Died on Wednesday, 10th December – Famous Deaths

10/12/2025

Jeffery Garcia, American stand-up comedian and voice actor (born 1975)

Jeffrey Garcia was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Best known for his roles in animation, he voiced Sheen Estevez in Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius as well as its two Nickelodeon spin-off television show series—The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius and Planet Sheen—along with Pip the Mouse in Barnyard and its spin-off television show series Back at the Barnyard.

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10/12/2024

Rocky Colavito, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1933)

Rocco Domenico "Rocky" Colavito Jr. was an American professional baseball player, coach, and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as an outfielder from 1955 to 1968, most prominently as a member of the Cleveland Indians, with whom he established himself as a fan favorite for his powerful hitting and his strong throwing arm. Colavito also played for the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Athletics, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, and New York Yankees. At the time of his retirement in 1968, Colavito ranked third among AL right-handed hitters for home runs (374) and eighth for AL games played as a right fielder (1,272).

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Michael Cole, American actor (born 1940)

Michael Cole was an American actor best known for his role as Pete Cochran on the television crime drama The Mod Squad (1968–1973).

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Kreskin, American mentalist (born 1935)

The Amazing Kreskin, also known as Kreskin, was an American mentalist who became popular on television in the 1970s. He was inspired to become a mentalist by Lee Falk's comic strip Mandrake the Magician, which features a crime-fighting stage magician. He always presented himself as a mentalist, never as a psychic, who operated on the basis of suggestion, not the paranormal or supernatural.

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S. M. Krishna, Indian politician and statesman, Minister of External Affairs, 10th Chief Minister of Karnataka, 19th Governor of Maharashtra (born 1932)

Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna was an Indian politician who served as Minister of External Affairs of India from 2009 to October 2012. He was the 10th Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1999 to 2004 and the 19th Governor of Maharashtra from 2004 to 2008. S. M. Krishna served as the Speaker of the Karnataka Vidhana Soudha from December 1989 to January 1993. He was also a Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha member from 1971 to 2014. He is widely credited with putting Bengaluru on the world map by building the foundation for it to become the IT Hub that it is today during his tenure as Chief Minister. In 2023, Krishna was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of India.

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10/12/2023

Julian Carroll, American politician, 54th Governor of Kentucky (born 1931)

Julian Morton Carroll was an American lawyer and politician from the state of Kentucky. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 54th governor of Kentucky from 1974 to 1979, succeeding Wendell Ford, who resigned to accept a seat in the United States Senate. He last served a member of the Kentucky Senate, representing Anderson, Franklin, Woodford, Gallatin, and Owen counties from 2005 to 2021. He was the first Kentucky governor from the state's far-western Jackson Purchase region. Thelma Stovall, who served as lieutenant governor with him, was the first woman to be elected lieutenant governor of Kentucky.

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10/12/2021

Michael Nesmith, American musician (The Monkees), songwriter, actor, producer, and novelist (born 1942)

Robert Michael Nesmith was an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He was best known as a member of the Monkees and co-star of their TV series of the same name (1966–1968). His songwriting credits with the Monkees include "Mary, Mary", "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", "Tapioca Tundra", "Circle Sky" and "Listen to the Band". Additionally, his song "Different Drum" became a hit for the Stone Poneys featuring Linda Ronstadt.

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10/12/2020

Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr., American actor and wrestler (born 1958)

Tommy Debo "Tiny" Lister Jr. was an American actor and former professional wrestler. As a character actor, he is known for his roles as the neighborhood bully Deebo in the 1995 film Friday and its 2000 sequel, and as President Lindberg in The Fifth Element. He had two short professional wrestling stints, with Hulk Hogan in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) after appearing as Zeus in the 1989 film No Holds Barred and resuming the feud as Z-Gangsta in 1996 for World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He was born with a detached and deformed retina and was blind in his right eye, which drooped, a unique look that he turned to his advantage in film. He played in both comedies and dramas, usually cast as 'the heavy/big bully'.

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Joseph Safra, Lebanese-Brazilian financier (born 1938)

Joseph Safra was a Lebanese Brazilian banker and billionaire businessman of Syrian descent. He was Brazil's richest man and the richest banker in the world, running the Brazilian banking and investment empire, Safra Group.

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Carol Sutton, American actress (born 1944)

Carol Joan Sutton was an American actress of theater, film and television. She was best known for her appearances in the films Steel Magnolias, Monster's Ball, and Ray.

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Barbara Windsor, English actress (born 1937)

Dame Barbara Windsor was an English actress. She was known for her roles in the Carry On films and for playing Peggy Mitchell in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders. She joined the cast of EastEnders in 1994 and won the 1999 British Soap Award for Best Actress, before leaving the show in 2016.

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10/12/2019

Philip McKeon, American actor (born 1964)

Philip Anthony McKeon was an American child actor and radio personality, best known for his role as Tommy Hyatt, the son of the title character on the television sitcom Alice from 1976 to 1985.

