Died on Tuesday, 22nd April – Famous Deaths

22/04/2023

Len Goodman, English ballroom dancer and television personality (born 1944)

Leonard Gordon Goodman was an English professional ballroom dancer, dance teacher, and dance competition adjudicator. He appeared as head judge on the British television programme Strictly Come Dancing – in which various celebrities compete for the glitterball trophy – from its beginning in 2004 until 2016, and on the American television programme Dancing with the Stars from 2005 until 2022. He also ran a ballroom dance school in Dartford, Kent.

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22/04/2022

Guy Lafleur, Canadian ice hockey player (born 1951)

Guy Damien Lafleur, nicknamed "the Flower" and "Le Démon Blond", was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He was the first player in National Hockey League (NHL) history to score 50 goals in six consecutive seasons as well as 50 goals and 100 points in six consecutive seasons. Between 1971 and 1991, Lafleur played right wing for the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Quebec Nordiques in an NHL career spanning 17 seasons, and five Stanley Cup championships in 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979. Lafleur was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988, named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history in 2017, and was named to the Order of Hockey in Canada in 2022.

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22/04/2021

Adrian Garrett, American professional baseball player (born 1943)

Henry Adrian Garrett Jr., nicknamed "Pat" and "Smokey", was an American professional baseball player and coach. A utility man in Major League Baseball, he appeared in 163 total games during eight seasons between 1966 and 1976 for the Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics and California Angels. He batted left-handed, threw right-handed, and was listed at 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and 185 pounds (84 kg).

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22/04/2020

Shirley Knight, American actress (born 1936)

Shirley Knight Hopkins was an American actress who appeared in more than 50 feature films, television films, television series, and Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in her career, playing leading and character roles. She was a member of the Actors Studio.

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22/04/2017

Donna Leanne Williams, Australian writer, artist, and activist (born 1963)

Donna Leanne Williams, also known by her married name Donna Leanne Samuel and as Polly Samuel, was an Australian writer, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter, and sculptor.

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22/04/2015

Dick Balharry, Scottish environmentalist and photographer (born 1937)

Richard Balharry was a Scottish conservationist, writer, and wildlife photographer.

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22/04/2014

Oswaldo Vigas, Venezuelan painter (born 1926)

Oswaldo Vigas was a Venezuelan artist who worked as a painter, muralist, and sculptor. His body of work encompassed paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, and tapestries. He integrated pre-Columbian with modernist and contemporary artistic currents. He lived and worked in France and Venezuela.

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22/04/2013

Richie Havens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1941)

Richard Pierce Havens was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar style. He was the opening act at Woodstock, sang many jingles for television commercials, and was also the voice of the GeoSafari toys.

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Lalgudi Jayaraman, Indian violinist and composer (born 1930)

Lalgudi Gopala Iyer Jayaraman was an Indian Carnatic violinist, vocalist and composer. He is commonly grouped with M.S. Gopalakrishnan and T.N.Krishnan as part of the violin trinity of Carnatic music. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2001.

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Robert Suderburg, American pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1936)

Robert Charles Suderburg was an American composer, conductor, and pianist.

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22/04/2012

George Rathmann, American chemist, biologist, and businessman (born 1927)

George Blatz Rathmann (1927–2012) was an American chemist, biologist, pioneer in biotechnology and corporate executive. In 1980 he co-founded and served as the first CEO of Amgen, and later founded Icos.

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22/04/2010

Richard Barrett, American lawyer and activist (born 1943)

Richard Barrett was an American white nationalist, lawyer and self-proclaimed leader in the nationalist Skinheadz movement. Barrett was a speaker and editor of the All The Way monthly newsletter. He was general counsel of the white nationalist organisation, Nationalist Movement, which he founded in Mississippi.

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22/04/2009

Jack Cardiff, British cinematographer, director and photographer (born 1914)

Jack Cardiff was a British cinematographer, film and television director, and photographer. His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor, to filmmaking more than half a century later.

