Died on Friday, 19th December – Famous Deaths

19/12/2024

Michael Leunig, Australian cartoonist (born 1945)

Michael Leunig, typically referred to by his pen name Leunig, was an Australian cartoonist, poet and artist. He was best known for his work for Melbourne's The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

---

Wincey Willis, British broadcaster (born 1948)

Wincey Willis was a British television and radio broadcaster who achieved national fame in the 1980s. She was perhaps best known for being part of the line up at TV-am, the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise, in which she was ITV's first female weather presenter, appearing on Good Morning Britain. She was also known for her adjudicator role in the popular television game show Treasure Hunt.

---

19/12/2021

Sally Ann Howes, English-American singer and actress (born 1930)

Sally Ann Howes was an English and American actress and singer. Her career on screen, stage and television spanned six decades. She is best known for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In 1963, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance in Brigadoon.

---

Johnny Isakson, American politician (born 1944)

John Hardy Isakson was an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2005 until his resignation in 2019 following health concerns. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Georgia legislature and the United States House of Representatives.

---

19/12/2020

Rosalind Knight, English actress (born 1933)

Rosalind Marie Elliott was an English actress. Her career spanned 70 years on stage, screen, and television. Her film appearances include Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957), Carry On Nurse (1959), Carry On Teacher (1959), Tom Jones (1963), and About a Boy (2002). Among her TV roles were playing Beryl in the BBC sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme (1999–2001) and Cynthia Goodman in Friday Night Dinner.

---

19/12/2016

Andrei Karlov, Russian diplomat, Ambassador to Turkey (born 1954)

Andrei Gennadyevich Karlov was a Russian diplomat who served as the Russian ambassador to Turkey and earlier as the Russian ambassador to North Korea.

---

19/12/2015

Jimmy Hill, English footballer, manager, and sportscaster (born 1928)

James William Thomas Hill, OBE was an English footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including player, trade union leader, coach, manager, director, chairman, television executive, presenter, pundit, analyst and assistant referee.

---

Greville Janner, Baron Janner of Braunstone, Welsh-English lawyer and politician (born 1928)

Greville Ewan Janner, Baron Janner of Braunstone, was a British politician, barrister and writer. He became a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester in the 1970 general election as a last-minute candidate, succeeding his father. He was an MP until 1997, and then elevated to the House of Lords. Never a frontbencher, Janner was particularly known for his work on Select Committees; he chaired the Select Committee on Employment for a time. He was associated with a number of Jewish organisations including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, of which he was chairman from 1978 to 1984, and was later prominent in the field of education about the Holocaust.

---

Karin Söder, Swedish educator and politician, 33rd Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (born 1928)

Karin Ann-Marie Söder was a Swedish Centre politician. She was the first woman in Sweden to be elected the leader of a major political party. She headed the Swedish Centre Party from 1985 to 1987. She was also one of the first female foreign ministers in the world.

---

19/12/2014

S. Balasubramanian, Indian journalist and director (born 1936)

S. Balasubramanian, better known as S. S. Balan, was an Indian journalist, filmmaker, political analyst, and media executive. He was also involved in aviculture and agriculture.

---

Philip Bradbourn, English lawyer and politician (born 1951)

Philip Charles Bradbourn, was a British Conservative Party politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands from 1999 to 2014.

---

Arthur Gardner, American actor and producer (born 1910)

Arthur Gardner was an American actor and film producer. He was known for his television western, The Rifleman. He was a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

---

Igor Rodionov, Russian general and politician, 3rd Russian Minister of Defence (born 1936)

Igor Nikolayevich Rodionov was a Russian general and Duma deputy. He is best known as a hardline politician, and for his service heading the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation.

---

Dick Thornton, American-Canadian football player and coach (born 1939)

Richard Quincy "Tricky Dick" Thornton was an American professional football player who played in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a defensive back and wide receiver for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts from 1961 to 1972.

---

Roberta Leigh (Rita Shulman Lewin), British writer, artist and TV producer (born 1926).

Roberta Leigh was an assumed name for Rita Lewin who was a British author, artist, composer and television producer. She wrote romance fiction and children's stories under the pseudonyms Roberta Leigh, Rachel Lindsay, Janey Scott and Rozella Lake.

---

19/12/2013

Winton Dean, English musicologist and author (born 1916)

Winton Basil Dean was an English musicologist of the 20th century, most famous for his research on the life and works—in particular the operas and oratorios—of George Frideric Handel, as detailed in his book Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (1959).

