Did you know about Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.
Notable Deaths on May 24
May 24 has 102 recorded notable deaths across history, from 688 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1543 — Nicolaus Copernicus
Polish mathematician and astronomer (born 1473)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
102 source records
688 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on May 24
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1961 American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus. Source
- 1944 Congress of Përmet occurs which establishes a provisional government in Albania in areas under partisan control, the first independent Albanian government since 1939. In honor of this the national emblem of Albania inscribed this date from 1946 until 1992. Source
Did you know about Gudrun Burwitz
Never renouncing Nazi ideology, she consistently fought to defend her father's reputation and became closely involved in neo-Nazi groups that gave support to ex-members of the SS.
Did you know about Archibald Wavell
Archibald Wavell served in the Second Boer War, the Bazar Valley Campaign and the First World War, during which he was wounded in the Second Battle of Ypres.
Did you know about Robert Ritter von Greim
Robert Ritter von Greim was a German Generalfeldmarschall and First World War flying ace.
Did you know about Stormé DeLarverie
Stormé DeLarverie was an American known as the lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to DeLarverie and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall uprising, spurring the crowd to action.
More major people who died on May 24
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
2018
Gudrun Burwitz
daughter of Margarete Himmler and Heinrich Himmler (born 1929)
Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Burwitz was the daughter of Heinrich Himmler and Margarete Himmler. Her father, as Reichsführer-SS, was a leading member of the Nazi Party and chief architect of the Final Solution. After the Allied victory, she was arrested and made to testify at the Nuremberg trials. Never renouncing Nazi ideology, she consistently fought to defend her father's reputation and became closely involved in neo-Nazi groups that gave support to ex-members of the SS. She married Wulf Dieter Burwitz, an official of the extremist NPD. In the 1960s she worked for West Germany's Abteilung des Geheimdienstes (AGD), at its headquarters in Pullach, near Munich.
1950
Archibald Wavell
1st Earl Wavell, English field marshal and politician, 43rd Governor-General of India (born 1883)
Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell was a senior officer of the British Army. He served in the Second Boer War, the Bazar Valley Campaign and the First World War, during which he was wounded in the Second Battle of Ypres. In the Second World War, he served initially as Commander-in-Chief Middle East, in which role he led British forces to victory over the Italian Army in Eritrea-Abyssinia, western Egypt and eastern Libya during Operation Compass in December 1940, only to be defeated by Erwin Rommel's Panzer Army Africa in the Western Desert in April 1941. He served as Commander-in-Chief, India, from July 1941 until June 1943 and then served as Viceroy of India until his retirement in February 1947.
1945
Robert Ritter von Greim
German field marshal and pilot (born 1892)
Robert Ritter von Greim was a German Generalfeldmarschall and First World War flying ace. In April 1945, in the last days of World War II in Europe, Adolf Hitler appointed Greim commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe after Hermann Göring had been dismissed for treason. He was the last person to have been promoted to field marshal in the German armed forces. After the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, Greim was captured by the Allies. He committed suicide in an American-controlled prison on 24 May 1945.
2014
Stormé DeLarverie
known as the "Rosa Parks of the lesbian community" (born 1920)
Stormé DeLarverie was an American known as the lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to DeLarverie and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall uprising, spurring the crowd to action. Born in New Orleans, to an interracial couple, She is remembered as a gay civil rights icon and entertainer who performed and hosted at the Apollo Theater and Radio City Music Hall. She worked for much of her life as an MC, singer, bouncer, bodyguard, and volunteer street patrol worker, the last of which earned DeLarverie the moniker, "guardian of lesbians in the Village". She is known as "the Rosa Parks of the gay community."