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22/04/2007

Juanita Millender-McDonald, American educator and politician (born 1938)

Juanita Millender-McDonald was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1996 until her death in 2007, representing California's 37th congressional district, which includes most of South Central Los Angeles and the city of Long Beach, California. She was a member of the Democratic Party.

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22/04/2006

Henriette Avram, American computer scientist and academic (born 1919)

Henriette Davidson Avram was a computer programmer and systems analyst who developed the MARC format, the international data standard for bibliographic and holdings information in libraries. Avram's development of the MARC format in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the Library of Congress had a revolutionizing effect on the practice of librarianship, making possible the automation of many library functions and the sharing of bibliographic information electronically between libraries using pre-existing cataloging standards.

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Alida Valli, Italian actress (born 1921)

Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg, better known by her stage name Alida Valli, or simply Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, spanning from the 1930s to the early 2000s. She was one of the biggest stars of Italian film during the Fascist era, once being called "the most beautiful woman in the world" by Benito Mussolini, and was internationally successful post-World War II.

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22/04/2005

Erika Fuchs, German translator (born 1906)

Erika Fuchs, née Petri, was a German translator. She is largely known in Germany for her major involvement in the localization process of American Disney comics, especially Carl Barks' stories about Duckburg and its inhabitants, as well the effects on the German language as a whole caused thereby.

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Philip Morrison, American physicist and academic (born 1915)

Philip Morrison was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and for his later work in quantum physics, nuclear physics, high energy astrophysics, and SETI.

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Eduardo Paolozzi, Scottish sculptor and artist (born 1924)

Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art.

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22/04/2003

Felice Bryant, American songwriter (born 1925)

Felice Bryant and Diadorius Boudleaux Bryant were an American husband-and-wife country music and pop songwriting team. They are best known for songs such as "Rocky Top", "We Could", "Love Hurts", and numerous hits by the Everly Brothers, including "All I Have to Do Is Dream" and "Bird Dog", "Bye Bye Love", and "Wake Up Little Susie".

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22/04/1999

Munir Ahmad Khan, Pakistani nuclear engineer (born 1926)

Munir Ahmad Khan, NI, HI, FPAS, was a Pakistani nuclear engineer who is credited, among others, with being the "father of the atomic bomb program" of Pakistan for his leading role in developing the nation's nuclear weapons.

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22/04/1996

Erma Bombeck, American journalist and author (born 1927)

Erma Louise Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper humor column describing suburban home life, syndicated from 1965 to 1996. Fifteen books of her humor have been published; most became bestsellers.

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Jug McSpaden, American golfer and architect (born 1908)

Harold Lee "Jug" McSpaden was an American professional golfer, and golf course architect.

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22/04/1995

Jane Kenyon, American poet and author (born 1947)

Jane Kenyon was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subject of many of his poems.

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22/04/1994

Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States (born 1913)

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in both houses of the United States Congress before serving as the 36th vice president under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.

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22/04/1990

Albert Salmi, American actor (born 1928)

Albert Salmi was an American actor of stage, film, and television. Best known for his work as a character actor, he appeared in over 150 film and television productions.

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22/04/1989

Emilio G. Segrè, Italian-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1905)

Emilio Gino Segrè was an Italian-American nuclear physicist and radiochemist who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959, along with Owen Chamberlain.

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22/04/1988

Grigori Kuzmin, Russian-Estonian astronomer and academic (born 1917)

Grigori Kuzmin was an Estonian astronomer, who worked mainly in the field of stellar dynamics.

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Irene Rich, American actress (born 1891)

Irene Frances Rich was an American actress who worked in both silent films, talkies, and radio.

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22/04/1987

Erika Nõva, Estonian architect (born 1905)

Erika Nõva née Volberg was an Estonian architect, remembered mainly for her farmhouse designs. She was the first woman to graduate as an architect in Estonia.

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22/04/1986

Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian and author (born 1907)

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but actually participate in them.

