Did you know about Rafiq Azad
Rafiq Azad is most well known for his poem "Bhaat De Haramjada" which was written during the famine of 1974.
Notable Deaths on March 12
March 12 has 65 recorded notable deaths across history, from 417 to 2022. This page lists every one of them, with the best-known people first.
2016 — Rafiq Azad
Bangladeshi poet and author (born 1942)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia · Report an error
Notable Deaths
65 source records
417 – 2022
Today in history
Major events on March 12
See what else happened on this day in history.
Did you know about Lynne Thigpen
Lynne Thigpen won a Tony Award in 1997 for portraying Dr. Judith Kaufman in An American Daughter, and also played Ella Farmer on The District (2000–2003).
Did you know about Jean-Paul Riopelle
Jean-Paul Riopelle had one of the longest and most important international careers of the sixteen signatories of the Refus Global, the 1948 manifesto that announced the Quebecois artistic community's refusal of clericalism and provincialism.
Did you know about Frankie Frisch
Frankie Frisch is tied with Yogi Berra for most World Series doubles at 10 and holds the record for the most World Series hits at 58 for a player who never played for the New York Yankees, exceeded only by Berra and Mickey Mantle.
Did you know about Hartini
Hartini was required to live at the Presidential Palace in Bogor rather than the main palace in Jakarta and was not recognized as first lady.
More major people who died on March 12
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
2003
Lynne Thigpen
American actress and singer (born 1948)
Cherlynne Theresa Thigpen was an American actress of stage and screen. She 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. For her varied television work, Thigpen was nominated for six Daytime Emmy Awards. She won a Tony Award in 1997 for portraying Dr. Judith Kaufman in An American Daughter, and also played Ella Farmer on The District (2000–2003). Thigpen first gained attention for her role in the 1971 off-Broadway musical Godspell. Thigpen's character is named Lynne, and she sang "O Bless the Lord, My Soul" in the musical. Thigpen reprised her role as Lynne in the 1973 film adaptation, which she starred in alongside David Haskell and Victor Garber.
2002
Jean-Paul Riopelle
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 the Quebecois artistic community's refusal of clericalism and provincialism. He is best known for his abstract painting style, in particular his "mosaic" works of the 1950s when he famously abandoned the paintbrush, using only a palette knife to apply paint to canvas, giving his works a distinctive sculptural quality. He became the first Canadian painter since James Wilson Morrice to attain widespread international recognition and high praise, both during his career and after his death. He was a leading artist of French Lyrical Abstraction.
1973
Frankie Frisch
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 St. Louis Cardinals (1927–1937), and managed the Cardinals (1933–1938), Pittsburgh Pirates (1940–1946), and Chicago Cubs (1949–1951). He is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum. He is tied with Yogi Berra for most World Series doubles at 10 and holds the record for the most World Series hits at 58 for a player who never played for the New York Yankees, exceeded only by Berra and Mickey Mantle.
2002
Hartini
former wife of Sukarno (born 1924)
Siti Suhartini, better known as Hartini and also as Hartini Sukarno, was the fourth wife of President Sukarno of Indonesia. Born to a forestry worker in Ponorogo, Hartini was married in her youth to a man named Suwondo, with whom she had five children. She met Sukarno in 1952, and after exchanging a series of pseudonymous love letters and receiving the blessings of his wife Fatmawati, the two were married on 7 July 1954. Their union faced outrage, including protests from pro-monogamy women's organizations and the mass media. Hartini was required to live at the Presidential Palace in Bogor rather than the main palace in Jakarta and was not recognized as first lady.
1699
Peder Griffenfeld
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 of the 1670s. In 1673 he was appointed as Chancellor of Denmark, elevated to count, the highest aristocratic rank in Denmark-Norway, and received the Order of the Elephant, the country's highest order. At the behest of his enemies at court, Griffenfeld was arrested in early 1676 and convicted of treason, a charge that historians agree was false. He was imprisoned for 22 years, mainly at Munkholmen in Norway.
2003
Howard Fast
American novelist and screenwriter (born 1914)
Howard Melvin Fast was an American author and television writer. Also writing under the pen names E.V. Cunningham, Behn Boruch, and Walter Ericson, his career spanned almost seven decades and several genres, including historical novels and noir. Fast mainly wrote novels, as well as short stories, poems, plays and non-fiction. Among his best known work are Spartacus (1951), April Morning (1961), and The Immigrants (1977). Several of Fast's novels have been adapted into movies and television series, most notably Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). A staunch communist early in his life, Fast was jailed in the 1950s after testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
1539
Thomas Boleyn
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 VIII, and was thus the maternal grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. By Henry VIII, he was made a Knight of the Garter in 1523 and was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochford in 1525, and in 1529, he was further ennobled as Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond.
