Notable Deaths on October 4

October 4 has 100 recorded notable deaths across history, from 744 to 2024. This page lists every one of them, with the best-known people first.

Jean-Claude Duvalier

2014 — Jean-Claude Duvalier

Haitian politician, 41st President of Haiti (born 1951)

By · — Wikipedia · Report an error

Notable Deaths 100 source records 744 – 2024

Major events on October 4

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1957 Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. Source
  2. 1992 The Rome General Peace Accords end a 16-year civil war in Mozambique. Source

Did you know about Jean-Claude Duvalier

Jean-Claude Duvalier maintained a notoriously lavish lifestyle while poverty among his people remained the most widespread of any country in the Western Hemisphere.

Did you know about Michael Smith

Subsequently, he became the founding director of the Genome Sequencing Centre at the BC Cancer Research Centre.

Did you know about Manuel Godoy

Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria Ríos, 1st Prince of the Peace was First Secretary of State of the Kingdom of Spain from 1792 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1808.

Did you know about Bernard Buffet

Bernard Buffet was a French painter, printmaker, and illustrator.

Did you know about James Whitcomb

By skillfully guiding the state through its bankruptcy, Whitcomb is usually credited as being one of the most successful of Indiana's governors.


More major people who died on October 4

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

2000 Michael Smith

Michael Smith

English-Canadian biochemist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1932)
Michael Smith was a British-Canadian biochemist and businessman. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kary Mullis for his work in developing site-directed mutagenesis. Following a PhD in 1956 from the University of Manchester, he undertook postdoctoral research with Har Gobind Khorana at the British Columbia Research Council in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Subsequently, Smith worked at the Fisheries Research Board of Canada Laboratory in Vancouver before being appointed a professor of biochemistry in the UBC Faculty of Medicine in 1966. Smith's career included roles as the founding director of the UBC Biotechnology Laboratory and the founding scientific leader of the Protein Engineering Network of Centres of Excellence (PENCE). In 1996 he was named Peter Wall Distinguished Professor of Biotechnology. Subsequently, he became the founding director of the Genome Sequencing Centre at the BC Cancer Research Centre.
1851 Manuel Godoy

Manuel Godoy

Spanish general and politician, Prime Minister of Spain (born 1767)
Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria Ríos, 1st Prince of the Peace was First Secretary of State of the Kingdom of Spain from 1792 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1808. He was one of the central Spanish political figures during the rise of Napoleon and his invasion of Spain. Godoy came to power at a young age as the favourite of King Charles IV and Queen Maria Luisa, with whom he had a sexual relationship. He has been partly blamed for the Anglo-Spanish War of 1796–1808 that weakened the Spanish Empire. Godoy's unmatched power ended in 1808 with the Tumult of Aranjuez, which forced him into long exile. He died in Paris in 1851.
1999 Bernard Buffet

Bernard Buffet

French painter and illustrator (born 1928)
Bernard Buffet was a French painter, printmaker, and illustrator. An extremely prolific artist, he produced a varied and extensive body of work. His style was exclusively figurative and is often classified as Expressionist and Misérabilisme, as well as figurative collectives such as L'Homme-Témoin and La Jeune Peinture. Art historians have also classified his formal style as "abstract realism"—a framework in which recognizable, everyday figurative subjects are flattened, enclosed within rigid geometric grids, and stripped of cast shadows to assert the two-dimensional autonomy of the canvas. Curators have further noted that the emotional detachment, repetition, and formal rigidity of his figures share close affinities with New Objectivity portraiture and the anti-subjective descriptive style of the Nouveau Roman.
1852 James Whitcomb

James Whitcomb

American lawyer and politician, 8th Governor of Indiana (born 1795)
James Whitcomb was a United States senator and the eighth governor of Indiana. As governor during the Mexican–American War, he oversaw the formation and deployment of the state's levies. He led the movement to replace the state constitution and played an important role at the convention to institute a law that prevented the government from taking loans in response the current fiscal crisis in Indiana. By skillfully guiding the state through its bankruptcy, Whitcomb is usually credited as being one of the most successful of Indiana's governors. He was elected to the United States Senate after his term as governor but died of kidney disease only three years later.
1747 Amaro Pargo