---

Al Goldstein, American publisher and pornographer (born 1936)

Alvin Goldstein was an American pornographer best known for publishing the sex newspaper Screw in the United States.

---

Ned Vizzini, American author and screenwriter (born 1981)

Edison Price Vizzini was an American writer. He was the author of four books for young adults, including It's Kind of a Funny Story (2006), which NPR placed at #56 in its list of the "100 Best-Ever Teen Novels" and which is the basis of the film of the same name.

---

19/12/2012

Robert Bork, American lawyer, judge, and scholar, United States Attorney General (born 1927)

Robert Heron "Bob" Bork was an American legal scholar who served as solicitor general of the United States from 1973 until 1977. A law professor by training, he was acting United States Attorney General from 1973 to 1974 and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate rejected his nomination after a contentious and highly publicized confirmation hearing.

---

Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Israeli general and politician, 22nd Transportation Minister of Israel (born 1944)

Amnon Lipkin-Shahak was an Israeli military officer and politician. He served as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, as a Member of the Knesset, and as Minister of Transportation and Minister of Tourism.

---

Larry Morris, American football player (born 1933)

Larry Cleo Morris was an American professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL), primarily with the Chicago Bears. The 1950 graduate of Decatur High School became an All-American playing college football for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets before his NFL career. "The Brahma Bull" was named one of the linebackers on the NFL 1960s All-Decade Team.

---

Peter Struck, German lawyer and politician, 13th German Federal Minister of Defence (born 1943)

Peter Struck was the German Minister of Defence under chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 2002 to 2005. A lawyer, Struck was a member of the Social Democratic Party.

---

19/12/2010

Anthony Howard, English journalist and author (born 1934)

Anthony Michell Howard, CBE was a British journalist, broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the New Statesman and The Listener and the deputy editor of The Observer. He selected the passages used in The Crossman Diaries, a book of entries taken from Richard Crossman's The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister.

---

19/12/2009

Kim Peek, American megasavant (born 1951)

Laurence Kim Peek was an American savant. Known as a "megasavant", he had an exceptional memory and exceptional intelligence, but he also experienced social difficulties, possibly resulting from a developmental disability related to congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration for the character Raymond Babbitt in the 1988 movie Rain Man. Although Peek was previously diagnosed with autism, he is now thought to have had FG syndrome.

---

19/12/2008

James Bevel, American minister and activist (born 1936)

James Luther Bevel was an American minister and a leader and major strategist of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its director of direct action and nonviolent education, he initiated, strategized, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era: the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the 1965 Selma voting rights movement, and the 1966 Chicago open housing movement. Bevel suggested that SCLC call for and join a March on Washington in 1963 and strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

---

Carol Chomsky, American linguist and educator (born 1930)

Carol Doris Chomsky was an American linguist and education specialist who studied language acquisition in children.

---

Michael Connell, American political consultant (born 1963)

Michael Louis Connell was a high-level Republican consultant who was subpoenaed in a case regarding alleged tampering with the 2004 U.S. presidential election and a case involving thousands of missing emails pertaining to the political firing of U.S. Attorneys. Connell was killed when the plane he was flying crashed on December 19, 2008.

---

Dock Ellis, American baseball player and coach (born 1945)

Dock Phillip Ellis Jr. was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher from 1968 through 1979, most notably as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates teams that won five National League Eastern Division titles in six years between 1970 and 1975 and won the World Series in 1971. Ellis also played for the New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers and New York Mets. In his MLB career, Ellis accumulated a 138–119 (.537) record, a 3.46 earned run average, and 1,136 strikeouts.

---

19/12/2005

Vincent Gigante, American mobster (born 1927)

Vincent Louis Gigante, also known as "Chin", was an American mobster who was boss of the Genovese crime family in New York City between 1981 and 2005.

---

19/12/2004

Herbert C. Brown, English-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1912)

Herbert Charles Brown was an American chemist and recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with organoboranes.

---

Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano and actress (born 1922)

Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period, and especially prominent as one of the stars of La Scala, San Carlo and, especially, the Metropolitan Opera. Often considered among the great opera singers of the 20th century, she focused primarily on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini called her voice la voce d'angelo, and La Scala music director Riccardo Muti called her "one of the greatest performers with one of the most extraordinary voices in the field of opera."