417
Innocent I
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 confirmed the prerogatives of the Archbishop of Thessalonica, and issued a decretal on disciplinary matters referred to him by the Bishop of Rouen. He defended the exiled John Chrysostom and consulted with the bishops of Africa concerning the Pelagian controversy, confirming the decisions of the African synods.
2021
Ronald DeFeo Jr.
American criminal (born 1951)
On November 13, 1974, six members of the DeFeo family were murdered in their home in Amityville, New York, United States. The sole surviving family member, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr., first claimed that his parents and four siblings were targeted in a contract killing by the American Mafia before confessing that he had committed the murders. DeFeo was found guilty of six counts of second degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life. The case inspired the book and film versions of The Amityville Horror.
1943
Gustav Vigeland
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 is most associated with the Vigeland installation (Vigelandsanlegget) in Frogner Park, Oslo. The Vigeland installation made Frogner Park into Norway's most popular tourist attraction, and the park also contains Frogner Manor with the Oslo Museum and the Henriette Wegner Pavilion. Vigeland was also the designer of the Nobel Peace Prize medal.
1991
Ragnar Granit
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 primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye". Granit carried out fundamental research on the retina and the physiological mechanisms of colour vision at the University of Helsinki, and later investigated the neural control of movement at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
1022
Symeon the New Theologian (born 949)
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 in the modern academic sense of theological study; the title was intended only to recognise someone who spoke from personal experience of the vision of God. One of his principal teachings was that humans could and should experience theoria.
1998
Beatrice Wood
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 and writer Henri-Pierre Roché in 1917. She had earlier studied art and theater in Paris, and was working in New York as an actress. She later worked at sculpture and pottery. Wood was characterized as the "Mama of Dada".
2015
Ada Jafri
Pakistani poet and author (born 1924)
Ada Jafarey, often spelled Ada Jafri, was a Pakistani poet who is regarded as the first major female Urdu poet to be published and has been called "The First Lady of Urdu Poetry". She was also an author and was considered a prominent figure in contemporary Urdu literature. She received awards from the Government of Pakistan, the Pakistan Writers' Guild, and literary societies of North America and Europe in recognition of her contribution to Urdu literature.
1985
Eugene Ormandy
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 longest enjoyed by any conductor with any American orchestra. Ormandy made numerous recordings with the orchestra, and as guest conductor with European orchestras, and achieved three gold records and two Grammy Awards. His reputation was as a skilled technician and expert orchestral builder.
2016
Lloyd Shapley
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 the most important contributors to the development of game theory since the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern. With Alvin E. Roth, Shapley won the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design."
1955
Charlie Parker
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 characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. He was a virtuoso and introduced revolutionary rhythmic and harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Parker primarily played the alto saxophone.
2010
Miguel Delibes
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 letter "e" seat. Educated in commerce, he began his career as a cartoonist and columnist. He later became the editor for the regional newspaper El Norte de Castilla before gradually devoting himself exclusively to writing novels.
2004
Milton Resnick
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 all of it pigment. He had a long and varied career, lasting about sixty-five years. He produced at least eight hundred canvases and eight thousand works on paper and board.
1957
Josephine Hull
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 for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Harvey (1950), a role she originally played on the Broadway stage. She was sometimes credited as Josephine Sherwood.
2001
Robert Ludlum
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 million and 500 million. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.
2014
Paul C. Donnelly
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 and spacecraft, he was also involved in every U.S. manned launch from Alan Shepard's Mercury suborbital flight in 1961 through the tenth Space Shuttle mission (STS-41B) in 1984.
2015
Michael Graves
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 professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years. Following his own partial paralysis in 2003, Graves became an internationally recognized advocate of health care design.
2022
Gertraud Gruber
German beautician and businesswoman (born 1921)
Gertraud Gruber was a German beautician and businesswoman who founded her own beauty company, Gertraud Gruber Kosmetik, as well as the first beauty farm in Europe in 1955 in Rottach-Egern, which specialised in holistic treatments. Gruber was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Bayerischer Verfassungsorden in Gold.
1898
Zachris Topelius
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 translated early on into Finnish. In Finland Topelius emerged as one of the foremost heirs to Sir Walter Scott’s legacy of exploring the nation through the historical novel.
2003
Zoran Đinđić
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 first democratically elected official to hold both key positions after World War II. Đinđić was a long-time opposition politician and held a doctorate in philosophy.
