Died on Wednesday, 6th August – Famous Deaths

06/08/2024

Billy Bean, American baseball player (born 1964)

William Daro Bean was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers (1987–1989), Los Angeles Dodgers (1989), and San Diego Padres (1993–1995), as well as the Kintetsu Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in 1992. In July 2014, he was named MLB's first ambassador for inclusion, having publicly come out as gay in 1999. In January 2016, he became MLB's vice president, ambassador for inclusion and was senior vice president and special assistant to the commissioner.

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Connie Chiume, South African actress and filmmaker (born 1952)

Connie Temweka Gabisile Chiume was a South African actress and filmmaker. She was known for her film roles in Black Panther, Black Is King and Blessers. On television, she appeared in S'gudi S'nyasi, Yizo Yizo 2, Zone 14, Rhythm City and Gomora.

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James Bjorken, American theoretical physicist (born 1934)

James Daniel "BJ" Bjorken was an American theoretical physicist. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1954, received a BS in physics from MIT in 1956, and obtained his PhD from Stanford University in 1959. Bjorken was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the fall of 1962. He was also emeritus professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and was a member of the Theory Department of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (1979–1989).

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06/08/2020

Vern Rumsey, American bass guitarist (born 1973)

Vernon Emmry Aldo Rumsey was an American musician. He is best known for his work as the bassist of the post-hardcore band Unwound, in which he was a co-founding member. He was also in the bands Long Hind Legs, Oslo, Fitz of Depression, and Witchypoo, and was playing in the band Flora v. Fauna.

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06/08/2018

Joël Robuchon, French Chef (born 1945)

Joël Robuchon was a French chef and restaurateur. He was named "Chef of the Century" by the guide Gault Millau in 1989, and awarded the Meilleur Ouvrier de France in cuisine in 1976. He published several cookbooks, two of which have been translated into English, chaired the committee for the Larousse Gastronomique, and hosted culinary television shows in France. He operated more than a dozen restaurants across Bangkok, Bordeaux, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London, Macau, Madrid, Monaco, Montreal, Paris, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, and New York City. His restaurants have been acclaimed, and he held 31 Michelin Guide stars among them by the time of his death in 2018, the most any restaurateur has ever held. He is considered to be one of the greatest chefs of all time.

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Margaret Heckler, American politician (born 1931)

Margaret Mary Heckler was an American politician and diplomat who represented Massachusetts's 10th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1967 until 1983. A member of the Republican Party, she also served as the 15th United States secretary of health and human services from 1983 to 1985, as well as United States ambassador to Ireland from 1986 to 1989.

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Anya Krugovoy Silver, American poet (born 1968)

Anya Krugovoy Silver was an American poet. She won a Guggenheim fellowship, and a Georgia Author of the Year Award.

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06/08/2017

Betty Cuthbert, Australian sprinter (born 1938)

Elizabeth Alyse Cuthbert, was an Australian athlete and a four-time Olympic champion. She was nicknamed Australia's "Golden Girl". During her career, she set world records for 60 metres, 100 yards, 200 metres, 220 yards and 440 yards. Cuthbert also contributed to Australian relay teams completing a win in the 4 × 100 metres, 4 × 110 yards, 4 × 200 metres and 4 × 220 yards. Cuthbert had a distinctive running style, with a high knee lift and mouth wide open. She was named in 1998 an Australian National Treasure and was inducted as a Legend in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame in 2000.

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Darren Daulton, American baseball player (born 1962)

Darren Arthur Daulton, nicknamed "Dutch", was an American professional baseball catcher who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida Marlins (1997). While with the Phillies, Daulton was a three-time MLB All-Star and won the 1992 Silver Slugger Award. He won the 1997 World Series with the Marlins.

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06/08/2015

Ray Hill, American football player (born 1975)

Raymond Millous Hill was a college and professional American football player. He was a defensive back at Michigan State, and played four seasons in the National Football League (NFL), splitting three seasons between the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills. He was signed by the New England Patriots as a free agent in 2001, and was part of their Super Bowl XXXVI championship season. He suffered a leg injury during the 2001 preseason, and was placed on injured reserve for the entire season. His younger brother Renaldo Hill, also played in the NFL.

