Notable Deaths on May 7

United Airlines Flight 232 was a regularly scheduled United Airlines flight from Stapleton International Airport in Denver to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, continuing to Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, United States. On July 19, 1989, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 serving the flight crash-landed at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa, after suffering a catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine due to an unnoticed manufacturing defect in the engine's fan disk, which resulted in the loss of all flight controls. Of the 296 passengers and crew on board, 112 died, while 184 people survived. Thirteen passengers were uninjured.

Edward Thomas Rabbitt was an American country music singer and songwriter. His career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after composing hits such as "Kentucky Rain" for Elvis Presley in 1970 and "Pure Love" for Ronnie Milsap in 1974. Later in the 1970s, Rabbitt helped to develop the crossover-influenced sound of country music prevalent in the 1980s with such hits as "Suspicions", "I Love a Rainy Night", "Drivin' My Life Away" and "Every Which Way but Loose". His duets "Both to Each Other " with Juice Newton and "You and I" with Crystal Gayle later appeared on the soap operas Days of Our Lives and All My Children.

Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. was an American actor, producer, and United States Navy officer. He was a leading man during the Golden Age of Hollywood, notably in adventure and swashbuckling roles like in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Gunga Din (1939), and The Corsican Brothers (1941). He was the son of Douglas Fairbanks and the stepson of Mary Pickford. Fairbanks, Jr. "picked up his father's swashbuckling style and later cut a dash in high society and royal circles." His first marriage was to actress Joan Crawford.

Severiano Ballesteros Sota was a Spanish professional golfer, a World No. 1 who was one of the sport's leading figures from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. A member of a gifted golfing family, he won 90 international tournaments in his career, including five major championships between 1979 and 1988; The Open Championship three times and the Masters Tournament twice. He gained attention in the golfing world in 1976, when at the age of 19, he finished second at The Open. He played a leading role in the re-emergence of European golf, helping the European Ryder Cup team to five wins both as a player and captain.

Caspar David Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti-classical work, conveys a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings often set contemplative human figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. Art historian Christopher John Murray described their presence, in diminished perspective, amid expansive landscapes, as reducing the figures to a scale that directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".

William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician. Educated at a small private school until the age of nine, then at church schools, he joined his father's wholesale grocery business in Bolton at the age of fifteen. Following an apprenticeship and a series of appointments in the family business, which he successfully expanded, he began manufacturing Sunlight Soap, building a substantial business empire with many well-known brands such as Lux and Lifebuoy. In 1886, together with his brother, James, he established Lever Brothers, which was one of the first companies to manufacture soap from vegetable oils, and which is now part of the British multinational Unilever. In politics, Lever briefly sat as a Liberal MP for Wirral and later, as Lord Leverhulme, in the House of Lords as a peer. He was an advocate for expansion of the British Empire, particularly in Africa and Asia, which supplied palm oil, a key ingredient in Lever's product line. His firm had become associated with activities in the Belgian Congo by 1911.

Walter Joseph Hickel was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician who served as the second governor of Alaska from 1966 to 1969 and 1990 to 1994, as well as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1969 to 1970. He worked as a construction worker and eventually became a construction company operator during Alaska's territorial days. Following World War II, Hickel became heavily involved with real estate development, building residential subdivisions, shopping centers and hotels. Hickel entered politics in the 1950s during Alaska's battle for statehood and remained politically active for the rest of his life.

Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, nicknamed "o Pacificador" and "o Duque de Ferro", was an army officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Like his father and uncles, Caxias pursued a military career. In 1823 he fought as a young officer in the Brazilian War of Independence against Portugal, then spent three years in Brazil's southernmost province, Cisplatina, as the government unsuccessfully resisted that province's secession in the Cisplatine War. Though his own father and uncles renounced Emperor Dom Pedro I during the protests of 1831, Caxias remained loyal. Pedro I abdicated in favor of his young son Dom Pedro II, whom Caxias instructed in swordsmanship and horsemanship and eventually befriended.