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22/04/1985

Paul Hugh Emmett, American chemist and academic (born 1900)

Paul Hugh Emmett was an American chemist best known for his pioneering work in the field of catalysis and for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He spearheaded the research to separate isotopes of uranium and to develop a corrosive uranium gas. Emmett also made significant contributions to BET Theory which explains the relationship between surface area and gas adsorption. He served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University for 23 years throughout his scientific career.

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Jacques Ferron, Canadian physician and author (born 1921)

Jacques Ferron was a Canadian physician and author.

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22/04/1984

Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist (born 1902)

Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating "pure" photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. He and Fred Archer developed a system of image-making called the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a technical understanding of how the tonal range of an image is the result of choices made in exposure, negative development, and printing.

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22/04/1983

Earl Hines, American pianist and bandleader (born 1903)

Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".

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22/04/1980

Jane Froman, American actress and singer (born 1907)

Ellen Jane Froman was an American actress and singer. During her 30-year career, she performed on stage, radio, and television despite chronic health problems due to injuries sustained in a 1943 plane crash.

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Fritz Strassmann, German chemist and physicist (born 1902)

Friedrich Wilhelm Strassmann was a German chemist who, with Otto Hahn in December 1938, identified the element barium as a product of the bombardment of uranium with neutrons. Their observation was the key piece of evidence necessary to identify the previously unknown phenomenon of nuclear fission, as was subsequently recognized and published by Lise Meitner and Robert Frisch.

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22/04/1978

Will Geer, American actor (born 1902)

Will Geer was an American actor, musician, and social activist who was active in labor organizing and communist movements in New York City and Southern California in the 1930s and 1940s. In California, he befriended rising singer Woody Guthrie. They both lived in New York City for a time in the 1940s. He was blacklisted in the 1950s by Hollywood after refusing, in testimony before Congress, to name persons who had joined the Communist Party USA.

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22/04/1951

Horace Donisthorpe, English myrmecologist and coleopterist (born 1870)

Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe was an eccentric British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus Lasius after him as Donisthorpea, and for his many claims of discovering new species of beetles and ants.

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22/04/1950

Charles Hamilton Houston, American lawyer and academic (born 1895)

Charles Hamilton Houston Sr. was an American lawyer. He was the dean of Howard University Law School and NAACP first special counsel. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Houston played a significant role in dismantling Jim Crow laws, especially combating segregation in schools and racial housing covenants. He earned the title "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow".

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22/04/1945

Wilhelm Cauer, German mathematician and academic (born 1900)

Wilhelm Cauer was a German mathematician and scientist. He is most noted for his work on the analysis and synthesis of electrical filters and his work marked the beginning of the field of network synthesis. Prior to his work, electronic filter design used techniques which accurately predicted filter behaviour only under unrealistic conditions. This required a certain amount of experience on the part of the designer to choose suitable sections to include in the design. Cauer placed the field on a firm mathematical footing, providing tools that could produce exact solutions to a given specification for the design of an electronic filter.

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Käthe Kollwitz, German painter and sculptor (born 1867)

Käthe Kollwitz was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman not only to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts but also to receive honorary professor status.

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22/04/1933

Henry Royce, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited (born 1863)

Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines that had a reputation for reliability and longevity. He and his two business associates Charles Rolls (1877–1910) and Claude Johnson (1864–1926) together founded the Rolls-Royce Limited company in 1904.

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22/04/1932

Ferenc Oslay, Hungarian-Slovene historian and author (born 1883)

Ferenc Oslay was a Hungarian-Slovene historian, writer, Trianon irredentist, and propagandist.

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22/04/1929

Henry Lerolle, French painter and art collector (born 1848)

Henry Lerolle was a French painter, art collector and patron, born in Paris. He studied at Académie Suisse and in the studio of Louis Lamothe.

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22/04/1925

André Caplet, French composer and conductor (born 1878)

André Léon Caplet was a French composer and conductor of classical music. He was a friend of Claude Debussy who orchestrated several of his compositions, as well as arrangements of several of them for different instruments.