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Orna Porat, German-Israeli actress (born 1924)

Orna Porat was a German-born Israeli theater actress.

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06/08/2014

Ralph Bryans, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (born 1941)

Ralph Bryans was a Grand Prix motorcycle road racer from Northern Ireland. Bryans was Ireland's only Grand Prix world champion, winning the 50 cc title in 1965.

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Ananda W.P. Guruge, Sri Lankan scholar and diplomat (born 1928)

Ananda Wahihana Palliya Guruge, known as Ananda W. P. Guruge, was a Sri Lankan diplomat, Buddhist scholar and writer. Guruge was the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka to UNESCO, France, and United States from 1985 to 1994. Guruge was adjunct professor of Religious Studies at Cal State Fullerton and was the dean of academic affairs at University of the West.

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John Woodland Hastings, American biochemist and academic (born 1927)

John Woodland "Woody" Hastings, was a leader in the field of photobiology, especially bioluminescence, and was one of the founders of the field of circadian biology. He was the Paul C. Mangelsdorf Professor of Natural Sciences and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He published over 400 papers and co-edited three books.

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06/08/2013

Stan Lynde, American author and illustrator (born 1931)

Myron Stanford Lynde was an American comic strip artist, painter and novelist.

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Mava Lee Thomas, American baseball player (born 1929)

Mava Lee Thomas [′′Tommie′′] was an infielder and catcher who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). She was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed.

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Jerry Wolman, American businessman (born 1927)

Jerry Wolman was an American developer in Washington, D.C. and owned the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League in the 1960s.

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06/08/2012

Richard Cragun, American-Brazilian ballet dancer and choreographer (born 1944)

Richard Cragun was an American ballet dancer, teacher and ballet director who performed with the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany from 1965 to 1996.

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Marvin Hamlisch, American pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1944)

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was an American composer and conductor. He is one of a handful of people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards, a feat dubbed the "EGOT". He and composer Richard Rodgers are the only people to have won those prizes and a Pulitzer Prize ("PEGOT").

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Robert Hughes, Australian-American author and critic (born 1938)

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes was an Australian-born art critic, writer, and producer of television documentaries. He was described in 1997 by Robert Boynton of The New York Times as "the most famous art critic in the world."

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Bernard Lovell, English physicist and astronomer (born 1913)

Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.

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Mark O'Donnell, American playwright (born 1954)

Mark O'Donnell was an American writer and humorist.

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Ruggiero Ricci, American violinist and educator (born 1918)

Ruggiero Ricci was an American violinist known for performances and recordings of the works of Paganini.

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Dan Roundfield, American basketball player (born 1953)

Danny Thomas Roundfield was an American professional basketball player. The 6'8" power forward/center graduated from Detroit's Chadsey Senior High School in 1971. On the collegiate scene, Roundfield was twice selected to the All-Mid-American Conference Team for Central Michigan University; he was also the 1975 MAC Player of the Year.

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06/08/2011

Fe del Mundo, Filipino pediatrician and educator (born 1911)

Fe Villanueva del Mundo was a Filipino pediatrician. She founded the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines and helped shape the country's modern child healthcare system. Her pioneering work in pediatrics in the Philippines spanned eight decades.

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06/08/2009

Riccardo Cassin, Italian mountaineer and author (born 1909)

Riccardo Cassin was an Italian mountaineer, developer of mountaineering equipment and author, and an important figure in the history of rock climbing, alpine climbing and big wall climbing.

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Willy DeVille, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1950)

Willy DeVille was an American singer and songwriter. During his thirty-five-year career, first with his band Mink DeVille (1974–1986) and later on his own, DeVille created songs rooted in traditional American musical styles. He worked with collaborators from across the spectrum of contemporary music, including Jack Nitzsche, Doc Pomus, Dr. John, Mark Knopfler, Allen Toussaint, and Eddie Bo. Latin rhythms, blues riffs, doo-wop, Cajun music, strains of French cabaret, and echoes of early-1960s uptown soul can be heard in DeVille's work.