Bajo Pivljanin, born Dragojlo Nikolić, was a Serbian hajduk commander mostly active in the Ottoman territories of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia. Born in Piva, a Serbian Herzegovinian tribe, at the time part of the Ottoman Empire, he was an oxen trader who allegedly left his village after experiencing Ottoman injustice. Mentioned in 1654 as a brigand during the Venetian–Ottoman war, he entered the service of the Republic of Venice in 1656. The hajduks were used to protect Venetian Dalmatia. He remained a low-rank hajduk for the following decade, participating in some notable operations such as the raid on Trebinje. Between 1665 and 1668 he quickly rose through the ranks to the level of harambaša. After the war, which ended unfavourably for the Venetians, the hajduks were moved out of their haven in the Bay of Kotor under Ottoman pressure. Between 1671 and 1684 Pivljanin, along with other hajduks and their families, were refugees in Dalmatia. Upon renewed conflict, he was returned to the Bay of Kotor and placed in charge of defending the frontier; in 1685 he and his band fell in battle against the advancing Ottoman governor of Scutari. Regarded as one of the most distinguished hajduks of his time, he is praised in Serbian epic poetry.

Bagrat III, also known as Bagrat the Unifier, of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the king (mepe) of the Kingdom of Abkhazia from 978 and king of the Kingdom of Georgia from 1008 until his death in 1014. Through dynastic inheritance, military conquest, and diplomatic efforts, he successfully united these realms, effectively founding the Kingdom of Georgia. Prior to his coronation as king, Bagrat III also ruled in the Saeristavo of Kartli as co-ruler with his father, Gurgen of Iberia, from 976 to 978.

John of Beverley was an English bishop active in the kingdom of Northumbria. He was the bishop of Hexham and then the bishop of York, which was the most important religious designation in the area. He went on to found the town of Beverley by building the first structure there, a monastery. John was associated with miracles during and after his lifetime and was canonised a saint by the Catholic Church in 1037. As this is prior to the Great East–West Schism of 1054, he is also recognised as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Ladislaus III was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1204 and 1205. He was the only child of King Emeric. Ladislaus was crowned king upon the orders of his ill father, who wanted to secure his infant son's succession. The dying king made his brother, Andrew, regent for the period of Ladislaus's minority. However, Duke Andrew ignored the child's interests. As a result, Ladislaus's mother, Constance of Aragon, fled to Austria, taking Ladislaus with her. Ladislaus died unexpectedly in Vienna.

Warner Leroy Baxter was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter is known for his role as the Cisco Kid in the 1928 film In Old Arizona, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He frequently played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in Westerns, and played the Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career.

Frank DiPascali Jr. was an American fraudster and financier who was a key lieutenant of Bernie Madoff for three decades. He referred to himself as the company's "director of options trading" and as "chief financial officer". For a number of years, he played a key part in the daily operation of the Madoff investment scandal, later recounting how he helped manipulate billions of dollars in account statements so clients would believe that they were creating wealth for them.

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was a German-American Lutheran minister. He was the first president of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) and one of its most influential theologians. He is commemorated by that church on its Calendar of Saints on May 7. He has been described as a man who gave up his homeland for the freedom to speak freely, to believe freely, and to live freely, by emigrating from Germany to the United States.

Diego "Chico" Corrales Jr. was an American professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2007. He was a multiple-time world champion in two weight divisions, having held the International Boxing Federation (IBF) super featherweight title from 1999 to 2000; the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) super featherweight title in 2004; the WBO lightweight title from 2004 to 2006; and the World Boxing Council (WBC), and Ring magazine lightweight titles from 2005 to 2006.

William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, known as the Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history, was an Anglo-Irish Whig statesman who was the first home secretary in 1782 and then prime minister in 1782–83 during the final months of the American War of Independence. He succeeded in securing peace with America and this feat remains his most notable legacy.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Neville Patrick McNamara, was a senior commander of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He served as Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), the RAAF's highest-ranking position, from 1979 until 1982, and as Chief of the Defence Force Staff (CDFS), Australia's top military role at the time, from 1982 until 1984. He was the second RAAF officer to hold the rank of air chief marshal.

Mary of Modena was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland as the second wife of James VII and II. A devout Roman Catholic, Mary married the widower James, who was then the younger brother and heir presumptive of Charles II. She was devoted to James and their children, two of whom survived to adulthood: the Jacobite claimant to the thrones, James Francis Edward Stuart, and Louisa Maria Stuart.