Notable Deaths on January 6

Ian Charleson was a Scottish stage and screen actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi.

Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Among his other accolades are two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award and a Grammy Award, in addition to nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. In 1999, he was ranked number 22 among the "American Film Institute's 100 Stars". Poitier was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Om Prakash Puri was an Indian actor who predominantly worked in Hindi films, he appeared in several English, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu, and Marathi films. Puri was also active in independent and art films and also starred in several international cinema. He is widely regarded as one of the finest actors in world cinema. He won two National Film Awards for Best Actor, two Filmfare Awards and India's fourth highest civilian award Padma Shri in 1990. In 2004, he was made an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Peter Bogdanovich was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian. He started out his career as a young actor studying under Stella Adler before working as a film critic for Film Culture and Esquire and finally becoming a prominent filmmaker of the New Hollywood movement. He received accolades including a BAFTA Award and Grammy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (Brünn), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire and gained posthumous recognition as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

Mehmed IV, nicknamed as Mehmed the Hunter, was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687. He came to the throne at the age of six after his father was overthrown in a coup. Mehmed went on to become the second-longest-reigning sultan in Ottoman history after Suleiman the Magnificent. While the initial and final years of his reign were characterized by military defeat and political instability, during his middle years he oversaw the revival of the empire's fortunes associated with the Köprülü era. Mehmed IV was known by contemporaries as a particularly pious ruler, and was referred to as gazi, or "holy warrior" for his role in the many conquests carried out during his long reign.

Uzun Hasan or Uzun Hassan was a ruler of the Turkoman Aq Qoyunlu state and is generally considered to be its strongest ruler. Hasan was from the Bayandur tribe and presided over the confederation's territorial apex, when it included parts or all of present-day Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Transcaucasia, and Syria.

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of early bebop styles. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality have made him an enduring icon.

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer. Nureyev is widely regarded as the preeminent male ballet dancer of the 20th century, as well as one of the greatest ballet dancers of all time.

Louis Allen Rawls was an American baritone singer. He released 61 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably the song "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine". He also worked as a film, television, and voice actor. He was a three-time winner of the Best Male R&B Vocal Performance Grammy Award.

Frances Burney, also known as Fanny Burney and later Madame d'Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. In 1786–1790 she held the post of "Keeper of the Robes" to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, George III's queen. In 1793, aged 41, she married a French exile, General Alexandre d'Arblay. After a long writing career that gained her a reputation as one of England's foremost literary authors, and after wartime travels that stranded her in France for over a decade, she settled in Bath, England, where she died on 6 January 1840. The first of her four novels, Evelina (1778), was the most successful and remains her most highly regarded, followed by Cecilia (1782). She also wrote a number of plays. She wrote a memoir of her father (1832), and is perhaps best remembered as the author of letters and journals that have been gradually published since 1842, whose influence has overshadowed the reputation of her fiction, establishing her posthumously as a diarist more than as a novelist or playwright.

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact of which he was well aware.

Herbert James Munro was a motorcycle racer from New Zealand, famous for setting a motorcycle speed record in the 1000cc Streamliner Modified Fuel category, at Bonneville, on 26 August 1967. This record still stands as of May 2026; Munro was 68 and was riding a 47-year-old machine when he set his last record.

On January 6, 2021, Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old American United States Air Force veteran and pool supply owner, was fatally shot by an officer during the attack on the United States Capitol. She was part of a mob of supporters of then-outgoing U.S. president Donald Trump who stormed the United States Capitol seeking to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. She was a supporter of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory.

Daniel Patrick Harrington Jr. was an American Emmy Award–winning stage and television actor, best known for his role as building superintendent Dwayne Schneider on the sitcom One Day at a Time (1975–1984). His father Pat Harrington Sr. was also an actor.

Louis Braille was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system named after him, braille, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virtually unchanged to this day.

Victor Lonzo Fleming was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were the historical drama Gone with the Wind, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director, and the fantasy film The Wizard of Oz. Fleming has those same two films listed in the top 10 of the American Film Institute's 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.

William Morgan Sheppard, also credited by his full name or as Morgan Sheppard, was an English actor who appeared in over 100 films and television programmes, as well as several video games, in a career that spanned over 50 years.