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John Hughes, American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1950)

John Wilden Hughes Jr. was an American filmmaker. He is best known for writing, directing, and producing the films Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Weird Science (1985), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), and Uncle Buck (1989), in addition to writing the films Pretty in Pink (1986), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), Home Alone (1990), 101 Dalmatians (1996), and Flubber (1997).

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06/08/2008

Angelos Kitsos, Greek lawyer and author (born 1934)

Angelos Kitsos was the president of Rizarios Foundation .He was a Greek from Monodendri, Zagori. He was member of the Councils of the Foundation for the Restoration of Greeks from Albania and the Foundation of Research of the Ionian and Adriatic space. He was a towering figure for Zagori and the rest of Epirus and Western Greece. Kitsos was a lawyer, but he also worked on script-writing for a number of documentaries, and wrote a number of books.

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06/08/2007

Zsolt Daczi, Hungarian guitarist (born 1969)

Zsolt Daczi was a Hungarian guitarist. He was born in Kiskunhalas, Hungary.

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06/08/2005

Robin Cook, Scottish educator and politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (born 1946)

Robert Finlayson "Robin" Cook was a British Labour Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 until his death in 2005 and served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 until 2001, when he was replaced by Jack Straw. He then served as Leader of the House of Commons from 2001 until 2003.

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Creme Puff, tabby domestic cat, oldest recorded cat (born 1967)

Creme Puff was a mixed tabby domestic cat, owned by Jake Perry of Austin, Texas. She was the oldest cat ever recorded, according to the 2010 edition of Guinness World Records, when she died aged 38 years and 3 days.

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06/08/2004

Rick James, American singer-songwriter and producer (born 1948)

James Ambrose Johnson Jr., better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Rick James began his musical career in his teenage years. He was in various bands before entering the U.S. Naval Reserve to avoid being drafted into the Army. In 1964, James moved to Toronto, Canada, where he formed the rock band The Mynah Birds, who eventually signed a recording deal with Motown Records in 1966. James's career with the group halted after military authorities discovered his whereabouts and eventually convicted him of desertion related charges. He served several months in jail. After being released, James moved back to Toronto for pull together a new version of the Mynah Birds, with whom he returned to Motown to record. When that lineup folded, he moved to California, where he took over an existing group of Toronto ex-pats, Merryweather, added a new bassist and changed the group's name to Salt and Pepper. After a strong start and some recording for the Atlantic label, the group split and Rick and the group's keyboardist returned to Toronto to form Heaven and Earth with local players. After two 45s, Heaven and Earth merged with a local horn group, Milestone, and continued under a new name, Great White Cane. That group went to Los Angeles, signed to MGM Records' Lion subsidiary. Their ensuing LP, released in 1972, was a minor rhythm and blues masterpiece but disappeared almost immediately. After forming the locally popular Stone City Band in his hometown of Buffalo in 1977, James finally found success as a recording artist after signing with Motown's Gordy Records, releasing the album Come Get It! in 1978 which produced the hits "You and I" and "Mary Jane". In 1981, James released his most successful album, Street Songs, which included career-defining hits such as "Give It to Me Baby" and "Super Freak", the latter song becoming his biggest crossover single, mixing elements of funk, disco, rock, and new wave. James was also known for his soulful ballads such as "Fire & Desire" and "Ebony Eyes". He also had a successful career as a songwriter and producer for other artists, including Teena Marie, the Mary Jane Girls, The Temptations, Eddie Murphy, and Smokey Robinson.

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Donald Justice, American poet and academic (born 1925)

Donald Rodney Justice was an American poet and teacher of creative writing who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1980.

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06/08/2003

Julius Baker, American flute player and educator (born 1915)

Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

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06/08/2002

Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dutch physicist, computer scientist, and academic (born 1930)

Edsger Wybe Dijkstra was a Dutch computer scientist, programmer, mathematician, and science essayist.

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06/08/2001

Jorge Amado, Brazilian novelist and poet (born 1912)

Jorge Leal Amado de Faria, known as Jorge Amado, was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, including Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1976, and having been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature at least seven times. His work reflects the image of a Mestiço Brazil and is marked by religious syncretism. He depicted a cheerful and optimistic country that was beset, at the same time, with deep social and economic differences.

