Died on Wednesday, 27th August – Famous Deaths

27/08/2024

Bob Carr, American politician (born 1943)

Milton Robert Carr was an American lawyer, academic, and politician from Michigan.

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Juan Izquierdo, Uruguayan footballer (born 1997)

Juan Manuel Izquierdo Viana was a Uruguayan professional footballer who played as a centre-back.

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Charlotte Kretschmann, German supercentenarian (born 1909)

Charlotte Kretschmann was a German supercentenarian and is Germany's oldest-ever person.

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Leonard Riggio, American businessman (born 1941)

Leonard Stephen Riggio was an American businessman. He served as executive chairman of book store chain Barnes & Noble and was its largest shareholder from 1971 until the sale of the company to the hedge fund Elliott Investment Management in 2019. Under his leadership the company expanded significantly from a single retail location on 105 Fifth Avenue in New York City to a nationwide chain with 600+ stores, which it did with acquisitions and mergers of competing chain stores including his takeover of B. Dalton in 1986, which was supported by a major investment from the Dutch retailer Vendex International and Drexel Burnham Lambert–issued junk bonds.

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27/08/2016

Cookie, Australian Major Mitchell's cockatoo, oldest recorded parrot (born 1933)

Cookie was a male pink cockatoo residing at Brookfield Zoo, near Chicago, Illinois, United States. He was believed to be the oldest member of his species alive in captivity, at the age of 82 in June 2015, having significantly exceeded the average lifespan for his kind. He was one of the longest-lived birds on record and was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living parrot in the world.

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27/08/2015

Kazi Zafar Ahmed, Bangladeshi politician, 8th Prime Minister of Bangladesh (born 1939)

Kazi Zafar Ahmad was a Bangladeshi politician of the Jatiya Party, who was Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1989 to 1990.

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Pascal Chaumeil, French director and screenwriter (born 1961)

Pascal Chaumeil was a French director and screenwriter. He started out as an assistant director in the 1980s, working with directors such as Pierre Tchernia and Luc Besson. He was nominated for two César Awards, both for the film Heartbreaker (2010). He died in 2015.

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Darryl Dawkins, American basketball player and coach (born 1957)

Darryl R. Dawkins was an American professional basketball player and coach. A three-time NBA finalist center, he most notably played for the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets with brief tenures at the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz later on. His powerful dunks, which shattered two backboards in 1979, led the NBA to adopt breakaway rims.

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27/08/2014

Jacques Friedel, French physicist and academic (born 1921)

Jacques Friedel ForMemRS was a French physicist and material scientist.

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Valeri Petrov, Bulgarian poet, playwright, and screenwriter (born 1920)

Valeri Petrov, was a popular Bulgarian poet, screenplay writer, playwright and translator of paternal Jewish origin.

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Benno Pludra, German author (born 1925)

Benno Pludra was a German children's author. He was born in Mückenberg, now Lauchhammer-West.

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27/08/2013

Chen Liting, Chinese director and playwright (born 1910)

Chen Liting was a Chinese playwright, drama and film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He was one of the most prominent film directors and screenwriters in pre-Communist China, together with Shi Dongshan, Cai Chusheng, and Zheng Junli. His most famous film was Women Side by Side (1949).

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Bill Peach, Australian journalist (born 1935)

William Norman Peach known as Bill Peach, was an Australian television journalist who hosted the ABC current affairs program This Day Tonight from 1967 to 1975.

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Dave Thomas, Welsh golfer and architect (born 1934)

David Charles Thomas was a Welsh professional golfer and renowned golf course architect.

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27/08/2012

Neville Alexander, South African linguist and activist (born 1936)

Neville Edward Alexander OLS was a proponent of a multilingual South Africa and a former revolutionary who spent ten years on Robben Island as a fellow prisoner of Nelson Mandela.

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Malcolm Browne, American journalist and photographer (born 1931)

Malcolm Wilde Browne was an American journalist and photographer, best known for his award-winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.

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Art Heyman, American basketball player (born 1941)

Arthur Bruce Heyman was an American professional basketball player. Playing for Duke University in college, in 1963 he was USBWA Player of the Year, AP Player of the Year, UPI Player of the Year, Sporting News Player of the Year, Helms Foundation College Player of the Year, a consensus first-team All-American, ACC Player of the Year, and ACC Athlete of the Year. That year he was the first overall pick in the first round of the 1963 NBA draft. He went on to have a 310-game professional career in the NBA and ABA.