2015
Willie Barrow
American minister and activist (born 1924)
Willie Beatrice Barrow was an American civil rights activist and minister. She was the co-founder of Operation PUSH, which was named Operation Breadbasket at the time of its creation alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson. In 1984, Barrow became the first woman executive director of a civil rights organization, serving as Push's CEO. Barrow was the godmother of President Barack Obama.
1925
Sun Yat-sen
Chinese physician and politician, 1st President of the Republic of China (born 1866)
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese physician, revolutionary and political philosopher 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 served as the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China (1912) and as the inaugural premier of the Kuomintang.
2002
Spyros Kyprianou
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 again from 1996 to 2001, as well as being President of the Democratic Party, which he founded, from 1976 to 2000.
2014
José Policarpo
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 Cardinal in 2001. Policarpo held a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
2013
Ganesh Pyne
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 surrealism", fantasy and dark imagery, around the themes of Bengali folklore and mythology.
1942
William Henry Bragg
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 means of X-rays," an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography.
1971
Eugene Lindsay Opie
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 pathology at several U.S. medical schools and as Dean of the Washington University School of Medicine.
2015
Terry Pratchett
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 Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman.
1929
Asa Griggs Candler
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 1892 and developed it as a major company.
1946
Ferenc Szálasi
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 in the final stages of World War II.
1916
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
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 portion of the 19th century.
2016
Felix Ibru
Nigerian architect and politician, Governor of Delta State (born 1935)
Felix Ovudoroye Ibru was a Nigerian architect, businessman and politician who served as the first executive governor of Delta State from 1992 to 1993 and as a Senator representing Delta Central Senatorial District from 2003 to 2007.
2001
Morton Downey Jr.
American singer-songwriter, actor, and talk show host (born 1933)
Sean Morton Downey, better known as 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.
1316
Stefan Dragutin (born c. 1244)
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".
1999
Yehudi Menuhin
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 century.
1989
Maurice Evans
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.
1999
Bidu Sayão
Brazilian-American soprano (born 1902)
Balduína "Bidú" de Oliveira Sayão was a Brazilian operatic soprano. One of Brazil's celebrated musicians, Sayão was a leading artist of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1937 to 1952.
2012
Friedhelm Konietzka
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.
2008
Lazare Ponticelli
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.
604
Gregory I
pope of the Catholic Church (born 540)
Pope Gregory I, commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the 64th Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 until his death on 12 March 604.
1992
Lucy M. Lewis
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.
2014
Věra Chytilová
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 Here, a Hoof There (1989) and The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (1992). For her work, she received the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Czech Medal of Merit and the Czech Lion award.
1160
Al-Muqtafi
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 abdicate by the Seljuks. The continued disunion and contests between Seljuks afforded al-Muqtafi opportunity of not only maintaining his authority in Baghdad, but also extending it throughout Iraq.
1974
George D. Sax
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 and was a business entrepreneur who owned the Saxony Hotel, the first luxury hotel to be built in Miami Beach.
2000
Aleksandar Nikolić
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 Yugoslav and Serbian Basketball.
1322
Humphrey de Bohun
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.
1949
Wilhelm Steinkopf
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.
1935
Mihajlo Pupin
Serbian-American physicist and chemist (born 1858)
Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, also known as Michael Pupin, was a Serbian-American electrical engineer, physicist and inventor.
1954
Marianne Weber
German sociologist and suffragist (born 1870)
Marianne Weber was a German sociologist, women's rights activist, and the wife of Max Weber.
1955
Theodor Plievier
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.
1991
William Heinesen
Faroese author, poet, and author (born 1900)
Andreas William Heinesen was a poet, writer, composer and painter from the Faroe Islands.
2001
Victor Westhoff
Dutch botanist and academic (born 1916)
Victor Westhoff was a botanist at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
2006
Victor Sokolov
Russian-American priest and journalist (born 1947)
Victor Sokolov was a Russian-American former dissident Soviet journalist and an Eastern Orthodox priest.
2008
Jorge Guinzburg
Argentinian journalist and producer (born 1949)
Jorge Ariel Guinzburg was an Argentine journalist, theatrical producer, humorist, and TV and radio host.
2011
Nilla Pizzi
Italian singer (born 1919)
Adionilla "Nilla" Pizzi was an Italian singer and actress.
2012
Dick Harter
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.
2012
Michael Hossack
American drummer (born 1946)
Michael Joseph Hossack was an American drummer for the rock band The Doobie Brothers.
2013
Michael Grigsby
English director and producer (born 1936)
Michael Kenneth Christian Grigsby was an English documentary filmmaker.