler, Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, Steve Morse and others.
Wikipedia source
1977 Anthony Crosland

Anthony Crosland

English author and politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (born 1918)
Charles Anthony Raven Crosland was a British Labour Party politician and author. A social democrat on the right wing of the Labour Party, he was a prominent socialist intellectual. His influential book The Future of Socialism (1956) argued against many Marxist notions and the traditional Labour Party doctrine that expanding public ownership was essential to make socialism work, arguing instead for prioritising the end of poverty and improving public services. He offered positive alternatives to both the right wing and left wing of the Labour Party.
Wikipedia source
1133 Irene Doukaina

Irene Doukaina

Byzantine wife of Alexios I Komnenos (born 1066)
Irene Doukaina or Ducaena was a Byzantine empress by marriage to the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. She was the mother of Emperor John II Komnenos and the historian Anna Komnene. She was initially heavily overshadowed and humiliated in influence and power by her mother-in-law Anna Dalassene, but after her retirement and death, Irene was able to exert increasing influence over her husband Alexios I Komnenos, and became powerful towards the end of his reign. But even so, she could not arrange his successor according to her wishes, which favoured her daughter Anna Komnene over her son John II Komnenos.
Wikipedia source
1970 Ralph Edward Flanders

Ralph Edward Flanders

US Senator from Vermont (born 1890)
Ralph Edward Flanders was an American mechanical engineer, industrialist and politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Vermont. He grew up on subsistence farms in Vermont and Rhode Island and was an apprentice machinist and draftsman before training as a mechanical engineer. He spent five years in New York City as an editor for a machine tool magazine. After moving back to Vermont, he managed and then became president of a successful machine tool company. Flanders used his experience as an industrialist to advise state and national commissions in Vermont, New England and Washington, D.C., on industrial and economic policy. He was president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank for two years before being elected U.S. Senator from Vermont.
Wikipedia source
1953 Richard Rushall

Richard Rushall

British businessman (born 1864)
Captain Richard Boswell Rushall was a British sea captain and businessman who served as mayor of Rangoon, Burma, during the 1930s. He was the first Englishman to hold this position. Born in Braunston, Northamptonshire, Rushall was the eldest of eight children. After finishing school he left for sea, joined the UK's Merchant Navy, and became a ship's captain. He spent 20 years with the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, of which 17 were in command of steamships belonging to the company. He settled in Rangoon with his family, resigned from the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company and founded Rushall & Co. Ltd., a stevedoring and contracting business that employed between 3,000 and 4,000 men.
Wikipedia source
2012 Ruth Barcan Marcus

Ruth Barcan Marcus

American philosopher and logician (born 1921)
Ruth Barcan Marcus was an American academic philosopher and logician best known for her work in modal and philosophical logic. She developed the first formal systems of quantified modal logic and in so doing introduced the schema or principle known as the Barcan formula. Marcus, who originally published as Ruth C. Barcan, was, as Don Garrett notes "one of the twentieth century's most important and influential philosopher-logicians". Timothy Williamson, in a 2008 celebration of Marcus' long career, states that many of her "main ideas are not just original, and clever, and beautiful, and fascinating, and influential, and way ahead of their time, but actually – I believe – true".
Wikipedia source
1806 Elizabeth Carter

Elizabeth Carter

English poet and translator (born 1717)
Elizabeth Carter was an English poet, classicist, writer, translator, and linguist. As one of the Bluestocking Circle that surrounded Elizabeth Montagu, she earned respect for the first English translation of the 2nd-century Discourses of Epictetus. She also published poems and translated from French and Italian, and corresponded profusely. Among her many eminent friends were Elizabeth Montagu, Hannah More, Hester Chapone and other Bluestocking members. Also close friends were Anne Hunter, a poet and socialite, and Mary Delany. She befriended Samuel Johnson, editing some editions of his periodical The Rambler.
Wikipedia source
2013 Eugene Whelan

