Died on Friday, 4th April – Famous Deaths

04/04/2025

Manoj Kumar, Indian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1937)

Harikrishan Giri Goswami, professionally known as Manoj Kumar, was an Indian actor, director, screenwriter, lyricist and editor who worked in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most accomplished actors of Indian cinema. He is noted for his acting in patriotism-themed films. In a career spanning over four decades, he worked in 55 films.

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Tony Rundle, Australian politician, 40th Premier of Tasmania (born 1939)

Anthony Maxwell Rundle AO was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Tasmania from March 1996 until September 1998. He succeeded Ray Groom and was succeeded himself by Jim Bacon. He was a Liberal who held the seat of Braddon between 1986 and 2002. A former journalist, he was married to Caroline Watt. He had twin daughters from his first marriage.

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04/04/2024

Lynne Reid Banks, British author (born 1929)

Lynne Reid Banks was a British author of books for children and adults, including The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 15 million copies and has been successfully adapted to film. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, published in 1960, was an instant and lasting best seller. It was later made into a movie of the same name and led to two sequels, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely. Banks also wrote a biography of the Brontë family, entitled Dark Quartet, and a sequel about Charlotte Brontë, Path to the Silent Country.

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Thomas Gumbleton, American Roman Catholic prelate (born 1930)

Thomas John Gumbleton was an American Catholic prelate and a prominent social activist. Gumbleton served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit from 1968 to 2006. According to Gumbleton, the Vatican forced him to resign as auxiliary bishop when he publicly supported the passage of a state legislative bill in another diocese without the approval of that diocese's bishop.

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Pat Zachry, American baseball player (born 1952)

Patrick Paul Zachry was an American professional baseball pitcher. He pitched in Major League Baseball for the Cincinnati Reds, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Philadelphia Phillies from 1976 to 1985.

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04/04/2016

Chus Lampreave, Spanish actress (born 1930)

María Jesús Lampreave Pérez, known professionally as Chus Lampreave, was a Spanish character actress who starred in more than 70 films. She is known internationally for her roles in films by Pedro Almodóvar.

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04/04/2015

Jamaluddin Jarjis, Malaysian engineer and politician (born 1951)

Jamaluddin bin Mohd Jarjis was a Malaysian politician, diplomat and Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. He served as the Chairman of the 1 Malaysia Peoples' Housing (PR1MA) and Malaysian special envoy to the United States.

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Elmer Lach, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1918)

Elmer James Lach was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 14 seasons for the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey League (NHL). A centre, he was a member of the Punch line, along with Maurice Richard and Toe Blake. Lach led the NHL in scoring twice and was awarded the Hart Trophy in 1945 as the league's most valuable player.

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Donald N. Levine, American sociologist and academic (born 1931)

Donald Nathan Levine was an American sociologist, educator, social theorist and writer at the University of Chicago, where he served as Dean of the college. Within sociology, he is perhaps best known for his work in sociological theory and his translations and interpretations of Georg Simmel's classical texts into English, which led to a resurgence of interest in Simmel's work in the discipline. He was also a central figure in Ethiopian Studies.

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Klaus Rifbjerg, Danish author and poet (born 1931)

Klaus Rifbjerg was a Danish writer. He authored more than 170 novels, books and essays. In 1965 he co-produced the film 4x4 which was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.

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04/04/2014

İsmet Atlı, Turkish wrestler and trainer (born 1931)

İsmet Atlı was a Turkish Olympic medalist sports wrestler in the Light heavyweight class and a trainer. He won the gold medal in Men's Freestyle wrestling at the 1960 Olympics.

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Wayne Henderson, American trombonist and producer (born 1939)

Wayne Maurice Henderson was an American jazz fusion and soul jazz trombonist and record producer. In 1961, he co-founded the soul jazz/jazz fusion group The Jazz Crusaders. Henderson left the group in 1976 to pursue a career in producing, but revived The Jazz Crusaders in 1995.

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Kumba Ialá, Bissau-Guinean soldier and politician, President of Guinea-Bissau (born 1953)

Kumba Yalá Embaló, also spelled Ialá, was a Bissau-Guinean politician who was president from 17 February 2000 until he was deposed in a bloodless military coup on 14 September 2003. He belonged to the Balanta ethnic group and was President of the Social Renewal Party (PRS). In 2008 he converted to Islam and took the name Mohamed Yalá Embaló. He was the founder of the Party for Social Renewal.

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Margo MacDonald, Scottish journalist and politician (born 1943)

Margo Symington MacDonald was a Scottish politician, teacher and broadcaster. She was the Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Govan from 1973 to 1974 and was Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party from 1974 to 1979. She later served as an SNP and then Independent Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Lothian from 1999 until her death.

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Curtis Bill Pepper, American journalist and author (born 1917)

Curtis Bill Pepper was an American journalist and author, who published seven books. He was Newsweek's Mediterranean bureau chief in Rome from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s. He also worked for Edward R. Murrow at the Rome bureau of CBS, and covered the Vatican for United Press. His last work, Leonardo, was a biographical novel of Leonardo da Vinci. It was conceived in the years following his studies of the Italian Renaissance at the University of Florence.

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Muhammad Qutb, Egyptian author and academic (born 1919)

Muhammad Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb was an Islamic scholar and the younger brother of the Egyptian revolutionary Sayyid Qutb. After his brother was executed by the Egyptian government, Muhammad moved to Saudi Arabia, where he promoted his brother's ideas.

