Died on Sunday, 21st December – Famous Deaths

21/12/2024

Michelle Botes, South African actress (born 1962)

Michélle Botes was a South African actress, language instructor, designer and aromatherapist. She is best known for her roles in the television soapies Legacy (2020), Isidingo (1998) and Arende (1994).

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Art Evans, American actor (born 1942)

Arthur James Evans was an American actor who made multiple film and television appearances over five decades.

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21/12/2019

Andrew Clennel Palmer, British engineer (born 1938)

Andrew Clennel Palmer was a British engineer who worked on offshore geotechnical problems of submarine pipeline design and the study of the properties of ice. He spent much of his career as a teacher and academic researcher, at the University of Liverpool, Cambridge University, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and the National University of Singapore, punctuated by work in industry, while also serving as an expert witness and as a member of various industrial and academic committees.

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21/12/2017

Bruce McCandless II, US astronaut who conducted the first untethered spacewalk (born 1937)

Bruce McCandless II was an American Navy officer and aviator, electrical engineer, and NASA astronaut. In 1984, during the first of his two Space Shuttle missions, he completed the first untethered spacewalk by using the Manned Maneuvering Unit.

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21/12/2014

Udo Jürgens, Austrian-Swiss singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1934)

Udo Jürgens was an Austrian composer and singer of popular music whose career spanned over 50 years. He won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 for Austria, composed close to 1,000 songs, and sold over 104 million records. In 2007, he additionally obtained Swiss citizenship.

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Sitor Situmorang, Indonesian poet and author (born 1923)

Sitor Situmorang was an Indonesian poet, essayist and writer of short stories. Situmorang was born in Harianboho, North Sumatra, and educated in Jakarta. He worked as a journalist and literary critic in Medan, Yogyakarta and Jakarta for a variety of newspapers and periodicals.

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Billie Whitelaw, English actress (born 1932)

Billie Honor Whitelaw was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs Baylock, the demonic nanny in the 1976 horror film The Omen.

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21/12/2013

Edgar Bronfman Sr., Canadian-American businessman and philanthropist (born 1929)

Edgar Miles Bronfman was a Canadian-American businessman. He worked for his family's distilled beverage firm, Seagram, eventually becoming president, treasurer and CEO. As president of the World Jewish Congress, Bronfman initiated diplomacy with the Soviet Union, which resulted in the Soviet government legitimizing the Hebrew language in the USSR and contributed to Soviet Jews being legally able to practice their religion and immigrate to Israel.

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John Eisenhower, American historian, general, and diplomat, 45th United States Ambassador to Belgium (born 1922)

John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower was a United States Army officer, diplomat, and military historian. He was the second son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. His military career spanned from before, during, and after his father's presidency, and he left active duty in 1963 and then retired in 1974. From 1969 to 1971, Eisenhower served as United States Ambassador to Belgium during the administration of President Richard Nixon, who was previously his father's vice president and also father-in-law to Eisenhower's son David.

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21/12/2010

Enzo Bearzot, Italian footballer and manager (born 1927)

Enzo Bearzot was an Italian professional football player and manager. A defender and midfielder in his playing career, he also coached the Italy national team to victory in the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

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21/12/2009

Edwin G. Krebs, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918)

Edwin Gerhard Krebs was an American biochemist. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia University in 1989 together with Alfred Gilman and, together with his collaborator Edmond H. Fischer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 for describing how reversible phosphorylation works as a switch to activate proteins and regulate various cellular processes.

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Christos Lambrakis, Greek journalist and businessman (born 1934)

Christos Dimitriou Lambrakis was the owner of Lambrakis Press Group (DOL), one of the largest newspaper groups in Greece, and arguably the most influential.

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21/12/2006

Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmen engineer and politician, 1st President of Turkmenistan (born 1940)

Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow, also spelled Saparmurat Niyazov, was a Turkmen politician and dictator who led Turkmenistan from 1985 until his death in 2006. He was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan from 1985 until 1991 and supported the 1991 Soviet coup attempt. He continued to rule Turkmenistan as the first president for 15 years after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

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21/12/2004

Autar Singh Paintal, Indian physiologist and neurologist (born 1925)

Autar Singh Paintal was an Indian medical scientist who made pioneering discoveries in the area of neurosciences and respiratory sciences. He is the first Indian Physiologist to become the Fellow of the Royal Society, London.

