Did you know about Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela
The cartel emerged to prominence in the early 1990s, and was estimated to control about 80% of the American and 90% of the European cocaine markets in the mid-1990s.
Notable Deaths on May 31
May 31 has 115 recorded notable deaths across history, from 455 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
2022 — Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela
Colombian drug lord (born 1939)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Notable Deaths
115 source records
455 – 2025
Today in history
Major events on May 31
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 2010 Israeli Shayetet 13 commandos board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla while still in international waters trying to break the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip; nine Turkish citizens on the flotilla were killed in the ensuing violent affray. Source
- 1947 Ferenc Nagy, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Hungary, resigns from office after blackmail from the Hungarian Communist Party accusing him of being part of a plot against the state. This grants the Communists effective control of the Hungarian government. Source
Did you know about Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois was a French-American artist.
Did you know about C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James, who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist, Trotskyist activist, and Marxist writer.
Did you know about Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell was an English-American physician, notable as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Kingdom.
Did you know about Joseph Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi was an English actor, comedian and dancer, who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era.
More major people who died on May 31
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
2010
Louise Bourgeois
French-American sculptor and painter (born 1911)
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a variety of themes over the course of her long career including domesticity and the family, sexuality and the body, as well as death and the unconscious. These themes connect to events from her childhood which she considered to be a therapeutic process. Although Bourgeois exhibited with the abstract expressionists and her work has a lot in common with Surrealism and feminist art, she was not formally affiliated with a particular artistic movement.
1989
C. L. R. James
Trinidadian journalist and historian (born 1901)
Cyril Lionel Robert James, who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist, Trotskyist activist, and Marxist writer. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts. His work is a staple of Marxism, and he figures as a pioneering and influential voice in postcolonial literature. A tireless political activist, James is the author of the 1937 work World Revolution outlining the history of the Communist International, which stirred debate in Trotskyist circles, and in 1938 he wrote on the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins.
1910
Elizabeth Blackwell
English-American physician and educator (born 1821)
Elizabeth Blackwell was an English-American physician, notable as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Kingdom. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social reformer, and was a pioneer in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made a significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
1837
Joseph Grimaldi
English actor, comedian and dancer (born 1779)
Joseph Grimaldi was an English actor, comedian and dancer, who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era. In the early 19th century, he expanded the role of Clown in the harlequinade that formed part of British pantomimes, notably at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden theatres. He became so dominant on the London comic stage that the harlequinade role of Clown became known as "Joey", and both the nickname and Grimaldi's whiteface make-up design were, and still are, used by other types of clowns. Grimaldi originated catchphrases such as "Here we are again!", which continue to feature in modern pantomimes.
2025
Stanley Fischer
Israeli-American economist (born 1943)
Stanley Fischer was an American and Israeli economist who served as the 20th vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017. Fischer previously served as the 8th governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013. Born in Northern Rhodesia, he held dual citizenship in Israel and the United States. He previously served as First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and as Chief Economist of the World Bank. On January 10, 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Fischer to the position of Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve. On September 6, 2017, Fischer announced that he was resigning as vice-chair for personal reasons effective October 13, 2017. He was a senior advisor at BlackRock.
1162
Géza II
king of Hungary (born 1130)
Géza II was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1141 to 1162. He was the oldest son of King Béla the Blind and his wife, Helena of Serbia. When his father died, Géza was still a child and he started ruling under the guardianship of his mother and her brother, Beloš. A pretender to the throne, Boris Kalamanos, who had already claimed Hungary during Béla the Blind's reign, temporarily captured Pressburg with the assistance of German mercenaries in early 1146. In retaliation, Géza who came of age in the same year, invaded Austria and routed Henry Jasomirgott, Margrave of Austria, in the Battle of the Fischa.
1989
Owen Lattimore
American author and academic (born 1900)
Owen Lattimore was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963. He was director of the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations from 1939 to 1953. During World War II, he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and the American government and contributed extensively to the public debate on U.S. policy toward Asia. From 1963 to 1970, Lattimore was the first Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds in England.
1998
Charles Van Acker
Belgian-American race car driver (born 1912)
Charles Edward "Poncho" Van Acker Sr. was a Belgian-American racing driver. He first attempted to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1946, but was too slow. In 1947, he made the race and finished in 29th after a crash on lap 24. He also competed in seven more races of the national trail that season and finished fourth in points. In 1948, he finished 11th in the Indy 500 and tenth in the National Championship. 1949 saw him crash ten laps into the Indy 500 and struggle to qualify much of the rest of the season. He attempted the 1950 Indianapolis 500 but failed to qualify in what would be his last Championship Car appearance. He owned and operated the South Bend Motor Speedway in South Bend, Indiana and once after a dirt track crash in Dayton, Ohio was declared dead. However, Van Acker claims that the reports were exaggerated and that he was not that seriously injured.