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22/04/1908

Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1836)

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. He also was Secretary of State for War twice, in the cabinets of Gladstone and Rosebery. He was the first First Lord of the Treasury to be officially called the "Prime Minister", the term only coming into official usage five days after he took office. He remains the only person to date to hold the positions of Prime Minister and Father of the House at the same time, and the last Liberal leader to gain a UK parliamentary majority.

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22/04/1896

Thomas Meik, English engineer, founded Halcrow Group (born 1812)

Thomas Meik was a 19th-century Scottish engineer.

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22/04/1894

Kostas Krystallis, Greek author and poet (born 1868)

Kostas Krystallis was an ethnic Aromanian, Greek author and poet, representative of 19th century Greek pastoral literature. He was born an Ottoman subject in Epirus, but escaped to Greece after being denounced to the authorities for writing a patriotic collection of poetry. Krystallis initially wrote his works in archaic language, but after 1891 he adopted the vernacular (Demotic) Greek language and became influenced by the New Athenian school. He was a pictorial writer, with a love of nature, while most of his work was based on traditional folk poetry.

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22/04/1893

Chaim Aronson, Lithuanian businessman and author (born 1825)

Chaim Aronson was a Lithuanian Jewish inventor and memoirist.

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22/04/1892

Édouard Lalo, French violinist and composer (born 1823)

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer, violist, violinist, and academic teacher. His most celebrated piece is the Symphonie Espagnole, a five-movement concerto for violin and orchestra that remains a popular work in the standard repertoire.

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22/04/1877

James P. Kirkwood, Scottish-American engineer (born 1807)

James Pugh Kirkwood was a 19th-century American civil engineer, and general superintendent of the Erie Railroad in the year 1849–1850. He left the Erie to go to the southwest to construct railroads, and he made the first survey for the Pacific Railroad west from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. The towns of Kirkwood, Missouri and Kirkwood, New York are named in his honor. He served as president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) from 1867 to 1868.

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22/04/1871

Martín Carrera, Mexican general and president (1855) (born 1806)

Antonio Martín Mariano Carrera Sabat was a Mexican general, senator, and interim president of the country for about a month in 1855. He was a moderate Liberal.

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22/04/1854

Nicolás Bravo, Mexican general and politician, 11th President of Mexico (born 1786)

Nicolás Bravo Rueda was a Mexican soldier and politician who served as interim President of Mexico three times, in 1839, 1842, and 1846. Previously, he fought in the Mexican War of Independence, and served as Mexico's first Vice President under President Guadalupe Victoria from 1824 until 1827, when he attempted to overthrow Victoria. He was also the fourth vice president under President Mariano Paredes in 1846, and served in the Mexican–American War.

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22/04/1850

Friedrich Robert Faehlmann, Estonian philologist and physician (born 1798)

Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (Fählmann) was an Estonian writer, medical doctor and philologist. He was a co-founder of the Learned Estonian Society and its chairman (1843-1850).

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22/04/1833

Richard Trevithick, English engineer and explorer (born 1771)

Richard Trevithick was a British inventor and mining engineer. The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He was an early pioneer of steam-powered road and rail transport, and his most significant contributions were the development of the first high-pressure steam engine and the first working railway steam locomotive. The world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.

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22/04/1821

Gregory V of Constantinople, Greek patriarch and saint (born 1746)

Gregory V of Constantinople, born Georgios Angelopoulos, was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1797 to 1798, from 1806 to 1808, and from 1818 to 1821. He was responsible for much restoration work to the Patriarchal Cathedral of St George, which had been badly damaged by fire in 1738.

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22/04/1806

Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, French admiral (born 1763)

Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve was a French Navy officer who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was in command of a Franco-Spanish fleet which was defeated by the British Royal Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

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22/04/1778

James Hargreaves, British inventor (born 1720)

James Hargreaves was an English weaver, carpenter and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in 1764.

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22/04/1758

Antoine de Jussieu, French botanist and physician (born 1686)

Antoine de Jussieu was a French naturalist, botanist, and physician. The standard author abbreviation Ant.Juss. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

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22/04/1699

Hans Erasmus Aßmann, German poet (born 1646)

Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz was a statesman and poet from the second Silesian school. He lived in Bohemia.