1632
Robert Hues
English mathematician and geographer (born 1553)
Robert Hues was an English mathematician and geographer. He attended St. Mary Hall at Oxford, and graduated in 1578. Hues became interested in geography and mathematics, and studied navigation at a school set up by Walter Raleigh. During a trip to Newfoundland, he made observations which caused him to doubt the accepted published values for variations of the compass. Between 1586 and 1588, Hues travelled with Thomas Cavendish on a circumnavigation of the globe, performing astronomical observations and taking the latitudes of places they visited. Beginning in August 1591, Hues and Cavendish again set out on another circumnavigation of the globe. During the voyage, Hues made astronomical observations in the South Atlantic, and continued his observations of the variation of the compass at various latitudes and at the Equator. Cavendish died on the journey in 1592, and Hues returned to England the following year.
1351
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman
Moroccan sultan (born 1297)
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Uthman, was a sultan of the Marinid dynasty who reigned in parts of what is now Morocco between 1331 and 1348. In 1333 he captured Gibraltar from the Castilians, although a later attempt to take Tarifa in 1339 ended in fiasco. In North Africa he extended his rule over Tlemcen and Hafsid Ifriqiya, which together covered the north of what is now Algeria and Tunisia. Under him the Marinid realms in the Maghreb briefly covered an area that rivalled that of the preceding Almohad Caliphate. However, he was forced to retreat due to a revolt of the Arab tribes, was shipwrecked, and lost many of his supporters. His son Abu Inan Faris seized power in Fes. Abu Al-Hasan died in exile in the High Atlas mountains.
1915
John Condon
Irish-English soldier (born 1896)
Pte. John Condon was an Irish soldier born in Waterford City. He was mistakenly believed to have been the youngest Allied soldier killed during the First World War, at the age of 14 years; he lied about his age and he claimed to be 18 years old when he signed up to join the army in 1913. He was killed in action in a gas attack during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915 and his body was not recovered for another ten years; his family were unaware that Condon was in Belgium until they were contacted by the British Army and told that he was missing in action. In 1922, Condon was also posthumously awarded the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and the 1914-15 Star.
1939
Fanny Searls
American biologist (born 1851)
Fanny Searls, also known by her married name Fanny Gradle, was an American physician and botanical collector. Dalea searlsiae, Searls' prairie clover, is named after her. Born in Waukegan, Illinois, she attended Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, gaining her medical degree in 1877. She then worked at Bellevue Hospital as a student nurse as there were few opportunities for women to gain medical internships at the time. In the meantime, she had developed skills as a concert pianist and a collector of botanical and geological specimens. In the last capacity, she donated a collection of 215 specimens gathered in Nevada to Northwestern University, including the first subsequently named Searls' prairie clover. She moved to Santa Barbara, dying there in 1939.
1806
John Campbell
5th Duke of Argyll, Scottish field marshal and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Argyllshire (born 1723)
Field Marshal John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, styled Marquess of Lorne from 1761 to 1770, was a British Army officer and politician. After serving as a junior officer in Flanders during the War of the Austrian Succession, he was given command of a regiment and was redeployed to Scotland where he opposed the Jacobites at Loch Fyne at an early stage of the Jacobite Rebellion and went on to fight against them at the Battle of Falkirk Muir and then at the Battle of Culloden. He later became adjutant-general in Ireland and spent some 20 years as a Member of Parliament before retiring to Inveraray Castle.
2010
Petr Muk
Czech singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1965)
Petr Muk was a Czech pop musician, composer, and performer, famous in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Muk began playing music at the age of fifteen, performing with various underground punk bands including Dural and Gas, together with classmate and later bandmate Petr Kučera. From 1985 until 1993, he led the Czech synth-pop group Oceán, after which he founded the synth-pop group Shalom (1992–1996). Both these ensembles were heavily influenced by the English synth-pop duo Erasure, a band whose UK tour Oceán had supported between 1989 and 1990. In 2004, Muk released a tribute EP to his idols.