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Gershon Kingsley, American composer and musician (born 1922)

Gershon Kingsley was a German-American composer, a pioneer of electronic music and the Moog synthesizer, a partner in the electronic music duo Perrey and Kingsley, founder of the First Moog Quartet, and writer of rock-inspired compositions for Jewish religious ceremonies. Kingsley is most famous for his 1969 influential electronic instrumental composition "Popcorn", and his composition of the WGBH-TV Soundmark.

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Emily Mason, American painter (born 1932)

Emily Mason was an American abstract painter and printmaker. Mason developed her individual approach to the Abstract Expressionist and color field painting traditions with her veils of color and spontaneous gestural mark. Mason was born and raised in New York City, where she lived and worked until her death.

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10/12/2017

Bruce Brown, American filmmaker (born 1937)

Bruce Alan Brown was an American documentary film director, known as an early pioneer of the surf film. He was the father of filmmaker Dana Brown.

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Max Clifford, British publicist (born 1943)

Maxwell Frank Clifford was an English publicist and convicted sex offender who was particularly associated with promoting "kiss and tell" stories in tabloid newspapers.

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Charles M. Green Jr., American Internet personality (born 1950)

Charles Marvin Green Jr., better known online as Angry Grandpa, was an American YouTuber. His videos have been featured on HLN's Dr. Drew, TruTV's Most Shocking, Rude Tube, and MTV's Pranked. Green's YouTube channel TheAngryGrandpaShow has amassed a total of 4.84 million subscribers and 1.87 billion views.

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Curtis W. Harris, American minister (born 1924)

Curtis West Harris was an African-American minister, civil rights activist, and politician in Virginia, United States. Harris became the first African-American mayor of Hopewell, Virginia and was the recipient of numerous awards and honors.

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10/12/2015

Ron Bouchard, American race car driver and businessman (born 1948)

Ronald Rodgers Bouchard was an American NASCAR driver who was the 1981 NASCAR Winston Cup Rookie of the Year. His brother Ken Bouchard was the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Rookie of the Year. His father-in-law, Ed Flemke, and brother-in-law, Ed Flemke Jr., were also NASCAR Modified racers.

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Denis Héroux, Canadian director and producer (born 1940)

Denis Héroux, was a Canadian film director and producer.

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Arnold Peralta, Honduran footballer (born 1989)

Arnold Fabián Peralta Sosa was a Honduran footballer who played as a defensive midfielder.

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Dolph Schayes, American basketball player and coach (born 1928)

Adolph Schayes was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A top scorer and rebounder, he was a 12-time NBA All-Star and a 12-time All-NBA selection. Schayes won an NBA championship with the Syracuse Nationals in 1955. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, and was also named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1973.

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10/12/2014

Ralph Giordano, German author and publicist (born 1923)

Ralph Giordano was a German writer and publicist.

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Robert B. Oakley, American diplomat, 19th United States Ambassador to Pakistan (born 1931)

Robert Bigger Oakley was an American diplomat whose 34-year career (1957–1991) as a Foreign Service Officer included appointments as United States Ambassador to Zaire, Somalia, and Pakistan and, in the early 1990s, as a special envoy during the American involvement in Somalia.

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Bob Solinger, Canadian ice hockey player (born 1925)

Robert Edward "Solly" Solinger was a professional ice hockey player who played 99 games in the National Hockey League. Born in Star City, Saskatchewan, he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings. He was the first winner of the Dudley "Red" Garrett Memorial Award as rookie of the year in the American Hockey League.

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Judy Baar Topinka, American journalist and politician (born 1944)

Judy Baar Topinka was an American politician and member of the Republican Party from the U.S. State of Illinois.

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Gerard Vianen, Dutch cyclist (born 1944)

Gerard Vianen was a Dutch professional road bicycle racer. A domestique for Joop Zoetemelk and Raymond Poulidor, he won one stage in the Tour de France and 3 stages in the Vuelta a España.

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10/12/2013

Alan Coleman, English-Australian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1936)

Alan James Coleman was an England-born Australian television series producer, screenwriter, director and former actor, active in his native United Kingdom as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

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Jim Hall, American guitarist and composer (born 1930)

James Stanley Hall was an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger.

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Don Lund, American baseball player and coach (born 1923)

Donald Andrew Lund was an American professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Browns (1948) and Detroit Tigers. He batted and threw right-handed.

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Srikanta Wadiyar, Indian politician and the titular Maharaja of Mysore(born 1946)

Srikanthadattā Narasimharājā Wadiyar was an Indian royal scion, politician, and fashion designer, who served as Member of Parliament from Mysore. He was the son of Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, the last king of Mysore.

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10/12/2012

Iajuddin Ahmed, Bangladeshi academic and politician, 13th President of Bangladesh (born 1931)

Iajuddin Ahmed was the president of Bangladesh, serving from 2002 to 2009.