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21/12/1998

Ernst-Günther Schenck, German colonel and physician (born 1904)

Ernst-Günther Schenck was a German medical doctor and member of the SS in Nazi Germany. Because of a chance encounter with Adolf Hitler during the closing days of World War II, his memoirs proved historically valuable. His accounts of this period are prominent in the works of Joachim Fest and James P. O'Donnell regarding the end of Hitler's life, and were included in the film Downfall (2004). Schenck was not allowed to continue his medical career in post-war Germany.

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21/12/1992

Stella Adler, American actress and educator (born 1901)

Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher.

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Albert King, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1924)

Albert King was an American guitarist and singer, who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists ever. He is perhaps best known for his popular and influential album Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and its title track. B. B. King, Freddie King, and he, all unrelated, were known as the "Three Kings of the Blues". The left-handed Albert King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists".

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Nathan Milstein, Russian-American violinist and composer (born 1903)

Nathan Mironovich Milstein was a Russian-American virtuoso violinist.

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21/12/1988

Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch-English ethologist and ornithologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1907)

Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior.

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21/12/1983

Paul de Man, Belgian-born philosopher, literary critic and theorist (born 1919)

Paul de Man, born Paul Adolph Michel Deman, was a Belgian-born American literary critic and literary theorist. He was known particularly for his importation of German and French philosophical approaches into Anglo-American literary studies and critical theory. Along with Jacques Derrida, he was part of an influential critical movement that went beyond traditional interpretation of literary texts to reflect on the epistemological difficulties inherent in any textual, literary, or critical activity. This approach aroused considerable opposition, which de Man attributed to "resistance" inherent in the difficult enterprise of literary interpretation itself.

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21/12/1982

Abu Al-Asar Hafeez Jullundhri, Pakistani poet and composer (born 1900)

Abul Asar Hafeez Jalandhari PP HI was a Pakistani poet who wrote the lyrics for the National Anthem of Pakistan and the Anthem of Azad Kashmir.

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21/12/1974

Richard Long, American actor and director (born 1927)

Richard McCord Long was an American actor best known for his leading roles in three ABC television series, The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor, and Bourbon Street Beat. He was also a series regular on ABC's 77 Sunset Strip during the 1961–1962 season.

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21/12/1971

Ásta Sigurðardóttir, Icelandic writer and visual artist (born 1930)

Ásta Sigurðardóttir was an Icelandic writer and visual artist recognized for her pioneering contributions to modernist short fiction. Her work is notably characterized by its depiction of urban marginalization in mid-twentieth-century Reykjavík.

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21/12/1968

Vittorio Pozzo, Italian footballer, coach, and manager (born 1886)

Vittorio Pozzo was an Italian football player, manager and journalist.

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21/12/1965

Claude Champagne, Canadian violinist, pianist, and composer (born 1891)

Claude Champagne was a French Canadian composer, teacher, pianist, and violinist.

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21/12/1964

Carl Van Vechten, American author and photographer (born 1880)

Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult years, Van Vechten engaged in numerous affairs with other men during his lifetime.

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21/12/1963

Jack Hobbs, English cricketer and journalist (born 1882)

Sir John Berry Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches between 1908 and 1930. Known as "The Master", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century-maker in first-class cricket, with 61,760 runs and 199 centuries. A right-handed batsman and an occasional right-arm medium pace bowler, Hobbs also excelled as a fielder, particularly in the position of cover point. Hobbs was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century alongside Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Shane Warne, and Sir Viv Richards.

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21/12/1959

Rosanjin, Japanese calligrapher, engraver, and painter (born 1883)

Kitaōji Rosanjin was the pseudonym for a noted artist and epicure during the early to mid-Shōwa period of Japan. His real name was Kitaōji Fusajirō , but he is best known by his artistic name, Rosanjin. A man of many talents, Rosanjin was also a calligrapher, ceramicist, engraver, painter, lacquer artist and restaurateur.