---

19/12/2003

Peter Carter-Ruck, English lawyer, founded Carter-Ruck (born 1914)

Peter Frederick Carter-Ruck was an English solicitor, specialising in libel cases. The firm he founded, Carter-Ruck, is still practising.

---

Hope Lange, American actress (born 1933)

Hope Elise Ross Lange was an American film, stage, and television actress. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Selena Cross in the 1957 film Peyton Place. In 1969 and 1970, she twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Carolyn Muir in the sitcom The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.

---

19/12/2002

Will Hoy, English race car driver (born 1952)

William Ewing Hoy was a British racing driver and the 1991 British Touring Car Champion, the highlight of a 20-year career in motor racing.

---

Arthur Rowley, English footballer and manager (born 1926)

George Arthur Rowley Jr., nicknamed "The Gunner" because of his explosive left-foot shot, was an English football player and cricketer. He holds the record for the most goals in the history of English league football, scoring 434 from 619 league games. He was the younger brother of Manchester United footballer Jack Rowley. He was shortlisted for inclusion into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2008.

---

George Weller, American author, playwright, and journalist (born 1907)

George Anthony Weller was an American novelist, playwright, and journalist for The New York Times and Chicago Daily News. He won a 1943 Pulitzer Prize as a Daily News war correspondent.

---

19/12/2000

Rob Buck, American guitarist and songwriter (born 1958)

Robert Norman Buck was an American guitarist and founding member of the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs. Buck co-wrote some of the most successful songs recorded by 10,000 Maniacs, including "What's the Matter Here", "Hey Jack Kerouac", and "These Are Days".

---

Milt Hinton, American bassist and photographer (born 1910)

Milton John Hinton was an American double bassist and photographer.

---

John Lindsay, American lawyer and politician, 103rd Mayor of New York City (born 1921)

John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, the mayor of New York City, and a candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular guest host of Good Morning America. Lindsay served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from January 1959 to December 1965 and as mayor of New York from January 1966 to December 1973.

---

19/12/1999

Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh soldier and actor (born 1914)

Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn was a Welsh actor. He was best known for his role as Q in 17 of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1999.

---

19/12/1998

Mel Fisher, American treasure hunter (born 1922)

Mel Fisher was an American treasure hunter who spent decades treasure hunting in the Florida Keys and is best known for finding the 1622 wreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha in the 1970s.

---

19/12/1997

Sara Northrup Hollister, American occultist (born 1924)

Sara Elizabeth Bruce Northrup Hollister was an American occultist and second wife of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. She played a major role in the creation of Dianetics, which evolved into the religious movement Scientology. Hubbard would evolve into the leader of the Church of Scientology.

---

Masaru Ibuka, Japanese businessman, co-founded Sony (born 1908)

Masaru Ibuka was a Japanese electronics industrialist and co-founder of Sony, along with Akio Morita.

---

Jimmy Rogers, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1924)

Jay or James Arthur "Jimmy" Rogers was an American Chicago blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player, best known for his work as a member of Muddy Waters's band in the early 1950s. He also had a solo career and recorded several popular blues songs, including "That's All Right", "Chicago Bound", "Walking by Myself", and "Rock This House". He withdrew from the music industry at the end of the 1950s, but returned to recording and touring in the 1970s.

---

19/12/1996

Marcello Mastroianni, Italian-French actor and singer (born 1924)

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was an Italian actor. He is generally regarded as one of Italy's most iconic male performers of the 20th century. He played leading roles for many of the country's top directors, in a career spanning 147 films between 1939 and 1996, garnering many international honours including two BAFTA Awards, two Best Actor awards at the Venice and Cannes film festivals, two Golden Globes, and three Academy Award nominations.

---

19/12/1993

Michael Clarke, American drummer (born 1946)

Michael Clarke was an American musician, best known as the drummer for rock group the Byrds from 1964 to 1968. Clarke was later an original for country rock group The Flying Burrito Brothers (1969–1971) and rock group Firefall (1974–1980).

---

19/12/1989

Stella Gibbons, English journalist, author, and poet (born 1902)

Stella Dorothea Gibbons was an English author, journalist, and poet. She established her reputation with her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932), which has been reprinted many times. Although she was active as a writer for half a century, none of her later 22 novels or other literary works—which included a sequel to Cold Comfort Farm—achieved the same critical or popular success. Much of her work was long out of print before a modest revival in the 21st century.

