Did you know about Leopold II
Unusually for his time, he opposed the death penalty and torture and abolished it in Tuscany on 30 November 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to abolish the death penalty.
Notable Deaths on March 1
March 1 has 79 recorded notable deaths across history, from 492 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1792 — Leopold II
Holy Roman Emperor (born 1747)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
79 source records
492 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on March 1
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1921 Following mass protests in Petrograd demanding greater freedom in the RSFSR, the Kronstadt rebellion begins, with sailors and citizens taking up arms against the Bolsheviks. Source
- 2002 The Envisat environmental satellite successfully launches aboard an Ariane 5 rocket to reach an orbit of 800 km (500 mi) above the Earth, which was the then-largest payload at 10.5 m long and with a diameter of 4.57 m. Source
Did you know about Minnie Miñoso
Minnie Miñoso began his baseball career in the Negro leagues in 1946 and became an All-Star third baseman with the New York Cubans.
Did you know about Iris Apfel
Iris Apfel became a fashion icon, was the focus of the 2014 Albert Maysles documentary Iris, then signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97.
Did you know about George Herbert
George Herbert enrolled intending to become a priest, but became the University's Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He sat in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.
Did you know about Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan
In addition to being the Emperor of China, he is regarded as the eighth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, although it was only nominal due to the division of the empire.
More major people who died on March 1
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
2015
Minnie Miñoso
Cuban-American baseball player and coach (born 1922)
Saturnino Orestes "Minnie" Armas Arrieta Miñoso, nicknamed "the Cuban Comet," was a Cuban professional baseball player. He began his baseball career in the Negro leagues in 1946 and became an All-Star third baseman with the New York Cubans. He was signed by the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball (MLB) after the 1948 season as baseball's color line fell. Miñoso went on to become an All-Star left fielder with the Indians and Chicago White Sox. The first Afro-Latino in the major leagues and the first black player in White Sox history, as a 1951 rookie, he was one of the first Latin Americans to play in an MLB All-Star Game.
2024
Iris Apfel
American businesswoman, interior designer, and philanthropist (born 1921)
Iris Apfel was an American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion designer, known for her flamboyant style, outspoken personality and oversized eyeglasses. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel had a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencies. In retirement, she drew acclaim for a 2005 show at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring her collection of costume jewelry and styled with clothes on mannequins as she would wear them. She became a fashion icon, was the focus of the 2014 Albert Maysles documentary Iris, then signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97.
1633
George Herbert
English poet and orator (born 1593)
George Herbert was an English poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognised as "one of the foremost British devotional lyricists." He was born in Wales into an artistic and wealthy family and largely raised in England. He received a good education that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. He enrolled intending to become a priest, but became the University's Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He sat in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.
1320
Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan
Chinese emperor (born 1286)
Buyantu Khan, born Ayurbarwada, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Renzong of Yuan, was the fourth emperor of the Yuan dynasty. In addition to being the Emperor of China, he is regarded as the eighth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, although it was only nominal due to the division of the empire. His regnal name "Buyantu Khan" means "blessed/good Khan" in the Mongolian language. His personal name "Ayurbarwada" was derived from a Sanskrit compound Āyurpārvata (आयुर्पार्वत), which means "the mountain of longevity", in contrast with Emperor Wuzong's name Qaišan.
1510
Francisco de Almeida
Portuguese soldier and explorer (born 1450)
Dom Francisco de Almeida, was a Portuguese nobleman, soldier and explorer. He distinguished himself as a counsellor to King John II of Portugal and later in the wars against the Moors and in the conquest of Granada in 1492. In 1505 he was appointed as the first governor and viceroy of the Portuguese State of India. Almeida is credited with establishing Portuguese hegemony in the Indian Ocean with his victory at the naval Battle of Diu in 1509. Before Almeida returned to Portugal he lost his life in a conflict with indigenous people at the Cape of Good Hope in 1510. His only son Lourenço de Almeida had previously been killed in the Battle of Chaul.
1998
Archie Goodwin
American author and illustrator (born 1937)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie between 1964 and 1967. At Marvel, he served as the company's editor-in-chief from 1976 to the end of 1977. In the 1980s, he edited the publisher's anthology magazine Epic Illustrated and its Epic Comics imprint. He is also known for his work on Star Wars in both comic books and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."
1911
Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
Dutch-German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1852)
Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff Jr. was a Dutch physical chemist. A highly influential theoretical chemist, in 1901 Van 't Hoff won the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry "[for his] discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions". His pioneering work helped found the modern theory of chemical affinity, chemical equilibrium, chemical kinetics, and chemical thermodynamics. In his 1874 pamphlet, Van 't Hoff formulated the theory of the tetrahedral carbon atom and laid the foundations of stereochemistry. In 1875, he predicted the correct structures of allenes and cumulenes as well as their axial chirality. He is also widely considered one of the three co-founders of physical chemistry as the discipline is known today. The Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie was founded in 1887 by Van ’t Hoff, Svante Arrhenius and Wilhelm Ostwald, at Leipzig University as the first dedicated scientific journal for the discipline.