Eugene Whelan

Canadian farmer and politician, 22nd Canadian Minister of Agriculture (born 1924)
Eugene Francis "Gene" Whelan was a Canadian farmer and Liberal politician. He served in the House of Commons of Canada from 1962 to 1984 and was minister of agriculture from 1972 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. He ran to succeed Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the 1984 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election, finishing last. Whelan also served as president of the United Nations World Food Council from 1983 to 1985. In 1996, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada by Jean Chrétien, serving until 1999.
Wikipedia source
1951 André Gide

André Gide

French novelist, essayist, and dramatist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1869)
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author whose writing spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gide's career ranged from his beginnings in the symbolist movement to criticising imperialism in the interwar period. Author of more than 50 books, he was described in his obituary in The New York Times as "France's greatest contemporary man of letters" and "judged the greatest French writer of this century by the literary cognoscenti."
Wikipedia source
2020 José Mojica Marins

José Mojica Marins

Brazilian filmmaker, actor, composer, screenwriter, and television horror host (born 1936)
José Mojica Marins was a Brazilian filmmaker, actor, composer, screenwriter, and television horror host. Marins is also known for creating and playing the character Coffin Joe in a series of horror films; the character has since gone on to become his alter ego as well as a pop culture icon, a horror icon, and a cult figure. The popularity of Coffin Joe in Brazil has led to the character being referred to as "Brazil's National Boogeyman" and "Brazil's Freddy Krueger".
Wikipedia source
1916 Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach

Austrian-Czech physicist and philosopher (born 1838)
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher who contributed to the understanding of the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honor. As a philosopher of science, he was a major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism. Through his criticism of Isaac Newton's theories of space and time, he foreshadowed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.
Wikipedia source
2001 Stanley Kramer

Stanley Kramer

American director and producer (born 1913)
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer, responsible for making many of Hollywood's most famous "message films" and a liberal movie icon. As an independent producer and director, he brought attention to topical social issues that most studios avoided. Among the subjects covered in his films were racism, nuclear war, greed, creationism vs. evolution, and the causes and effects of fascism. His other films included High Noon, The Caine Mutiny, and Ship of Fools (1965).
Wikipedia source
2016 Samuel Willenberg

Samuel Willenberg

Polish-Israeli sculptor and painter (born 1923)
Samuel Willenberg, nom de guerre Igo, was a Polish-born Jewish Holocaust survivor, artist, and writer. He was a Sonderkommando at the Treblinka extermination camp and participated in the unit's planned revolt in August 1943. While 300 escaped, about 79 were known to survive the war. Willenberg reached Warsaw where, before war's end, he took part in the Warsaw Uprising. At his death, Willenberg was the last survivor of the August 1943 Treblinka prisoners' revolt.
Wikipedia source
1980 Bon Scott

Bon Scott

Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter (born 1946)
Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott was an Australian singer who was the second lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980. In the July 2004 issue of Classic Rock, Scott was ranked number one in a list of the "100 Greatest Frontmen of All Time". Hit Parader ranked Scott as fifth on their 2006 list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of all time.
Wikipedia source
2014 Valeri Kubasov

Valeri Kubasov

Russian engineer and astronaut (born 1935)
Valery Nikolaevich Kubasov was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut who flew on two missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 19, and commanded Soyuz 36 in the Intercosmos programme. On 21 July 1975, the Soyuz 7K-TM module used for ASTP landed in Kazakhstan at 5:51 p.m. and Kubasov was the first to exit the craft. Kubasov performed the first welding experiments in space, along with Georgy Shonin.
Wikipedia source
1969 Madge Blake

Madge Blake

American actress (born 1899)
Madge Blake was an American character actress best remembered for her role as Larry Mondello's mother, Margaret Mondello, on the CBS/ABC sitcom Leave It to Beaver, as Flora MacMichael on the ABC/CBS sitcom The Real McCoys, and as Aunt Harriet Cooper in 96 episodes of ABC's Batman. Gene Kelly had a special affection for her and included her in each of his films following her role in An American in Paris.
Wikipedia source

History runs on facts, and this project runs on coffee!

Your support is incredibly helpful and genuinely appreciated.

Support with a coffee ☕