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21/12/1958

H.B. Warner, English actor (born 1875)

Henry Byron Warner was an English film and theatre actor. He was popular during the silent era and played Jesus Christ in The King of Kings. In later years, he successfully moved into supporting roles and appeared in numerous films directed by Frank Capra.

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Lion Feuchtwanger, German-American author and playwright (born 1884)

Lion Feuchtwanger was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.

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21/12/1957

Eric Coates, English viola player and composer (born 1886)

Eric Francis Harrison Coates was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading violist.

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21/12/1953

Kaarlo Koskelo, Finnish-American wrestler and businessman (born 1888)

Kaarlo Anton "Kalle" Koskelo was a Greco-Roman wrestler from Finland who won the featherweight event at the 1912 Olympics. He then fought in World War I and Finnish Civil War, and in 1919 immigrated to the United States. He settled in Astoria, Oregon, where he became a prominent local businessman.

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21/12/1952

Kenneth Edwards, American golfer (born 1886)

Kenneth Paine Edwards was an American golfer who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics.

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21/12/1948

Władysław Witwicki, Polish psychologist, philosopher, translator, historian (of philosophy and art) and artist (born 1878)

Władysław Witwicki was a Polish psychologist, philosopher, translator, historian and artist. He is seen as one of the fathers of psychology in Poland.

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21/12/1945

George S. Patton, American general (born 1885)

George Smith Patton Jr. was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, then the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

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21/12/1940

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist and short story writer (born 1896)

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known as F. Scott Fitzgerald or simply Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term that he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. He published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. He achieved transient success and fortune in the 1920s, but did not receive critical acclaim until after his death. He is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

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21/12/1937

Violette Neatley Anderson, American judge (born 1882)

Violette Neatley Anderson became the first African-American woman to practice law before the United States Supreme Court on January 29, 1926. She was one of the most prominent advocates of a landmark piece of legislation that helped secure rights and economic mobility for sharecroppers in the South, the Bankhead-Jones Act.

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Ted Healy, American comedian and actor (born 1896)

Ted Healy was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor. Though he is chiefly remembered as the creator of The Three Stooges and the style of slapstick comedy that they later made famous, he had a successful stage and film career of his own and was cited as a formative influence by several later comedy stars.

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Frank B. Kellogg, American lawyer and politician, 45th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1856)

Frank Billings Kellogg was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served in the U.S. Senate and as U.S. Secretary of State. He co-authored the Kellogg–Briand Pact, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929.

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21/12/1935

Ted Birnie, English footballer and manager (born 1878)

Edward Lawson Birnie was an English professional football player and manager. He played for Sunderland Seaburn, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur In his managerial career, he took on the reins at Southend United, staying in charge of the seaside club until his retirement in 1934.

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Kurt Tucholsky, German-Swedish journalist and author (born 1890)

Kurt Tucholsky was a German journalist, satirist, and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel.

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21/12/1933

Knud Rasmussen, Greenlandic anthropologist and explorer (born 1879)

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.

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21/12/1929

I. L. Patterson, American politician, 18th Governor of Oregon (born 1859)

Isaac Lee Patterson, was the 18th governor of Oregon from 1927 to 1929. An Oregon native, he served in the Oregon Legislative Assembly from 1918 to 1922, and was a farmer in the Willamette Valley. He was the first governor of Oregon born in the state after it was admitted to the Union.

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21/12/1920

Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, leader of the Dervish movement (born 1856)

Sayyid Moḥammad Abdallah Hassan was a Somali scholar, poet, military leader and religious, cultural and political figure who founded and headed the Somali Dervish movement, which led a holy war against British, Italian and Ethiopian colonial intrusions in the Somali Peninsula. He was pejoratively known by the British Empire as the "Mad Mullah." In 1917, the Ottoman Empire referred to him as the "Emir of the Somali People." Due to his successful completion of the Hajj to Mecca, his assertion of being the descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his complete memorization of the Quran, his name is preluded with honorifics such as Hajji, Hafiz, Emir, Sheikh, Mullah or Sayyid. His influence on the Somali people led him to being regarded the "Father of Somali nationalism."

