Notable Deaths on November 5

November 5 has 116 recorded notable deaths across history, from 425 to 2024. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Fred MacMurray

1991 — Fred MacMurray

American actor and businessman (born 1908)

By · Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 116 source records 425 – 2024

Major events on November 5

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1872 Women's suffrage in the United States: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100. Source
  2. 2024 Donald Trump becomes the first president of the United States to be elected to a non-consecutive second term in 132 years, since Grover Cleveland won the 1892 election. Source

Did you know about Fred MacMurray

Fred MacMurray's career as a major film leading man began in 1935, but his most renowned role was in Billy Wilder's 1944 film noir Double Indemnity.

Did you know about Johnny Horton

Johnny Horton's first number-one country song was in 1959, "When It's Springtime in Alaska ".

Did you know about Alexis Carrel

Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who spent most of his scientific career in the United States.

Did you know about John Fastolf

Sir John Fastolf was a late medieval English soldier, landowner, and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War from 1415 to 1439, latterly as a senior commander against Joan of Arc, among others.

Did you know about Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter Jr. was an American modernist composer who was one of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century.


More major people who died on November 5

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

1960 Johnny Horton

Johnny Horton

American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1925)
John LaGale Horton was an American country, honky tonk, and rockabilly musician during the 1950s. He is best known for a series of history-inspired narrative country saga songs that became international hits. His 1959 single "The Battle of New Orleans" was awarded the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 ranked number 333 of the Recording Industry Association of America's "Songs of the Century". His first number-one country song was in 1959, "When It's Springtime in Alaska ".
1944 Alexis Carrel

Alexis Carrel

French surgeon and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1873)
Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who spent most of his scientific career in the United States. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. In later time however, it was acknowledged that Carrel and Lindbergh's version of the perfusion pump, which initially had media prominence, was impractical and difficult to use, and would lose influence by the 1940s. Carrel was also a pioneer in tissue culture, transplantology and thoracic surgery. He is known for his leading role in implementing eugenic policies in Vichy France.
1459 John Fastolf

John Fastolf

English soldier (born 1380)
Sir John Fastolf was a late medieval English soldier, landowner, and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War from 1415 to 1439, latterly as a senior commander against Joan of Arc, among others. He has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as the prototype, in some part, of Shakespeare's character Sir John Falstaff, although their careers are very different. Many historians argue, however, that he deserves to be famous in his own right, not only as a soldier, but as a patron of literature, a writer on strategy and perhaps as an early industrialist.
2012 Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

American composer and academic (born 1908)
Elliott Cook Carter Jr. was an American modernist composer who was one of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century. He combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra-modernism" into a distinctive style with a personal harmonic and rhythmic language, after an early neoclassical phase. His compositions are performed throughout the world, and include orchestral, chamber music, solo instrumental, and vocal works. Carter was the recipient of many awards – he was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his string quartets. He also wrote the large-scale orchestral triptych Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei.
1992 Jan Oort

Jan Oort

Dutch astronomer and academic (born 1900)
Jan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. The New York Times called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe"; the European Space Agency website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries." In 1955, Oort's name appeared in Life magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people. He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy".
1963 Luis Cernuda

Luis Cernuda

Spanish poet and critic (born 1902)
Luis Cernuda Bidón was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. During the Spanish Civil War, in early 1938, he went to the UK to deliver some lectures and this became the start of an exile that lasted till the end of his life. He taught in the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge before moving in 1947 to the US. In the 1950s he moved to Mexico. While he continued to write poetry, he also published wide-ranging books of critical essays, covering French, English and German as well as Spanish literature. He was frank about his homosexuality at a time when this was problematic and became something of a role model for this in Spain. His collected poems were published under the title La realidad y el deseo.
1986 Adolf Brudes

Adolf Brudes

German race car driver (born 1899)
Adolf Brudes von Breslau was a Formula One driver from Germany and a member of German nobility. He started racing motorcycles in 1919. As an owner of a BMW and Auto Union dealership in Breslau, he had the opportunities to go racing, which he did from 1928 onwards, initially in hillclimbs. After World War II wiped out his business, he moved to Berlin and for a while became a mechanic, wherever he could find jobs. However he soon was back racing, and he continued until 1968, in hillclimbs. He participated in one World Championship Grand Prix, the 1952 Großer Preis von Deutschland, but scored no championship points. He also participated in several non-Championship Formula One races.
1011 Mathilde

Mathilde

Abbess of Essen (born 949)
Mathilde was Abbess of Essen Abbey from 973 to her death. She was one of the most important abbesses in the history of Essen. She was responsible for the abbey, for its buildings, its precious relics, liturgical vessels and manuscripts, its political contacts, and for commissioning translations and overseeing education. In the unreliable list of Essen Abbesses from 1672, she is listed as the second Abbess Mathilde and as a result, she is sometimes called "Mathilde II" to distinguish her from the earlier abbess of the same name, who is meant to have governed Essen Abbey from 907 to 910 but whose existence is disputed.
1981 Rangjung Rigpe Dorje

