Did you know about Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider is regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time and became a cult figure due to her role as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Sissi trilogy in the mid-1950s.
Notable Deaths on May 29
May 29 has 112 recorded notable deaths across history, from 931 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1982 — Romy Schneider
German-French actress (born 1938)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
112 source records
931 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on May 29
See what else happened on this day in history.
Did you know about Mary Pickford
Beginning her film career in 1909, Pickford became Hollywood's first millionaire by 1916, and, at the height of her career, had complete creative control of her films and was one of the most recognizable women in the world.
Did you know about Charan Singh
Chaudhary Charan Singh was an Indian politician, peasant leader, author and an independence activist who briefly served as the prime minister of India from July 1979 to January 1980.
Did you know about John Barrymore
John Barrymore was an American actor on stage, screen, and radio.
Did you know about Erich Honecker
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
More major people who died on May 29
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1979
Mary Pickford
Canadian-American actress, producer, and screenwriter, co-founder of United Artists (born 1892)
Gladys Louise Smith, baptised as Gladys Marie Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian American film actress and producer. A pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood career spanning five decades, Pickford was one of the most popular actresses of the silent film era. Beginning her film career in 1909, Pickford became Hollywood's first millionaire by 1916, and, at the height of her career, had complete creative control of her films and was one of the most recognizable women in the world. Due to her popularity, unprecedented international fame, and success as an actress and businesswoman, she was known as the "Queen of the Movies". She was a significant figure in the development of film acting and is credited with having defined the ingénue type in cinema, a persona that also earned her the nickname "America's Sweetheart".
1987
Charan Singh
Indian politician, 5th Prime Minister of India (born 1902)
Chaudhary Charan Singh was an Indian politician, peasant leader, author and an independence activist who briefly served as the prime minister of India from July 1979 to January 1980. Singh was principally known for his land and agricultural reform initiatives, and was Member of Parliament (MP) for Baghpat. During his premiership, he was a member of the Janata Party (Secular). He served as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh as a member of Bharatiya Kranti Dal. He also briefly served as the deputy prime minister of India from January 1979 to July 1979 as a member of the Janata Party. Singh is widely regarded as the "Champion of Farmers", dedicated to advocating for the well being and rights of farmers.
1942
John Barrymore
American actor (born 1882)
John Barrymore was an American actor on stage, screen, and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage and briefly attempted a career as a visual artist, but appeared on stage together with his father, Maurice, in 1900, and then his sister Ethel the following year. He began his career in 1903 and first gained attention as a stage actor in light comedy, then high drama, culminating in productions of Justice (1916), Richard III (1920), and Hamlet (1922); his portrayal of Hamlet led to him being called the "greatest living American tragedian".
1994
Erich Honecker
German lawyer and politician, leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) (born 1912)
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker was viewed as a dictator. During his leadership, the country had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
1866
Winfield Scott
American general, lawyer, and politician (born 1786)
Winfield Scott was an American military commander and a presidential candidate. He served as Commanding General of the United States Army from 1841 to 1861, and was a veteran of the War of 1812, American Indian Wars, Mexican–American War, and the early stages of the American Civil War. Scott was the Whig Party's presidential nominee in the 1852 election but was defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce. He was known as Old Fuss and Feathers for his insistence on proper military etiquette and the Grand Old Man of the Army for his many years of service.
2021
Mark Eaton
American basketball player and sportscaster (born 1957)
Mark Edward Eaton was an American professional basketball player who spent his entire career (1982–1993) with the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Named an NBA All-Star in 1989, he was twice voted the NBA Defensive Player of the Year and was a five-time member of the NBA All-Defensive Team. The 7-foot-4-inch (2.24 m) Eaton became one of the best defensive centers in NBA history. He led the league in blocks four times and holds the NBA single-season records for blocks (456) and blocked shots per game average (5.6), as well as career blocked shots per game (3.5). His No. 53 was retired by the Jazz.
1790
Israel Putnam
American general (born 1718)
Israel Putnam, popularly known as "Old Put", was an American military officer and landowner who served in the French and Indian War and American Revolutionary War. He was an officer in Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War, during which Putnam was captured by Mohawk warriors. He was saved from the ritual burning given to enemies by the intervention of French captain named Molang, with whom the Mohawks were allied. Putnam's exploits became known far beyond his home of Connecticut's borders through the circulation of folk legends in the American colonies and states celebrating his exploits.
