Notable Deaths on November 25

November 25 has 102 recorded notable deaths across history, from 311 to 2025. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

George Best

2005 — George Best

Northern Irish footballer (born 1946)

By · Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 102 source records 311 – 2025

Major events on November 25

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1943 World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina is re-established at the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Source
  2. 1783 American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City, three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Source

Did you know about George Best

George Best was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a right winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United.

Did you know about Eleanor Audley

Eleanor Audley had roles in live-action films, but was most active in radio programs such as My Favorite Husband as Liz Cooper's mother-in-law, Mrs. Cooper, and Father Knows Best as the Anderson family's neighbor, Mrs. Smith.

Did you know about Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death in 1944.

Did you know about Thomas A. Hendricks

Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851–1855) and the U.S. Senate (1863–1869).

Did you know about Bill Foulkes

Bill Foulkes scored a total of 9 goals in his 18 seasons at United and helped the club win four First Division titles, one FA Cup and one European Cup.


More major people who died on November 25

Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.

1991 Eleanor Audley

Eleanor Audley

American actress and voice artist (born 1905)
Eleanor Audley was an American actress with a distinctive voice and a diverse body of work. She played Oliver Douglas's mom, Eunice Douglas, on the CBS sitcom Green Acres (1965–1969), and provided two Disney animated classics with the voices of the two iconic villainesses: Lady Tremaine, Cinderella's evil stepmother in Cinderella (1950), and Maleficent, the wicked fairy in Sleeping Beauty (1959). She had roles in live-action films, but was most active in radio programs such as My Favorite Husband as Liz Cooper's mother-in-law, Mrs. Cooper, and Father Knows Best as the Anderson family's neighbor, Mrs. Smith. Audley's television appearances include those in I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mister Ed, Hazel, The Beverly Hillbillies, Pistols 'n' Petticoats, and My Three Sons.
1944 Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

American lawyer and judge (born 1866)
Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death in 1944. He is remembered for his resolution of the Black Sox Scandal, in which he expelled eight members of the Chicago White Sox from organized baseball for conspiring to lose the 1919 World Series and repeatedly refused their reinstatement requests. His iron rule over baseball in the near quarter-century of his commissionership is generally credited with restoring public confidence in the game.
1885 Thomas A. Hendricks

Thomas A. Hendricks

American lawyer and politician, 21st Vice President of the United States (born 1819)
Thomas Andrews Hendricks was an American politician and lawyer from Indiana who served as the 16th governor of Indiana from 1873 to 1877 and the 21st vice president of the United States from March 1885 until his death in November of that year. Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851–1855) and the U.S. Senate (1863–1869). He also represented Shelby County, Indiana, in the Indiana General Assembly (1848–1850) and as a delegate to the 1851 Indiana constitutional convention. In addition, Hendricks served as commissioner of the United States General Land Office (1855–1859). Hendricks, a popular member of the Democratic Party, was a fiscal conservative. He defended the Democratic position in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era and voted against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He also opposed Radical Reconstruction and President Andrew Johnson's removal from office following Johnson's impeachment in the U.S. House.
2013 Bill Foulkes

Bill Foulkes

English footballer and manager (born 1932)
William Anthony Foulkes was an English footballer who played for Manchester United in the Busby Babes teams of the 1950s, and also in the 1960s. His favoured position was centre-half. For Manchester United, he played 688 games which places him at number 4 on the all-time list of appearances behind Ryan Giggs, Bobby Charlton and Paul Scholes. He made 3 appearances as a substitute. He also started in every single United game in the 1957–58, 1959–60 and 1964–65 seasons. He scored a total of 9 goals in his 18 seasons at United and helped the club win four First Division titles, one FA Cup and one European Cup. He was capped three times for England in 1954–55.
2006 Kenneth M. Taylor