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Antonio Cubillo, Spanish lawyer and politician (born 1930)

Antonio de León Cubillo Ferreira was a Spanish Independentist, politician, lawyer and militant from the Canary Islands.

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Tommy Roberts, English fashion designer (born 1942)

Thomas Steven Roberts was an English designer and fashion entrepreneur who operated independent retail outlets including pop art boutique, Mr Freedom, and the 1980s decorative arts and homewares store, Practical Styling.

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10/12/2010

John Fenn, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1917)

John Bennett Fenn was an American professor of analytical chemistry who was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002. He shared half of the award with Koichi Tanaka for their work in mass spectrometry. The other half went to Kurt Wüthrich. Fenn's contributions specifically related to the development of electrospray ionization, now a commonly used technique for large molecules and routine liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Early in his career, he studied the field of jet propulsion at Project SQUID and focused on molecular beams. He finished his career with more than 100 publications, including one book.

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J. Michael Hagopian, Armenian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1913)

Jakob Michael Hagopian was an Armenian-born American Emmy-nominated filmmaker.

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MacKenzie Miller, American horse trainer and breeder (born 1921)

MacKenzie "Mack" Todd Miller was an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer and owner/breeder. During his forty-six-year career, he conditioned seventy-two stakes winners, including four Eclipse Award champions.

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10/12/2009

Vladimir Teplyakov, Russian soldier and physicist (born 1925)

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Teplyakov was a Russian experimental physicist known for his work on particle accelerators. Together with I.M. Kapchinsky, he invented the principle of the radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ), which revolutionized the acceleration of low-energy charged particle beams.

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10/12/2007

Vitali Hakko, Turkish businessman, founded Vakko (born 1913)

Vitali Hakko was a Turkish businessman, founder of the Vakko clothing business.

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10/12/2006

Olivia Coolidge, English-American author and educator (born 1908)

Margaret Olivia Ensor Coolidge was a British-born American writer and educator. She published 27 books, many for young adults, including The Greek Myths (1949), her debut; The Trojan War (1952); Legends of the North (1951); Makers of the Red Revolution (1963); Men of Athens, one runner-up for the 1963 Newbery Medal; Lives of Famous Romans (1965); and biographies of Eugene O'Neill, Winston Churchill, Edith Wharton, Gandhi, and Tom Paine. Olivia Coolidge was born in London to Sir Robert Ensor, a journalist and historian. She earned a degree in Classics and Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1931 and a Master's degree in 1940. In Germany, England and the U.S. she taught Greek, Latin, and English. In 1946 she married Archibald C. Coolidge of Connecticut, who had four children.

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Augusto Pinochet, Chilean general and dictator, 30th President of Chile (born 1915)

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army officer and military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He led the military junta that overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973 and established a dictatorship. He was proclaimed President of Chile in 1974 and served until 1990, when he stepped down to pave the way for democratic elections. Throughout his presidency, thousands of political opponents were tortured or executed. Pinochet is the longest-serving head of state in the history of Chile.

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10/12/2005

Mary Jackson, American actress (born 1910)

Mary Jackson was an American character actress whose nearly fifty-year career began in 1950 and was spent almost entirely in television. She is best known for the role of the lovelorn Emily Baldwin in The Waltons and was the original choice to play Alice Horton in the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives, playing the part in the unaired pilot. The role was instead given to Frances Reid.

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Eugene McCarthy, American poet, academic, and politician (born 1916)

Eugene Joseph McCarthy was an American politician, writer, and academic who represented Minnesota in both houses of the United States Congress for over 22 years, first in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959, then in the U.S. Senate from 1959 until his resignation in 1971. A member of the Democratic Party, McCarthy sought the party's presidential nomination in the 1968 presidential election, challenging incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti–Vietnam War platform, and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president four more times.

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Richard Pryor, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter (born 1940)

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Known for reaching a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974.

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10/12/2004

Gary Webb, American journalist and author (born 1955)

Gary Stephen Webb was an American investigative journalist.

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10/12/2003

Sean McClory, Irish actor and director (born 1924)

Séan Joseph McClory was an Irish actor whose career spanned six decades and included well over 100 films and television series. He was sometimes billed as Shawn McGlory or Sean McGlory.

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10/12/2002

Andres Küng, Swedish journalist and politician (born 1945)

Andres Küng was a Swedish journalist, writer, entrepreneur and politician of Estonian origin. He was born in Ockelbo in Gävleborg County to a family of refugees from Soviet occupied Estonia.

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Ian MacNaughton, Scottish actor, director, and producer (born 1925)

Edward Ian MacNaughton was a Scottish actor, television producer and director, best known for his work with the Monty Python team.