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Ivica Horvat, Croatian footballer and manager (born 1926)

Ivan "Ivica" Horvat was a Croatian and Yugoslav professional football player and manager.

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Richard Kingsland, Australian captain and pilot (born 1916)

Sir Richard Kingsland, was an Australian RAAF pilot known for being the youngest Australian group captain at age 29. He later became a senior public servant, heading the Departments of the Interior, Repatriation, and Veterans' Affairs.

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Geliy Korzhev, Russian painter (born 1925)

Geliy Mikhailovich Korzhev-Chuvelyov was a Soviet and Russian painter.

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27/08/2010

Anton Geesink, Dutch martial artist (born 1934)

Antonius Johannes Geesink was a Dutch 10th dan judoka. He was the first non-Japanese judoka to win gold at the World Judo Championships, a feat he accomplished in 1961 and 1965. He was also an Olympic Champion, having won gold at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Japan, and won a record 21 European Judo Championships during his career.

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Luna Vachon, Canadian-American wrestler and manager (born 1962)

Gertrude Elizabeth Vachon was an American-Canadian professional wrestler, better known as Luna Vachon. Over the course of her 22-year career, she wrestled for promotions such as the World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, the American Wrestling Association, and World Championship Wrestling. She was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, and Women's Wrestling Hall of Fame.

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27/08/2009

Sergey Mikhalkov, Russian author and poet (born 1913)

Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov was a Russian author of children's books and satirical fables. He wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems.

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27/08/2007

Emma Penella, Spanish actress (born 1930)

Manuela Ruiz Penella, better known as Emma Penella, was a Spanish film and television actress.

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27/08/2006

Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1922)

Hrishikesh Mukherjee was an Indian film director, editor and writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema. Popularly known as Hrishi-da, he directed 42 films during his career spanning over four decades, and is named the pioneer of the 'middle cinema' of India. Renowned for his social films that reflected the changing middle-class ethos, Mukherjee "carved a middle path between the extravagance of mainstream cinema and the stark realism of art cinema".

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Jesse Pintado, Mexican-American guitarist (born 1969)

Jesus "Jesse" Ernesto Pintado Andrade was a Mexican-American guitarist best known as a guitarist for the British grindcore band Napalm Death.

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27/08/2005

Giorgos Mouzakis, Greek trumpet player and composer (born 1922)

Giorgos Muzakis was a prominent Greek virtuoso trumpeter and music composer.

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Seán Purcell, Irish footballer (born 1929)

Seán Purcell, was a Gaelic footballer who played at senior level for the Galway county team.

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27/08/2004

Willie Crawford, American baseball player (born 1946)

Willie Murphy Crawford was an American professional baseball outfielder. He played in the major leagues with the Los Angeles Dodgers (1964–1975), St. Louis Cardinals (1976), Houston Astros (1977) and Oakland Athletics (1977). Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California. He batted and threw left-handed, and was the father of UCLA football player Willie Crawford who graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1988.

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27/08/2003

Pierre Poujade, French soldier and politician (born 1920)

Pierre Poujade was a French right-wing populist politician after whom the Poujadist movement was named.

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27/08/2002

Edwin Louis Cole, American religious leader and author (born 1922)

Edwin Louis Cole (1922–2002), also known as Ed Cole, was the founder of the Christian Men's Network, an American religious organization devoted to helping Christian men and fathers. He published many books and preached numerous sermons relating to men and religion.

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27/08/2001

Michael Dertouzos, Greek-American computer scientist and academic (born 1936)

Michael Leonidas Dertouzos was a professor in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) from 1974 to 2001.

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Abu Ali Mustafa, Palestinian politician (born 1938)

Mustafa Ali Zabri, better known by his kunya Abu Ali Mustafa and also known as Mustafa Alhaj, was a Palestinian militant who served as the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) from July 2000 until he was assassinated by Israeli forces in a targeted killing on 27 August 2001. Mustafa was succeeded as Secretary General by Ahmad Saadat, and the PFLP subsequently renamed their armed wing in the Palestinian territories the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades.

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27/08/1999

Hélder Câmara, Brazilian archbishop and theologian (born 1909)

Hélder Pessoa Câmara was a Brazilian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Olinda and Recife from 1964 to 1985 during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He was declared a Servant of God in 2015.

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27/08/1998

Essie Summers, New Zealand author (born 1912)

Essie Summers was a New Zealand writer whose romance novels sold more than 19 million copies in 105 countries. She was known as New Zealand's "Queen of Romance."