Amaro Pargo

Spanish corsair (born 1678)
Amaro Rodríguez-Felipe y Tejera Machado, also known as Amaro Pargo, was a Spanish privateer and merchant. He was one of the most well-known Spanish privateers during the Golden Age of Piracy. Pargo was noted for his commercial activities and for his frequent religious donations and aid to the poor. As a privateer, he targeted trade routes between Cádiz and the Caribbean, on several occasions attacking British and Dutch merchant ships, earning recognition in his time as a hero and coming to be regarded as "the Spanish equivalent of Francis Drake". He was declared a Caballero hidalgo in 1725 and obtained certification of nobility and royal arms in 1727.
1974 Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

American poet and author (born 1928)
Anne Sexton was an American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Her poetry often drew on her experiences with mental illness, including bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation, as well as aspects of her personal life. She was known for blending fairy tales, mythology, and religious imagery with autobiographical themes. Sexton’s work continues to be widely read and studied for its emotional intensity and lasting influence on contemporary American poetry. After her death, one of her daughters has alleged abuse in accounts discussed in some later biographies and scholarship.
1980 Pyotr Masherov

Pyotr Masherov

First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (born 1918)
Pyotr Mironovich Masherov was a Soviet partisan, statesman, and one of the leaders of the Belarusian resistance during World War II who governed the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia from 1965 until his death in 1980. Under Masherov's rule, Belarus was transformed from an agrarian, undeveloped nation which had not yet recovered from the Second World War into an industrial powerhouse; Minsk, the capital and largest city of Belarus, became one of the fastest-growing cities on the planet. Masherov ruled until his sudden death in 1980, after his vehicle was hit by a potato truck.
1997 Gunpei Yokoi

Gunpei Yokoi

Japanese game designer, created the Game Boy (born 1941)
Gunpei Yokoi , sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as the original designer of several notable Nintendo products, including the Ultra Hand toy, the Game & Watch and Game Boy handheld game systems, as well as the producer of a few critically acclaimed franchises such as Donkey Kong, Metroid, and Kid Icarus. The modern Nintendo philosophy called the "Blue Ocean Theory," or focusing on interactive gameplay with black-and-white graphics over cutting-edge technology was espoused by Yokoi and still applied today.
1947 Max Planck

Max Planck

German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1858)
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German theoretical physicist. Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, primarily in his role as the originator of quantum theory and one of the founders of modern physics, which revolutionized understanding of atomic and subatomic processes. He is known for the Planck constant, , which is of foundational importance for quantum physics, and which he used to derive a set of units, now called Planck units, expressed in terms of physical constants. The Planck relation, E= ν, states that the energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency.
1999 Art Farmer

Art Farmer

American trumpet player and composer (born 1928)
Arthur Stewart Farmer was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, double bassist Addison Farmer, started playing professionally while at high school in Los Angeles. Art gained greater attention after the release of a recording of his composition "Farmer's Market" in 1952. He subsequently moved from Los Angeles to New York, where he performed and recorded with musicians such as Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, and Gigi Gryce and became known principally as a bebop player.
2015 Neal Walk

Neal Walk

American basketball player (born 1948)
Neal Eugene Walk was an American college and professional basketball player who was a center in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for eight seasons during the late 1960s and 1970s, playing overseas afterward. Walk played college basketball for the University of Florida, and remains the Florida Gators' all-time rebounds leader. The Phoenix Suns picked Walk second overall in the 1969 NBA draft, having lost the coin toss with the Milwaukee Bucks for Lew Alcindor. Walk played professionally for the Suns, the New Orleans Jazz and the New York Knicks of the NBA.
2024 Billy Shaw

Billy Shaw

American football player (born 1938)
William Lewis Shaw was an American professional football player who was a guard for the Buffalo Bills in the American Football League (AFL). After playing college football for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, he was selected by the Bills in the second round of the 1961 AFL draft. Shaw was the prototypical "pulling guard" who despite his size held his own against much bigger defensive linemen like Ernie Ladd, Earl Faison and Buck Buchanan. He won three straight Eastern Division titles and two AFL championships in 1964 and 1965 with Buffalo.
2013 Ulric Cross