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Adhar Kumar Chatterji, Indian Naval officer (born 1914)

Admiral Adhar Kumar Chatterji was an Admiral in the Indian Navy. He served as the 5th Chief of the Naval Staff, from 4 March 1966, until 28 February 1970. He was the first Indian officer of the navy to hold the rank of full Admiral. He is credited with the transformation of the Indian Navy. He made sweeping changes and restructured the navy, creating the Western and Eastern Naval Commands and the Western Fleet. Under him, the Indian Navy also entered the submarine age, with the commissioning of INS Kalvari (S23) in 1967.

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Wilhelm Mohnke, German general (born 1911)

Wilhelm Mohnke was a German brigadier general who was one of the original members of the Schutzstaffel SS-Stabswache Berlin formed in March 1933. Mohnke, who had joined the Nazi Party in September 1931, rose through the ranks to become one of Adolf Hitler's last remaining general officers at the end of World War II in Europe.

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Shan Ratnam, Sri Lankan physician and academic (born 1928)

Emeritus Professor Sittampalam Shanmugaratnam, also known as Shan Ratnam, was a Singaporean obstetrician and gynaecologist.

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Dorothy Tutin, English actress (born 1930)

Dame Dorothy Tutin was an English actress of stage, film and television. For her work in the theatre, she won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She was made a CBE in 1967 and a Dame (DBE) in 2000.

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06/08/1998

André Weil, French-American mathematician and academic (born 1906)

André Weil was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. His influence is due both to his original contributions to a remarkably broad spectrum of mathematical theories, and to the mark he left on mathematical practice and style, through some of his own works as well as through the Bourbaki group, of which he was one of the principal founders.

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06/08/1997

Shin Ki-ha, South Korean lawyer and politician (born 1941)

Shin Ki-ha, was a South Korean politician. A four-term lawmaker, he was a former parliamentary leader of the South Korean political party National Congress for New Politics.

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06/08/1994

Domenico Modugno, Italian singer-songwriter and politician (born 1928)

Domenico Modugno was an Italian singer, actor and, later in life, a member of the Italian Parliament. He is known for his 1958 international hit song "Nel blu dipinto di blu", for which he received the first Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. He is considered the first Italian cantautore.

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06/08/1993

Tex Hughson, American baseball player (born 1916)

Cecil Carlton Hughson was an American Major League Baseball starting pitcher who played his entire career in the American League with the Boston Red Sox. He batted and threw right-handed.

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06/08/1992

Leszek Błażyński, Polish boxer (born 1949)

Leszek Błażyński was a Polish boxer who twice won the bronze medal in the men's flyweight division at the Summer Olympics. He first did so in 1972, when Munich hosted the Games. Four years later in Montreal, he once again captured the bronze after a loss in the semifinals against eventual winner Leo Randolph of the United States.

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06/08/1991

Shapour Bakhtiar, Iranian soldier and politician, 74th Prime Minister of Iran (born 1915)

Shapour Bakhtiar was an Iranian politician who served as the last Prime Minister of Iran under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the words of the historian Abbas Milani: "more than once in the tone of a jeremiad he reminded the nation of the dangers of clerical despotism, and of how the fascism of the mullahs would be darker than any military junta." In 1991, he and his secretary were murdered in his home in Suresnes, France, by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Roland Michener, Canadian lawyer and politician, 20th Governor General of Canada (born 1900)

Daniel Roland Michener was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the 20th governor general of Canada from 1967 to 1974.

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Harry Reasoner, American journalist, co-created 60 Minutes (born 1923)

Harry Reasoner was an American journalist for CBS and ABC News. He is known for his adroit use of language as a television commentator and as one of the original hosts of the news magazine 60 Minutes.

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06/08/1990

Jacques Soustelle, French anthropologist and politician (born 1912)

Jacques Soustelle was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces, a politician who served in the French National Assembly and at one time served as Governor General of Algeria, an anthropologist specializing in Pre-Columbian civilizations, and vice-director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1939. Soustelle and his followers opposed any compromise with anticolonial activists in Algeria in the Algerian War.