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27/08/1996

Greg Morris, American actor (born 1933)

Francis Gregory Alan Morris was an American actor. He was best known for portraying Barney Collier on the television series Mission: Impossible and Lieutenant David Nelson on Vega$.

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27/08/1994

Frank Jeske, German footballer (born 1960)

Frank Jeske was a German footballer.

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27/08/1992

Bengt Holbek, Danish folklorist (born 1933)

Bengt Holbek was a Danish folklorist known for his unorthodox approach to folklore theory. He wrote one of the definitive works of fairy tale scholarship entitled Interpretation of Fairy Tales (1987).

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27/08/1990

Avdy Andresson, Estonian soldier and diplomat (born 1899)

Avdy Andresson was the Estonian Minister of War in exile from April 3, 1973, until two months before his death on June 20, 1990, and disputed Commander of Armed Forces from 14 October 1975.

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Stevie Ray Vaughan, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1954)

Stephen Ray Vaughan, also known abbreviated as SRV, was an American musician, best known as the guitarist and frontman of the blues rock trio Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Although his mainstream career spanned only seven years, he is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of blues music, and one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He was the younger brother of guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.

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27/08/1981

Valeri Kharlamov, Russian ice hockey player (born 1948)

Valeri Borisovich Kharlamov was a Russian ice hockey forward who played for CSKA Moscow in the Soviet League from 1967 until his death in 1981. Kharlamov was a speedy, intelligent, skilled and dominant player, being named the Soviet Championship League most valuable player in 1972 and 1973. An offensive player who was considered very creative on the ice, he also led the league in scoring in 1972. He was also a gifted skater who was able to make plays at top speed. Kharlamov was considered one of the best players of his era, as well as one of the greatest players of all time.

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27/08/1980

Douglas Kenney, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (born 1947)

Douglas Clark Francis Kenney was an American comedy writer of magazine, novels, radio, TV and film, who co-founded the magazine National Lampoon in 1970. Kenney edited the magazine and wrote much of its early material. He went on to write, produce, and perform in the influential comedies Animal House and Caddyshack before his death at the age of 33.

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27/08/1979

Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, English admiral and politician, 44th Governor-General of India (born 1900)

Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, commonly known as Lord Mountbatten, was a British statesman, naval officer, and member of the British royal family. A maternal uncle of Prince Philip and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II, he served in the Royal Navy during both world wars and rose to become Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, in the later stages of the Second World War. He subsequently oversaw the transition of British India to independence as the last Viceroy and the first Governor‑General of independent India. As the last viceroy of India, Mountbatten also oversaw its partition into the Dominions of India and Pakistan and the integration of the princely states into India.

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27/08/1978

Gordon Matta-Clark, American painter and illustrator (born 1943)

Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art.

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Ieva Simonaitytė, Lithuanian author and poet (born 1897)

Ieva Simonaitytė or Ewa Simoneit was a Lithuanian writer. She represented the culture of Lithuania Minor and Klaipėda Region, territories of German East Prussia with historically large, but dwindling, Lithuanian populations. She received critical acclaim for her novel Aukštujų Šimonių likimas.

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Helmi Üprus, Estonian art historian (born 1911)

Helmi Üprus was an Estonian architectural and art historian. She trained in romance languages, studied English and ethnography, and earned a master's degree in art history from the University of Tartu in 1936. She worked her way up to head the cultural history department of the Estonian National Museum, where she researched folk art. In 1947, she began working at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR. Persecuted by Stalinism she lost her job in 1950 and worked in a factory until Stalin's death. From 1953, she was the chief specialist in architecture and history for the government monument restoration service.

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27/08/1975

Haile Selassie, Ethiopian emperor (born 1892)

Haile Selassie I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930.

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27/08/1971

Bennett Cerf, American publisher, co-founded Random House (born 1898)

Bennett Alfred Cerf was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his weekly television appearances for 16 years on the panel game show What's My Line?

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Margaret Bourke-White, American photographer and journalist (born 1906)

Margaret Bourke-White was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, representing corporate clients and highlighting the success of industrial capitalism with black and white images of steel factories and skyscrapers. In 1930, she became the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of the Soviet Union. In 1933, she was commissioned to create the NBC photomural, a monumental photomural about radio for its rotunda at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, then considered the largest photomural in the world. The success of her corporate commissions led her to work at Fortune magazine in the 1930s. She took the photograph of the construction of Fort Peck Dam that became the cover of the first issue of Life magazine.