---

Kirill Mazurov, Belarusian Soviet politician (born 1914)

Kirill Trofimovich Mazurov was a Soviet partisan, politician, and one of the leaders of the Belarusian resistance during World War II who governed the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia from 1956 until 1965, when he became a member of the Politburo of the CPSU.

---

19/12/1988

Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (born 1919)

Robert Bernstein, sometimes credited as R. Berns, was an American comic book writer, playwright and concert impresario, notable as the founder of the Island Concert Hall recital series which ran for 15 years on Long Island.

---

Win Maw Oo, Burmese student activist (born 1971)

Win Maw Oo was a Burmese student activist who was killed during the 8888 Uprising in Burma (Myanmar). She is considered one of the most prominent heroes of Burma's pro-democracy movement.

---

19/12/1987

August Mälk, Estonian author, playwright, and politician (born 1900)

August Mälk was an Estonian writer and politician.

---

19/12/1986

V. C. Andrews, American author (born 1923)

Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as Virginia C. Andrews or V. C. Andrews, was an American novelist. She was best known for her 1979 novel Flowers in the Attic, which inspired two movie adaptations and four sequels. While her novels are not classified by her publisher as Young Adult, their young protagonists have made them popular among teenagers for decades. After her death in 1986, a ghostwriter who was initially hired to complete two unfinished works has continued to publish books under her name.

---

Werner Dankwort, Russian-German colonel and diplomat (born 1895)

Carl Werner Dankwort born in Gumbinnen, East Prussia, was a German diplomat who served a major role in bringing Germany into the League of Nations in 1926 prior to representing the German contingent in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, the post-World War II effort known as the Marshall Plan.

---

19/12/1984

Joy Ridderhof, American missionary (born 1903)

Joy F. Ridderhof was an American missionary.

---

19/12/1982

Dwight Macdonald, American philosopher, author, and critic (born 1906)

Dwight Macdonald was an American writer, critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist magazine Partisan Review for six years. He also contributed to other New York publications including Time, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and Politics, a journal which he founded in 1944.

---

19/12/1976

Giuseppe Caselli, Italian painter (born 1893)

Giuseppe Ugo Caselli was an Italian painter.

---

19/12/1972

Ahmet Emin Yalman, Turkish journalist, author, and academic (born 1888)

Ahmet Emin Yalman was a Turkish journalist, publisher, professor and influential policy-advisor in the Republic of Turkey. He was a liberal and opposed the spread of the Nazi ideology in his home country.

---

19/12/1968

Norman Thomas, American minister and politician (born 1884)

Norman Mattoon Thomas was an American Presbyterian minister, political activist, and perennial candidate for president. He achieved fame as a socialist and pacifist, and was the Socialist Party of America's candidate for president in six consecutive elections between 1928 and 1948.

---

19/12/1953

Robert Andrews Millikan, American physicist and eugenicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1868)

Robert Andrews Millikan was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923 "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect."

---

19/12/1946

Paul Langevin, French physicist and academic (born 1872)

Paul Langevin was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an anti-fascist organization created after the 6 February 1934 far right riots. Being a public opponent of fascism in the 1930s resulted in his arrest and being held under house arrest by the Vichy government for most of World War II. Langevin was also president of the Human Rights League (LDH) from 1944 to 1946, having recently joined the French Communist Party.

---

19/12/1944

Abbas II of Egypt (born 1874)

Abbas Helmy II was the last Khedive of Egypt and the Sudan, ruling from 8 January 1892 to 19 December 1914. In 1914, after the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I, the nationalist Khedive was removed by the British, then ruling Egypt, in favour of his more pro-British uncle, Hussein Kamel, marking the de jure end of Egypt's four-century era as a province of the Ottoman Empire, which had begun in 1517.

---

Rudolph Karstadt, German businessman (born 1856)

Rudolph Karstadt was a German entrepreneur.

---

19/12/1940

Kyösti Kallio, Finnish politician, the 4th President of Finland (born 1873)

Kyösti Kallio was a Finnish politician who served as the president of Finland from 1937 to 1940. His presidency included leading the country through the Winter War; while he relinquished the post of commander-in-chief to Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, he played a role as a spiritual leader. After the war, he became both the first president of Finland to resign and the only one to die in office, dying of a heart attack while returning home after submitting his resignation.