Ulric Cross

Trinidadian navigator, judge, and diplomat (born 1917)
Philip Louis Ulric Cross was a Trinidadian jurist, diplomat and Royal Air Force (RAF) navigator, recognised as possibly the most decorated West Indian of World War II. He is credited with helping to prevent some two hundred bombers from being shot down in a raid over Germany in 1943. He subsequently studied law at London's Middle Temple, and went on to fulfil a distinguished international career as a jurist across Africa and within Trinidad and Tobago. He also served as a diplomat for Trinidad and Tobago to the United Kingdom.
2013 Võ Nguyên Giáp

Võ Nguyên Giáp

Vietnamese general and politician, 3rd Minister of Defence for Vietnam (born 1911)
Võ Nguyên Giáp was a Vietnamese general, communist revolutionary and politician. Highly regarded as a military strategist, Giáp led Vietnamese communist military forces to victory in the decades-long Indochina wars. Giáp was the military commander of the Việt Minh and the People's Army from 1941 to 1972, minister of defense of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1946–1947 and from 1948 to 1980, and deputy prime minister from 1955 to 1991. He was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
1743 John Campbell

John Campbell

2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish commander and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Surrey (born 1678)
Field Marshal John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, 1st Duke of Greenwich,, styled Lord Lorne from 1680 to 1703, was a British army officer and politician. He served on the continent in the Nine Years' War and fought at the Siege of Kaiserswerth during the War of the Spanish Succession. He then went on to serve as a brigade commander during the later battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, and was subsequently given command of all British forces in Spain at the instigation of the Harley ministry.
1977 José Ber Gelbard

José Ber Gelbard

Argentinian activist and politician (born 1917)
José Ber Gelbard was a Polish-born Argentine activist and politician, and a member of the Argentine Communist Party. He also helped organize the Confederación General Económica (CGE), made up of small and medium-sized business. Beginning about 1954, he was appointed as an economic advisor to Juan Perón and repeatedly was called back to serve as Minister of Finance to successive governments until the military coup of March 1976. He fled with his family shortly before the coup, gaining political asylum in the United States and settling in Washington, D.C.
2004 Gordon Cooper

Gordon Cooper

American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (born 1927)
Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. was an American aerospace engineer, test pilot, United States Air Force pilot, and the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first human space program of the United States. Cooper learned to fly as a child, and after service in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, he was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1949. After serving as a fighter pilot, he qualified as a test pilot in 1956 and was selected as an astronaut in 1959.
1871 Sarel Cilliers

Sarel Cilliers

South African spiritual leader and preacher (born 1801)
Charl (Sarel) Arnoldus Cilliers was a Voortrekker leader and a preacher. With Andries Pretorius, he led the Boers to a huge victory over the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in 1838. In particular, Cilliers led the Voortrekkers in a vow which promised that if God would protect them and deliver the enemy into their hands, they would build a church and commemorate the day of their victory as if it were an annual Sabbath day, which their descendants would also be instructed to honour.
2022 Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn

American singer-songwriter and musician (born 1932)
Loretta Lynn was an American country music singer and songwriter. In a career spanning six decades, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had numerous hits such as "Hey Loretta", "The Pill", "Blue Kentucky Girl", "Love Is The Foundation", "You're Lookin' At Country", "You Ain't Woman Enough", "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl", "Don't Come Home A Drinkin' ", "One's On the Way", "Fist City", and "Coal Miner's Daughter". The 1980 musical film Coal Miner's Daughter was based on her life, in which actress Sissy Spacek portrayed Lynn.
1904 Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

French sculptor, designed the Statue of Liberty (born 1834)
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was a French sculptor and painter. He is best known for designing Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, in New York City, United States. Its construction was begun by Viollet-le-Duc, famous for his restoration of the most prominent medieval landmarks in France, until his death and then completed by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was a gift from France to the United States and was erected in 1886 on Liberty Island, at the entrance to New York harbor.
1997 Otto Ernst Remer

Otto Ernst Remer

German general (born 1912)
Generalmajor Otto Ernst Remer was a German Army officer who served during World War II and played a major role in stopping the 20 July plot in 1944 against Adolf Hitler. He was a captain and a major (1943–1944), and finally a Oberst (colonel) and a Generalmajor in 1945. In his later years, he became a politician and far-right activist. He co-founded the Socialist Reich Party in West Germany in the 1950s and is considered an influential figure in postwar neo-fascist politics in Germany.
1646 Thomas Howard