Kenneth M. Taylor

American lieutenant and pilot (born 1919)
Kenneth Marlar Taylor was a United States Air Force officer and a flying ace of World War II. He was then a new United States Army Air Corps second lieutenant pilot stationed at Wheeler Field during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Along with his fellow pilot and friend George Welch, Taylor managed to get a fighter plane airborne under fire. Taylor claimed to have shot down four Japanese dive bombers but only two were confirmed. Taylor was injured during the incident and received several awards for his efforts, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart.
1884 Hermann Kolbe

Hermann Kolbe

German chemist and academic (born 1818)
Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe was a German chemist and academic, and a major contributor to the birth of modern organic chemistry. He was a professor at Marburg and Leipzig. Kolbe was the first to apply the term synthesis in a chemical context, and contributed to the philosophical demise of vitalism through synthesis of the organic substance acetic acid from carbon disulfide, and also contributed to the development of structural theory. This was done via modifications to the idea of "radicals" and accurate prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols, and to the emerging array of organic reactions through his Kolbe electrolysis of carboxylate salts, the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction in the preparation of aspirin and the Kolbe nitrile synthesis. After studies with Wöhler and Bunsen, Kolbe was involved with the early internationalization of chemistry through work in London. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and won the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal in the year of his death. Despite these accomplishments and his training important members of the next generation of chemists, Kolbe is best remembered for editing the Journal für Praktische Chemie for more than a decade, in which his vituperative essays on Kekulé's structure of benzene, van't Hoff's theory on the origin of chirality and Baeyer's reforms of nomenclature were personally critical and linguistically violent. Kolbe died of a heart attack in Leipzig at age 66, six years after the death of his wife, Charlotte.
2010 Alfred Balk

Alfred Balk

American journalist and author (born 1930)
Alfred Balk was an American reporter, nonfiction author and magazine editor who wrote groundbreaking articles about housing segregation, the Nation of Islam, the environment and Illinois politics. His refusal to identify a confidential source led to a landmark court case. During a career-long emphasis on media improvement, he served on the Twentieth Century Fund's task force that established a National News Council, consulted for several foundations, served as secretary of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's Committee on the Employment of Minority Groups in the News Media, and produced a film, That the People Shall Know: The Challenge of Journalism, narrated by Walter Cronkite. He wrote and co-authored books on a variety of topics, ranging from the tax exempt status of religious organizations to globalization to the history of radio.
1565 Hu Zongxian

Hu Zongxian

Chinese general (born 1512)
Hu Zongxian, courtesy name Ruzhen (汝貞) and art name Meilin (梅林), was a Chinese general and politician of the Ming dynasty who presided over the government's response to the wokou pirate raids during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor. As supreme commander, he was able to defeat Xu Hai's substantial raid in 1556 and capture the pirate lord Wang Zhi the next year through ruses. Despite his accomplishments, Hu Zongxian's reputation had been tarnished by his association with the clique of Yan Song and Zhao Wenhua, traditionally reviled figures in Ming historiography. He was rehabilitated decades after his death and was given the posthumous name Xiangmao (襄懋) by the emperor in 1595.
2008 Leonard Goodwin

Leonard Goodwin

British protozoologist (born 1915)
Leonard George Goodwin CMG FRS was a British protozoologist noted for his work on testing the effectiveness of chemical compounds in treating tropical diseases. He was born in London to a shoe shop manager, and became interested in nature thanks to holidays spent with his grandfather, a gamekeeper, and his uncle, a pharmacist. He was educated at William Ellis School before being accepted into University College London to study botany and zoology. After graduating he went to the College of the Pharmaceutical Society and studied pharmacy, graduating in 1935. He became a demonstrator at the college under J H Burn and at his urging took further degrees in medicine and physiology.
1694 Ismaël Bullialdus

Ismaël Bullialdus

French astronomer and mathematician (born 1605)
Ismaël Boulliau was a 17th-century French astronomer, mathematician, and Catholic priest, who was also interested in history, theology, classical studies, and philology. He was an active member of the Republic of Letters, an intellectual community that exchanged ideas. An early defender of the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, Ismael Bullialdus has been called "the most noted astronomer of his generation" whose renown is perhaps best exemplified by the claim of 1979 Nobel laureate in Physics Steven Weinberg that in 1640 Bullialdus made "the first suggestion of an inverse-square law." One of his books is Astronomia Philolaica (1645).
1985 Geoffrey Grigson