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06/08/1987

Ira C. Eaker, American general (born 1896)

Lieutenant general Ira Clarence Eaker was a general of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Eaker, as second-in-command of the prospective Eighth Air Force, was sent to England to form and organize its bomber command. While he struggled to build up airpower in England, the organization of the Army Air Forces evolved and he was named commander of the Eighth Air Force on December 1, 1942.

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06/08/1986

Emilio Fernández, Mexican actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1904)

Emilio Fernández Romo, nicknamed "El Indio", was a Mexican film director, screenwriter, and actor. He was one of the most prolific and acclaimed film directors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and '50s. His film María Candelaria (1944) won the Palme d'Or at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival, the first Mexican film to receive the honor. As an actor, he worked in numerous film productions in both Mexico and in Hollywood.

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06/08/1985

Forbes Burnham, Guyanese politician, 2nd President of Guyana (born 1923)

Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was a Guyanese politician and the leader of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana from 1964 until his death in 1985. He served as Premier of British Guiana from 1964 to 1966, Prime Minister of Guyana from 1964 to 1980 and then as the first executive president of Guyana from 1980 to 1985. He is often regarded as a strongman who embraced his own version of socialism.

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06/08/1983

Klaus Nomi, German singer-songwriter and actor (born 1944)

Klaus Sperber, known professionally as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor and baritone noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona.

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06/08/1979

Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)

Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen was a German biochemist. In 1964, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with Konrad Bloch for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism while he was director of the Max-Planck Institute for Cellular Chemistry in Munich.

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06/08/1978

Pope Paul VI (born 1897)

Pope Paul VI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.

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Edward Durell Stone, American architect, designed Radio City Music Hall and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (born 1902)

Edward Durell Stone was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City; the Parliament House of Pakistan in Islamabad; the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico; the United States Embassy in New Delhi, India; The Keller Center at the University of Chicago; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the EcoTarium, formerly known as the New England Science Center in Worcester, Massachusetts; and the campus of Windham College in Putney, Vermont.

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06/08/1976

Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian-American cellist and educator (born 1903)

Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.

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06/08/1973

Fulgencio Batista, Cuban colonel and politician, 9th President of Cuba (born 1901)

Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was a Cuban military officer, political leader, and dictator who played a dominant role in Cuban politics from his initial rise to power in the 1930s until his overthrow in the Cuban Revolution in 1959. He served as president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and again from 1952 to his 1959 resignation.

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06/08/1970

Nikos Tsiforos, Greek director and screenwriter (born 1912)

Nikos Tsiforos was a Greek humorist, screenwriter, and film director. He had more than 60 film scripts to his credit between 1948 and 1970. He further directed 17 films between 1948 and 1961.

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06/08/1969

Theodor W. Adorno, German sociologist and philosopher (born 1903)

Theodor W. Adorno was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has come to be associated with thinkers such as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse, for whom the works of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and G. W. F. Hegel were essential to a critique of modern society. As a critic of both fascism and what he called the culture industry, his writings—such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Minima Moralia (1951), and Negative Dialectics (1966)—strongly influenced the European New Left.

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06/08/1968

Ye Gongchuo, Chinese politician, poet, and calligrapher (born 1881)

Ye Gongchuo was a Chinese politician, calligrapher, poet, and art patron. Born in Panyu County, Guangdong, to the family of a Qing dynasty official, Ye passed the imperial examination and joined the Ministry of Posts and Communications. He rose through the ministry rapidly, then allied himself with Sun Yat-sen's anti-Qing movement in the 1911 Revolution. During the first decades of the Republic of China, Ye occupied several ministerial positions as a member of the Communications Clique, at times working with the Beiyang government and other times siding with the Kuomintang.

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06/08/1964

Cedric Hardwicke, English actor and director (born 1893)

Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned over 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and his film work included leading roles in several adapted literary classics.

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06/08/1959

Preston Sturges, American director, screenwriter, and playwright (born 1898)

Preston Sturges was an American playwright, inventor, screenwriter, and film director.

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06/08/1952

Betty Allan, Australian statistician and biometrician (born 1905)

Frances Elizabeth Allan was an Australian statistician. She was known as the first statistician at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), as "the effective founder of the CSIRO Division of Mathematics and Statistics", and for her advocacy of biometrics.