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27/08/1969

Ivy Compton-Burnett, English author (born 1884)

Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, was an English novelist, published in the original editions as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel Mother and Son. Her works consist mainly of dialogue and focus on family life among the late Victorian or Edwardian upper middle class.

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Erika Mann, German actress and author (born 1905)

Erika Julia Hedwig Mann was a German actress and writer, daughter of the novelist Thomas Mann.

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27/08/1968

Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark (born 1906)

Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, later Duchess of Kent, was a Greek and Danish princess by birth and a British princess by marriage. A granddaughter of King George I of Greece and Queen Olga, she was the daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia. In 1934, she married Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary. They had three children: Edward, Alexandra, and Michael. She was widowed in 1942, when her husband was killed in a plane crash while on active service, and remained active in royal duties throughout her later life, attending public engagements across the Commonwealth, including the independence celebrations for Ghana and Botswana. She died in 1968, aged 61.

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27/08/1967

Brian Epstein, English businessman and manager (born 1934)

Brian Samuel Epstein was an English music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1961 until his death in 1967.

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27/08/1965

Le Corbusier, Swiss-French architect and urban planner, designed the Philips Pavilion (born 1887)

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a French-Swiss architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland to French-speaking Swiss parents and acquired French nationality in 1930. He designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and the Americas during a five-decade career. He considered that "the roots of modern architecture are to be found in Viollet-le-Duc."

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27/08/1964

Gracie Allen, American actress and comedian (born 1895)

Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an American vaudevillian, singer, actress, and comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns, her straight man, appearing with him on radio, television and film as the duo Burns and Allen.

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27/08/1963

W. E. B. Du Bois, American sociologist, historian, and activist (born 1868)

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. He completed graduate work at Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He was a professor at Atlanta University and over the course of his life wrote a large number of books and articles. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra on August 27, 1963.

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Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, Pakistani mathematician and scholar (born 1888)

Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, also known by the honorary title Allama Mashriqi, was a British Indian, and later, Pakistani mathematician, logician, political theorist, Islamic scholar and the founder of the Khaksar movement.

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27/08/1958

Ernest Lawrence, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1901)

Ernest Orlando Lawrence was an American accelerator physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for the Manhattan Project, as well as for founding the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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27/08/1956

Pelageya Shajn, Russian astronomer and academic (born 1894)

Pelageya Fedorovna Shajn, née Sannikova, was a Russian astronomer in the Soviet Union, and the first woman credited with the discovery of a minor planet, at the Simeiz Observatory in 1928. Pelageya also discovered numerous variable stars and co-discovered the periodic, Jupiter-family comet 61P/Shajn–Schaldach. She was married to prominent Soviet astronomer Grigory Shajn.

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27/08/1950

Cesare Pavese, Italian author, poet, and critic (born 1908)

Cesare Pavese was an Italian novelist, poet, short story writer, translator, literary critic, and essayist. He is often referred to as one of the most influential Italian writers of his time.

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27/08/1948

Charles Evans Hughes, American lawyer and politician, 11th Chief Justice of the United States (born 1862)

Charles Evans Hughes was an American politician, academic, and jurist who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the 36th governor of New York (1907–1910), an associate justice of the Supreme Court (1910–1916), and 44th U.S. secretary of state (1921–1925). He was the Republican nominee in the 1916 presidential election, narrowly losing to incumbent president Woodrow Wilson.

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27/08/1945

Hubert Pál Álgyay, Hungarian engineer, designed the Petőfi Bridge (born 1894)

Hubert Pál Álgyay was a Hungarian engineer and lecturer.

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27/08/1944

Georg von Boeselager, German soldier (born 1915)

Georg von Boeselager was a German nobleman and an officer in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, who led the Nazi security warfare operations in the Army Group Centre Rear Area on the Eastern Front, calling for extreme measures, including deporting all males in "gang-infested areas" and shooting those who remained.

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27/08/1935

Childe Hassam, American painter and academic (born 1859)

Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.

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27/08/1931

Frank Harris, Irish-American journalist and author (born 1856)

Frank Harris was an Irish-American editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day.

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Willem Hubert Nolens, Dutch priest and politician (born 1860)

Wilhelmus Hubertus "Wiel" Nolens was a Dutch politician and a Roman Catholic priest.