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10/12/2001

Ashok Kumar, Indian actor, singer, and producer (born 1911)

Ashok Kumar was an Indian actor who worked in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most successful actors in the history of Indian cinema. He is considered to be the first superstar of Indian cinema as well as the first lead actor to play an anti-hero. He also became the first star to reinvent himself, enjoying a long and hugely successful career as a character actor. He was a member of the cinematic Ganguly family. He was honoured in 1988 with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest national award for cinema artists, by the Government of India. He received the Padma Shri in 1962 and Padma Bhushan in 1999 for his contributions to Indian cinema.

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10/12/2000

Marie Windsor, American actress (born 1919)

Marie Windsor was an American actress known for her femme fatale characters in the classic film noir features Force of Evil, The Narrow Margin and The Killing. Windsor's height created problems for her in scenes with all but the tallest actors. She was the female lead in so many B movies that she became dubbed the "Queen" of the genre.

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10/12/1999

Rick Danko, Canadian singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (born 1943)

Richard Clare Danko was a Canadian musician, bassist, songwriter, and singer, best known as a founding member of the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

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Franjo Tuđman, Croatian general and politician, 1st President of Croatia (born 1922)

Franjo Tuđman was a Croatian politician and historian who became the first president of Croatia, from 1990 until his death in 1999. He served following the country's independence from Yugoslavia. Tuđman also was the ninth and last president of the Presidency of SR Croatia from May to July 1990.

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Woodrow Borah, American historian of Spanish America (born 1912)

Woodrow Wilson Borah was an American historian of colonial Mexico, whose research contributions on demography, economics, and social structure made him a major Latin Americanist. With his 1999 death "disappears the last great figure in the generation that presided over the vast expansion of the Latin American scholarly field in the United States during the years following World War II." With colleagues at University of California, Berkeley who came to be known as the "Berkeley School" of Latin American history, Borah pursued projects to gather data from archives on indigenous populations, colonial enterprises, and "land-life" relations that revolutionized the study of Latin American history.

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10/12/1996

Faron Young, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (born 1932)

Faron Young was an American country singer, musician, and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s. His hits including "If You Ain't Lovin' " and "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young" marked him as a honky-tonk singer in sound and personal style; and his chart-topping singles "Hello Walls" and "It's Four in the Morning" showed his versatility as a vocalist.

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10/12/1995

Darren Robinson, American rapper (born 1967)

Darren Robinson, also known as Big Buff, Buff Love, Buffy, The Human Beat Box, The Ox That Rocks, and DJ Doctor Nice, was a rapper, beatboxer, and actor who was a member of the 1980s hip hop group The Fat Boys. He, along with Doug E. Fresh and others, were pioneers of beatboxing, a form of vocal percussion used in many rap groups throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

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10/12/1994

Keith Joseph, English lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for Education (born 1918)

Keith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph,, known as Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet, for most of his political life, was a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a minister under four prime ministers: Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, and Margaret Thatcher. He was a key influence in the creation of what came to be known as Thatcherism.

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Alex Wilson, Canadian-American sprinter (born 1905)

Alexander S. Wilson was a Canadian sprinter who competed in both the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics. He was born in Montreal and died in Mission, Texas, United States.

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10/12/1993

Alice Tully, American soprano (born 1902)

Alice Bigelow Tully was an American singer of opera and recital, music promoter, patron of the arts and philanthropist from New York. She was a second cousin of the American actress Katharine Hepburn.

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10/12/1992

Dan Maskell, English tennis player and sportscaster (born 1908)

Daniel Maskell was an English tennis professional who later became a radio and television commentator on the sport. He was described as the BBC's "voice of tennis", and the "voice of Wimbledon".

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10/12/1991

Greta Kempton, Austrian-American painter and academic (born 1901)

Martha Greta Kempton was an Austrian-American painter who was the White House artist during the Truman administration.

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10/12/1990

Armand Hammer, American businessman, founded Occidental Petroleum (born 1898)

Armand Hammer was an American oil tycoon, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

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10/12/1988

Richard S. Castellano, American actor (born 1933)

Richard Salvatore Castellano was an American actor who is best remembered for his role in Lovers and Other Strangers and his subsequent role as Peter Clemenza in The Godfather.

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Johnny Lawrence, English cricketer and coach (born 1911)

John Lawrence was a diminutive Yorkshire-born cricketing all-rounder whose middle or lower order batting and leg-break and googly bowling were of great importance to Somerset in the 10 cricket seasons immediately after the Second World War.

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Dorothy de Rothschild, English philanthropist and activist (born 1895)

Dorothy de Rothschild was an English philanthropist and activist for Jewish affairs who married into the wealthy Rothschild banking family.

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10/12/1987

Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian-American violinist and educator (born 1901)

Jascha Heifetz was a Russian-American violinist, widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time. Born in Vilna, he was soon recognized as a child prodigy and was trained in the Russian violin school in St. Petersburg. Accompanying his parents to escape the violence of the Russian Revolution, he moved to the United States as a teenager, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. Fritz Kreisler, another leading violinist of the twentieth century, said after hearing Heifetz's debut, "We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees."