Thomas Howard

21st Earl of Arundel, English courtier and politician, Earl Marshal of the United Kingdom (born 1586)
Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel KG, was an English magistrate, diplomat and courtier during the reigns of James I and Charles I. He made his name as a Grand Tourist and art collector rather than as a politician. When he died he possessed 700 paintings, along with large collections of sculptures, books, prints, drawings, and antique jewellery. Most of his collection of marble carvings, known as the Arundel marbles, was eventually left to the University of Oxford.
1227 Caliph al-Adil of Morocco

Caliph al-Adil of Morocco

Abu Muhammad ʿAbdallah 'al-ʿAdil' was an Almohad Caliph, a former governor in al-Andalus who challenged and secured the murder of his predecessor, Abd al-Wahid I. His 1224 coup ushered in a period of instability that lasted well beyond his own death in 1227. He is often regarded as one of the most disastrous of Almohad caliphs. His coup divided the Almohads and set in motion the loss of al-Andalus and the eventual collapse of the Almohad state.
1992 Denny Hulme

Denny Hulme

New Zealand race car driver (born 1936)
Denis Clive Hulme was a New Zealand racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1965 to 1974. Nicknamed "the Bear", Hulme won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1967 with Brabham, becoming the only New Zealander to do so, and won eight Grands Prix across 10 seasons. He is the World Champion with the fewest pole positions in his career, with only 1 career pole at the 1973 South African Grand Prix.
2003 Sid McMath

Sid McMath

American lawyer and politician, 34th Governor of Arkansas (born 1912)
Sidney Sanders McMath was a U.S. marine, attorney and the 34th governor of Arkansas from 1949 to 1953. In defiance of his state's political establishment, he championed rapid rural electrification, massive highway and school construction, the building of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, strict bank and utility regulation, repeal of the poll tax, open and honest elections, and broad expansion of opportunity for black citizens in the decade following World War II.
1660 Francesco Albani

Francesco Albani

Italian painter (born 1578)
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter of Albanian descent who was active in Bologna, Rome, Viterbo (1609–1610), Mantua (1621–1622) and Florence (1633). He was a distinguished artist of the Bolognese school, deeply influenced by Annibale Carracci’s classicism. His fame rests on his idyllic landscapes and small mythological pictures, the lyrical qualities of which earned him the soubriquet ‘the Anacreon of painters’.
2010 Norman Wisdom

Norman Wisdom

English actor, comedian, and singer-songwriter (born 1915)
Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom was an English actor, comedian, musician, and singer best known for his series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966, in which he portrayed the endearingly inept character Norman Pitkin. He rose to fame with his first leading film role in Trouble in Store (1953), which earned him the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.
1951 Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks

American medical patient (born 1920)
Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data and research to the present day.
1497 John

John

Prince of Asturias, only son of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile (born 1478)
John, Prince of Asturias and Girona was the only son of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, and heir apparent to both their thrones for nearly his entire life. Despite having this title throughout his life, he later died of tuberculosis and was given to various people, but later ended up going to Joanna I of Castile.
1975 Joan Whitney Payson

Joan Whitney Payson

American businesswoman and philanthropist (born 1903)
Joan Whitney Payson was an American heiress, businesswoman, philanthropist, patron of the arts and art collector, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She co-founded, and was the majority owner of, Major League Baseball's New York Mets baseball franchise, making her the first woman to own a major league team in North America without inheriting it.
1867 Francis Xavier Seelos

Francis Xavier Seelos

German-American priest and missionary (born 1819)
Francis Xavier Seelos, C.Ss.R., was a German Redemptorist missionary, who worked in the United States, particularly in parishes serving immigrant communities on the American frontier. Near the end of his life, he travelled to New Orleans to minister to people affected by a yellow fever outbreak. He later contracted the disease and died from its complications.
2012

David Atkinson

Canadian actor and singer (born 1921)
David Anthony Stuart Atkinson was a Canadian baritone and New York Broadway actor/singer. Most of his career was spent performing in musicals and operettas in New York City from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, although he did appear in some operas and made a few television appearances. In 1952 he created the role of Sam in the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. From 1956-1962 he was a leading performer at the New York City Opera where he starred in several musicals and appeared in the world premieres of several English language operas. His greatest success on the stage came late in his career: the role of Cervantes in Man of La Mancha which he portrayed in the original Broadway production, the 1968 national tour, and in the 1972 Broadway revival.
1052 Vladimir of Novgorod (born 1020)

