Notable Deaths on October 9

October 9 has 111 recorded notable deaths across history, from 680 to 2024. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Alec Douglas-Home

1995 — Alec Douglas-Home

British cricketer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1903)

By · — Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 111 source records 680 – 2024

Major events on October 9

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1981 President François Mitterrand abolishes capital punishment in France. Source
  2. 1847 Slavery is abolished in the Swedish colony of Saint Barthélemy. Source

Did you know about Alec Douglas-Home

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, known as Lord Dunglass from 1918 to 1951 and the Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963, was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1964.

Did you know about Jan Hooks

Jan Hooks was best known for her tenure on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where she was a repertory player from 1986 to 1991.

Did you know about Kanshi Ram

Towards this end, Kanshi Ram founded Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4), the All India Backwards (SC/ST/OBC) and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984.

Did you know about Clare Boothe Luce

A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast.

Did you know about Geoffrey Howe

Geoffrey Howe's resignation from Cabinet on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated the leadership challenge that led to Thatcher's resignation three weeks later.

More major people who died on October 9

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

2014 Jan Hooks

Jan Hooks

American actress and comedienne (born 1957)
Janet Vivian Hooks was an American actress and comedian. She was best known for her tenure on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where she was a repertory player from 1986 to 1991. After leaving SNL, she continued to make cameo appearances until 1994. Her subsequent work included a regular role on the last two seasons of Designing Women, a recurring role on 3rd Rock from the Sun, and a number of other film and television roles, including on 30 Rock and The Simpsons. She died of complications of throat cancer on October 9, 2014 at the age of 57.
Wikipedia source
2006 Kanshi Ram

Kanshi Ram

Indian lawyer and politician (born 1934)
Kanshi Ram, also known as Bahujan Nayak or Manyavar, Sahab Kanshiram was an Indian politician and social reformer who worked for the upliftment and political mobilisation of the Bahujans, the backward or lower caste people including untouchable groups at the bottom of the caste system in India. Towards this end, Kanshi Ram founded Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4), the All India Backwards (SC/ST/OBC) and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984. In 2003, he ceded leadership of the BSP to his protégé Mayawati who has served four terms as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Wikipedia source
1987 Clare Boothe Luce

Clare Boothe Luce

American author, playwright, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Italy (born 1903)
Clare Boothe Luce was an American writer, politician, diplomat, and public intellectual. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She served as a U.S. representative from Connecticut's 4th congressional district from 1943 to 1947, and as U.S. Ambassador to Italy from 1953 to 1956. She was married to Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. She converted to Catholicism in 1946.
Wikipedia source
2015 Geoffrey Howe

Geoffrey Howe

Welsh lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1926)
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon,, known from 1970 to 1992 as Sir Geoffrey Howe, was a British barrister and politician who served chancellor of the Exchequer from 1979 to 1983, and Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary, then leader of the House of Commons, deputy prime minister and lord president of the Council. His resignation from Cabinet on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated the leadership challenge that led to Thatcher's resignation three weeks later.
Wikipedia source
2015 Ravindra Jain

Ravindra Jain

Indian composer and director (born 1944)
Ravindra Jain was an Indian music composer, lyricist and playback singer. He started his career in the early 1970s by composing for several hit movies, and continued despite his struggle with blindness. His notable works include Chor Machaye Shor (1974), Geet Gaata Chal (1975), Chitchor (1976) and Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se (1978), Nadiya Ke Paar (1982), Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) and Vivah (2006). He composed music for many films and TV shows including Ramanand Sagar's epic Ramayan (1987), which became iconic. He was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India in 2015 for his contribution to arts.
Wikipedia source
1390 John I of Castile (born 1358)

John I of Castile (born 1358)

John I was King of Castile and León from 1379 until 1390. He was the son of Henry II and Juana Manuel of Castile. John ascended to the throne in 1379, and in 1383, he married Beatrice, the daughter of King Ferdinand I of Portugal. When Ferdinand died that same year, John, aiming to enforce his claim on the Portuguese crown through his wife, brought the country into the 1383–1385 Crisis. His forces faced resistance from Portuguese factions supporting John of Aviz. The conflict culminated in the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385, where John suffered a defeat, ensuring Portugal's independence.
Wikipedia source
1941 Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan

American singer and actress (born 1900)
Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical Show Boat in 1927, as well as in the 1932 Broadway revival of the musical, and appeared in two film adaptations, a part-talkie made in 1929 and a full-sound version made in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Kern's Broadway musical, Sweet Adeline (1929), her stage career was relatively short. Helen Morgan died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed by Polly Bergen in the Playhouse 90 drama The Helen Morgan Story and by Ann Blyth in the 1957 biopic based on the television drama.
Wikipedia source
1253 Robert Grosseteste

Robert Grosseteste

English bishop and philosopher (born 1175)
Robert Grosseteste, also known as Robert Greathead or Robert of Lincoln, was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, scientist and Bishop of Lincoln. He was born of humble parents in Suffolk, but the association with the village of Stradbroke is a post-medieval tradition. Upon his death, he was revered as a saint in England, but attempts to procure a formal canonisation failed. A. C. Crombie called him "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition". As a theologian, however, he contributed to increasing hostility to Jews and Judaism, and spread the accusation that Jews had purposefully suppressed prophetic knowledge of the coming of Christ, through his translation of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
Wikipedia source
2009 John Daido Loori