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04/04/2013

Bengt Blomgren, Swedish actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1923)

Bengt Bertil Blomgren was a Swedish actor, film director and screenwriter, born in Stockholm.

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Roger Ebert, American journalist, critic, and screenwriter (born 1942)

Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic", and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America". Per The New York Times, "The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw."

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Carmine Infantino, American illustrator (born 1925)

Carmine Infantino was an American comics artist and editor, primarily for DC Comics, during the late 1950s and early 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comic Books. Among his character creations are the Black Canary and the Silver Age version of the Flash with writer Robert Kanigher, Elongated Man with John Broome, the Barbara Gordon incarnation of Batgirl with writer Gardner Fox, Deadman with writer Arnold Drake, and Christopher Chance, the second iteration of the Human Target, with Len Wein.

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Tommy Tycho, Hungarian-Australian pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1928)

Thomas Tycho AM MBE DMus was a Hungarian-born Australian pianist, conductor, composer and arranger. He was active in both classical music and pop.

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Ian Walsh, Australian rugby player and coach (born 1933)

Ian John Walsh was an Australian professional rugby league footballer and coach. He was a hooker with the St. George Dragons from 1962 to 1967 and played in the last five of the Dragons' historic 11 consecutive premiership winning teams. He captained St. George in the last of its 11 successive Grand Final wins in 1966 and led The Saints again when their premiership winning streak ended in 1967. He was a representative for Australia and captained them in 10 Test matches from 1963 to 1966.

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Noboru Yamaguchi, Japanese author (born 1972)

Noboru Yamaguchi was a Japanese light novel and game scenario author from Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. He was well known for being the author of The Familiar of Zero light novels and visual novels by Frontwing.

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04/04/2012

A. Dean Byrd, American psychologist and academic (born 1948)

Albert Dean Byrd was a former president of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a research organization that advocates sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). He was a psychologist who focused on SOCE, and wrote on the topic. Although raised by a Buddhist mother and a Baptist father, Byrd converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was very active in the debate within the church on issues involving homosexuality.

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Dimitris Christoulas, Greek pensioner who committed suicide in public (born 1935)

Dimitris Christoulas was a Greek pensioner who committed suicide in Syntagma Square in Athens on April 4, 2012.

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Anne Karin Elstad, Norwegian author and educator (born 1938)

Anne Karin Elstad was a Norwegian author known for her book series featuring the character Julie.

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Claude Miller, French director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1942)

Claude Miller was a French film director, producer and screenwriter.

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Dubravko Pavličić, Croatian footballer (born 1967)

Dubravko Pavličić was a Croatian footballer who played as a central defender.

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Roberto Rexach Benítez, Puerto Rican academic and politician, 10th President of the Senate of Puerto Rico (born 1929)

Roberto Nicolás Rexach Benítez also known as his stage name Bobby, was a Puerto Rican politician, and former Senator and Representative. Rexach Benítez served as the tenth President of the Senate of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 1996. He also served as a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives from 1973 to 1976, under the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) and as a member of the Senate (1985–1998) under the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP).

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04/04/2011

Scott Columbus, American drummer (born 1956)

Manowar is an American heavy metal band from Auburn, New York. Formed in 1980, the group is known for lyrics based on fantasy and mythology as well as numerous songs celebrating the genre and its core audience. The band is also known for a loud and emphatic sound. In an interview for MTV in February 2007, bassist Joey DeMaio lamented that "these days, there's a real lack of big, epic metal that is drenched with crushing guitars and choirs and orchestras... so it's nice to be one of the few bands that's actually doing that". In 1984, Manowar was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering the loudest performance, a record that they have since broken on two occasions. They also hold the world record for the longest heavy metal concert after playing for five hours and one minute in Bulgaria in 2008. They are known for their slogan "death to false metal".

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Ned McWherter, American politician, 46th Governor of Tennessee (born 1930)

Ned Ray McWherter was an American businessman and politician who served as the 46th governor of Tennessee, from 1987 to 1995. Prior to that, he served as the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1973 to 1987, the longest tenure as Speaker up to that time. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

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Juliano Mer-Khamis, Israeli actor, director, and activist (born 1958)

Juliano Mer-Khamis was an Israeli–Palestinian actor, director, filmmaker, and political activist of Jewish and Palestinian Eastern Orthodox Christian parentage. On 4 April 2011, he was assassinated by a masked gunman in the city of Jenin, where he had established The Freedom Theatre.

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04/04/2009

Maxine Cooper, American actress, activist and photographer (born 1924)

Gladys Maxine Cooper was an American actress, activist, and photographer. She was perhaps best known for her role as private detective Mike Hammer's secretary Velda in the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly, which the Los Angeles Times called a "film noir classic."

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04/04/2008

Francis Tucker, South African race car driver (born 1923)

Francis Bagnal Kidger Tucker was a South African rally driver, who was the 1966 South African Rally Drivers Champion.

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04/04/2007

Bob Clark, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1941)

Benjamin Robert Clark was an American film director and screenwriter. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was responsible for some of the most successful films in Canadian film history such as Black Christmas (1974), Murder by Decree (1979), Tribute (1980), Porky's (1981) and A Christmas Story (1983). He won a trio of Genie Awards with two additional nominations.

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Karen Spärck Jones, English computer scientist and academic (born 1935)

Karen Ida Boalth Spärck Jones was a self-taught programmer and a pioneering British computer and information scientist responsible for the concept of inverse document frequency (IDF), a technology that underlies most modern search engines. She was an advocate for women in computer science, her slogan being, "Computing is too important to be left to men." In 2019, The New York Times published her belated obituary in its series Overlooked, calling her "a pioneer of computer science for work combining statistics and linguistics, and an advocate for women in the field." From 2008, to recognise her achievements in the fields of information retrieval (IR) and natural language processing (NLP), the Karen Spärck Jones Award is awarded annually to a recipient for outstanding research in one or both of her fields.

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04/04/2005

Edward Bronfman, Canadian businessman and philanthropist (born 1924)

Edward Maurice Bronfman was a Canadian businessman, philanthropist, and member of the Bronfman family.

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04/04/2004

Briek Schotte, Belgian cyclist and coach (born 1919)

Alberic "Briek" Schotte was a Belgian professional road racing cyclist, one of the champions of the 1940s and 1950s. His stamina earned him the nickname "Iron Briek".

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04/04/2003

Anthony Caruso, American actor (born 1916)

Anthony Caruso was an American character actor in more than one hundred American films. He was known for his villains and gangsters, including the first season of Walt Disney's Zorro as Captain Juan Ortega, and in numerous films noirs.

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04/04/2001

Liisi Oterma, Finnish astronomer (born 1915)

Liisi Oterma was a Finnish astronomer, the first woman to get a Ph.D. degree in astronomy in Finland.

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Ed Roth, American illustrator and engineer (born 1932)

Edward "Big Daddy" Roth was an American artist, cartoonist, illustrator, pinstriper and custom car designer and builder who created the hot rod icon Rat Fink and other characters. Roth was a key figure in Southern California's Kustom Kulture and hot rod movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.

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Maury Van Vliet, American-Canadian academic (born 1913)

Maurice Lewis (Maury) Van Vliet, was a USA-born Canadian academic who taught physical education and fitness.

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04/04/1999

Lucille Lortel, American actress, artistic director and producer (born 1900)

Lucille Lortel was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for Tony Awards: As Is by William M. Hoffman, Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Mbongeni Ngema's Sarafina!, and A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing. She also produced Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, a production which ran for seven years and according to The New York Times "caused such a sensation that it...put Off-Broadway on the map."

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Early Wynn, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1920)

Early Wynn Jr., nicknamed "Gus", was an American professional baseball right-handed pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Washington Senators, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox, during his 23-year MLB career. Wynn was identified as one of the most intimidating pitchers in the game, having combined his powerful fastball with a hard attitude toward batters. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

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04/04/1997

Leo Picard, German-Israeli geologist and academic (born 1900)

Leo Picard, was an Israeli geologist and an expert in the field of hydrogeology.

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Alparslan Türkeş, Turkish colonel and politician, 39th Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey (born 1917)

Alparslan Türkeş was a Turkish politician, who was the founder and president of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Grey Wolves (Ülkü Ocakları). He ran the Grey Wolves training camps from 1968 to 1978. More than 600 people are said to have fallen victim of political murders by the Grey Wolves between 1968 and 1980. He represented the far-right of the Turkish political spectrum. He was and still is called Başbuğ ("Leader") by his devotees.

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04/04/1996

Barney Ewell, American runner and long jumper (born 1918)

Henry Norwood "Barney" Ewell was an American athlete, and winner of one gold and two silver medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics.

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Boone Guyton, American lieutenant and pilot (born 1913)

Boone Tarleton Guyton United States Navy, was a naval aviator, experimental test pilot, author and businessman. In a flying career spanning the biplane era through the jet age, Guyton was perhaps best known for his test pilot years at Vought-Sikorsky and his participation in the development of the F4U Corsair and various other military aircraft including the OS2U Kingfisher and the radical Vought V-173 flying pancake.

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04/04/1995

Kenny Everett, English radio and television host (born 1944)

Kenny Everett was an English radio DJ and television comedian, known for his zany comedic style.

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Priscilla Lane, American actress (born 1915)

Priscilla Lane was an American actress, and the youngest sibling in the Lane Sisters' family of singers and actresses. She is best remembered for her roles in the films The Roaring Twenties (1939) co-starring with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; Saboteur (1942), an Alfred Hitchcock film in which she plays the heroine; and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), in which she portrays Cary Grant's fiancée and bride.

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04/04/1993

Alfred Mosher Butts, American game designer, invented Scrabble (born 1899)

Alfred Mosher Butts was an American architect, famous for inventing the board game Scrabble in 1931.

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Douglas Leopold, Canadian radio and television host (born 1947)

Douglas Leopold, nicknamed Coco, was a television and radio personality in Quebec, along with being a public relations specialist.

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04/04/1992

Yvette Brind'Amour, Canadian actress and director (born 1918)

Yvette Brind'Amour, was a Canadian actress.

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Jack Hamilton, Australian footballer (born 1928)

Jack Hamilton was an Australian rules football player in the Victorian Football League (VFL) before becoming a prominent administrator.

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Arthur Russell, American singer-songwriter and cellist (born 1951)

Charles Arthur Russell Jr. was an American cellist, composer, producer, singer, and musician from Iowa, whose work spanned a disparate range of styles. After studying contemporary composition and Indian classical music in California, Russell relocated to New York City in the mid-1970s, where he became involved in Lower Manhattan's avant-garde community and later the city's burgeoning disco scene. His eclectic music was often marked by adventurous production choices and his soft tenor vocals.

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04/04/1991

Edmund Adamkiewicz, German footballer (born 1920)

Edmund "Adam" Adamkiewicz was a German footballer.

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Max Frisch, Swiss playwright and novelist (born 1911)

Max Rudolf Frisch was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity, individuality, responsibility, morality, and political commitment. The use of irony is a significant feature of his post-war output. Frisch was one of the founders of Gruppe Olten. He was awarded the 1965 Jerusalem Prize, the 1973 Grand Schiller Prize, and the 1986 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

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H. John Heinz III, American soldier and politician (born 1938)

Henry John Heinz III was an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator from Pennsylvania from 1977 until his death in 1991. An heir to the Heinz family fortune, Heinz entered politics in 1971 when he won a special election to replace Robert Corbett to represent Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district. In 1976, Heinz ran to replace retiring Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott. Heinz narrowly won in the Republican primary over future Senator Arlen Specter and defeated William Green III in the general election. Heinz won re-election in 1982 and 1988 by large margins. On April 4, 1991, Heinz was killed when his plane, facing mechanical problems, collided with a helicopter inspecting the plane, killing all involved in the crash.

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Graham Ingels, American illustrator (born 1915)

Graham John Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig. Ingels' flair for horror led EC to promote him as Ghastly Graham Ingels, and he began signing his work "Ghastly" in 1952.

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04/04/1987

C. L. Moore, American author and academic (born 1911)

Catherine Lucille Moore was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, who first came to prominence in the 1930s writing as C. L. Moore. She was among the first women to write in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Moore's work paved the way for many other female speculative fiction writers.

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Chögyam Trungpa, Tibetan guru, poet, and scholar (born 1939)

Chögyam Trungpa, formally named the 11th Zurmang Trungpa, Chokyi Gyatso, was a Tibetan Buddhist master and holder of both Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He was recognized by both Tibetan Buddhists and other spiritual practitioners and scholars as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a major figure in the dissemination of Buddhism in the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method. The 11th of the Trungpa tülkus, he was a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of Shambhala Buddhist tradition.

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Sachchidananda Vatsyayan, Indian journalist and author (born 1911)

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan, popularly known by his pen name Agyeya, was an Indian writer, poet, novelist, literary critic, journalist, translator and revolutionary in Hindi language. He pioneered modern trends in Hindi poetry, as well as in fiction, criticism and journalism. He is regarded as the pioneer of the Prayogavaad (experimentalism) movement in modern Hindi literature.

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04/04/1985

Kate Roberts, Welsh author and activist (born 1891)

Kate Roberts was one of the foremost Welsh-language authors of the 20th century. Styled Brenhines ein llên, she is known mainly for her short stories, but also wrote novels. Roberts was a prominent Welsh nationalist. In 1963, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Welsh scholar Idris Foster.

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04/04/1984

Oleg Antonov, Russian-Ukrainian engineer and businessman, founded Antonov Design Bureau (born 1906)

Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov was a Soviet aeroplane designer.

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04/04/1983

Gloria Swanson, American actress (born 1899)

Gloria Mae Josephine Swanson was an American actress. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most famously for her 1950 turn in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, which earned her a Golden Globe Award.

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Bernard Vukas, Croatian football player, played for 1953 FIFA's "Rest of the World" team against England at Wembley (born 1927)

Bernard Vukas was a Croatian footballer who played for Yugoslavia.

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04/04/1980

Red Sovine, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1917)

Woodrow Wilson "Red" Sovine was an American country music singer and songwriter associated with truck-driving country songs, particularly those recited as narratives but set to music. His most noted examples are "Giddyup Go" (1965) and "Teddy Bear" (1976), both of which topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

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04/04/1979

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani lawyer and politician, 4th President of Pakistan (born 1928)

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto NPk was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and later as the ninth prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 until his overthrow in 1977. He was also the founder and first chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from 1967 until his execution in 1979.

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Edgar Buchanan, American actor (born 1903)

William Edgar Buchanan II was an American actor with a long career in both film and television. He is most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s.

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04/04/1977

Andrey Dikiy, Ukrainian-American journalist, historian, and politician (born 1893)

Andrey Ivanovich Dikiy, real surname Zankevich (Занкевич) was a white émigré Russian Nazi collaborator, writer and journalist who served as the Deputy Head of the civilian administration of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) and as a volunteer for the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) under Andrey Vlasov. Known for his radical antisemitism and anti-Ukrainian sentiment, Dikiy has been described by Christian essayist Dmitry Talantsev as one of the main theorists of Judeophobia.

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04/04/1976

Harry Nyquist, Swedish engineer and theorist (born 1889)

Harry Theodor Nyquist was a Swedish-American physicist and electronic engineer who made important contributions to communication theory.

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04/04/1972

Adam Clayton Powell Jr., American pastor and politician (born 1908)

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.

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Stefan Wolpe, German-American composer and academic (born 1902)

Stefan Wolpe was a German-born American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz movement to the Eighth Street Artists' Club, Black Mountain College, and the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. He lived and worked in Berlin (1902–1933) until the Nazi seizure of power forced him to move first to Vienna (1933–34) and Jerusalem (1934–38) before settling in New York City (1938–72). In works such as Battle Piece (1942/1947) and "In a State of Flight" in Enactments for Three Pianos (1953), he responded self-consciously to the circumstances of his uprooted life, a theme he also explored extensively in voluminous diaries, correspondence, and lectures. His densely eclectic music absorbed ideas and idioms from diverse artistic milieus, including post-tonality, bebop, and Arab classical musics.

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04/04/1968

Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (assassinated) (born 1929)

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.

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04/04/1967

Al Lewis, American songwriter (born 1901)

Al Lewis was an American lyricist, songwriter and music publisher. He is thought of mostly as a Tin Pan Alley era lyricist; however, he did write music on occasion as well. Professionally he was most active during the 1920s working into the 1950s. During this time, he most often collaborated with songwriters such as Al Sherman and Abner Silver. Among his most famous songs are "Blueberry Hill" and "You Gotta Be a Football Hero".

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Héctor Scarone, Uruguayan footballer and manager (born 1898)

Héctor Pedro Scarone Berreta was a Uruguayan footballer who played as inside forward. Known as "the Gardel of Football" and El Mago due to his extraordinary skills with the ball, Scarone was considered one of the best players in the world during his time. He was crowned world champion three times, after winning the editions of the 1924 and 1928 Olympic football tournaments, along with the first World Cup in 1930.

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04/04/1963

Oskari Tokoi, Finnish socialist and the Chairman of the Senate of Finland (born 1873)

Antti Oskari Tokoi was a Finnish socialist politician who served as a leader of the Social Democratic Party of Finland. Tokoi became Chairman of the Senate of Finland in 1917, and thus, he was the world's first social democratic leader of the government. During the short-lived Revolution of 1918, Tokoi participated as a leading figure in the revolutionary government. Tokoi later emigrated to the United States, where he served as the long-time editor of Raivaaja, the newspaper of the Finnish Socialist Federation.

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04/04/1961

Harald Riipalu, Estonian military commander (born 1912)

Harald Riipalu was an Estonian commander in the German Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.

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Simion Stoilow, Romanian mathematician and academic (born 1873)

Simion Stoilow or Stoilov was a Romanian mathematician, creator of the Romanian school of complex analysis, and author of over 100 publications.

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04/04/1959

Florence Goodenough, American child psychologist (born 1886)

Florence Laura Goodenough was an American psychologist and professor at the University of Minnesota who studied child intelligence and various problems in the field of child development. She was president of the Society for Research in Child Development from 1946 to 1947. She is best known for publishing the book Measurement Of Intelligence By Drawings, where she introduced the Goodenough Draw-A-Man test to assess intelligence in young children through nonverbal measurement. She is noted for developing the Minnesota Preschool Scale. In 1931, she published two books, titled Experimental Child Study and Anger in Young Children, which analyzed the methods used in evaluating children. She wrote the Handbook of Child Psychology in 1933, becoming the first known psychologist to critique ratio IQ.

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04/04/1958

Johnny Stompanato, American soldier and bodyguard (born 1925)

John Stompanato Jr. was a United States Marine and gangster who became a bodyguard and enforcer for the gangster Mickey Cohen.

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04/04/1957

E. Herbert Norman, Canadian historian and diplomat (born 1909)

Egerton Herbert Norman was a Canadian diplomat and historian. Born in Japan to missionary parents, he became a historian of modern Japan before joining the Canadian foreign service. His most influential book was Japan's Emergence as a Modern State (1940) where he argued that persisting feudal class relations were responsible for government oppression at home and the imperialistic expansion that led to World War II in Asia. During the Red Scare of the 1950s Norman was accused of being a communist or even a spy, though investigations found no corroboration and he was defended by Canadian authorities. He committed suicide in 1957.

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04/04/1953

Carol II of Romania (born 1893)

Carol II was King of Romania from 8 June 1930 following a coup that deposed his son until his forced abdication on 6 September 1940. As the eldest son of King Ferdinand I, he was crown prince from the death of his granduncle, King Carol I, in 1914 until he was forced to renounce his right to the throne in 1925.

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04/04/1951

George Albert Smith, American religious leader, 8th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (born 1870)

George Albert Smith Sr. was an American religious leader who served as the eighth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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04/04/1944

Morris H. Whitehouse, American architect (born 1878)

Morris Homans Whitehouse was an American architect whose work included the design of the Gus Solomon United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.

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04/04/1933

Elizabeth Bacon Custer, American author and educator (born 1842)

Elizabeth Bacon Custer was the wife of George Armstrong Custer, United States Army. She spent most of their twelve-year marriage in relative proximity to him despite his numerous military campaigns in the American Civil War and subsequent postings on the Great Plains as a commanding officer in the United States Cavalry.

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04/04/1932

Wilhelm Ostwald, Latvian-German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1853)

Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst and Svante Arrhenius. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his scientific contributions to the fields of catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities.

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04/04/1931

André Michelin, French businessman, co-founded the Michelin Tyre Company (born 1853)

André Jules Michelin was a French industrialist who, with his brother Édouard (1859–1940), founded the Michelin Tyre Company in 1888 in the French city of Clermont-Ferrand.

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04/04/1929

Karl Benz, German engineer and businessman, founded Mercedes-Benz (born 1844)

Carl Friedrich Benz was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent-Motorwagen from 1885 is considered the first practical, modern automobile and the first car to be put into series production. He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886, the same year he first publicly drove the Benz Patent-Motorwagen.

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04/04/1928

Konstantinos Maleas, Greek painter (born 1879)

Konstantinos Maleas was one of the most important Post-Impressionist Greek painters of the 20th century. Along with Konstantinos Parthenis, he is sometimes considered Greece's most important modern artist.

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04/04/1923

John Venn, English mathematician and philosopher, created the Venn diagram (born 1834)

John Venn, FRS, FSA was an English mathematician, logician and philosopher noted for introducing Venn diagrams, which are used in logic, set theory, probability, statistics, and computer science. In 1866, Venn published The Logic of Chance, a groundbreaking book which espoused the frequency theory of probability, arguing that probability should be determined by how often something is forecast to occur as opposed to "educated" assumptions. Venn then further developed George Boole's theories in the 1881 work Symbolic Logic, where he highlighted what would become known as Venn diagrams.

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04/04/1919

William Crookes, English chemist and physicist (born 1832)

Sir William Crookes was an English chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube, which was made in 1875. Observing cathode rays generated in these tubes, Crookes posited that "radiant matter" was a unique fourth state of matter, a foundational contribution to plasma physics.

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Francisco Marto, Portuguese saint (born 1908)

Francisco de Jesus Marto and Jacinta de Jesus Marto were siblings from Aljustrel, a small hamlet near Fátima, Portugal, who, with their cousin Lúcia dos Santos (1907–2005), reportedly witnessed three apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916, and several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria in 1917. The title Our Lady of Fátima was given to the Virgin Mary as a result, and the Sanctuary of Fátima became a major centre of global Catholic pilgrimage.

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04/04/1913

Emmanouil Argyropoulos, Greek pioneer aviator (born 1889)

Emmanouil Argyropoulos was a Greek pioneer aviator of the early 20th century. Apart from being the first Greek aviator who performed a flight over his homeland, he also became the first casualty of Greek military aviation.

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Konstantinos Manos, Greek politician, poet, soldier and sportsman (born 1869)

Konstantinos Manos was a Greek politician, poet, soldier and sportsman and former mayor of Chania.

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04/04/1912

Charles Brantley Aycock, American lawyer and politician, 50th Governor of North Carolina (born 1859)

Charles Brantley Aycock was the 50th governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. After starting his career as a lawyer and teacher, he became active in the Democratic Party during the Solid South period, and made his reputation as a prominent segregationist as the lead perpetrator of the Wilmington massacre.

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Isaac K. Funk, American minister, lexicographer, and publisher, co-founded Funk & Wagnalls (born 1839)

Isaac Kaufmann Funk was an American Lutheran minister, editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformer. He was the co-founder of Funk & Wagnalls Company, the father of author Wilfred J. Funk, and the grandfather of author Peter Funk, who continued his father's authorship of Word Power until 2003. Funk & Wagnalls Company published The Literary Digest, The Standard Dictionary of the English Language, and Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia.

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04/04/1890

Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Premier of Quebec (born 1820)

Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau was a Canadian lawyer and politician. Chauveau was the first premier of Quebec, following the establishment of Canada in 1867. Appointed to the office in 1867 as the leader of the Conservative Party, he won the provincial elections of 1867 and 1871. He resigned as premier and his seat in the provincial Legislative Assembly in 1873.

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Edmond Hébert, French geologist and academic (born 1812)

Edmond Hébert, French geologist, was born at Villefargau, Yonne.

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04/04/1883

Peter Cooper, American businessman and philanthropist, founded Cooper Union (born 1791)

Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, served as its first president, and stood for election as the Greenback Party's candidate in the 1876 presidential election.

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04/04/1879

Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, German physicist and meteorologist (born 1803)

Heinrich Wilhelm Dove was a Prussian physicist and meteorologist.

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04/04/1878

Richard M. Brewer, American criminal (born 1850)

Richard M. Brewer, was an American cowboy and Lincoln County lawman. He was the founding leader of the Regulators, a deputized posse that fought in the Lincoln County War.

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04/04/1875

Karl Mauch, German geographer and explorer (born 1837)

Karl Gottlieb Mauch was a German explorer and geographer of Africa. He reported on the archaeological ruins of Great Zimbabwe in 1871 during his search for the biblical land of Ophir.

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04/04/1874

Charles Ernest Beulé, French archaeologist and politician (born 1826)

Charles Ernest Beulé was a French archaeologist and politician.

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04/04/1870

Heinrich Gustav Magnus, German chemist and physicist (born 1802)

Heinrich Gustav Magnus was a German experimental scientist. His training was mostly in chemistry but his later research was mostly in physics. He spent the great bulk of his career at the University of Berlin, where he is remembered for his laboratory teaching as much as for his original research. He did not use his first given name, and was known throughout his life as Gustav Magnus.

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04/04/1864

Joseph Pitty Couthouy, American commander and paleontologist (born 1808)

Joseph Pitty Couthouy was an American naval officer, conchologist, and invertebrate palaeontologist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he entered the Boston Latin School in 1820. He married Mary Greenwood Wild on 9 March 1832.

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04/04/1863

Ludwig Emil Grimm, German painter and engraver (born 1790)

Ludwig Emil Grimm was a German painter, art professor, etcher and copper engraver.

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04/04/1861

John McLean, American jurist and politician, 6th United States Postmaster General (born 1785)

John McLean was an American jurist and politician who served in the United States Congress, as U.S. Postmaster General, and as a justice of the Ohio and United States Supreme Courts. He was often discussed for the Whig Party nominations for president, and is also one of the few people who served in all three branches of government.

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04/04/1846

Solomon Sibley, American lawyer and politician, 1st Mayor of Detroit (born 1769)

Solomon Sibley was an American politician and jurist in the Michigan Territory who became the first mayor of Detroit.

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04/04/1841

William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (born 1773)

William Henry Harrison was the ninth president of the United States, serving from March 4 to April 4, 1841, the shortest presidency in U.S. history. He was also the first U.S. president to die in office, causing a brief constitutional crisis, since presidential succession was not then fully defined in the U.S. Constitution. Harrison was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia, and a son of Benjamin Harrison V, who was a U.S. Founding Father. His own son John Scott Harrison was the father of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd U.S. president.

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04/04/1817

André Masséna, French general (born 1758)

André Masséna, prince d'Essling, duc de Rivoli, was a French military commander of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was one of the original eighteen Marshals of the Empire created by Napoleon I, who nicknamed him "the dear child of victory". He is considered to be one of the greatest generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

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04/04/1807

Jérôme Lalande, French astronomer and academic (born 1732)

Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He is known for having estimated a precise value of the astronomical unit using measurements of the transit of Venus in 1769.

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04/04/1792

James Sykes, American lawyer and politician (born 1725)

James Sykes was an American lawyer and politician from Dover, in Kent County, Delaware. He served in the Delaware General Assembly and was a Continental Congressman from Delaware.

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04/04/1774

Oliver Goldsmith, Irish novelist, playwright and poet (born 1728)

Oliver Goldsmith was an Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and hack writer. He produced literary works in a variety of genres and is regarded as one of the most versatile writers of the Georgian era. His works are known for their realistic depictions of British society, and his comedy plays for the English stage are considered second in importance only to those of playwright William Shakespeare. Credited with introducing sentimentalism in English literature in 18th-century Great Britain, several of Goldsmith's publications are popular classics of the period, including his only novel, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), and the comedy play She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

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04/04/1766

John Taylor, English librarian and scholar (born 1704)

John Taylor, English classical scholar, was born at Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England.

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04/04/1761

Théodore Gardelle, Swiss painter (born 1722)

Théodore Gardelle was a painter and enameller.

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04/04/1743

Daniel Neal, English historian and author (born 1678)

Daniel Neal was an English historian.

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04/04/1661

Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven, Scottish field marshal (born 1580)

Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven was a Scottish army officer. Born illegitimate and raised as a foster child, he subsequently advanced to the rank of field marshal in the Swedish Army and a major leader of the Thirty Years' War, and in Scotland became Lord General in command of the Army of the Covenanters, a privy councillor, captain of Edinburgh Castle, Lord Balgonie and Earl of Leven. In England he commanded the Army of the Solemn League and Covenant and was senior commander of the Army of Both Kingdoms (1642–1647). Leslie served in the Thirty Years' War, the Bishops' Wars, and most of the English Civil War, fighting primarily in the First English Civil War. Leslie would live a long life, dying roughly at the age of 80 or 81.

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04/04/1643

Simon Episcopius, Dutch theologian and academic (born 1583)

Simon Episcopius was a Dutch theologian and Remonstrant who played a significant role at the Synod of Dort in 1618. His name is the Latinized form of his Dutch name Simon Bisschop.

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04/04/1617

John Napier, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (born 1550)

John Napier of Merchiston, nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms. He also invented the Napier's bones calculating device and popularised the use of the decimal point in arithmetic.

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04/04/1609

Carolus Clusius, Flemish botanist, mycologist, and academic (born 1526)

Charles de l'Écluse, L'Escluse, or Carolus Clusius, seigneur de Watènes, was an Artois doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th-century scientific horticulturists.

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04/04/1596

Philip II, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen (born 1533)

Philip II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a member of the House of Welf, was the last ruler of the Principality of Grubenhagen from 1595 until his death. When he died in 1596, the Grubenhagen branch of the Welfs became extinct, whereafter the principality was occupied by Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

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04/04/1589

Benedict the Moor, Sicilian Franciscan friar and saint (born 1526) 1

Benedict the Moor, also known as Benedict of Palermo, Benedict the Black, or Benedict the African, was a Afro-Sicilian Franciscan friar. He was born to enslaved Africans in San Fratello, Sicily and freed at birth. He became known for his charity.

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04/04/1588

Frederick II, king of Denmark and Norway (born 1534)

Frederick II was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Schleswig and Holstein from 1559 until his death in 1588.

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04/04/1538

Elena Glinskaya, Grand Princess and regent of Russia

Elena Vasilyevna Glinskaya was the grand princess consort of Moscow as the second wife of Vasili III of Russia, and de facto regent of Russia from 1533 until her death in 1538. She was the mother of the first crowned tsar Ivan IV.

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04/04/1536

Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (born 1460)

Frederick I of Ansbach and Bayreuth was born at Ansbach as the eldest son of Albert III, Margrave of Brandenburg by his second wife Anna, daughter of Frederick II, Elector of Saxony. His elder half-brother was the Elector John Cicero of Brandenburg. Friedrich succeeded his father as Margrave of Ansbach in 1486 and his younger brother Siegmund as Margrave of Bayreuth in 1495.

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04/04/1483

Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex (born c. 1405)

Henry Bourchier, 5th Baron Bourchier, 2nd Count of Eu, 1st Viscount Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex, was the eldest son of William Bourchier, 1st Count of Eu, and Anne of Gloucester. On his mother's side, he was a great-grandson of Edward III of England.

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04/04/1406

Robert III, king of Scotland (born 1337)

Robert III, born John Stewart, was King of Scots from 1390 to his death in 1406. He was also High Steward of Scotland from 1371 to 1390 and held the titles of Earl of Atholl (1367–1390) and Earl of Carrick (1368–1390) before ascending the throne at about the age of 53 years. He was the eldest son of King Robert II and Elizabeth Mure and was legitimized by the second marriage of his parents and by papal dispensation in 1349.

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04/04/1292

Nicholas IV, pope of the Catholic Church (born 1227)

Pope Nicholas IV was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1288 to his death, on 4 April 1292. He was the first Franciscan to be elected pope.

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04/04/1284

Alfonso X, king of Castile and León (born 1221)

Alfonso X was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1 June 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germany on 1 April. He renounced his claim to Germany in 1275, and in creating an alliance with the Kingdom of England in 1254, his claim on the Duchy of Gascony as well.

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04/04/0991

Reginold, bishop of Eichstätt

Reginold of Eichstätt was Bishop of Eichstätt from 966 to 991, much 'admired as a poet, musician, scholar and orator' and indeed 'the leading musician of his age'.

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04/04/0968

Abu Firas al-Hamdani, Arab prince and poet (born 932)

Al-Harith ibn Abi’l-ʿAlaʾ Saʿid ibn Hamdan al-Taghlibi (932–968), better known by his pen name Abu Firas al-Hamdani, was an Arab prince and poet. He was a cousin of Sayf al-Dawla and a member of the Hamdanid dynasty, who were rulers in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia during the 10th century. He served Sayf al-Dawla as governor of Manbij as well as court poet, and was active in his cousin's wars against the Byzantine Empire. He was captured by the Byzantines in 959/962 and spent several years at their capital, Constantinople, where he composed his most famous work, the collection of poems titled al-Rūmiyyāt (الروميات). He was ransomed in 966, and was killed in 968, when he raised a revolt against his nephew Sa'd al-Dawla, Sayf al-Dawla's successor. He is considered among the greatest figures of classical Arabic poetry.

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04/04/0931

Kong Xun, Chinese official and governor (born 884)

Kong Xun, known early in his life as Zhao Yinheng (趙殷衡), also having used surnames of Li (李) and Zhu (朱) early in life, was an official of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period states Later Liang and Later Tang. He became prominent during the reign of Emperor Mingzong of Later Tang due to his alliance with Emperor Mingzong's trusted advisor An Chonghui, but later had a fallout with An, was ejected from the central government, and would not return to it toward the end of his life.

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04/04/0911

Liu Yin, Chinese warlord and governor (born 874)

911 (CMXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.

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04/04/0896

Formosus, pope of the Catholic Church (born 816)

Pope Formosus was the pope and ruler of the Papal States from 6 October 891 until his death on 4 April 896. His reign as Pope was troubled, marked by interventions in power struggles over the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Kingdom of West Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire. Because he sided with Arnulf of Carinthia against Lambert of Spoleto, Formosus's remains were exhumed and put on trial in the Cadaver Synod. Several of his immediate successors were primarily preoccupied by the controversial legacy of his pontificate, noting his desertion from the diocese in Portus to pursue personal ambition in Rome. Formosus was seen as failing to uphold the ideals of the Church, which is why Stephen VI judged him for moving into an elevated role while holding another. Due to these controversies, no other pope has ever taken on the papal name Formosus.

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04/04/0814

Plato of Sakkoudion, Byzantine monk and saint (born 735)

Plato the Studite, also Plato of Sakkoudion, was a Byzantine minor official who became a monk in 759. After refusing the metropolitan see of Nicomedia or the headship of a monastery in Constantinople, in 783 he founded the monastery of Sakkoudion on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, of which he became the first abbot. He is notable, along with his nephew Theodore Stoudites, for his iconodule stance during the Byzantine Iconoclasm and his participation in the Second Council of Nicaea, and to his firm opposition to the second marriage of Emperor Constantine VI to his (Plato's) niece Theodote. He was canonized by the Church, and his feast day is April 4.

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04/04/0636

Isidore of Seville, Spanish archbishop and saint (born 560)

Isidore of Seville was a Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".

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04/04/0397

Ambrose, Roman archbishop and saint (born 338)

Ambrose of Milan, canonized as Saint Ambrose, was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promoting Nicene Christianity against Arianism and paganism. He left a substantial collection of writings, of which the best known include the ethical commentary De officiis ministrorum (377–391), and the exegetical Exameron (386–390). His preaching, his actions and his literary works, in addition to his innovative musical hymnography, made him one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century.

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