Did you know about Kenny Rogers
Kenny Rogers remade his career and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.
Notable Deaths on March 20
March 20 has 105 recorded notable deaths across history, from 687 to 2026. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
2020 — Kenny Rogers
American singer (born 1938)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
105 source records
687 – 2026
Today in history
Major events on March 20
See what else happened on this day in history.
Did you know about Muhammad bin Tughluq
Muhammad bin Tughluq reigned from February 1325 until his death in March 1351.
Did you know about Georges Delerue
Delerue won numerous important film music awards, including an Academy Award for A Little Romance (1979), three César Awards, two ASCAP Awards, and one Gemini Award for Sword of Gideon (1986).
Did you know about Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov
Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov graduated from the University of St. Petersburg, where in 1920 he became a Professor.
Did you know about Adegoke Adelabu
Adegoke Adelabu was a self-made man born into a humble family but became an influential figure in Nigerian politics.
More major people who died on March 20
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1351
Muhammad bin Tughluq
Sultan of Delhi
Fakhr-ud-Din Muhammad Shah, better known as Muhammad bin Tughluq, or Muhammad III, also known by his epithets, The Eccentric Prince, and The Mad Sultan, was the eighteenth Sultan of Delhi. He reigned from February 1325 until his death in March 1351. Muhammad was the eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. In 1321, the young Muhammad was sent by his father to the Deccan Plateau to fight a military campaign against the Kakatiya dynasty. In 1323, the future sultan successfully laid siege upon the Kakatiya capital in Warangal. This victory over King Prataparudra ended the Kakatiya dynasty.
1992
Georges Delerue
French composer (born 1925)
Georges Delerue was a French composer who composed more than 350 scores for cinema and television. Delerue won numerous important film music awards, including an Academy Award for A Little Romance (1979), three César Awards, two ASCAP Awards, and one Gemini Award for Sword of Gideon (1986). He was also nominated for four additional Academy Awards for Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Julia (1977), and Agnes of God (1985), four additional César Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Genie Award for Black Robe (1991).
1983
Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov
Russian mathematician and academic (born 1891)
Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov was a Soviet mathematician, who was one of the creators of modern analytic number theory, and also a dominant figure in mathematics in the USSR. He was born in the Velikiye Luki district, Pskov Oblast. He graduated from the University of St. Petersburg, where in 1920 he became a Professor. From 1934 he was a Director of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, a position he held for the rest of his life, except for the five-year period (1941–1946) when the institute was directed by Academician Sergei Sobolev. In 1941 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1942. In 1951 he became a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters in Kraków.
1958
Adegoke Adelabu
Nigerian merchant, journalist, and politician (born 1915)
Gbadamosi Adegoke Adelabu, popularly known as Adelabu Adegoke Penkelemesi, was a prominent personality in the politics of Ibadan city and subsequently that of the Western Region of Nigeria right before the country's independence in 1960. He was Nigeria's Minister of Natural Resources and Social Services from January 1955 to January 1956 and was later the opposition leader in the Western Regional Assembly until his death in 1958. He was a self-made man born into a humble family but became an influential figure in Nigerian politics. He attended Government College, Ibadan and eventually became a businessman. His successful political career was cut short when he was killed in a car crash, not long before Nigeria gained independence from Britain.
2012
Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
Polish-Israeli rabbi and author (born 1910)
Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg was a Polish-born, American-raised, Israeli Haredi rabbi and rosh yeshiva who, from 1965, made his home in the Kiryat Mattersdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel. He was the rosh yeshiva of the Torah Ore yeshiva in Kiryat Mattersdorf and Yeshivas Derech Chaim in Brooklyn. He was a posek, Gadol HaDor, and one of the last living Torah scholars to have been educated in the yeshivas of prewar Europe. He was often consulted on a range of communal and personal halachic issues. He was one of the rabbinic leaders of Kiryat Mattersdorf, together with Rabbi Yisroel Gans and Rabbi Yitzchok Yechiel Ehrenfeld. He was also a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Israel.
1897
Apollon Maykov
Russian poet and playwright (born 1821)
Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov was a Russian poet, best known for his lyric verse showcasing images of Russian villages, nature, and history. His love for ancient Greece and Rome, which he studied for much of his life, is also reflected in his works. Maykov spent four years translating the epic The Tale of Igor's Campaign (1870) into modern Russian. He translated the folklore of Belarus, Greece, Serbia and Spain, as well as works by Heine, Adam Mickiewicz and Goethe, among others. Several of Maykov's poems were set to music by Russian composers, among them Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.
1878
Julius Robert von Mayer
German physician and physicist (born 1814)
Julius Robert von Mayer was a German physician, chemist, and physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics. He is best known for enunciating in 1841 one of the original statements of the conservation of energy or what is now known as one of the first versions of the first law of thermodynamics, namely that "energy can be neither created nor destroyed". In 1842, Mayer described the vital chemical process now referred to as oxidation as the primary source of energy for any living creature. He also proposed that plants convert light into chemical energy.