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Francis Marion Smith, American miner and businessman (born 1846)

Francis Marion Smith was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California. He was known nationally and internationally as "Borax Smith" and "The Borax King", as his company produced the popular 20-Mule-Team Borax brand of household cleaner.

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27/08/1929

Herman Potočnik, Croatian-Austrian engineer (born 1892)

Herman Potočnik was an Austro-Hungarian Army officer, electrical engineer and astronautics theorist of Slovenian origin. He is regarded as an early theorist of modern space flight and is remembered mainly for his work concerning the long-term human habitation of space.

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27/08/1922

Reşat Çiğiltepe, Turkish colonel (born 1879)

Reşat Çiğiltepe was an officer of the Ottoman Army and the Turkish Army, having fought in the Balkan wars, and in World War 1 during the Gallipoli campaign and the Battle of Muş. He committed suicide on 27 August 1922 during the Battle of Dumlupınar, because he promised the commander of the Turkish forces, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, that he would capture the strategically-located village of Hacan located on a hill within 30 minutes. Because his unit failed to achieve that objective, he committed suicide. The village was captured 45 minutes after his death, and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Independence. He is one of the most honored heroes of the Turkish War of Independence.

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27/08/1909

Emil Christian Hansen, Danish physiologist and mycologist (born 1842)

Emil Christian Hansen was a Danish mycologist and fermentation physiologist.

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27/08/1903

Kusumoto Ine, first Japanese female doctor of Western medicine (born 1827)

Kusumoto Ine was a Japanese physician. She was the first female doctor of Western medicine in Japan.

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27/08/1891

Samuel C. Pomeroy, American businessman and politician (born 1816)

Samuel Clarke Pomeroy was a United States senator from Kansas in the mid-19th century. He served in the United States Senate during the American Civil War. Pomeroy also served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. A Republican, he also was the mayor of Atchison, Kansas, from 1858 to 1859, the second president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and the first president to oversee any of the railroad's construction and operations. Pomeroy succeeded Cyrus K. Holliday as president of the railroad on January 13, 1864.

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27/08/1875

William Chapman Ralston, American businessman and financier, founded the Bank of California (born 1826)

William Chapman Ralston was a San Francisco businessman and financier, and the founder of the Bank of California.

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27/08/1871

William Whiting Boardman, American lawyer and politician (born 1794)

William Whiting Boardman was a politician and United States Representative from Connecticut.

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27/08/1865

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Canadian judge and politician (born 1796)

Thomas Chandler Haliburton was a Nova Scotian politician, judge, and author who was the first international best-selling fiction author from what is now Canada, and who served as a Conservative Member of Parliament in England. He was the father of the British civil servant Lord Haliburton and of the anthropologist Robert Grant Haliburton.

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27/08/1857

Rufus Wilmot Griswold, American anthologist, poet, and critic (born 1815)

Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic. Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15 years old. He worked as a journalist, editor, and critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere. He built a strong literary reputation, in part due to his 1842 collection The Poets and Poetry of America. This anthology, the most comprehensive of its time, included what he deemed the best examples of American poetry. He produced revised versions and similar anthologies for the remainder of his life, although many of the poets he promoted have since faded into obscurity. Many writers hoped to have their work included in one of these editions, although they commented harshly on Griswold's abrasive character. Griswold was married three times: his first wife died young, his second marriage ended in a public and controversial divorce, and his third wife left him after the previous divorce was almost repealed.

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27/08/1828

Eise Eisinga, Dutch astronomer and academic, built the Eisinga Planetarium (born 1744)

Eise Jeltes Eisinga was a Frisian astronomer who built the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in his house in Franeker, Dutch Republic. The orrery still exists and is the oldest functioning planetarium in the world.

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27/08/1782

John Laurens, American Revolutionary and abolitionist (born 1754)

John Laurens was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, best known for his efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for their freedom as U.S. soldiers.

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27/08/1748

James Thomson, Scottish poet and playwright (born 1700)

James Thomson was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for his poems The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence, and for the lyrics of "Rule, Britannia!"

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27/08/1664

Francisco de Zurbarán, Spanish painter and educator (born 1598)

Francisco de Zurbarán was a Spanish Baroque painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname "Spanish Caravaggio", owing to the forceful use of chiaroscuro in which he excelled.

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27/08/1635

Lope de Vega, Spanish poet and playwright (born 1562)

Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist who was a key figure in the Spanish Golden Age (1492–1659) of Baroque literature. In the literature of Spain, Lope de Vega is often considered second only to Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes said that Lope de Vega was “The Phoenix of Wits” and “Monster of Nature”.