1911
W. S. Gilbert
English playwright and poet (born 1836)
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with the composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
2008
Luc Bourdon
Canadian ice hockey player (born 1987)
Luc Bourdon was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who was a defenceman for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 2006 until 2008. After overcoming childhood arthritis, he was selected third overall in the 2003 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) draft and played for the Val-d'Or Foreurs, Moncton Wildcats, and Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, spending four seasons in the QMJHL. The Canucks drafted Bourdon with their first selection, 10th overall, in the 2005 NHL entry draft, and he split his professional career with the Canucks and their American Hockey League affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. Noted as a strong defenceman who could contribute on offence, Bourdon represented Canada in three international tournaments, winning two gold medals at the IIHF World Junior Championship and a silver medal at the IIHF World U18 Championship.
2013
Françoise Blanchard
French actress (born 1954)
Françoise Denise Aline Blanchard was a French actress. Her most notable work is that of her role in the 1982 French film La morte vivante, directed by Jean Rollin. Blanchard had collaborated with Rollin on several occasions in films Les trottoirs de Bangkok (1984), À la poursuite de Barbara (1991) and La nuit des horloges (2007). She had worked frequently with directors Richard Balducci and Jesús Franco. She was also known for her work as a voice artist, having dubbed films, such as, Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), The NeverEnding Story III (1994) and Hackers (1995), and animated television series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Totally Spies!
1660
Frans van Schooten
Dutch mathematician and academic (born 1615)
Frans van Schooten Jr., also rendered as Franciscus van Schooten, was a Dutch mathematician who is most known for popularizing the analytic geometry of René Descartes. He translated La Géométrie in Latin and wrote commentaries and explanations to it. Because most contemporary scientists and mathematicians in Europe knew the invention of analytic geometry through Van Schooten's edition, with its extensive commentaries by Johannes Hudde, Johan de Witt, and Hendrik van Heuraet, he had a significant influence on the science and mathematics of Europe at the time; especially on the invention of calculus by Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton.
2015
Doris Hart
American tennis player (born 1925)
Doris Hart was an American tennis player who was active in the 1940s and first half of the 1950s. She was ranked world No. 1 in 1951. She was the fourth player, and second woman, to win a Career Grand Slam in singles. She was the first of only three players to complete the career "Boxed Set" of Grand Slam titles, which is winning at least one title in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at all four Grand Slam events. Only she and Margaret Court achieved this during the amateur era of the sport.
1910
Mily Balakirev
Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1837)
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor known today primarily for his work promoting musical nationalism and his encouragement of more famous Russian composers, notably Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He began his career as a pivotal figure, extending the fusion of traditional folk music and experimental classical music practices begun by composer Mikhail Glinka. In the process, Balakirev developed musical patterns that could express overt nationalistic feeling. After a nervous breakdown and consequent sabbatical, he returned to classical music but did not wield the same level of influence as before.
1968
Arnold Susi
Estonian lawyer and politician, Estonian Minister of Education (born 1896)
Arnold Susi was a lawyer and the Minister of Education in the Estonian government of Otto Tief established on 18 September 1944 during WWII. In 1945, Susi befriended Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a Soviet prison. In the 1960s, when writing The Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn hid at Susi's country house in Estonia. Solzhenitsyn also briefly describes his meeting with Arnold Susi in that book. Susi also wrote his memoirs of World War I in Doom of the Russian Empire, which he wrote while in Abakan. He died in Tallinn, aged 72.
2012
Doc Watson
American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1923)
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. He won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His fingerpicking and flatpicking skills, as well as his knowledge of traditional American music, were highly regarded. Blind from a young age, he performed publicly both in a dance band and solo, as well as for over 15 years with his son, guitarist Merle Watson, until Merle's death in 1985 in an accident on the family farm.
1829
Humphry Davy
English-Swiss chemist and academic (born 1778)
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and an early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium, and boron the following year, and for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. He is credited with discovering clathrate hydrates.
1989
George C. Homans
American sociologist and academic (born 1910)
George Caspar Homans was an American sociologist, founder of behavioral sociology, the 54th president of the American Sociological Association, and one of the architects of social exchange theory. Homans is best known in science for his research in social behavior and his works The Human Group, Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, his contributions to exchange theory, and the different propositions he developed to explain social behavior. He is also the third great-grandson of the second President of the United States, John Adams.
1892
Bahá'u'lláh
Persian religious leader, founded the Baháʼí Faith (born 1817)
Baháʼu'lláh was an Iranian religious leader who founded the Baháʼí Faith. He was born to an aristocratic family in Iran and was exiled due to his adherence to the messianic Bábism. In 1863, in Ottoman Iraq, he first announced his claim to a revelation from God. He spent the rest of his life in further imprisonment in the Ottoman Empire. His teachings revolved around the principles of unity and religious renewal, ranging from moral and spiritual progress to world governance.
1972
Moe Berg
American baseball player, coach, and spy (born 1902)
Morris Berg was an American professional baseball catcher and coach in Major League Baseball who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, though he was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball."