Did you know
Thigpen first gained attention for her role in the 1971 off-Broadway musical Godspell
Notable Deaths on March 12
63 people
417 – 2021
March 12 has seen 63 notable figures pass away throughout recorded history — from 417 – 2021. Below are the most significant names who died on this date.
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
2003 — Lynne Thigpen
American actress and singer (born 1948)
Did you know
Judith Kaufman in An American Daughter, and also played Ella Farmer on The District (2000–2003)
Did you know
Thigpen reprised her role as Lynne in the 1973 film adaptation, which she starred in alongside David Haskell and Victor Garber.
Did you know
Cherlynne Theresa Thigpen was an American actress of stage and screen
Did you know
For her varied television work, Thigpen was nominated for six Daytime Emmy Awards
pope of the Catholic Church
Pope Innocent I was the bishop of Rome from 401 to his death on 12 March 417. From the beginning of his papacy, he was seen as the general arbitrator of ecclesiastical disputes in both the East and the West. He…
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417
604
Saint Symeon the New Theologian was an Eastern Orthodox monk and poet who was one of the three saints canonized by the Eastern Orthodox Church and given the title of "Theologian". "Theologian" was not applied to Symeon…
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1022
caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate (born 1096)
Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mustazhir, better known by his regnal name al-Muqtafi li-Amr Allah, was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 1136 to 1160, succeeding his nephew al-Rashid, who had been forced to…
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1160
Stefan Dragutin, was King of Serbia from 1276 to 1282. From 1282, he ruled a separate kingdom which included northern Serbia, and the neighboring Hungarian banates, for which he was unofficially styled "King of Syrmia".
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1316
4th Earl of Hereford, English general and politician, Lord High Constable of England (born 1276)
Humphrey (VII) de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford was a member of a powerful Anglo-Norman family of the Welsh Marches and was one of the Ordainers who opposed Edward II's excesses.
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1322
1st Earl of Wiltshire, English diplomat and politician (born 1477)
Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, 1st Earl of Ormond, 1st Viscount Rochford KG, KB, of Hever Castle in Kent, was an English diplomat and politician. He was the father of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry…
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1539
Danish politician (born 1635)
Count Peder Griffenfeld was a Danish statesman and royal favourite. He became the principal adviser to King Christian V of Denmark from 1670 and the de facto ruler of the dual kingdom of Denmark-Norway in the first half…
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1699
Finnish-Swedish journalist, historian, and author (born 1818)
Zacharias Topelius was a Finnish author, poet, journalist, historian, and rector of the University of Helsinki who wrote novels related to Finnish history. He wrote his works exclusively in Swedish, although they were…
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1898
Austrian author (born 1830)
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach née Countess Dubsky was an Austrian writer and a noblewoman. Noted for her psychological novels, she is regarded as one of the most important German-language writers of the latter…
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1916
Chinese physician and politician, 1st President of the Republic of China (born 1866)
Sun Yat-sen, a.k.a. Sun Zhongshan, was a Chinese revolutionary who founded the Republic of China (ROC) and the Kuomintang (KMT). Sun is credited with leading the 1911 Revolution and overthrowing the Qing dynasty. He…
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1925
American businessman and politician, 44th Mayor of Atlanta (born 1851)
Asa Griggs Candler Sr. was an American business magnate and politician who in 1888 purchased the Coca-Cola recipe for $2300 from chemist John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. Candler founded the Coca-Cola Company in…
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1929
Serbian-American physicist and chemist (born 1858)
Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, also known as Michael Pupin, was a Serbian-American electrical engineer, physicist and inventor.
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1935
English physicist, chemist, and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1862)
Sir William Henry Bragg was a British X-ray crystallographer who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son Lawrence Bragg – the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by…
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1942
Norwegian sculptor (born 1869)
Gustav Vigeland, born as Adolf Gustav Thorsen, was a Norwegian sculptor. Gustav Vigeland occupies a special position among Norwegian sculptors, both in the power of his creative imagination and in his productivity. He…
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1943
Hungarian soldier and politician, Head of State of Hungary (born 1897)
Ferenc Szálasi was a Hungarian military officer, politician, Nazi sympathizer and founder of the far-right fascist Arrow Cross Party who headed the government of Hungary during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany…
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1946
German chemist (born 1879)
Georg Wilhelm Steinkopf was a German chemist. Today he is mostly remembered for his work on the production of mustard gas during World War I.
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1949
German sociologist and suffragist (born 1870)
Marianne Weber was a German sociologist, women's rights activist, and the wife of Max Weber.
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1954
American saxophonist and composer (born 1920)
Charles Parker Jr., nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz…
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1955
German author best known for his anti-war novel (born 1892)
Theodor Otto Richard Plievier was a German writer best known for his 1948 anti-war novel Stalingrad.
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1955
American actress (born 1877)
Marie Josephine Hull was an American stage and film actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film. She won an Academy Award…
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1957
American physician and pathologist (born 1873)
Eugene Lindsay Opie was an American physician and pathologist who conducted research on the causes, transmission, and diagnosis of tuberculosis and on immunization against the disease. He served as professor of…
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1971
American baseball player and manager (born 1898)
Frank Francis Frisch, nicknamed "the Fordham Flash" or "the Old Flash", was an American professional baseball second baseman and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Giants (1919–1926) and…
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1973
American banker and businessman (born 1904)
George D. Sax was an American businessman and hotelier, who served as the chairman of the board of Exchange International Corporation and Chicago's former Exchange National Bank. He was president of Sax Enterprises, Inc…
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1974
Hungarian-American violinist and conductor (born 1899)
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association with the orchestra is one of the…
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1985
English-American actor (born 1901)
Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor, noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. His best-known screen roles include Dr. Zaius in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and Maurice on Bewitched.
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1989
Finnish-Swedish neuroscientist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1900)
Ragnar Arthur Granit was a Finnish and Swedish neurophysiologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967 along with Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald "for their discoveries concerning the…
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1991
Faroese author, poet, and author (born 1900)
Andreas William Heinesen was a poet, writer, composer and painter from the Faroe Islands.
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1991
American potter (born 1890)
Lucy Martin Lewis was a Native American potter from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. She is known for her black-on-white decorative ceramics made using traditional techniques.
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1992
American painter and potter (born 1893)
Beatrice Wood was an American artist and studio potter involved in the Dada movement in the United States; she founded and edited The Blind Man and Rongwrong magazines in New York City with French artist Marcel Duchamp…
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1998
American-Swiss violinist and conductor (born 1916)
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, was an American-born British and Swiss violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th…
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1999
Brazilian-American soprano (born 1902)
Balduína "Bidú" de Oliveira Sayão was a Brazilian opera soprano. One of Brazil's celebrated musicians, Sayão was a leading artist of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1937 to 1952.
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1999
Yugoslav basketball coach (born 1924)
Aleksandar "Aca" Nikolić was a Serbian professional basketball player and coach. He was also a professor at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Sport and Physical Education. He is often referred to as the Father of…
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2000
American singer-songwriter, actor, and talk show host (born 1933)
Morton Downey Jr. was an American television talk show host and actor who pioneered the "trash TV" format in the late 1980s on his program The Morton Downey Jr. Show.
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2001
American author (born 1927)
Robert Ludlum was an American author of 27 thriller novels, best known as the creator of Jason Bourne from the original The Bourne Trilogy series. The number of copies of his books in print is estimated between 300…
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2001
Dutch botanist and academic (born 1916)
Victor Westhoff was a botanist at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
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2001
Cypriot lawyer and politician, 2nd President of Cyprus (born 1932)
Spyros Achilleos Kyprianou was a Cypriot barrister and politician, who served as President of Cyprus from 1977 to 1988. He also served as President of the Cypriot House of Representatives from 1976 to 1977 and then…
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2002
Canadian painter and sculptor (born 1923)
Jean-Paul Riopelle, was a Canadian painter and sculptor from Quebec. He had one of the longest and most important international careers of the sixteen signatories of the Refus Global, the 1948 manifesto that announced…
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2002
Serbian philosopher and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Serbia (born 1952)
Zoran Đinđić was a Serbian politician and philosopher who served as the prime minister of Serbia from 2001 until his assassination in 2003. He was the mayor of Belgrade in 1997, becoming the first non-communist and…
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2003
American novelist and screenwriter (born 1914)
Howard Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E.V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson. He was jailed after testifying before the House Committee on Un-American…
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2003
Russian-American painter (born 1917)
Milton Resnick was an American artist noted for abstract paintings that coupled scale with density of incident. It was not uncommon for some of the largest paintings to weigh in excess of three hundred pounds, almost…
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2004
Russian-American priest and journalist (born 1947)
Victor Sokolov was a Russian-American former dissident Soviet journalist and an Eastern Orthodox priest.
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2006
Argentinian journalist and producer (born 1949)
Jorge Ariel Guinzburg was an Argentine journalist, theatrical producer, humorist, and TV and radio host.