John Daido Loori

American Zen Buddhist monastic and teacher (born 1931)
John Daido Loori was a Zen Buddhist rōshi who served as the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and was the founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order and CEO of Dharma Communications. Daido Loori received shiho from Taizan Maezumi in 1986 and also received a Dendo Kyoshi certificate formally from the Soto school of Japan in 1994. In 1997, he received dharma transmission in the Harada-Yasutani and Inzan lineages of Rinzai Zen as well. In 1996 he gave dharma transmission to his student Bonnie Myotai Treace, in 1997 to Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, and in 2009 to Konrad Ryushin Marchaj. In addition to his role as a Zen Buddhist priest, Loori was an exhibited photographer and author of more than twenty books and was an avid naturalist.
Wikipedia source
2015 Ray Duncan

Ray Duncan

American businessman (born 1930)
Raymond Twomey Duncan known as Ray Duncan was an American entrepreneur and vintner. Originally involved in oil entrepreneurship in Colorado and founder of Duncan Oil, he was the founder along with Justin Meyer of Silver Oak Cellars in 1972, a successful winery based in the Napa Valley and Alexander Valley. Today his sons David Duncan and Tim Duncan run Silver Oak Cellars, as well as Twomey Cellars. Duncan established the Durango Mountain "Purgatory" Ski Resort in 1965 and was chairman of the board for the ski industry organization Colorado Ski Country USA. He was inducted into the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2006.
Wikipedia source
1946 Frank Castleman

Frank Castleman

American football player, baseball player, and coach (born 1877)
Frank Riley Castleman was an American football and baseball player, track athlete, and coach in multiple sports. He competed for the United States in the 200 metre hurdles at the 1904 Summer Olympics held in St. Louis, Missouri, where he won the silver medal. Castleman was a member of the Greater New York Irish American Athletic Association, which became the Irish American Athletic Club. He competed mainly in the 200 metre hurdles. Castleman graduated from Colgate University in 1906, where he competed in football, baseball, and track and field.
Wikipedia source
2013 Solomon Lar

Solomon Lar

Nigerian educator and politician, 4th Governor of Plateau State (born 1933)
Chief (Dr.) Solomon Daushep Lar was a Nigerian politician who has held various offices at the National level for over 50 years. He was a member of the first national parliament when Nigeria gained independence in 1960. He was elected governor of Plateau State on the Nigerian People's Party (NPP) platform during the Nigerian Second Republic, holding office from October 1979 until the Military coup of 31 December 1983 that brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power. Later, he was founding chairman of the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
Wikipedia source
892 Al-Tirmidhi

Al-Tirmidhi

Persian scholar and hadith compiler (born 824)
Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi, often referred to as Imām at-Termezī/Tirmidhī, was an Islamic scholar, and collector of hadith from Termez. He wrote al-Jami` as-Sahih, one of the six canonical hadith compilations in Sunni Islam. He also wrote Shama'il Muhammadiyah, a compilation of hadiths concerning the person and character of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. At-Tirmidhi was also well versed in Arabic grammar, favoring the school of Kufa over Basra due to the former's preservation of Arabic poetry as a primary source.
Wikipedia source
1937 Ernest Louis

Ernest Louis

Grand Duke of Hesse (born 1868)
Ernest Louis was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from 1892 until 1918. A grandson of Queen Victoria, he was known as a patron of the arts and founded the Darmstadt Artists' Colony. He married Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and later Princess Eleonore of Solms‑Hohensolms‑Lich. During World War I he served at Kaiser Wilhelm II's headquarters and was deposed in the German revolution of 1918–1919.
Wikipedia source
2011 Pavel Karelin

Pavel Karelin

Russian ski jumper (born 1989)
Pavel Vladimirovich Karelin was a Russian ski jumper from Nizhny Novgorod who competed from 2004 until his death in 2011. He made his World Cup debut on 30 November 2007, finishing 8th in team large hill event at Kuusamo, Finland. During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, he finished tenth in the team large hill, 33rd in the individual normal hill, and 38th in the individual large hill events.
Wikipedia source
1934 Alexander I of Yugoslavia

Alexander I of Yugoslavia

King of Yugoslavia also known as Alexander the Unifier (born 1888)
Alexander I Karađorđević was King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 16 August 1921 to 3 October 1929 and King of Yugoslavia from 3 October 1929 until his assassination. His thirteen-year reign was the longest of the kingdom's three monarchs. He was de facto head of state of Serbia from 1914 to 1918 and of Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1921 as regent for his father, Peter I.
Wikipedia source
2000 Patrick Anthony Porteous

Patrick Anthony Porteous

Indian-Scottish colonel, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1918)
Colonel Patrick Anthony Porteous VC, who as a Scottish captain in the British commandos, received the Victoria Cross – the British Commonwealth's highest award for valour – for leading a bayonet charge against a German battery in the Dieppe Raid in 1942. He also saw action with the Royal Artillery in France, being evacuated from Dunkirk, and with No. 4 Commando in the D-Day Normandy landings.
Wikipedia source
2024 Ratan Tata

Ratan Tata

Indian businessman and philanthropist (born 1937)
Ratan Naval Tata was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He served as the chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons from 1991 to 2012, and he held the position of the interim chairman from October 2016 to February 2017. In 2000, he received the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian honour in India, followed by the Padma Vibhushan, the country's second-highest civilian honour, in 2008.
Wikipedia source
1613 Henry Constable

Henry Constable

English poet (born 1562)
Henry Constable was an English poet, known particularly for Diana, one of the first English sonnet sequences. In 1591 he converted to Catholicism, and lived in exile on the continent for some years. He returned to England at the accession of King James, but was soon a prisoner in the Tower and in the Fleet. He died an exile at Liège in 1613.
Wikipedia source

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