1923
Rolf Skår
Norwegian engineer (born 1941)
Rolf Skår was a Norwegian engineer and entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of the computer manufacturing company Norsk Data in 1967, and took over as chief executive officer (CEO) of the company from 1978 to 1989. He was later CEO of the Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, chaired the Norwegian Polytechnic Society, and was CEO of the Norwegian Space Centre from 1998 to 2006. For his contributions to information technology and space activity, Skår was knighted as in the First Class of the Order of St. Olav in 2010.
1089
Lanfranc
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lanfranc was an Italian-born English churchman, monk and scholar. Born in Italy, he moved to Normandy to become a Benedictine monk at Bec. He served successively as prior of Bec Abbey and abbot of St Stephen's Abbey in Caen, Normandy and then as Archbishop of Canterbury in England, following its conquest by William the Conqueror. He is also variously known as Lanfranc of Pavia, Lanfranc of Bec, and Lanfranc of Canterbury. In his lifetime, he was regarded as the greatest theologian of his generation.
1861
Elmer E. Ellsworth
American colonel (born 1837)
Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was a United States Army officer, close personal friend of the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln, and law clerk who was the first conspicuous casualty and the first Union officer to die in the American Civil War. He was killed while removing a Confederate flag from the roof of the Marshall House in Alexandria, Virginia. He was later buried in his hometown of Mechanicville, New York on May 27, 1861 in Hudson View Cemetery in a family plot.
1965
Sonny Boy Williamson II
American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (born 1908)
Alex or Aleck Miller, known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He was an early and influential blues harp stylist who recorded successfully in the 1950s and 1960s. Miller used various names, including Rice Miller and Little Boy Blue, before calling himself Sonny Boy Williamson, which was also the name of a popular Chicago blues singer and harmonica player. To distinguish the two, Miller has been referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II.
2014
Knowlton Nash
Canadian journalist and author (born 1927)
Cyril Knowlton Nash was a Canadian journalist, author and news anchor. He was senior anchor of CBC Television's flagship news program, The National from 1978 until his retirement in 1992. He began his career in journalism by selling newspapers on the streets of Toronto during World War II. Before age 20, he was a professional journalist for British United Press (BUP). After some time as a freelance foreign correspondent, he became the CBC's Washington correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, also covering stories in South and Central America and Vietnam. He moved back to Toronto in 1968 to join management as head of CBC's news and information programming, then stepped back in front of the camera in 1978 as anchor of CBC's late evening news program, The National. He stepped down from that position in 1988 to make way for Peter Mansbridge. Nash wrote several books about Canadian journalism and television, including his own memoirs as a foreign correspondent.
1612
Robert Cecil
1st Earl of Salisbury, English politician, Lord High Treasurer (born 1563)
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury was an English statesman and alleged spymaster noted for his direction of the government during the Union of the Crowns, as Tudor England gave way to Stuart rule (1603). Lord Salisbury served as the Secretary of State of England (1596–1612) and Lord High Treasurer (1608–1612), succeeding his father as Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Privy Seal and remaining in power during the first nine years of King James I's reign until his own death.
1995
Harold Wilson
English academic and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1916)
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, Leader of the Opposition twice — from 1963 to 1964 and from 1970 to 1974 — and a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1983. Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed a government after a general election four separate times.
1627
Luis de Góngora
Spanish poet and cleric (born 1561)
Luis de Góngora y Argote was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet and a Catholic priest at Córdoba Cathedral. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered the most prominent Spanish poets of all time. His style is characterized by what was called culteranismo, also known as Gongorismo. This style apparently existed in stark contrast to Quevedo's conceptismo, though Quevedo was highly influenced by his older rival from whom he may have isolated "conceptismo" elements.
1988
Freddie Frith
English motorcycle road racer (born 1909)
Frederick Lee Frith OBE was a British Grand Prix motorcycle road racing world champion. A former stonemason and later a motor cycle retailer in Grimsby, he was a stylish rider and five times winner of the Isle of Man TT. Frith was one of the few to win TT races before and after the Second World War. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1950 Birthday Honours.