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2008
Italian-French soldier and supercentenarian (born 1897)
Lazare Ponticelli, Knight of Vittorio Veneto, was at 110, the last surviving officially recognized veteran of the First World War from France and the last poilu of its trenches to die.
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2008
Spanish journalist and author (born 1920)
Miguel Delibes Setién was a Spanish novelist, journalist and newspaper editor associated with the Generation of '36 movement. From 1975 until his death, he was a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, where he occupied…
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2010
Italian singer (born 1919)
Adionilla Pizzi, known by her stage name Nilla Pizzi, was an Italian singer and actress.
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2011
American basketball player and coach (born 1930)
Richard Alvin Harter was an American basketball coach who served as both a head and assistant coach in both the NBA and NCAA.
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2012
American drummer (born 1946)
Michael Joseph Hossack was an American drummer for the rock band The Doobie Brothers.
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2012
German-Swiss footballer and manager (born 1938)
Friedhelm "Timo" Konietzka was a German professional football player and manager who played as a striker. He earned his nickname "Timo" due to a supposed resemblance to the Soviet commander Semyon Timoshenko.
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2012
English director and producer (born 1936)
Michael Kenneth Christian Grigsby was an English documentary filmmaker.
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2013
Indian painter and illustrator (born 1937)
Ganesh Pyne was an Indian painter and draughtsman, born in Kolkata, West Bengal. Pyne is one of the most notable contemporary artists of the Bengal School of Art, who had also developed his own style of "poetic…
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2013
Czech actress, director, and screenwriter (born 1929)
Věra Chytilová was a Czech avant-garde filmmaker. Banned by the Czechoslovak government in the 1960s, she is best known for her 1966 Czech New Wave film Daisies. Among her subsequent films are Wolf's Hole (1987), A Hoof…
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2014
American scientist and engineer (born 1923)
Paul Charles Donnelly was an American guided missile pioneer and a senior NASA manager during the Apollo Moon landing program at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Responsible for the checkout of all Apollo launch vehicles…
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2014
Portuguese cardinal (born 1936)
José da Cruz Policarpo, officially referred to as José IV, Patriarch of Lisbon, though usually referred to as "D. José Policarpo", was Patriarch of Lisbon from 24 March 1998 to 18 May 2013. Pope John Paul II made him a…
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2014
American minister and activist (born 1924)
Willie Beatrice Barrow was an American civil rights activist and minister. Barrow was the co-founder of Operation PUSH, which was named Operation Breadbasket at the time of its creation alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson. In…
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2015
American architect and academic, designed the Portland Building and the Humana Building (born 1934)
Michael Graves was an American architect, designer, and educator, and principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group and a…
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2015
2015
English journalist, author, and screenwriter (born 1948)
Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983 and 2015, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good…
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2015
Bangladeshi poet and author (born 1942)
Rafiq Azad was a Bangladeshi poet, editor and writer. He is credited with 45 collections of poetry including Prakriti O Premer Kabita, Asambhaber Paye, Sahasra Sundar, Haturir Nichae Jiban, Khub Beshi Durea Noy,…
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2016
Nigerian architect and politician, Governor of Delta State (born 1935)
Felix Ovudoroye Ibru was a Nigerian businessman, architect and politician. He was the first democratically elected Governor of Delta State and Senator for Delta Central Senatorial District. Until his death he held the…
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2016
American mathematician and economist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1923)
Lloyd Stowell Shapley was an American mathematician and Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist. He contributed to the fields of mathematical economics and especially game theory. Shapley is generally considered one of…
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2016
American criminal (born 1951)
Ronald Joseph DeFeo Jr. was an American mass murderer who was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters in Amityville, New York. He was found guilty of six counts of…
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2021
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March 12 in the Blog
The Establishment of the Church of England - March 12, 1534
1534 English Reformation in London: Henry VIII's shocking church split
Read the full storyNotable deaths
Who died on March 12?
Lynne Thigpen — American actress (1948–2003)
FeaturedLynne Thigpen
Death year2003
Known forShe was known for her role as the Chief of ACME Crimenet in the game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and various spinoffs, and for her role as Luna the Moon in the Playhouse Disney children's series Bear in the Big Blue House
Deaths on this date63 (417 – 2021)
Explore March 12
Jump between the main pages for this date to compare events, people, and the daily quiz.
Also on March 12 in History
2020
The United States suspends travel from Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wikipedia →
2019
In the House of Commons, the revised EU Withdrawal Bill was rejected by a margin of 149 votes. Wikipedia →
2018
See all events on March 12
US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211 crashes at Tribhuvan International Airport in Katmandu, killing 51 and injuring 20. Wikipedia →
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