Vladimir of Novgorod (born 1020)

Vladimir Yaroslavich was Prince of Novgorod from 1036 until his death in 1052. He was the eldest son of Yaroslav I the Wise by Ingegerd Olofsdotter, a daughter of Olof Skötkonung, the king of Sweden. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, with his feast being on 4 October.
1669 Rembrandt

Rembrandt

Dutch painter and illustrator (born 1606)
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known mononymously as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art. It is estimated that Rembrandt's surviving works amount to about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings, and several hundred drawings.
1935 Jean Béraud

Jean Béraud

French painter and academic (born 1849)
Jean Béraud was a French painter renowned for his numerous paintings of life in Paris and especially its nightlife. His works depicting the Champs-Élysées, cafés, Montmartre and the banks of the Seine are precisely detailed illustrations of everyday Parisian life during the Belle Époque. He also painted religious subjects in a contemporary setting.
1982 Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould

Canadian pianist and conductor (born 1932)
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist and broadcaster. Regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, he was renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and a capacity to articulate the contrapuntal texture of Bach's music.
1944 Al Smith

Al Smith

American lawyer and politician, 42nd Governor of New York (born 1873)
Alfred Emanuel Smith was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of New York from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1923 to 1928. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's presidential nominee in the 1928 presidential election, losing to Republican nominee Herbert Hoover in a landslide.
1981 Freddie Lindstrom

Freddie Lindstrom

American baseball player and coach (born 1905)
Frederick Charles Lindstrom was an American professional baseball player who was a third baseman and outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn Dodgers from 1924 until 1936. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.
2002 André Delvaux

André Delvaux

Belgian-Spanish director and screenwriter (born 1926)
André Albert Auguste Delvaux was a Belgian film director. He co-founded the film school INSAS in 1962 and is regarded as the founder of the Belgian national cinema. Adapting works by writers such as Johan Daisne, Julien Gracq and Marguerite Yourcenar, he received international attention for directing magic realist films.
1160 Constance of Castile

Constance of Castile

Queen of France (born 1141)
Constance of Castile was Queen of France as the second wife of Louis VII, who married her following the annulment of his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was a daughter of Alfonso VII of León and Berengaria of Barcelona, but her year of birth is not known.
1903 Otto Weininger

Otto Weininger

Austrian philosopher and author (born 1880)
Otto Weininger was an Austrian philosopher who in 1903 published the book Geschlecht und Charakter, which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23. Weininger had a strong influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein, August Strindberg, and, via his lesser-known work Über die letzten Dinge, on James Joyce.
1989 Graham Chapman

Graham Chapman

English actor and screenwriter, member of Monty Python (born 1941)
Graham Chapman was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surrealist comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two Python films, Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979).
1661 Jacqueline Pascal

Jacqueline Pascal

French nun and composer (born 1625)
Jacqueline Pascal was a French poet and Jansenist nun. The sister of Gilberte Périer and Blaise Pascal, she began writing poetry at a young age and gained recognition for it. As an adult, she became a Jansenist and entered the Port-Royal abbey as a nun.
2015 Dave Pike

Dave Pike

American vibraphone player and songwriter (born 1938)
David Samuel Pike was an American jazz vibraphone and marimba player. He appeared on many albums by Nick Brignola, Paul Bley and Kenny Clarke, Bill Evans, and Herbie Mann. He also recorded extensively as leader, including a number of albums on MPS Records.
2009 Günther Rall

Günther Rall

German general and pilot (born 1918)
Günther Rall was a highly decorated German military aviator, officer and General, whose military career spanned nearly forty years. Rall was the third most successful fighter pilot in aviation history, behind Gerhard Barkhorn, who is second, and Erich Hartmann, who is first.
1955 Alexander Papagos

Alexander Papagos

Greek general and politician, 152nd Prime Minister of Greece (born 1883)
Alexandros Papagos was a Greek military officer who led the Hellenic Army in World War II and in the later stages of the subsequent Greek Civil War. Afterwards, he served as Prime Minister of Greece from 1952 to 1955.
1963 Alar Kotli