Silvana Pampanini was an Italian film actress, director and singer. She was also the niece of the soprano of the golden era of opera, Dame Rosetta Pampanini. Silvana Pampanini caused a sensation when she took part in the 1946 Miss Italia contest and the following year she started her movie career. Madame Pampanini was born into a well-off family, she was educated, and studied opera and ballet since her childhood. According to interviews, Pampanini was a contralto with notable voice extension. However, she also said many times over the years that she preferred to pursue a career in cinema as it required less training and it was much less demanding than a career as an opera singer.

Alessandro de' Medici, nicknamed "il Moro" due to his dark complexion, Duke of Penne and the first Duke of the Florentine Republic, was ruler of Florence from 1530 to his death in 1537. The first Medici to rule Florence as a hereditary monarch, Alessandro was also the last Medici from the senior line of the family to lead the city. His assassination at the hands of distant cousin Lorenzaccio caused the title of Duke to pass to Cosimo I de Medici, from the family's junior branch.

Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American writer, investigative journalist, biographer, and lecturer. She was one of the leading muckrakers and reformers of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was a pioneer of investigative journalism.

William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield Sr. was an American military officer who was the patriarch of the Hatfield family, whom he led in the Hatfield–McCoy feud. He previously served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Archibald Joseph Cronin (Cronogue) (19 July 1896 – 6 January 1981) was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel is The Citadel (1937), about a Scottish physician who serves in a Welsh mining village, and then moves into a highly paid private practice in London where he becomes disillusioned with the greed and incompetence of some doctors. In writing the book, Cronin utilized his experiences both as a medical inspector of mines, and a physician on Harley Street. The Citadel exposed unfairness in British medicine and helped inspire the National Health Service.

Christopher of Bavaria was King of Denmark, Sweden (1441–48) and Norway (1442–48) during the era of the Kalmar Union. He ruled after the Kalmar Union's King Erik of Pomerania was deposed. Early in his reign, he put down two peasant rebellions in Funen and Jutland. He was disliked by the Swedish nobles, as they pointed to his inability to manage harvest failures and to stop Erik's plundering. They also questioned his foreign background.

David Alfaro Siqueiros was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he was one of the most famous of the "Mexican muralists".

Yossel Mashel "Joe" Slovo was a South African politician, anti-apartheid activist, and revolutionary. A Marxist-Leninist, he was a long-time leader and theorist in the South African Communist Party (SACP), a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a commander of the ANC's military wing uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

André Bessette, C.S.C., commonly known as Brother André and since his canonization as Saint André of Montreal, was a lay brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross and a significant figure of the Catholic Church among French Canadians. He is credited with thousands of reported healings associated with his pious devotion to Saint Joseph.

Herbert Chapman was an English football player and manager. Though he had an undistinguished playing career, he went on to become one of the most influential and successful managers in the early 20th century, before his sudden death in 1934. He is regarded as one of the game's greatest innovators.

Bharatendu Harishchandra was an Indian poet, writer, and playwright. He authored several dramas, biographical sketches, and travel accounts with the goal of influencing public opinion. He is often considered the father of modern Hindi literature and theatre, and some modern Indian authors have described him as a Yug Charan for his writing depicting the exploitative nature of the British Raj.

Michel Petrucciani was a French jazz pianist. From birth he had osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. Despite his health condition and relatively short life, he became one of the most accomplished jazz pianists of his generation.

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, known in Ukraine as Volodymyr Ivanovych Vernadsky, was a Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology. He was one of the founders and the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Vladimir Vernadsky is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere in which he inadvertently worked to popularize Eduard Suess's 1875 term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth. In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. Vernadsky's portrait is depicted on the Ukrainian ₴1,000 hryvnia banknote.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir Two Years Before the Mast and as an attorney who successfully represented the U.S. government before the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil War in the Prize Cases. Both as a writer and as a lawyer, he was a champion of the downtrodden, from seamen to fugitive slaves and freedmen.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon , real name Sugimori Nobumori , was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki. The Encyclopædia Britannica has written that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatist." His most famous plays deal with double-suicides of honor-bound lovers. Of his puppet plays, around 70 are jidaimono (時代物), and 24 are sewamono (世話物). The domestic plays are today considered the core of his artistic achievement, particularly works such as The Courier for Hell (1711) and The Love Suicides at Amijima (1721). His histories are viewed less positively, though The Battles of Coxinga (1715) remains praised.