---

19/12/1938

Stephen Warfield Gambrill, American lawyer and politician (born 1873)

Stephen Warfield Gambrill was an American politician.

---

19/12/1933

George Jackson Churchward, English engineer and businessman (born 1857)

George Jackson Churchward was an English railway engineer, and was chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway (GWR) in the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1922.

---

19/12/1932

Yun Bong-gil, South Korean activist (born 1908)

Yun Bong-gil was a Korean independence activist. His art name is Maeheon (매헌). He is most notable for his role in the Hongkou Park Incident, in which he set off a bomb that killed two Japanese colonial government and army officials in Shanghai's Hongkou Park in 1932. He was posthumously awarded the Republic of Korea Medal of Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1962 by the South Korean government.

---

19/12/1927

Ashfaqulla Khan, Indian activist (born 1900)

Ashfaqulla Khan was a freedom fighter and martyr in the Indian independence movement against British rule, and the co-founder of the Hindustan Republican Association, later to become the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.

---

Ram Prasad Bismil, Indian poet and activist (born 1897)

Ram Prasad Bismil was an Indian poet, writer, and revolutionary Rajput who fought against British Raj, participating in the Mainpuri Conspiracy of 1918, and the Kakori Conspiracy of 1925. He composed in Urdu and Hindi under pen names Ram, Agyat अज्ञात (anonymous) and Bismil (wounded), becoming widely known under the latter. "Bismil" was not his real surname; it was his pen name. Pandit was an honorific title conferred to him due to his specialised knowledge on several subjects. He was also a translator.

---

19/12/1916

Thibaw Min, Burmese king (born 1859)

Thibaw Min, also Thebaw, was the last king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) and also the last Burmese monarch in the country's history. His reign ended when the Royal Burmese armed forces were defeated by the forces of the British Empire in the Third Anglo-Burmese War, on 29 November 1885, prior to its official annexation on 1 January 1886.

---

19/12/1915

Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist (born 1864)

Alois Alzheimer was a German psychiatrist, neuropathologist and colleague of Emil Kraepelin. He is credited with identifying the first published case of "presenile dementia", which Kraepelin later identified as Alzheimer's disease.

---

19/12/1899

Henry Ware Lawton, American general (born 1843)

Henry Ware Lawton was a U.S. Army officer who served with distinction in the Civil War, the Apache Wars, and the Spanish–American War. He received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the American Civil War. He was the only U.S. general officer to be killed during the Philippine–American War and the first general officer of the United States killed in overseas action. The city of Lawton, Oklahoma, takes its name from General Lawton, as does a borough in the city of Havana, Cuba. Liwasang Bonifacio in downtown Manila was formerly named Plaza Lawton in his honor.

---

19/12/1878

Bayard Taylor, American author and poet (born 1825)

Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat. As a poet, he was very popular, with a crowd of more than 4,000 attending a poetry reading once, which was a record that stood for 85 years. His travelogues were popular in both the United States and Great Britain. He served in diplomatic posts in Russia and Prussia.

---

19/12/1851

Joseph Mallord William Turner, English painter (born 1775)

Joseph Mallord William Turner, known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. His artistic style developed over his lifetime, moving away from Romanticism—bypassing the following rising style of Realism—and, instead, with his later works being a significant precursor of and presaging the later Impressionist and Abstract Art movements that arose in the decades after his death. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. In 1969 art historian Kenneth Clark wrote of Turner: "He was a genius of the first order—far the greatest painter that England has ever produced..."

---

19/12/1848

Emily Brontë, English novelist and poet (born 1818)

Emily Jane Brontë was an English writer best known for her 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. She also co-authored a book of poetry with her sisters Charlotte and Anne entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.

---

19/12/1819

Thomas Fremantle, English admiral and politician (born 1765)

Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Francis Fremantle, 1st Baron Fremantle, was a Royal Navy officer whose accolades include three separate fleet actions, a close friendship with Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson and being granted an Austrian barony. He was the father of Admiral Sir Charles Fremantle, after whom the city Fremantle in Western Australia is named.

---

19/12/1813

James McGill, Scottish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist, founded McGill University (born 1744)

James McGill was a Scottish-born businessman, politician, slaveholder, and philanthropist best known for being the founder of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada for Montreal West and appointed to the Executive Council of Lower Canada in 1792. He was an honorary lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, Montreal Militia, a predecessor unit of The Canadian Grenadier Guards. He was also a prominent member of the Château Clique and one of the original founding members of the Beaver Club. His summer home stood within the Golden Square Mile.