1985
Gaston Rébuffat
French mountaineer and author (born 1921)
Gaston Rébuffat was a French alpinist, mountain guide, and author. He is well known as a member of the first expedition to summit Annapurna 1 in 1950 and the first man to climb all six of the great north faces of the Alps. In 1984, he was made an officer in the French Legion of Honour for his service as a mountaineering instructor for the French military. At the age of 64, Gaston Rébuffat died of cancer in Paris, France. The rock-climbing technique, the "Gaston", was named after him. A photo of Rébuffat atop the Aiguille du Roc in the French Alps is on the Voyager Golden Records.
1981
Barbara Ward
Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, English economist and journalist (born 1914)
Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, was a British economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity with the rest of the world and in the 1960s turned her attention to environmental questions as well. She was an early advocate of sustainable development before this term became familiar and was well known as a journalist, lecturer and broadcaster. Ward was adviser to policymakers in the UK, United States and elsewhere. She was the founder of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
1982
Carlo Mauri
Italian mountaineer and explorer (born 1930)
Carlo Mauri was an Italian mountaineer and explorer. Mauri was born in Lecco. Among his early climbs in the Alps two stand out: the first winter ascent of the via Comici route on the northern face of Cima Grande di Lavaredo; and the first solitary ascent of the Poire of Mont Blanc. Numerous expeditions abroad followed. In 1956 he reached the summit of Monte Sarmiento in Tierra del Fuego and in 1958, as a member of Riccardo Cassin’s expedition in Karakorum, he and Walter Bonatti made the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV.
2014
Marinho Chagas
Brazilian footballer and coach (born 1952)
Francisco das Chagas Marinho, generally known as Marinho Chagas or Francisco Marinho, was a Brazilian professional footballer. One of the best left-backs of his era, he is best known for his flowing curly blond hair and his performance at the 1974 FIFA World Cup, in which Brazil finished fourth. At club level he is mostly associated with Botafogo FR of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo FC, but he played for numerous other teams, as well as in the North American Soccer League, in a career which spanned from 1969 to 1987.
2006
Miguel Ortiz Berrocal
Spanish sculptor (born 1933)
Miguel Ortiz Berrocal was a Spanish figurative and abstract sculptor. He is best known for his puzzle sculptures, which can be disassembled into many abstract pieces. These works are also known for the miniature artworks and jewelry incorporated into or concealed within them, and the fact that some of the sculptures can be reassembled or reconfigured into different arrangements. Berrocal's sculptures span a wide range of physical sizes from monumental outdoor public works, to intricate puzzle sculptures small enough to be worn as pendants, bracelets, or other body ornamentation.
2024
Robert Pickton
Canadian serial killer (born 1949)
Robert William Pickton, also known as the Pig Farmer Killer or the Butcher, was a Canadian pig farmer and serial killer. He is believed to have murdered at least 26 women, many of them sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He confessed to forty-nine murders to an undercover RCMP officer. In 2007, he was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years—the longest possible sentence for second-degree murder under Canadian law at the time.
960
Fujiwara no Morosuke
Japanese statesman (born 909)
Fujiwara no Morosuke , also known as Kujō-dono or Bōjō-udaijin, was a Japanese statesman, courtier and politician during the middle Heian period. Considered a learned scholar and well-versed in the customs of the court, he supported the court's government as udaijin during the reign of Emperor Murakami. Morosuke's eldest daughter Fujiwara no Anshi, empress consort to Emperor Murakami, gave birth to two princes who later became Emperor Reizei and Emperor En'yū, putting Morosuke's lineage in an advantageous position as the maternal relatives of the Emperor.
1970
Terry Sawchuk
Canadian-American ice hockey player (born 1929)
Terrance Gordon Sawchuk was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender who played 21 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Los Angeles Kings, and New York Rangers between 1950 and 1970. He won the Calder Trophy, earned the Vezina Trophy four times, was a four-time Stanley Cup champion, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame the year after his final season, one of 10 players for whom the three-year waiting period was waived.
1945
Odilo Globocnik
Italian-Austrian SS officer (born 1904)
Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globočnik was a Nazi Party official and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. A high-ranking member of the SS, Globočnik was the leader of Operation Reinhard, the organized murder of around one and a half million Jews, mostly of Polish origin, during the Holocaust in the Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibór and Bełżec extermination camps. Historian Michael Allen described him as "the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known". Globočnik committed suicide shortly after his capture and detention by British soldiers.
1970
Clare Sheridan
English sculptor and author (born 1885)
Clare Consuelo Sheridan was an English sculptor, journalist and writer, known primarily for creating busts for famous sitters and keeping travel diaries. She was a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill, with whom she had enjoyed an amicable relationship, though her support for the October Revolution in 1917 caused them to break ranks politically. She enjoyed travelling around the world; and among her circle of friends were Princess Margaret of Sweden, Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Lady Diana Cooper, Vita Sackville-West and Vivien Leigh.
1957
Leopold Staff
Polish poet and academic (born 1878)
Leopold Henryk Staff was a Polish poet; an artist of European modernism twice granted the Degree of Doctor honoris causa by universities in Warsaw and in Kraków. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Polish PEN Club. Representative of classicism and symbolism in the poetry of Young Poland, he was an author of many philosophical poems influenced by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the ideas of Franciscan order as well as paradoxes of Christianity.