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21/12/1889

Friedrich August von Quenstedt, German geologist and palaeontologist (born 1809)

Friedrich August von Quenstedt was a German geologist and palaeontologist.

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21/12/1873

Francis Garnier, French admiral and explorer (born 1839)

Marie Joseph François Garnier was a French officer, inspector of Indigenous Affairs of Cochinchina and explorer. He eventually became mission leader of the Mekong Exploration Commission in 19th century Southeast Asia.

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21/12/1869

Friedrich Ernst Scheller, German jurist and politician (born 1791)

Friedrich Ernst Scheller was a German jurist and politician. He served as a member of the Frankfurt Parliament.

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21/12/1824

James Parkinson, English physician and paleontologist (born 1755)

James Parkinson was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist. He is best known for his 1817 work An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condition that was later renamed Parkinson's disease by Jean-Martin Charcot.

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21/12/1807

John Newton, English soldier and minister (born 1725)

John Newton was an English evangelical Anglican cleric and slavery abolitionist. He had previously been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. He served as a sailor in the Royal Navy and was himself enslaved for a time in West Africa. He is noted for being author of the hymns "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".

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21/12/1701

Sir Hugh Paterson, Baronet of Bannockburn (born 1659)

Sir Hugh Paterson, 1st Baronet of Bannockburn, was a Scottish baronet and landowner.

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21/12/1646

Sophie Axelsdatter Brahe, Danish noblewoman (born 1578)

Sophie Axelsdatter Brahe was a Danish noblewoman and landowner. She is notable for being the first confirmed owner of Gunhild Cross. She was married to nobleman Holger Rosenkrantz, with whom she had 13 children, and raised 10 of her nieces and nephews, including Anne Gøye. She was also known for her accounting, of which her books are held in the Karen Brahe library, and landowning.

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21/12/1610

Catherine Vasa, Swedish princess (born 1539)

Catherine Vasa of Sweden was a Swedish princess, and the Countess consort of East Frisia as the spouse of Edzard II, Count of East Frisia. She was the oldest daughter of Gustav Vasa and Margareta Leijonhufvud. She was the autonomous Regent of Berum and Norden in Ostfriesland from 1599 to 1610.

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21/12/1608

William Davison, secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England (born c. 1541)

William Davison was an English diplomat and secretary to Queen Elizabeth I. As a Secretary of some influence, he was active in forging alliances with England's Protestant friends in Holland and Scotland to prevent war with France. He was involved in the 1587 execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was made a scapegoat for this event.

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21/12/1597

Peter Canisius, Dutch priest and saint (born 1521)

Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit priest known for his strong support for the Catholic faith during the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland and the British Isles. The restoration of the Catholic Church in Germany is largely attributed to the work there of the Jesuits, which Canisius led. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church.

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21/12/1581

Jean de la Cassière, 51st Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller (born 1502)

Fra' Jean l'Evesque de la Cassière was the 51st Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 1572 to 1581. He commissioned the building of the Conventual Church of the Order in Valletta, Malta, and is buried in its crypt.

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21/12/1549

Marguerite de Navarre, queen of Henry II of Navarre (born 1492)

Marguerite de Navarre, also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was a princess of France, Duchess of Alençon and Berry, and Queen of Navarre by her second marriage to King Henry II of Navarre. Her brother became King of France, as Francis I, and the two siblings were responsible for the celebrated intellectual and cultural court and salons of their day in France. Marguerite is the ancestress of the Bourbon kings of France, being the mother of Jeanne d'Albret, whose son, Henry of Navarre, succeeded as Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon king. As an author and a patron of humanists and reformers, she was an outstanding figure of the French Renaissance. Samuel Putnam called her "The First Modern Woman".