Alar Kotli

Estonian architect (born 1904)
Alar Kotli was an Estonian architect. He studied sculpture at the art school Pallas in Tartu during 1922–1923 and mathematics at the University of Tartu. He graduated from the University of technology in Gdańsk in 1927 as an architect.
1597 Sarsa Dengel

Sarsa Dengel

Ethiopian emperor (born 1550)
Sarsa Dengel, also known as Sarsa the Great, was Emperor of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His throne name was Malak Sagad I. He is considered one of the greatest warrior-kings of the Ethiopian Empire.
2005 Stanley K. Hathaway

Stanley K. Hathaway

American lawyer and politician, 40th United States Secretary of the Interior (born 1924)
Stanley Knapp Hathaway was an American politician who served as the 27th governor of Wyoming from 1967 to 1975 and as the 40th United States secretary of the interior under President Gerald Ford from June to October 1975.
1749 Baron Franz von der Trenck

Baron Franz von der Trenck

Austrian soldier (born 1711)
Baron Franz von der Trenck was a Croatian baron and Habsburg nobleman and soldier, leader and commander of pandurs in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), with whom he fought in Silesia, Bavaria, Austria and Bohemia.
1946 Barney Oldfield

Barney Oldfield

American race car driver and actor (born 1878)
Berna Eli "Barney" Oldfield was a pioneer American racing driver. His name was "synonymous with speed in the first two decades of the 20th century". He was the winner of the inaugural AAA National Championship in 1905.
1998 S. Arasaratnam

S. Arasaratnam

Sri Lankan historian and academic (born 1930)
Sinnappah Arasaratnam was a Sri Lankan academic, historian and author, born during British colonial rule. Known as 'Arasa', he was a lecturer at the University of Ceylon, University of Malaya and University of New England (Australia).
1890 Catherine Booth

Catherine Booth

English theologian and saint, co-founded The Salvation Army (born 1829)
Catherine Booth was co-founder of The Salvation Army, along with her husband William Booth. Because of her influence in the formation of The Salvation Army she was known as the 'Mother of The Salvation Army'.
1970 Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

American singer-songwriter (born 1943)
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her stage presence.
2020 Kenzō Takada

Kenzō Takada

Japanese-French fashion designer (born 1939)
Kenzō Takada was a Japanese–French fashion designer living in France. He founded Kenzo, a worldwide clothing brand that also markets skincare and perfumes. Takada was the honorary president of the Asian Couture Federation.
1755 Samuel von Cocceji

Samuel von Cocceji

Prussian jurist and statesman (born 1679)
Samuel Freiherr von Cocceji was a German official from the Electorate of the Palatinate who served Brandenburg-Prussia and the Kingdom of Prussia. He was the son of Heinrich von Cocceji.
2013 John Cloudsley-Thompson

John Cloudsley-Thompson

Pakistani-English commander (born 1921)
John Leonard Cloudsley-Thompson DSc CBiol FSB FRES FZS was a British naturalist renowned for his work on desert fauna. He was a tank commander during the Second World War.
2013 Nicholas Oresko

Nicholas Oresko

American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1917)
Nicholas Oresko was an American combat veteran of World War II who received the Medal of Honor for his valorous actions in Germany on January 23, 1945.
2020 Clark Middleton

Clark Middleton

American actor (born 1957)
Clark Tinsley Middleton was an American actor. He is best known for his supporting roles in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Sin City, Fringe, Snowpiercer, and The Blacklist.
1189 Gerard de Ridefort

Gerard de Ridefort

Grand Master of the Knights Templar
Gérard de Ridefort, also called Gerard de Ridefort, was Grand Master of the Knights Templar from the end of 1184 and until his death in 1189.
2014 Hugo Carvana

Hugo Carvana

Brazilian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1937)
Hugo Carvana de Hollanda was a Brazilian actor and film director. He appeared in more than 110 films and television shows between 1954 and 2014.
2001

Blaise Alexander

American race car driver (born 1976)
Blaise Robert Alexander Jr. was an American racing driver from Montoursville, Pennsylvania. He began racing at the age of twelve in go-karts, winning the coveted World Karting Association East Regional championship in 1992. In 1995, he moved south to Mooresville, North Carolina, and drove in the ARCA Racing Series. Named ARCA's rookie of the year in 1996, Alexander was a regular driver in that series while also driving in both the NASCAR Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series.
2007 Qassem Al-Nasser