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10/12/1982

Freeman Gosden, American actor and screenwriter (born 1899)

Freeman Fisher "Gozzie" Gosden was an American radio comedian, actor and pioneer in the development of the situation comedy form. He is best known for his work in the Amos 'n' Andy radio series.

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10/12/1979

Ann Dvorak, American actress (born 1911)

Ann Dvorak was an American stage and film actress.

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10/12/1978

Ed Wood, American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1924)

Edward Davis Wood Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor and novelist.

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10/12/1977

Adolph Rupp, American basketball player and coach (born 1901)

Adolph Frederick Rupp was an American college basketball coach. Nicknamed the "Baron of the Bluegrass", he coached the University of Kentucky Wildcats to four NCAA championships, one NIT championship, 27 Southeastern Conference championships, and 13 SEC tournament championships. In his 41 years of coaching at Kentucky, he won 876 games, retiring with the most total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach at the time; he has since been surpassed by six coaches and ranks seventh. Rupp is second among all men's college coaches in all-time winning percentage (.822) and third in NCAA championships. In 1948, he coached the US Olympic Team to a gold medal in London.

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10/12/1974

Toshinari Shōji, Japanese general (born 1890)

Toshinari Shōji was a major general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific campaign in World War II.

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10/12/1973

Wolf V. Vishniac, German-American microbiologist and academic (born 1922)

Wolf Vladimir Vishniac was an American microbiologist. He was the son of photographer Roman Vishniac and the father of astronomer Ethan Vishniac. Educated at Brooklyn College and Stanford University, he was a professor of biology at the University of Rochester. He died on a research trip to the Antarctic attempting to retrieve equipment in a crevasse. The crater Vishniac on Mars is named in his honor.

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10/12/1972

Mark Van Doren, American poet, critic, and academic (born 1894)

Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, Whittaker Chambers, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He was literary editor of The Nation, in New York City from 1924 to 1928 and its film critic from 1935 to 1938.

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10/12/1970

Chen Qiyou, Chinese politician and revolutionary (born 1892)

Chen Qiyou was a Chinese revolutionary and politician with the China Zhi Gong Party. Born to a prominent family in Haifeng County, he became interested in efforts to overthrow the Qing dynasty as a teenager and joined the Tongmenghui in 1911. He participated in the Second Guangzhou Uprising and the assassination of Tartar-General Fengshan, then left for Japan to study politics and economics. In 1917, after returning to China and spending a year with the Ministry of Finance, he joined Sun Yat-sen's Constitutional Protection Junta as the secretary to General Chen Jiongming. In 1931, Chen joined the China Zhi Gong Party (ZG), with whom he served in various capacities for the rest of his life.

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10/12/1968

Karl Barth, Swiss theologian and author (born 1886)

Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary The Epistle to the Romans, his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics. Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.

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George Forrest, Northern Irish lawyer and politician (born 1921)

George Forrest was a Northern Irish unionist politician from Tullyhogue Cookstown who served as MP for Mid Ulster in the House of Commons from 1956 until his death. One of twelve children of Joseph and Sarah-Jane Forrest, George Forrest was an auctioneer and publican prior to his election to parliament.

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Thomas Merton, American monk and author (born 1915)

Thomas Merton, religious name M. Louis, was an American Trappist monk, theologian, mystic, poet, and social activist. He was a professed member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.

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10/12/1967

Otis Redding, American singer-songwriter and producer (born 1941)

Otis Ray Redding Jr. was an American singer and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Nicknamed the "King of Soul", Redding's style of singing drew inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the genre. His vocal style influenced many other soul artists of the 1960s.

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10/12/1963

K. M. Panikkar, Indian historian and diplomat (born 1894)

Kavalam Madhava Panikkar, popularly known as Sardar K. M. Panikkar, was an Indian statesman and diplomat. He was also a professor, newspaper editor, historian and novelist. He was born in Travancore, then a princely state in the British Indian Empire and was educated in Madras and at the University of Oxford.

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10/12/1958

Adolfo Camarillo, American horse breeder, rancher, and philanthropist (born 1864)

Don Adolfo Camarillo was a prominent Californio philanthropist, ranchero, and horse breeder, known for founding the city of Camarillo, California, along with his brother Juan Camarillo Jr. Camarillo also donated the land for Adolfo Camarillo High School. The horse breed Camarillo White Horse was named for Camarillo. He began breeding them in 1921 and the line continues today. Because of his philanthropy in 1950, Pope Pius XII named him a Knight of St. Gregory the Great.

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10/12/1957

Napoleon Zervas, Greek general (born 1891)

Napoleon Zervas was a Hellenic Army officer and resistance leader during World War II. He organized and led the National Republican Greek League (EDES), the second most significant, in terms of size and activity, resistance organization against the Axis Occupation of Greece.

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10/12/1956

David Shimoni, Russian-Israeli poet and translator (born 1891)

David Shimoni was an Israeli poet, writer and translator.