Rangjung Rigpe Dorje

16th Karmapa, Tibetan spiritual leader (born 1924)
The 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje was the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa and the spiritual leader of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He is of the oldest line of reincarnate lamas in Vajrayana Buddhism, known as the Karmapas whose coming was predicted by the Buddha in the Samadhiraja Sutra. The 16th Karmapa was considered to be a "living Buddha" and was deeply involved in the transmission of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism to Europe and North America following the Chinese invasion of Tibet. He was known as the "King of the Yogis", and is the subject of numerous books and films.
1997 James Robert Baker

James Robert Baker

American author and screenwriter (born 1946)
James Robert Baker was an American author of sharply satirical, predominantly gay-themed transgressional fiction. A native Californian, his work is set almost entirely in Southern California. After graduating from UCLA, he began his career as a screenwriter, but became disillusioned and started writing novels instead. Though he garnered fame for his books Fuel-Injected Dreams and Boy Wonder, after the controversy surrounding publication of his novel, Tim and Pete, he faced increasing difficulty having his work published. According to his life partner, this was a contributing factor in his suicide.
2000 Bibi Titi Mohammed

Bibi Titi Mohammed

Tanzanian politician (born 1926)
Bibi Titi Mohammed was a Tanzanian politician and activist. She was born in June 1926 in Dar es Salaam, at the time the capital of former Tanganyika. She first was considered a freedom fighter and supported the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. Bibi Titi Mohammed was a member of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), the party that fought for the independence of Tanzania, and held various ministerial positions. In October 1969, she was sentenced for treason, and, after two years in prison, received a presidential pardon.
2001 Milton William Cooper

Milton William Cooper

American radio host, author, and activist (born 1943)
Milton William Cooper was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author known for his 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse, in which he warned of multiple global conspiracies, some involving extraterrestrial life. Cooper also described HIV/AIDS as a man-made disease used to target blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals, and that a cure was made before it was implemented. He has been described as a "militia theoretician". Cooper was killed in 2001 by sheriff's deputies after he shot at them during an attempted arrest.
1979 Al Capp

Al Capp

American cartoonist (born 1909)
Alfred Gerald Caplin, better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li'l Abner, which he created in 1934 and continued writing and drawing until 1977. He also wrote the comic strips Abbie an' Slats and Long Sam (1954). He won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their 1979 Elzie Segar Award, posthumously for his "unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning".
1992 Adile Ayda

Adile Ayda

Russian-Turkish engineer and diplomat (born 1912)
Adile Ayda was the first woman career diplomat of Turkey, but is today better remembered as an Etruscologist. She became interested in Etruscan studies while stationed in Rome as the Minister-Counsellor of the Turkish Embassy, did research on the subject during her stay in Italy and wrote down her findings in a number of books, in Turkish and in French. She proposed that the Etruscans were a Turkic-speaking people, a proposal which never enjoyed wide support and has since been discredited.
2010 Jill Clayburgh

Jill Clayburgh

American actress and singer (born 1944)
Jill Clayburgh was an American actress known for her work in theater, television, and cinema. She received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her breakthrough role in Paul Mazursky's comedy drama An Unmarried Woman (1978). She received a second consecutive Academy Award nomination for Starting Over (1979) as well as four Golden Globe nominations for her film performances, and two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her television work.
1977 René Goscinny

René Goscinny

French author and illustrator (born 1926)
René Goscinny was a French comic editor and writer, who created the Asterix comic book series with illustrator Albert Uderzo. Born in France to a Jewish family from Poland, he spent his childhood in Argentina where he attended French schools and later lived in the United States for a short period of time. There he met Belgian cartoonist Morris. After his return to France, they collaborated for more than 20 years on the comic series Lucky Luke.
1938 Thomas Dewing

Thomas Dewing

American painter and educator (born 1851)
Thomas Wilmer Dewing was an American painter working at the turn of the 20th century. Schooled in Paris, Dewing was noted for his figure paintings of aristocratic women. He was a founding member of the Ten American Painters and taught at the Art Students League of New York. The Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution has a collection of his works. He was the husband of fellow artist Maria Oakey Dewing.
2010 Adrian Păunescu

Adrian Păunescu

Romanian poet, journalist, and politician (born 1943)
Adrian Păunescu was a Romanian writer, publisher, cultural promoter, translator, and politician. A profoundly charismatic personality, a controversial and complex figure, the artist and the man are almost impossible to separate. On the one hand he stands accused of collaboration with the Communist regime, but on the other hand he was persecuted and ostracised by the regime when he started to confront its failures, and when his influence started to be considered dangerous.
1933 Texas Guinan

Texas Guinan

American actress and businesswoman (born 1884)
Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan was an American actress, producer, and entrepreneur. Born in Texas to Canadian immigrant parents, Guinan decided at an early age to become an entertainer. After becoming a star on the New York stage, the repercussions of her involvement in a weight loss scam motivated her to switch careers to the film business. Spending several years in California appearing in numerous productions, she eventually formed her own company.

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