2010
Ai
American poet and academic (born 1947)
Florence Ai Ogawa was an American poet and educator who won the 1999 National Book Award for Poetry for Vice: New and Selected Poems. Ai is known for her mastery of the dramatic monologue as a poetic form, as well as for taking on dark, controversial topics in her work. About writing in the dramatic monologue form, she's said: "I want to take the narrative 'persona' poem as far as I can, and I've never been one to do things in halves. All the way or nothing. I won't abandon that desire."
1966
Johnny Morrison
American baseball player (born 1895)
John Dewey Morrison, nicknamed "Jughandle Johnny", was an American professional baseball player. He was a right-handed pitcher over parts of ten seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Robins. For his career, he compiled a 103–80 record in 297 appearances, with a 3.65 earned run average and 546 strikeouts. May was a member of the 1925 World Series champion Pirates, pitching three times during their seven-game defeat of the Washington Senators. In World Series play, he recorded no decisions in 3 appearances, with a 2.89 earned run average and 7 strikeouts.
1191
Pope Clement III (born 1130)
Pope Clement III, born Paolo Scolari, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 December 1187 to his death in 1191. He ended the conflict between the Papacy and the city of Rome, by allowing the election of magistrates, which reinstalled the Papacy back in the city after a six-year exile. Clement, faced with a deplete college of cardinals, created thirty-one cardinals over three years, the most since Adrian IV. He died 20 March 1191 and was quickly replaced by Celestine III.
1793
William Murray
1st Earl of Mansfield, Scottish judge and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales (born 1705)
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield,, was a British barrister, politician and judge best known for his reforms to English law. Born in Scone Palace, Perthshire into the Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth before moving to London at the age of 13 to study at Westminster School. Accepted into Christ Church, Oxford, in May 1723, Mansfield graduated four years later and returned to London, where he was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in November 1730 and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent barrister.
1568
Albert
Duke of Prussia (born 1490)
Albert of Prussia was a German prince who was the 37th grand master of the Teutonic Knights and, after converting to Lutheranism, became the first ruler of the Duchy of Prussia, the secularized state that emerged from the former Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. Albert was the first European ruler to establish Lutheranism, and thus Protestantism, as the official state religion of his lands. He proved instrumental in the political spread of Protestantism in its early stage, ruling the Prussian lands for nearly six decades (1510–1568).
687
Cuthbert
Northumbrian (English) monk, bishop, and saint (born 634)
Cuthbert was a saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in north-eastern England and south-eastern Scotland. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March and 4 September.
1549
Thomas Seymour
1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, English general and politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (born 1508)
Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley was a brother of Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII. With his brother, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, he vied for control of their nephew, the young King Edward VI. In 1547, Seymour married Catherine Parr, the widow of Henry VIII. During his marriage to Catherine, Seymour involved the future Queen Elizabeth I, who resided in his household, in flirtatious and possibly sexual behaviour.
1990
Lev Yashin
Russian footballer (born 1929)
Lev Ivanovich Yashin was a Soviet professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time and the best goalkeeper in the history of the sport, he is the only player in his position to win the Ballon d'Or. He was known for his athleticism, positioning, imposing presence in goal, and acrobatic reflex saves. He also served as deputy chairman of the Football Federation of the Soviet Union.
851
Ebbo
archbishop of Reims
Ebbo, Ebo or Epo was the Archbishop of Rheims from 816 until 835 and again from 840 to 841. He was born a German serf on the royal demesne of Charlemagne. He was educated at his court and became the librarian and councillor of Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, son of Charlemagne. When Louis became emperor, he appointed Ebbo to the see of Rheims, then vacant after the death of Wulfaire.
2012
Jim Stynes
Irish-Australian footballer (born 1966)
James Peter Stynes was an Irish-born Australian rules footballer, youth worker and sports administrator. Stynes played the entirety of his Australian rules football career with the Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and the Australian Football League (AFL) between 1987 and 1998. He was recruited from Dublin through Melbourne's "Irish experiment", Stynes went on to become the first, and only, non-Australian-born player to win the Brownlow Medal in 1991.
1933
Giuseppe Zangara
Italian-American assassin of Anton Cermak (born 1900; executed)
Giuseppe Zangara was an Italian-born American man who attempted to assassinate the President-elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on February 15, 1933, 17 days before Roosevelt's inauguration. During a night speech by Roosevelt in Miami, Florida, Zangara fired five shots with a handgun he had purchased a few days before. He missed his target and instead killed Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, and injured four bystanders.
2010
Girija Prasad Koirala
Indian-Nepalese politician, 30th Prime Minister of Nepal (born 1924)
Nepal Ratna Girija Prasad Koirala, affectionately known as Girija Babu, was a Nepalese politician. He headed the Nepali Congress and served as the Prime Minister of Nepal on four occasions: from 1991 to 1994, 1998 to 1999, 2000 to 2001, and 2006 to 2008. He was the Acting Head of State of Nepal between January 2007 and July 2008 as the country transitioned from a monarchy to a republic.