---

19/12/1807

Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm, German-French author and playwright (born 1723)

Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm was a German-born French-language journalist, art critic, diplomat and contributor to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. In 1765 Grimm wrote Poème lyrique, an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos. Like Christoph Willibald Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi, Grimm became interested in opera reform. According to Martin Fontius, a German literary theorist, "sooner or later a book entitled The Aesthetic Ideas of Grimm will have to be written."

---

19/12/1749

Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (born 1672)

Francesco Antonio Bonporti was an Italian priest and amateur composer.

---

19/12/1745

Jean-Baptiste van Loo, French painter (born 1684)

Jean-Baptiste van Loo was a French portrait painter.

---

19/12/1741

Vitus Bering, Danish-born Russian explorer (born 1681)

Vitus Jonassen Bering, also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was a Danish-born Russian cartographer, explorer, and officer in the Russian Navy. He is known as a leader of two Russian expeditions, the First Kamchatka Expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, exploring the northeastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast of the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier, and Vitus Lake were all named in his honor.

---

19/12/1637

Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany (born 1565)

Christina of Lorraine was a noblewoman of the House of Lorraine who became a Grand Duchess of Tuscany by marriage. She served as Regent of Tuscany jointly with her daughter-in-law during the minority of her grandson from 1621 to 1628.

---

19/12/1558

Cornelius Grapheus, Flemish writer (born 1482)

Cornelius Grapheus, Latinized from Cornelis De Schrijver, was a secretary to the city of Antwerp and writer.

---

19/12/1442

Elizabeth of Luxembourg (born 1409)

Elizabeth of Luxembourg was queen consort of Hungary, queen consort of Germany and Bohemia.

---

19/12/1385

Bernabò Visconti, Lord of Milan (born 1319)

Bernabò or Barnabò Visconti was an Italian soldier and statesman who was Lord of Milan. Along with his brothers Matteo and Galeazzo II, he inherited the lordship of Milan from his uncle Giovanni. Later in 1355, he and Galeazzo II were rumored to have murdered their brother Matteo since he endangered the regime. When Galeazzo II died, he shared Milan's lordship with his nephew Gian Galeazzo. Bernabò was said to be ruthless towards his subjects and did not hesitate to face emperors and popes, including Pope Urban V. The conflict with the Church caused him several excommunications. On 6 May 1385, his nephew Gian Galeazzo deposed him. Imprisoned in his castle, Trezzo sull'Adda, he died a few months later, presumably from poisoning.

---

19/12/1370

Pope Urban V (born 1310)

Pope Urban V was head of the Catholic Church from 28 September 1362 until his death on 19 December 1370. He was a member of the Order of Saint Benedict and the only Avignon pope to be beatified.

---

19/12/1327

Agnes of France, Duchess of Burgundy (born 1260)

Agnes of France was Duchess of Burgundy by marriage to Robert II, Duke of Burgundy. She served as regent of Burgundy during the minority of her son's reign in 1306–1311.

---

19/12/1123

Saint Berardo, Italian bishop and saint

Berardo is an Italian saint, patron saint of the city and diocese of Teramo.

---

19/12/1111

Al-Ghazali, Persian jurist, philosopher, theologian, and mystic (born 1058)

Al-Ghazali, (Persian: ابو حامد محمد ابن محمد غزالی توسی, romanized: Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ghazālī Ṭūsi, Latinized as Algazelus, was a Shafi'i Sunni Muslim Persian scholar and polymath. He is known as one of the most prominent and influential jurisconsults, legal theoreticians, muftis, philosophers, theologians, logicians and mystics in Islamic history.

---

19/12/1091

Adelaide of Susa, margravine of Turin

Adelaide of Susa was the countess of part of the March of Ivrea and the Marchioness of Turin in Northwestern Italy from 1034 to her death. She was the last of the Arduinici. She is sometimes compared to her second cousin and close contemporary, Matilda of Tuscany.

---

19/12/0966

Sancho I, king of León

Sancho I of León, nicknamed Sancho the Fat was a king of León twice. He was succeeded in 958 by Ordoño IV and, on his death, by his son Ramiro.

---

19/12/0401

Pope Anastasius I

Pope Anastasius I was the bishop of Rome from 27 November 399 to his death on 19 December 401.

---