Chen Yi was a Chinese Communist military commander and politician. He served as Mayor of Shanghai from 1949 to 1958 and as Foreign Minister of China from 1958 to 1972. He is one of Ten Marshals of the People's Republic of China.

Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov was a Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm "for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect".

Alan Anthony Wiggins was an American professional baseball player. He was a second baseman and outfielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles between 1981 and 1987. A speedy leadoff hitter, Wiggins had his best season with the pennant-winning Padres in 1984. He batted one slot ahead of Tony Gwynn in the lineup that year, and the pair's offensive production helped the Padres win the National League Championship Series (NLCS) and advance to the World Series.

Francisco Sionil José was a Filipino writer who was one of the most widely read in the English language. A National Artist of the Philippines for Literature, which was bestowed upon him in 2001, José's novels and short stories depict the social underpinnings of class struggles and colonialism in Filipino society. His works—written in English—have been translated into 28 languages, including Korean, Indonesian, Czech, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Dutch. He was often considered the leading Filipino candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Nelson Ned d'Ávila Pinto was a Brazilian singer-songwriter. He built a career as a singer and composer of sentimental, suffering songs, rising to popularity in Brazil and Latin America in 1969 and becoming known internationally, especially in Portugal, France and Spain. In 1971 he released his first Spanish album, Canción Popular, and performed in the US, Latin America, Europe, and Africa.

Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi was an Italian architect and painter, born in a small town near Siena and died in Rome. He worked for many years with Bramante, Raphael, and later Sangallo during the erection of the new St. Peter's. He returned to his native Siena after the Sack of Rome (1527) where he was employed as architect to the Republic. For the Sienese he built new fortifications for the city and designed a remarkable dam on the Bruna River near Giuncarico. He seems to have moved back to Rome permanently by 1535. He died there the following year and was buried in the Rotunda of the Pantheon, near Raphael.

Alvin Christian "Al" Kraenzlein was an American track-and-field athlete known as "the father of the modern hurdling technique". He was the first sportsman in the history of the Olympic games to win four individual gold medals in a single discipline at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. As of 2016, Alvin Kraenzlein is the only track-and-field athlete who has won four individual titles at one Olympics. Kraenzlein is also known for developing a pioneering technique of straight-leg hurdling, which allowed him to set two world hurdle records. He is an Olympic Hall of Fame (1984) and National Track and Field Hall of Fame (1974) inductee.

Berengar of Tours was an 11th-century French Catholic theologian and archdeacon of Angers. His leadership of the School of Chartres set an example of intellectual inquiry through the revived tools of dialectic that was soon followed at cathedral schools of Laon and Paris. Berengar was distinguished from mainline Catholic theology by two views: his assertion of the supremacy of Scripture and his denial of transubstantiation. According to Thomas Aquinas, "Berengarius ... withdrew his error and acknowledged the truth of the faith."

Eileen Christine Desmond was an Irish Labour Party politician who served as Minister for Health and Minister for Social Welfare from 1981 to 1982. She was a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1965 to 1969 and 1973 to 1987. She also served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Munster constituency from 1979 to 1981 and as a Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 1969 to 1973.

Marina Ginestà i Coloma was a Catalan communist born in France, member of the Unified Socialist Youth, and an iconic figure of the Spanish Civil War. She became famous due to the photo taken by Juan Guzmán on the rooftop of the Hotel Colón, Plaça de Catalunya 9, Barcelona during the July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona. It is considered one of the most iconic photographs of the Spanish Civil War.

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was an Italian jurist, author, and explorer, known for claiming to have discovered the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1823 while on a trip through much of the United States. In Minnesota, Beltrami and Beltrami County are named for him. He had an extensive network of notable figures for friends and acquaintances, including members of the powerful Medici family.