Geoffrey Grigson

English poet and critic (born 1905)
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s, he was editor of the influential magazine New Verse, and went on to produce 13 collections of his own poetry, as well as compiling numerous anthologies, among many published works on subjects including art, travel and the countryside. Grigson was in 1946 a co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. His autobiography The Crest on the Silver was published in 1950. At various times, Grigson was involved in teaching, journalism and broadcasting. Fiercely combative, he made many literary enemies.
1700 Stephanus Van Cortlandt

Stephanus Van Cortlandt

American lawyer and politician, 10th Mayor of New York City (born 1643)
Stephanus van Cortlandt was the first native-born mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1677 to 1678 and from 1686 to 1688. He was the patroon of van Cortlandt Manor and was on the governor's executive council from 1691 to 1700. He was the first resident of Sagtikos Manor in West Bay Shore on Long Island, which was built around 1697. A number of his descendants married English military leaders and Loyalists active in the American Revolution, and their descendants became prominent members of English society.
2006 Valentín Elizalde

Valentín Elizalde

Mexican singer-songwriter (born 1979)
Valentín Elizalde Valencia was a Mexican singer. Nicknamed "El Gallo de Oro", he specialized in Banda and regional mexican music and was known for his off-key style. His biggest hits included: "Vete Ya," "Ebrio de Amor", and "Soy Así". Some of his songs were narcocorridos, eulogizing Mexican drug lords like Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. He also wrote lyrics honoring Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was murdered as he left a concert; allegedly by members of the drug trafficking cartel Los Zetas.
2010 Peter Christopherson

Peter Christopherson

English keyboard player, songwriter, and director (born 1955)
Peter Martin Christopherson, also known as Sleazy, was an English musician, music video director, commercial artist, designer, and photographer. He was best known as a member of design agency Hipgnosis and a co-founder of the bands Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and Coil. He also directed a number of music videos, prominently the Nine Inch Nails short musical horror film Broken (1993). After his relocation to Thailand in 2005, he embarked on a solo career under the name The Threshold HouseBoys Choir.
1950 Johannes V. Jensen

Johannes V. Jensen

Danish author and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1873)
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen was a Danish author, known as one of the great Danish writers of the first half of 20th century. He was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination with which is combined an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold, freshly creative style". One of his sisters, Thit Jensen, was also a well-known writer and a very vocal, and occasionally controversial, early feminist.
1963 Alexander Marinesko

Alexander Marinesko

Russian lieutenant (born 1913)
Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko was a Soviet career naval officer. During the last year of World War II, he became known as the captain of the submarine S-13, which sank the German military transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea in January 1945. It was evacuating soldiers, medics, and other military personnel of Army Group North, as well as civilians who wanted to flee to Germany. Around 9,300 of the more than 10,000 passengers and crew died.
1984 Yashwantrao Chavan

Yashwantrao Chavan

Indian lawyer and politician, 5th Deputy Prime Minister of India (born 1913)
Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan was an Indian independence activist and politician who served as 5th Deputy Prime Minister of India in the short-lived Charan Singh ministry in 1979. He served as the last Chief Minister of Bombay State and the first of Maharashtra after the latter was created by the division of Bombay State. His also held significant ministerial post was as the 8th Minister of Finance from 1970 to 1971 and from 1971 to 1974.
2016 Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Communist leader of Cuba, and revolutionary (born 1926)
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2011. He served as prime minister from 1959 to 1976, president from 1976 to 2008, and first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, under his administration Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
1185 Pope Lucius III (born 1097)

Pope Lucius III (born 1097)

Pope Lucius III, born Ubaldo Allucingoli, reigned as head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1 September 1181 to his death in 1185. Born to an aristocratic family in Lucca, prior to being elected pope, he had a long career as a papal diplomat. His papacy was marked by conflicts with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, his exile from Rome, and the initial preparations for the Third Crusade.

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