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10/12/1953

Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Indian-English scholar and translator (born 1872)

Abdullah Yusuf Ali was an Indian-British barrister who wrote a number of books about Islam, including an exegesis of the Qur'an. A supporter of the British war effort during World War I, Ali received the CBE in 1917 for his services to that cause. He died in London in 1953.

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10/12/1951

Algernon Blackwood, English author and playwright (born 1869)

Algernon Henry Blackwood was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".

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10/12/1948

Na Hye-sok, South Korean journalist, poet, and painter (born 1896)

Na Hye-sŏk (Korean: 나혜석, April 28, 1896 – December 10, 1948) was a Korean feminist, poet, writer, painter, educator, and journalist. Her art name was Jeongwol. She was a pioneering Korean feminist writer and painter. She was the first female professional painter and the first feminist writer in Korea. She created some of the earliest Western-style paintings in Korea, and published feminist novels and short stories. She became well known as a feminist because of her criticism of the marital institution in the early 20th century.

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10/12/1946

Walter Johnson, American baseball player, manager, and sportscaster (born 1887)

Walter Perry Johnson, nicknamed "Barney" and "the Big Train", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year baseball career in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a right-handed pitcher for the Washington Senators from 1907 to 1927. He later served as manager of the Senators from 1929 through 1932 and of the Cleveland Indians from 1933 through 1935.

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Damon Runyon, American newspaperman and short story writer (born 1884)

Alfred Damon Runyon was an American journalist and short-story writer.

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10/12/1945

Theodor Dannecker, German captain (born 1913)

Theodor Dannecker was a German SS-captain, a key aide to Adolf Eichmann in the deportation of Jews during World War II.

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10/12/1944

John Brunt, English captain, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1922)

Captain John Henry Cound Brunt, was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

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10/12/1941

Colin Kelly, American captain and pilot (born 1915)

Colin Purdie Kelly Jr. was an American B-17 Flying Fortress pilot who flew bombing runs against the Japanese navy in the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is remembered as one of the first American heroes of World War II after ordering his crew to bail out while he remained at the bomber's controls trying to keep the plane in the air before it exploded, killing him. His was the first American B-17 to be shot down in combat.

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10/12/1939

John Grieb, American gymnast and triathlete (born 1879)

John William Grieb was an American gymnast and track and field athlete who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. He was born in Philadelphia. In 1904 he won the gold medal in the gymnastics' team event and silver medal in the athletics' triathlon event. He was also sixth in athletics' all-around event, 52nd in gymnastics' all-around event and 90th in gymnastics' triathlon event.

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10/12/1936

Bobby Abel, English cricketer (born 1857)

Robert Abel, nicknamed "The Guv'nor", was a Surrey and England opening batsman who was one of the most prolific run-getters in the early years of the County Championship. He was the first England player to "carry his bat" – opening the batting and remaining not out at the end of an innings – through a Test innings, and the first player to score 2000 runs in consecutive seasons – which he did each season from 1895 to 1902. In 1899 for Surrey against Somerset at The Oval, Abel carried his bat through an innings of 811, the highest total for which this feat has been achieved. His 357* in that innings remains a Surrey record, and was the highest score made at The Oval until Len Hutton scored 364 in 1938. Abel also played a record number of first-class matches in a season – 41 in 1902.

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Luigi Pirandello, Italian dramatist, novelist, and poet Nobel Prize laureate (born 1867)

Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer most noted for his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art". Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd.

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10/12/1932

Joseph Carruthers, Australian politician, 16th Premier of New South Wales (born 1857)

Sir Joseph Hector McNeil Carruthers was an Australian politician who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1904 to 1907.

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10/12/1929

Harry Crosby, American publisher and poet (born 1898)

Harry Crosby was an American poet and publisher regarded as a figure of the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J. P. Morgan, Jr. As such, he was heir to a portion of a substantial family fortune. He was a volunteer in the American Field Service and later served in the U.S. Ambulance Corps, narrowly escaping with his life. Profoundly affected by his experience in World War I, Crosby vowed to live life on his own terms as a bon vivant, and abandoned all pretense of living the expected life of a privileged Bostonian. In 1920 he met and married Caresse Crosby; their affair was the source of scandal and gossip among blue-blood Boston. He and Caresse subsequently left for Europe, where they devoted themselves to art and poetry.

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10/12/1928

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect and painter (born 1868)

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdonald, was influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism and praised by great modernists such as Josef Hoffmann. Mackintosh was born in Glasgow, Scotland and died in London, England. He is among the most important figures of the Modern Style.

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10/12/1926

Nikola Pašić, Serbian politician, 46th Prime Minister of Serbia (born 1845)

Nikola Pašić was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat. During his political career, which spanned almost five decades, he served five times as prime minister of Serbia and three times as prime minister of Yugoslavia, leading 22 governments in total. He played an instrumental role in the founding of Yugoslavia and is considered one of the most influential figures in Serbian twentieth-century history. With 12 years in office, Pašić was the longest-serving prime minister of Serbia.