Roberta Morgan Wohlstetter was an American historian of U.S. military intelligence. In 1962 she authored Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. The book was based on a several-year study of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and is still considered the foundational study of military surprises. President Ronald Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.

Raymond of Peñafort was a Dominican friar who was a canon lawyer. He compiled the Decretals of Gregory IX, a collection of canonical laws that remained a major part of Church law until the 1917 Code of Canon Law abrogated it. He was canonized by Pope Clement VIII in 1601 and is the patron saint of canon lawyers.

Wilhelm Ramsay was a Finnish geologist. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1914 and in 1915 was accepted into the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund. He coined the terms Fennoscandia (1900) and Postjotnian (1909). Ramsay also coined the term ijolite.

Pierre Charles was a Dominican politician who served as Prime Minister of Dominica from 2000 to his death in 2004. At the time of his death, he was also serving as Member of Parliament for Grand Bay since 1985.

Sir Basil John Mason was a British expert on cloud physics. He was Director-General of the Meteorological Office from 1965 to 1983 and Chancellor of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) from 1994 to 1996.

Étienne François Geoffroy was a French physician and chemist, best known for his 1718 affinity tables. He first contemplated a career as an apothecary, but then decided to practice medicine. He is sometimes known as Geoffroy the Elder.

Gordon Ralph Renwick was a Canadian ice hockey administrator, who served as president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA), vice-president of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), and was the team president of the Galt Hornets.

Tarquinio Provini was an Italian professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. He was a two-time world champion in road racing. Provini was also a four-time Isle of Man TT winner and won 13 Italian national championships.

Paul Patrick Streeten was an Austrian-born British economics professor. He was a professor at Boston University, US until his retirement. He has been a distinguished academic working on development economics since the 1950s.

Charles Timothy O'Leary was an American professional baseball shortstop who played eleven seasons with the Detroit Tigers (1904–1912), St. Louis Cardinals (1913), and St. Louis Browns (1934) of Major League Baseball (MLB).

Lars Hertervig was a Norwegian painter. His semi-fantastical work with motives from the coastal landscape in the traditional district of Ryfylke is regarded as one of the peaks of Norwegian painting.

Lamin Sanneh was a Gambian American scholar who was the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and Professor of History at Yale University.

Abo of Tiflis was a Christian martyr of Arab origin, who went on to practice his faith in what is now Tbilisi, the capital of present-day Georgia.

Vladimir de Pachmann or Pachman was a Russian pianist of German descent. He is known for performing the works of Chopin and for his eccentric performing style.

Christopher O'Connor was an Irish professional golfer. He is often known for defeating American Fred Couples at the 1989 Ryder Cup, helping Europe secure the trophy.

Josef Dobrovský was a Czech philologist and historian. He was one of the most important figures of the Czech National Revival along with Josef Jungmann.

Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, was created Earl of Pembroke in 1138.

Gertrude van der Oosten was a Dutch Beguine who was considered a mystic and had received the Stigmata.

Seth Ward was an English mathematician, astronomer, and bishop.

John Dennis was an English critic and dramatist.

Rodolphe Kreutzer was a French violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer of forty French operas, including La mort d'Abel (1810).

Hendrick Peter Godfried Quack was a Dutch legal scholar, economist and historian, who is best known for his work De socialisten: Personen en stelsels.

Jakob Rosanes was a German mathematician who worked on algebraic geometry and invariant theory. He was also a chess master.

Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet was a French operatic dramatic soprano.

Henri de Baillet-Latour, Count of Baillet-Latour was a Belgian aristocrat and the third president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Jean Lurçat was a French artist noted for his role in the revival of contemporary tapestry. He was also a painter and ceramist.

Shmuel Berenbaum was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York.

Robert Wentworth John Holness was a British-South African radio and television presenter. He presented the British version of Blockbusters.

Florence Virginia King was an American novelist, essayist, and columnist.

Octavio Lepage Barreto was a Venezuelan politician who served as the acting president of Venezuela from 21 May 1993 to 5 June 1993.

José Ramón Fernández Álvarez was a Cuban Communist leader who was a vice-president of the Council of Ministers.