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21/12/1536

John Seymour, English courtier (born 1474)

Sir John Seymour, Knight banneret was an English soldier and a courtier who served both Henry VII and Henry VIII. Born into a prominent gentry family, he is best known as the father of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, and hence grandfather of king Edward VI of England.

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21/12/1504

Berthold von Henneberg, German archbishop (born 1442)

Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild (1442–1504) was Archbishop of Mainz and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 1484, imperial chancellor from 1486, and leader of the reform faction within the Empire.

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21/12/1375

Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian author and poet (born 1313)

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese". He was one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.

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21/12/1362

Constantine III, king of Armenia (born 1313)

Constantine III was the King of Armenian Cilicia from 1344 to 1362. He was the son of Baldwin, Lord of Neghir, and second cousin of Constantine II.

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21/12/1338

Thomas Hemenhale, bishop of Worcester

Thomas Hemenhale was a medieval Bishop of Norwich-elect and then Bishop of Worcester.

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21/12/1308

Henry I, Landgrave of Hesse (born 1244)

Henry I of Hesse "the Child" was the first Landgrave of Hesse. He was the son of Henry II, Duke of Brabant and Sophie of Thuringia.

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21/12/1215

Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Walid, Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq of Tayyibi Isma'ilism (born c. 1128)

Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn Ibrahim ibn Abi Salama ibn al-Walid al-Abshami al-Qurashi was the 5th Tayyibi Isma'ili Da'i al-Mutlaq in Yemen from 1209 to his death in 1215. Descended from a noble lineage of the Quraysh, he was a noted scholar and Tayyibi theologian, and an author of several influential works on Tayyibi doctrine. Before becoming himself Da'i al-Mutlaq, he served as senior deputy to the third and fourth holders of the office. His rise to the office inaugurated a period of two and a half centuries where it would be almost monopolized by members of his own family.

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21/12/1001

Hugh of Tuscany, Italian margrave (born 950)

Hugh, called the Great, was the Margrave of Tuscany from 969 until his death in 1001, and the Duke of Spoleto and Margrave of Camerino from 989 to 996. He was known for his restoration of the state apparatus in Tuscany after decades of neglect from various Margraves, whose main interests lay elsewhere. Hugh was also noted for his support of the new Ottonian dynasty, and has been praised for his justice by the contemporary theologian Peter Damian in his De principis officio. Hugh's rule has also been remembered for its close cooperation with the Papal States in the resolution of territorial disputes and his generosity in gifting marchesal (public) lands for the foundation of monasteries of the Catholic Church.

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21/12/0975

Al-Mu'izz, Fatimid caliph (born 932)

Abu Tamim Ma'ad al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah was the fourth Fatimid caliph and the 14th Ismaili imam, reigning from 953 to 975. It was during his caliphate that the center of power of the Fatimid dynasty was moved from Ifriqiya to Egypt. The Fatimids founded the city of Cairo in 969 as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt during his reign. The Al-Mu'izz Street in Cairo is named after him, it is considrered to be the most important historical street in Cairo and it includes monumental buildings from the Fatimid era as well as the later Ayyubid, Memluk and Ottoman eras.

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21/12/0956

Sun Sheng, Chinese chancellor

Sun Sheng (孫晟), né Sun Feng (孫鳳), known as Sun Ji (孫忌) at one point, formally Duke Wenzhong of Lu (魯文忠公), was an official of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period states Later Tang, Wu, and Southern Tang, serving as a chancellor during the reign of Southern Tang's second emperor Li Jing. When the Southern Tang came under attack by its northern neighbor Later Zhou, Li Jing sent him as an emissary to Later Zhou to try to persuade Later Zhou's emperor Guo Rong to end his campaign, but Guo, after being unable to get Sun to give him secrets of the Southern Tang state, executed him.

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21/12/0882

Hincmar, French archbishop and historian (born 806)

Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, was a Frankish jurist and theologian, as well as the friend, advisor and propagandist of Charles the Bald. He belonged to a noble family of northern Francia.

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21/12/0072

Thomas the Apostle, Roman martyr and saint (born 1 AD)

AD 72 (LXXII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vespasian and Titus. The denomination AD 72 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

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