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10/12/1922

Clement Lindley Wragge, English meteorologist and author (born 1852)

Clement Lindley Wragge was an English meteorologist. He set up the Wragge Museum in Stafford following a trip around the world. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and in 1879 was elected Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in London. To the end of his life, he was interested in theosophy and spiritualism. In 1908, during a tour of India, he met with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam who had claimed to be the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer awaited by Muslims. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sought him out in New Zealand to ask for his views on spiritualism before writing The Wanderings of a Spiritualist in 1921. After training in law, Wragge became a meteorologist, his accomplishments in the field including winning the Scottish Meteorological Society's gold medal and years later starting the trend of using people's names for cyclones. He travelled widely, giving lectures in London and India, and in his later years was an authority on Australia, India and the Pacific Islands.

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10/12/1920

Horace Elgin Dodge, American businessman, co-founded Dodge (born 1868)

Horace Elgin Dodge Sr. was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.

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10/12/1917

Mackenzie Bowell, English-Canadian journalist and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Canada (born 1823)

Sir Mackenzie Bowell was the fifth prime minister of Canada, serving from 1894 to 1896.

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10/12/1911

Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist and explorer (born 1817)

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For 20 years he served as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, and was awarded the highest honours of British science.

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10/12/1909

Red Cloud, American tribal chief (of the Oglala nation) (born 1822)

Red Cloud was a leader of the Oglala Lakota from 1865 to 1909. He was one of the most capable Native American opponents whom the United States Army faced in the western territories. He led the Lakota to victory over the United States during Red Cloud's War, establishing the Lakota as the only nation to defeat the United States on American soil. The largest action of the war was the 1866 Fetterman Fight, with 81 US soldiers killed; it was the worst military defeat suffered by the US Army on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn 10 years later.

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10/12/1896

Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and engineer, invented Dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize (born 1833)

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. He is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes. He also made several other important contributions to science, holding 355 patents during his life.

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10/12/1867

Sakamoto Ryōma, Japanese samurai and politician (born 1836)

Sakamoto Ryōma was a Japanese samurai, a shishi and influential figure of the Bakumatsu, and establishment of the Empire of Japan in the late Edo period.

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10/12/1865

Leopold I of Belgium (born 1790)

Leopold I was the first king of the Belgians, reigning from 21 July 1831 until his death in 1865.

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10/12/1850

Józef Bem, Polish general and physicist (born 1794)

Józef Zachariasz Bem was a Polish engineer and general, an Ottoman pasha and a national hero of Poland and Hungary, and a figure intertwined with other European patriotic movements. Like Tadeusz Kościuszko and Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, Bem fought outside Poland's borders anywhere his leadership and military skills were needed.

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François Sulpice Beudant, French mineralogist and geologist (born 1787)

François Sulpice Beudant was a French mineralogist and geologist. The mineral beudantite was named after him.

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10/12/1831

Thomas Johann Seebeck, German physicist and academic (born 1770)

Thomas Johann Seebeck was a German physicist who observed a relationship between heat and magnetism. Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted later called this phenomenon the thermoelectric effect.

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10/12/1791

Jacob Frank, Polish religious leader (born 1726)

Jacob Joseph Frank was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) and also of the biblical patriarch Jacob. The religious authorities of the Jewish community excommunicated Frank and his followers due to his heretical doctrines that included deification of himself as a part of a trinity and other controversial concepts such as neo-Carpocratian "purification through transgression". Frank’s teachings led his sect into scandalous practices, including ritualized orgies, incestuous acts—most notably between fathers and daughters—and the deliberate violation of Jewish moral laws, which he preached were necessary to hasten a messianic redemption through embracing the "abyss" of sin.

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10/12/1736

António Manoel de Vilhena, Portuguese soldier and politician (born 1663)

António Manoel de Vilhena was a Portuguese nobleman who was the 66th Prince and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 19 June 1722 to his death in 1736. Unlike a number of the other Grand Masters, he was benevolent and popular with the Maltese people. Vilhena is mostly remembered for the founding of Floriana, the construction of Fort Manoel and the Manoel Theatre, and the renovation of the city of Mdina.

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10/12/1665

Tarquinio Merula, Italian organist, violinist, and composer (born 1594)

Tarquinio Merula was an Italian composer, organist, and violinist of the early Baroque era. Although mainly active in Cremona, stylistically he was a member of the Venetian school. He was one of the most progressive Italian composers of the early 17th century, especially in applying newly developed techniques to sacred music.

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10/12/1626

Edmund Gunter, English mathematician and academic (born 1581)

Edmund Gunter, was an English clergyman, mathematician, geometer and astronomer of Welsh descent. He is best remembered for his mathematical contributions, which include the invention of the Gunter's chain, the Gunter's quadrant, and the Gunter's scale. In 1620, he invented the first successful analogue device which he developed to calculate logarithmic tangents.