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06/08/1946

Tony Lazzeri, American baseball player and coach (born 1903)

Anthony Michael Lazzeri was an American professional baseball second baseman during the 1920s and 1930s, predominantly with the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). He was part of the famed "Murderers' Row" Yankee batting lineup of the late 1920s, along with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Bob Meusel.

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06/08/1945

Richard Bong, American soldier and pilot, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1920)

Richard Ira "Dick" Bong was a United States Army Air Forces officer and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. He was one of the most decorated American fighter pilots and the country's top flying ace in the war, credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft, all with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. He died in California while testing a Lockheed P-80 jet fighter shortly before the war ended. Bong was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1986 and has several commemorative monuments named in his honor around the world, including an airport, two bridges, a theater, a veterans historical center, a recreation area, a neighborhood terrace, and several avenues and streets, including the street leading to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

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Hiram Johnson, American lawyer and politician, 23rd Governor of California (born 1866)

Hiram Warren Johnson was an American attorney and politician who served as the 23rd governor of California from 1911 to 1917 and represented California in the U.S. Senate for five terms from 1917 to 1945. Johnson achieved national prominence in the early 20th century as a leading progressive and ran for vice president on Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive ticket in the 1912 presidential election. As a U.S. senator, Johnson voted for American entry into World War I and was later a critic of the foreign policy of both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Johnson was the only governor of his state from 1856 until 1943 to serve more than one term.

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06/08/1931

Bix Beiderbecke, American cornet player, pianist, and composer (born 1903)

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer. Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical approach and purity of tone, with such clarity of sound that one contemporary famously described it like "shooting bullets at a bell”.

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06/08/1925

Surendranath Banerjee, Indian academic and politician (born 1848)

Sir Surendranath Banerjee, often known as Rashtraguru, was an Indian nationalist leader during the British Raj. He founded the Indian National Association to bring Hindus and Muslims together for political action. He was also one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress. Unlike Congress, however, Surendranath supported Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms, and with many liberal leaders he left Congress and founded a new organisation, Indian National Liberation Federation, in 1919.

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Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, Italian mathematician (born 1853)

Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro was an Italian mathematician. He is most famous as the discoverer of tensor calculus.

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06/08/1920

Stefan Bastyr, Polish pilot and author (born 1890)

Stefan Bastyr was a Polish aviator and military pilot, one of the pioneers of the Polish aviation. He is credited with the first military flight in the history of the Polish Air Force on 5 November 1918, almost a week before Poland officially regained her independence, at the opening stages of the Polish-Ukrainian War.

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06/08/1915

Jennie de la Montagnie Lozier, American physician (born 1841)

Jeanne de la Montagnie Lozier was an American physician and educator from New York City. She worked as an instructor of languages and literature in Hillsdale College from the age of nineteen, and after earning her medical degree from New York Medical College, became a professor of physiology. She was a delegate to the International Homoeopathic Congress in Paris in 1889 and was president of Sorosis Club from 1891 to 1894.

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06/08/1906

George Waterhouse, English-New Zealand politician, 7th Prime Minister of New Zealand (born 1824)

George Marsden Waterhouse was a Premier of South Australia from 8 October 1861 until 3 July 1863 and the seventh premier of New Zealand from 11 October 1872 to 3 March 1873.

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06/08/1904

Eduard Hanslick, Austrian author and critic (born 1825)

Eduard Hanslick was an Austrian music critic, aesthetician and historian. Among the leading critics of his time, he was the chief music critic of the Neue Freie Presse from 1864 until the end of his life. His best known work, the 1854 treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen, was a landmark in the aesthetics of music and outlines much of his artistic and philosophical beliefs on music.

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06/08/1893

Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel, Swiss lawyer and politician (born 1811)

Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel was a Swiss politician and member of the Swiss Federal Council (1864–1872).

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06/08/1881

James Springer White, American religious leader, co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church (born 1821)

James Springer White, also known as Elder White, was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the husband of Ellen G. White. In 1849, he started the first Sabbatarian Adventist periodical entitled The Present Truth, in 1855 he relocated the fledgling center of the movement to Battle Creek, Michigan, and in 1863 played a pivotal role in the formal organization of the denomination. He later played a major role in the development of the Adventist educational structure beginning in 1874 with the formation of Battle Creek College.