Qassem Al-Nasser

Jordanian general (born 1925)
HE Major General Qassem Pasha Al-Nasser (1925–2007) was a Jordanian officer who participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He was part of many battles, such as: Latrun, Bab El-wad, and Misherem, amongst others.
2015

Edida Nageswara Rao

Indian director and producer (born 1934)
Edida Nageswara Rao was an Indian film producer and actor known for his work in Telugu cinema. He was celebrated for blending artistic values with mainstream appeal, making him one of the most respected producers in the industry. Nageswara Rao began his career with minor acting roles and as a dubbing artist before establishing Poornodaya Movie Creations, a production house that produced several critically acclaimed and commercially successful films.
1943

Irena Iłłakowicz

German-Polish lieutenant (born 1906)
Irena Morzycka-Iłłakowicz was a Polish second lieutenant of the National Armed Forces and intelligence agent. The daughter of Bolesław Morzycki and Władysława Zakrzewska and the sister of Jerzy, she was also a polyglot who spoke seven languages: Polish, French, English, Persian, Finnish, German and Russian.
1994

Danny Gatton

American guitarist (born 1945)
Daniel Wood Gatton Jr. was an American virtuoso guitarist who combined blues, rockabilly, jazz, and country to create a musical style he called "redneck jazz", a term which he took from fellow DC-born guitarist Evan Johns, who had composed a song by that name.
2009

Gerhard Kaufhold

German footballer (born 1928)
Gerhard Kaufhold was a German footballer who spent his entire career at Kickers Offenbach. He played a total of 396 games in the Oberliga Süd for the club, scoring 112 goals. He also represented West Germany in a 3–1 defeat against England in 1954.
1221

William IV Talvas

Count of Ponthieu (born 1179)
William IV Talvas was William III, Count of Ponthieu and William IV. He was Count of Ponthieu, ruler of a small province in northern France that fell under the suzerainty of the dukes of Normandy since at least the mid 11th century.
863

Turpio

Frankish nobleman
Turpio was a Count of Angoulême in the Frankish empire. The sources are contradictory concerning the date of his appointment as count and his allegiance, but they agree that he died trying to fend off a raid by the Vikings.
1361

John de Mowbray

3rd Baron Mowbray, English baron (born 1310)
John (II) de Mowbray, 3rd Baron Mowbray was the only son of John de Mowbray, 2nd Baron Mowbray, by his first wife, Aline de Brewes, daughter of William de Braose, 2nd Baron Braose. He was born in Hovingham, Yorkshire.
2012

Stan Mudenge

Zimbabwean historian and politician, Zimbabwean Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1941)
Isaak Stanislaus Gorerazvo Mudenge was a Zimbabwean politician who served in the government of Zimbabwe as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1995 to 2005 and as Minister of Higher Education from 2005 to 2012.
1827

Grigorios Zalykis

Greek-French lexicographer and scholar (born 1785)
Grigorios Zalykis was a Greek scholar, writer and diplomat. He was the founder of the "Greek-speaking Hotel", a secret organization established in Paris in 1809 to assist Greeks against Ottoman rule.
2012

Tom Stannage

Australian footballer, historian, and academic (born 1944)
Charles Thomas Stannage, was a prominent Western Australian historian, academic, and Australian rules football player. He edited the major work A New History of Western Australia, which was published in 1981.
1904

Carl Josef Bayer

Austrian chemist and academic (born 1847)
Carl Josef Bayer was a chemist from Austria-Hungary who invented and named the Bayer process of extracting alumina from bauxite, essential to this day to the economical production of aluminium.
1864

Joseph Montferrand

Canadian logger and strongman (born 1802)
Joseph "Jos" Montferrand was a French-Canadian logger, strongman, and folk hero of the working man and was the inspiration for the legendary Ottawa Valley figure Big Joe Mufferaw.
2024

Christopher Ciccone

American artist (born 1960)
Christopher Gerard Ciccone was an American visual artist, interior decorator, and designer in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. He was the younger brother of American singer Madonna.
744 Yazid III