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10/12/1618

Giulio Caccini, Italian composer and educator (born 1551)

Giulio Romolo Caccini was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the most influential creators of the new Baroque style. He was also the father of the composer Francesca Caccini and the singer Settimia Caccini.

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10/12/1561

Caspar Schwenckfeld, German theologian and writer

Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig was a German court adviser, theologian, writer, and preacher who became a Protestant Reformer and spiritualist. He was one of the earliest promoters of the Protestant Reformation in Silesia.

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10/12/1541

Thomas Culpeper, English courtier (born 1514)

Thomas Culpeper was an English courtier and close friend of Henry VIII, and was related to two of his queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. He is known to have had many private meetings with Catherine during her marriage, though these may have involved political intrigue rather than sex. A letter to him was found, written by Queen Catherine and signed, "Yours as long as life endures." Accused of adultery with Henry's young consort, Culpeper denied it and blamed the Queen for the situation, saying that he had tried to end his friendship with her, but that she was "dying of love for him". Eventually, Culpeper admitted that he intended to sleep with the queen, though he never admitted to having actually done so. After being convicted of treason, Culpeper was executed by beheading in December, 1541.

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Francis Dereham, English courtier (born c. 1513)

Francis Dereham was a Tudor courtier whose involvement with Henry VIII's fifth Queen, Catherine Howard, in her youth, prior to engagement with the king, was eventually found out and led to his arrest. The information of Dereham having a relationship with Howard displeased King Henry to such great lengths he arranged the executions of all involved.

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10/12/1508

René II, Duke of Lorraine (born 1451)

René II was Count of Vaudémont from 1470, Duke of Lorraine from 1473, and Duke of Bar from 1483 to 1508. He claimed the crown of the Kingdom of Naples and the County of Provence as the Duke of Calabria 1480–1493 and as King of Naples and Jerusalem 1493–1508. He succeeded his uncle John of Vaudémont as Count of Harcourt in 1473, exchanging it for the county of Aumale in 1495. He succeeded as Count of Guise in 1504.

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10/12/1475

Paolo Uccello, Italian painter (born 1397)

Paolo Uccello, born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian Renaissance painter and mathematician from Florence who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. In his book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point. Uccello used perspective to create a feeling of depth in his paintings. His best known works are the three paintings representing the battle of San Romano, which were wrongly entitled the Battle of Sant'Egidio of 1416 for a long period of time.

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10/12/1454

Ignatius Behnam Hadloyo, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch.

Ignatius Behnam Hadloyo was the Patriarch of Antioch and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1445 until his death in 1454.

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10/12/1310

Stephen I, Duke of Bavaria (born 1271)

Stephen I was the duke of Lower Bavaria from 1290 until 1310 as co-regnant of his older brothers Otto III and Louis III.

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10/12/1113

Radwan, ruler of Aleppo

Ridwan was a Seljuk emir of Aleppo from 1095 until his death.

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10/12/1081

Nikephoros III Botaneiates, deposed Byzantine Emperor (born c.1002)

Nikephoros III Botaneiates, Latinized as Nicephorus III Botaniates, was Byzantine Emperor from 7 January 1078 to 1 April 1081. He became a general during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, serving with distinction during the Pecheneg revolt of 1048–1053. In 1057 he aided Isaac I Komnenos in overthrowing Emperor Michael VI Bringas, leading forces at the decisive Battle of Petroe. Under the Emperor Constantine X Doukas Nikephoros was made doux, first of Thessalonica and subsequently of Antioch. In the latter position he repelled numerous incursions from the Emirate of Aleppo. Constantine X died in 1067 and Empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa married Romanos IV Diogenes; Nikephoros, who had also been a candidate for Eudokia's hand and the position of emperor, was exiled and remained in retirement until Emperor Michael VII summoned him to serve as kouropalates and governor of the Anatolic Theme.

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10/12/1041

Michael IV the Paphlagonian, Byzantine emperor (born 1010)

Michael IV the Paphlagonian was Byzantine Emperor from 11 April 1034 to his death on 10 December 1041.

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10/12/0990

Folcmar, bishop of Utrecht

Volkmar, Folkmar or Folcmar is a German given name, now also found as a surname. It is derived from an Old High German compound equivalent to 'people, folk, nation' + 'famous'. Notable people with the name include:

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10/12/0949

Herman I, Duke of Swabia

Herman I was the first Conradine Duke of Swabia, the son of Gebhard, Duke of Lorraine, and a cousin of King Conrad I of Germany.

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10/12/0925

Sancho I, king of Pamplona

Sancho Garcés I, also known as Sancho I, was king of Pamplona from 905 until 925. He was the son of García Jiménez and was the first king of Pamplona of the Jiménez dynasty. Sancho I was the feudal ruler of the Onsella valley, and expanded his power to all the neighboring territories. He was chosen to replace Fortún Garcés by the Pamplonese nobility in 905.

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