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06/08/1866

John Mason Neale, English priest, scholar, and hymnwriter (born 1818)

John Mason Neale was an English Anglican priest, scholar, and hymnwriter. He worked on and wrote a wide range of holy Christian texts, including obscure medieval hymns, both Western and Eastern. Among his most famous hymns is the 1853 Good King Wenceslas, set on St. Stephen's day, known as Boxing Day in the UK. An Anglo-Catholic, Neale's works have found positive reception in high-church Anglicanism and Western Rite Orthodoxy.

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06/08/1850

Edward Walsh, Irish poet (born 1805)

Edward Walsh was an Irish poet, the son of a sergeant in the Cork militia, and was born in Derry City, where his father's regiment had been sent for training. His parents were natives in the village of Millstreet, County Cork, near which his father at one time possessed a small holding.

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06/08/1828

Konstantin von Benckendorff, Russian general and diplomat (born 1785)

Konstantin von Benckendorff was a Russian general and diplomat of Baltic German descent.

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06/08/1815

James A. Bayard, American lawyer and politician (born 1767)

James Asheton Bayard Sr. was an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware. He was a member of the Federalist Party, who served as U.S. Representative from Delaware and U.S. Senator from Delaware.

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06/08/1794

Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, English lawyer and politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (born 1714)

Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, known as The Lord Apsley from 1771 to 1775, was a British lawyer and politician. He was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1771 to 1778.

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06/08/1757

Ádám Mányoki, Hungarian painter (born 1673)

Ádám Mányoki was a Hungarian Baroque portrait painter.

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06/08/1753

Georg Wilhelm Richmann, Estonian-Russian physicist and academic (born 1711)

Georg Wilhelm Richmann was a Russian physicist of Baltic German origin who did pioneering work on electricity, atmospheric electricity, and calorimetry. He died by electrocution in St. Petersburg when struck by apparent ball lightning produced by an experiment attempting to ground the electrical discharge from a storm.

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06/08/1695

François de Harlay de Champvallon, French archbishop (born 1625)

François de Harlay de Champvallon was the fifth Archbishop of Paris.

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06/08/1694

Antoine Arnauld, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1612)

Antoine Arnauld was a French Catholic theologian, priest, philosopher and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. Contemporaries called him le Grand to distinguish him from his father.

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06/08/1679

John Snell, Scottish-English soldier and philanthropist, founded the Snell Exhibition (born 1629)

Sir John Snell, founder of the Snell Exhibitions at the University of Oxford, was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of a blacksmith. He attended the University of Glasgow from 1642 to 1644.

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06/08/1666

Tjerk Hiddes de Vries, Frisian naval hero and commander (born 1622)

Tjerk Hiddes de Vries was a Dutch States Navy officer. The French, who could not pronounce his name, called him Kiërkides. His name was also given as Tsjerk, Tierck or Tjerck.

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06/08/1660

Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter and educator (born 1599)

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish Baroque painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He is generally considered one of the greatest artists in the history of Western art.

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06/08/1657

Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ukrainian soldier and politician, 1st Hetman of Zaporizhian Host (born 1595)

Zynoviy Bohdan Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky of the Abdank coat of arms was a Ruthenian nobleman and military commander of Zaporozhian Cossacks as Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, which was then under the suzerainty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He led the Cossacks to victory in a successful uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates (1648–1654) that resulted in the creation of an independent Cossack state in Ukraine.

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06/08/1645

Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, English merchant and politician (born 1575)

Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex was an English merchant and politician. He sat in the House of Commons between 1614 and 1622 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cranfield.

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06/08/1637

Ben Jonson, English poet and playwright (born 1572)

Benjamin Jonson was an English poet and playwright. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614), and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."

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06/08/1628

Johannes Junius, German lawyer and politician (born 1573)

Johannes Junius was the mayor of Bamberg, and a victim of the Bamberg witch trials, who wrote a letter to his daughter from jail while he awaited execution for witchcraft.

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06/08/1588

Josias I, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg (1578–1588) (born 1554)

Count Josias I of Waldeck-Eisenberg was a German nobleman who was Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg from 1578 until his death.