Yazid III

Umayyad caliph (born 701)
Yazid ibn al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, commonly known as Yazid III, was the twelfth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 744 until his death months later.
1250 Herman VI

Herman VI

Margrave of Baden (born 1226)
Herman VI was Margrave of Baden and titular margrave of Verona from 1243 until his death.
1305 Emperor Kameyama of Japan (born 1249)

Emperor Kameyama of Japan (born 1249)

Emperor Kameyama was the 90th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1260 through 1274.
1582 Teresa of Ávila

Teresa of Ávila

Spanish nun and saint (born 1515)
Teresa of Ávila, religious name Teresa of Jesus, was a Carmelite nun, prominent Spanish mystic and spiritual reformer.
1680 Pierre-Paul Riquet

Pierre-Paul Riquet

French engineer, designed the Canal du Midi (born 1609)
Pierre-Paul Riquet, Baron de Bonrepos was the engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi.
1821 John Rennie the Elder

John Rennie the Elder

Scottish engineer, designed the Waterloo Bridge (born 1761)
John Rennie was a Scottish civil engineer who designed many bridges, canals, docks and warehouses, and a pioneer in the use of structural cast-iron.
1859 Karl Baedeker

Karl Baedeker

German publisher, founded Baedeker (born 1801)
Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker was a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for authoritative guidebooks for tourists.
1910 Sergey Muromtsev

Sergey Muromtsev

Russian lawyer and politician (born 1850)
Sergei Andreevich Muromtsev was a Russian lawyer and politician, and chairman of the First Imperial Duma in 1906.
1935 Marie Gutheil-Schoder

Marie Gutheil-Schoder

German soprano, actress, and director (born 1874)
Marie Gutheil-Schoder was an important German operatic soprano.
1958 Ida Wüst

Ida Wüst

German actress and screenwriter (born 1884)
Ida Wüst was a German stage and film actress whose career was prominent in the 1920s and 1930s with Universum Film AG (UFA).
1961 Benjamin

Benjamin

Russian metropolitan (born 1880)
Metropolitan Benjamin or Veniamin was a bishop of the Russian Church, Orthodox missionary and writer.
1975

Friedrich Lutz

German economist (born 1901)
Friedrich August Lutz was a German economist who developed the expectations hypothesis.
1982 Stefanos Stefanopoulos

Stefanos Stefanopoulos

Greek politician, 165th Prime Minister of Greece (born 1898)
Stefanos Stefanopoulos was a Greek politician, and served as Prime Minister of Greece from 1965 to 1966.
1988

Zlatko Grgić

Croatian-Canadian animator, director, and screenwriter (born 1931)
Zlatko Grgić was a Croatian animator who emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s.
1990

Mārtiņš Zīverts

Latvian playwright (born 1903)
Mārtiņš Zīverts was a Latvian playwright.
2000 Yu Kuo-hwa

Yu Kuo-hwa

Chinese politician, 32nd Premier of the Republic of China (born 1914)
Yu Kuo-hwa was a Taiwanese economist who served as the Premier of the Republic of China from 1984 to 1989.
2001 Ahron Soloveichik

Ahron Soloveichik

Russian rabbi and scholar (born 1917)
Ahron (Aaron) Soloveichik was an Orthodox Jewish rosh yeshiva and scholar of Talmud and halakha.
2001

John Collins

American guitarist (born 1913)
John Elbert Collins was an American jazz guitarist who was a member of the Nat King Cole trio.
2011 Doris Belack

Doris Belack

American actress (born 1926)
Doris Belack was an American character actress of stage, film and television.
2013

Akira Miyoshi

Japanese composer (born 1933)
Akira Miyoshi was a Japanese composer.
2013

Diana Nasution

Indonesian singer (born 1958)
Diana Nasution, was an Indonesian singer.
2014 Fyodor Cherenkov

Fyodor Cherenkov

Russian footballer and manager (born 1959)
Fyodor Fyodorovich Cherenkov was a Soviet and Russian football midfielder who played for Spartak Moscow and Red Star Football Club (1990–91).
2014

Konrad Boehmer

German-Dutch composer and educator (born 1941)
Konrad Boehmer was a German-Dutch composer, educator, and writer.

History runs on facts, and this project runs on coffee!

Your support is incredibly helpful and genuinely appreciated.

Support with a coffee ☕