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22/04/1672

Georg Stiernhielm, Swedish linguist and poet (born 1598)

Georg Stiernhielm was a Swedish civil servant, mathematician, linguist and poet. He has been called "the father of the Swedish skald art".

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22/04/1616

Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (born 1547)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his two-part novel Don Quixote, a work considered to be the first modern novel. Don Quixote has been labelled by many well-known authors as the "best book of all time" and the "best and most central work in world literature".

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22/04/1585

Henry of Saxe-Lauenburg, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück and Paderborn (born 1550)

Henry of Saxe-Lauenburg was a Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, then Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, then Prince-Bishop of Paderborn.

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22/04/1355

Eleanor of Woodstock, countess regent of Guelders, eldest daughter of King Edward II of England (born 1318)

Eleanor of Woodstock was an English princess and the duchess of Guelders and countess of Zutphen by marriage to Reginald II of Guelders. She was regent as the guardian of their minor son Reginald III from 1343 until 1344. She was a younger sister of Edward III of England.

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22/04/1322

Francis of Fabriano, Italian writer (born 1251)

Francesco da Fabriano - born Francesco Venimbeni - was an Italian Roman Catholic professed member from the Order of Friars Minor. He was a noted writer on various theological and biblical matters and was known for his great breadth of theological knowledge that characterized his religious life.

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22/04/1208

Philip of Poitou, Prince-Bishop of Durham

Philip of Poitou was Bishop of Durham from 1197 to 1208, and prior to this Archdeacon of Canterbury.

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22/04/0846

Wuzong, Chinese emperor (born 814)

Emperor Wuzong of Tang, né Li Chan, later changed to Li Yan just before his death, was an emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, reigning from 840 to 846. Emperor Wuzong is mainly known in modern times for the religious persecution that occurred during his reign. However, he was also known for his successful reactions against incursions by remnants of the Uyghur Khanate and the rebellion by Liu Zhen, as well as his deep trust and support for chancellor Li Deyu.

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22/04/0835

Kūkai, Japanese Buddhist monk, founder of Esoteric (Shingon) Buddhism (born 774)

Kūkai , born Saeki no Mao posthumously called Kōbō Daishi , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi under the monk Huiguo. Upon returning to Japan, he founded Shingon—the Japanese branch of Vajrayana Buddhism. With the blessing of several Emperors, Kūkai was able to preach Shingon teachings and found Shingon temples. Like other influential monks, Kūkai oversaw public works and constructions. Mount Kōya was chosen by him as a holy site, and he spent his later years there until his death in 835 CE.

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22/04/0613

Saint Theodore of Sykeon

Saint Theodore of Sykeon, also known as Theodore the Sykeote, was a revered Byzantine ascetic, who lived between the first half of the 6th century and the thirteenth year of the Emperor Heraclius' rule in the early 7th century. His hagiography, written after 641, is a key primary source for the reign of Emperor Heraclius. His feast day is 22 April.

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22/04/0591

Peter III of Raqqa

Peter III of Callinicum was the Patriarch of Antioch and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 581 until his death in 591. He is commemorated as a saint by the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Martyrology of Rabban Sliba, and his feast day is 22 April.

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22/04/0536

Pope Agapetus I

Pope Agapetus I was the bishop of Rome from 13 May 535 to his death on 22 April 536. His father, Gordianus, was a priest in Rome and he may have been related to two popes, Felix III and Gregory I.

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22/04/0296

Pope Caius

Pope Caius, also called Gaius, was the bishop of Rome from 17 December 283 to his death in 296. Little information on Caius is available except that given by the Liber Pontificalis, which relies on a legendary account of the martyrdom of Susanna of Rome for its information. According to legend, Caius baptized the men and women who had been converted by Tiburtius and Castulus. His legend states that Caius took refuge in the catacombs of Rome and died a martyr.

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