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06/08/1553

Girolamo Fracastoro, Italian physician (born 1478)

Girolamo Fracastoro was an Italian physician, poet, and scholar in mathematics, geography and astronomy. Fracastoro subscribed to the philosophy of atomism, and rejected appeals to hidden causes in scientific investigation. His studies of the mode of syphilis transmission are an early example of epidemiology.

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06/08/1530

Jacopo Sannazaro, Italian poet (born 1458)

Jacopo Sannazaro was an Italian poet, humanist, member and head of the Accademia Pontaniana from Naples.

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06/08/1458

Pope Callixtus III (born 1378)

Pope Callixtus III, born Alonso de Borja, but referred to in English-language accounts as Alfonso de Borgia as a member of the House of Borgia, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 April 1455 to his death, in August 1458.

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06/08/1414

Ladislaus of Naples (born 1377)

Ladislaus the Magnanimous was King of Naples from 1386 until his death and an unsuccessful claimant to the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia. Ladislaus was a skilled political and military leader, protector and controller of Pope Innocent VII; however, he earned a bad reputation concerning his personal life. He profited from disorder throughout Italy to greatly expand his kingdom and his power, appropriating much of the Papal States to his own use. He was the last male of the Capetian House of Anjou.

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06/08/1412

Margherita of Durazzo, Queen consort of Charles III of Naples (born 1347)

Margaret of Durazzo was Queen of Naples and Hungary and Princess of Achaea as the spouse of Charles III of Naples. She was regent of Naples from 1386 until 1393 during the minority of her son Ladislaus of Naples.

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06/08/1384

Francesco I of Lesbos

Francesco I Gattilusio was the first member of the Gattilusio family to rule the Aegean island of Lesbos as a vassal of the Byzantine emperor.

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06/08/1272

Stephen V of Hungary (born 1239)

Stephen V was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1270 and 1272, and Duke of Styria from 1258 to 1260. He was the oldest son of King Béla IV and Maria Laskarina. King Béla had his son crowned king at the age of six and appointed him Duke of Slavonia. Still a child, Stephen married Elizabeth, a daughter of a chieftain of the Cumans whom his father settled in the Great Hungarian Plain.

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06/08/1221

Saint Dominic, Spanish priest, founded the Dominican Order (born 1170)

Saint Dominic, also known as Dominic de Guzmán, was a Castilian Catholic priest and the founder of the Dominican Order. He is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientists, and he and his order are traditionally credited with spreading and popularizing the rosary.

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06/08/1195

Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria (born 1129)

Henry the Lion, also known as Henry III, Duke of Saxony and Henry XII, Duke of Bavaria, was a member of the Welf dynasty.

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06/08/1162

Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona (born 1113)

Ramon Berenguer IV, sometimes called the Saint, was the count of Barcelona and the prince of Aragon who brought about the union of the County of Barcelona with the Kingdom of Aragon to form the Crown of Aragon.

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06/08/1027

Richard III, Duke of Normandy

Richard III was the duke of Normandy who reigned from August 1026 to his death. His brief reign opened with a revolt by his brother.

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06/08/0750

Marwan II, Umayyad general and caliph (born 688)

Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan, commonly known as Marwan II and surnamed al-Himar, was the fourteenth and last caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 744 until his death. His reign was dominated by a civil war, and he was the last Umayyad ruler to rule the united Caliphate before the Abbasid Revolution toppled the Umayyad dynasty.

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06/08/0523

Pope Hormisdas (born 450)

Pope Hormisdas was the bishop of Rome from 20 July 514 to his death on 6 August 523. His papacy was dominated by the Acacian schism, started in 484 by Acacius of Constantinople's efforts to placate the non-Chalcedonians. His efforts to resolve this schism were successful, and on 28 March 519, the reunion between Constantinople and Rome was ratified in the cathedral of Constantinople before a large crowd.

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06/08/0258

Pope Sixtus II

Pope Sixtus II, also written as Pope Xystus II, was the bishop of Rome from 31 August 257 until his death on 6 August 258. He was killed along with seven deacons, including Lawrence of Rome, during the persecution of Christians by the Emperor Valerian.

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