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27/08/1611

Tomás Luis de Victoria, Spanish composer (born c. 1548)

Tomás Luis de Victoria was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus as among the principal composers of the late Renaissance, and was "admired above all for the intensity of some of his motets and of his Offices for the Dead and for Holy Week". His surviving oeuvre, unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. As a Catholic priest, as well as an accomplished organist and singer, his career spanned both Spain and Italy. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer.

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27/08/1590

Pope Sixtus V (born 1521)

Pope Sixtus V, born Felice Piergentile, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 April 1585 to his death, in August 1590. As a youth, he joined the Franciscan order, where he displayed talents as a scholar and preacher, and enjoyed the patronage of Pius V, who made him a cardinal. As a cardinal, he was known as Cardinal Montalto.

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27/08/1576

Titian, Italian painter and educator (born 1488)

Tiziano Vecellio, Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian, was an Italian Renaissance painter. The most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting, he was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.

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27/08/1545

Piotr Gamrat, Polish archbishop (born 1487)

Piotr Gamrat of Sulima arms was Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland.

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27/08/1521

Josquin des Prez, Flemish composer (born 1450)

Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez was a singer and composer of Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of predecessors like Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of polyphony that emphasized the relationship between text and music. Josquin preferred motifs to melisma, and his compositions are mainly vocal works like masses, motets, and secular chansons.

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27/08/1450

Reginald West, 6th Baron De La Warr, English politician (born 1395)

Reginald West, 6th Baron De La Warr and 3rd Baron West was an English nobleman and politician.

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27/08/1394

Emperor Chōkei of Japan (born 1343)

Emperor Chōkei was the 98th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He reigned from 1368 through 1383. His personal name was Yutanari (寛成) and his regal name roughly translates to "Long Celebration".

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27/08/1312

Arthur II, Duke of Brittany (born 1261)

Arthur II, of the House of Dreux, was Duke of Brittany from 1305 to his death. He was the first son of John II and Beatrice, daughter of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence.

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27/08/1255

Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (born 1247)

Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy whose death in Lincoln was falsely attributed to Jews. He is sometimes known as Little Saint Hugh or Little Sir Hugh to distinguish him from the adult saint, Hugh of Lincoln. The boy Hugh was not formally canonised, so "Little Saint Hugh" is a misnomer.

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27/08/1146

King Eric III of Denmark

Eric III Lamb was King of Denmark from 1137 until 1146. He was the grandson of Eric I and the nephew of Eric II, whom he succeeded on the throne. He abdicated in 1146, becoming the first monarch of Denmark to do so voluntarily, and the only until Margrethe II in 2024. His succession led to a period of civil war between Sweyn III, Canute V, and Valdemar I.

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27/08/0923

Ageltrude, queen of Italy and Holy Roman Empress

Ageltrude or Agiltrude was the Empress and Queen of Italy as the wife of Guy. She was the regent for her son Lambert and actively encouraged him in opposing the Carolingians, and in influencing papal elections in their favour.

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27/08/0827

Pope Eugene II

Pope Eugene II was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 6 June 824 to his death on 27 August 827. A native of Rome, he was chosen by nobles to succeed Paschal I as pope despite the clergy and the people favoring Zinzinnus. The influence of the Carolingian Franks on the selection of popes was then firmly established. Pope Eugene convened a council at Rome in 826 to condemn simony and suspend untrained clergy. It was decreed that schools were to be established at cathedral churches and other places to give instruction in sacred and secular literature. His involvement in the Byzantine Iconoclasm controversy was largely inconsequential.

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27/08/0749

Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i, Persian general

Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i was a follower of the Abbasids from Khurasan who played a leading role in the Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate.

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27/08/0542

Caesarius of Arles, French bishop and saint (born 470)

Caesarius of Arles, sometimes called "of Chalon" from his birthplace Chalon-sur-Saône, was the foremost ecclesiastic of his generation in Merovingian Gaul. Caesarius is considered to be of the last generation of church leaders of Gaul who worked to integrate large-scale ascetic elements into the Western Christian tradition. William E. Klingshirn's study of Caesarius depicts Caesarius as having the reputation of a "popular preacher of great fervour and enduring influence". Among those who exercised the greatest influence on Caesarius were Augustine of Hippo, Julianus Pomerius, and John Cassian.

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