1643
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Italian keyboardist and composer (born 1583)
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi was an Italian composer and virtuoso keyboard player. Born in the Duchy of Ferrara, he was one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by many composers, including Ascanio Mayone, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, and Claudio Merulo. Girolamo Frescobaldi was appointed organist of St. Peter's Basilica, a focal point of power for the Cappella Giulia, from 21 July 1608 until 1628 and again from 1634 until his death.
1383
Amadeus VI
count of Savoy (born 1334)
Amadeus VI, nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aymon, Count of Savoy and Yolande Palaeologina of Montferrat. Though he began his rule under a regency, Amadeus quickly proved to be a decisive and capable leader, further advancing Savoy's rise as a political and military force in Europe. His most notable achievement was leading and personally financing the Savoyard Crusade against the Turks, during which he successfully aided the Byzantine emperor and extended Savoy's influence through both warfare and diplomacy.
2006
Nurasyura binte Mohamed Fauzi
Singaporean rape and murder victim (born 2003)
Nurasyura binte Mohamed Fauzi was a two-year-old Malay girl from Singapore who was raped and murdered. Nurasyura, better known as Nonoi, had gone missing on 1 March 2006, and a highly publicized search ensued; three days later her stepfather, Mohammed Ali bin Johari, confessed to what he claimed was an accidental death, and he led police to her body. An autopsy revealed that the girl was drowned and sexually assaulted before her death. On 31 August 2007, after an 8-day hearing, the High Court found Mohammed Ali, who repeatedly denied raping Nonoi, guilty of murder and sentenced him to death.
1768
Hermann Samuel Reimarus
German philosopher and author (born 1694)
Hermann Samuel Reimarus, was a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a knowledge of God and ethics from a study of nature and our own internal reality, thus eliminating the need for religions based on revelation. He denied the supernatural origin of Christianity, and was the first influential critic to investigate the historical Jesus. According to Reimarus, Jesus was a mortal Jewish prophet, and the apostles founded Christianity as a religion separate from Jesus’ own ministry.
1995
Georges J. F. Köhler
German biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1946)
Georges Jean Franz Köhler(German pronunciation: [ˈʒɔʁʃ ˈkøːlɐ] ; 17 April 1946 – 1 March 1995) was a German biologist and immunologist who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with César Milstein and Niels Kaj Jerne "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies". Köhler and Milstein developed the hybridoma technique, a method for producing monoclonal antibodies of predefined specificity by fusing antibody-producing B cells with immortal myeloma cells.
1943
Alexandre Yersin
Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist (born 1863)
Alexandre Émile John Yersin was a Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered for his work as a pioneer in microbiology and immunology. Yersin is the co-discoverer of both the Diphtheria and Tetanus toxins and of the bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague. The bacteria was later named in his honour: Yersinia pestis. Yersin also demonstrated for the first time that the same bacillus was present in the rodent as well as in the human disease, thus underlining the possible means of transmission.
2004
Mian Ghulam Jilani
Pakistani general (born 1914)
Mian Ghulam Jilani also known as Kaka, Speen Dada, and Jilly, was a politician, businessman, and former two-star general in the Pakistan Army. As a British Indian Army officer during World War II, he survived a Japanese POW camp in Singapore. He played a key role in establishing the ceasefire during the First Kashmir War. During his stint as the Military attaché of Pakistan to Washington (1952-1955), he helped negotiate Pakistan's membership in the Baghdad Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
1966
Fritz Houtermans
Polish-German physicist and academic (born 1903)
Friedrich Georg "Fritz" Houtermans was a Dutch-Austrian-German atomic and nuclear physicist and Communist born in Zoppot near Danzig, West Prussia to a Dutch father, who was a wealthy banker. He was brought up in Vienna, where he was educated, and moved to Göttingen when he was 18 to study. It was in Göttingen where he obtained his Ph.D. under James Franck. With Robert d'Escourt Atkinson, he made the first estimates of the rate of stellar nuclear fusion.
1938
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Italian journalist and politician (born 1863)
General Gabriele D'Annunzio, Prince of Montenevoso, sometimes written d'Annunzio as he used to sign himself, was an Italian poet, playwright, orator, journalist, aristocrat, and Royal Italian Army officer during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and in its political life from 1914 to 1924. He had the epithets il Profeta and il Vate : vate stems from the Latin vates, meaning a prophetic, divinatory, or inspirational poet.
1974
Bobby Timmons
American pianist and composer (born 1935)
Robert Henry Timmons was an American jazz pianist and composer. He was a sideman in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for two periods, between which he was part of Cannonball Adderley's band. Several of Timmons' compositions written when part of these bands – including "Moanin'", "Dat Dere", and "This Here" – enjoyed commercial success and brought him more attention. In the early and mid-1960s he led a series of piano trios that toured and recorded extensively.
1661
Richard Zouch
English judge and politician (born 1590)
Richard Zouch was an English judge and a Member of Parliament from 1621 to 1624. He was elected Member of Parliament for Hythe in 1621 and later became principal of St. Alban Hall, Oxford. During the English Civil War, he was a Royalist and was appointed by Oliver Cromwell to a special commission of oyer and terminer. Zouch wrote extensive legal texts and was among the earliest systematic writers of international law.
1991
Edwin H. Land
American scientist and businessman, co-founded the Polaroid Corporation (born 1909)
Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in one minute or less.