Died on Thursday, 25th December – Famous Deaths

25/12/2024

Britt Allcroft, English writer (born 1943)

Britt Allcroft was an English screenwriter, producer, director, and voice actress. She adapted Wilbert Awdry's The Railway Series in the form of the children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. She created Shining Time Station, Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales, and Magic Adventures of Mumfie. She also wrote, co-produced, and directed the film Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000).

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Bill Bergey, American football player (born 1945)

William Earl Bergey was an American professional football linebacker who played for 12 seasons, most notably with the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals of the American Football League (AFL) in the 1969 NFL/AFL draft, the year before the AFL–NFL merger was completed and continued to play with the Bengals in the NFL until 1973. Bergey signed with the Eagles the following year, where he played seven seasons until retiring in 1981.

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Jax Dane, American professional wrestler (born 1976)

Jeremy Dane Laymon was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Jax Dane. He was known for his tenure with various National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) member promotions. He was a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, NWA National Heavyweight, NWA North American Heavyweight and NWA World Tag Team Champion. He was also known for his work for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Impact Wrestling, and Ring of Honor (ROH).

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M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Indian author and screenwriter (born 1933)

Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Narayanan Nair was an Indian author, lecturer, screenplay writer, filmmaker and literary statesman. He was a prolific and versatile writer in modern Malayalam literature, and was one of the masters of post-Independence Indian literature. Randamoozham, which retells the story of the Mahabharata from the point of view of Bhimasena, is widely credited as his masterpiece.

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Osamu Suzuki, Japanese businessman (born 1930)

Osamu Suzuki , was a Japanese businessman and the chairman of Suzuki Motor Corporation. From 1978, Suzuki served as the CEO, president, and chairman of the company. In February 2021, Suzuki Motor Corporation announced that he would retire in June 2021 and assume the role of adviser.

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25/12/2023

Jim Breaks, British wrestler (born 1940)

James Breaks was an English professional wrestler. A holder of several of the Mountevans championships he regularly competed for these and in other matches on ITV's wrestling coverage particularly on World of Sport. These matches were previewed in national listings magazine TVTimes which also gave Breaks further in-depth coverage.

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25/12/2022

Fabián O'Neill, Uruguayan footballer (born 1973)

Fabián Alberto O'Neill Domínguez was a Uruguayan professional footballer who played as a midfielder.

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25/12/2021

Wayne Thiebaud, American artist (born 1920)

Wayne Thiebaud was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, cakes, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings. Thiebaud is regarded as one of the United States' most beloved and recognizable artists. Thiebaud is associated with the pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, though he slightly predated the classic pop artists, producing his early works of this style in the fifties and sixties. Thiebaud used heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, his work almost always including the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements.

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25/12/2020

K. C. Jones, American basketball player and coach (born 1932)

K.C. Jones Jr. was an American professional basketball player and coach. He is best known for his association with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA), with whom he won 11 of his 12 NBA championships. As a player, he is tied for third for most NBA championships in a career, and is one of three NBA players with an unsurpassed 8–0 record in NBA Finals series. He is the only African-American coach other than Bill Russell to have won multiple NBA championships, and one of eight players to ever achieve the basketball Triple Crown. Jones was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.

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25/12/2019

Ari Behn, Norwegian writer (born 1972)

Ari Mikael Behn was a Norwegian author, playwright, and visual artist, best known for his marriage to Princess Märtha Louise of Norway from 2002 to 2017. He held no title or special status, and he remained a private citizen during the marriage.

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25/12/2018

Sulagitti Narasamma, Indian midwife (born 1920)

Sulagitti Narasamma was an Indian midwife from Pavagada town, Tumakuru district of Karnataka state. She performed more than 20,000 traditional deliveries free of charge over a 70-year period of service in deprived regions of Karnataka with no medical facilities. Her work was honored with the National Citizen's award of India in 2012 and the country's fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, in 2018.

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25/12/2017

D. Herbert Lipson, American magazine publisher (Philadelphia, Boston) (born 1929)

David Herbert Lipson was an American magazine publisher and longtime owner of Philadelphia and Boston magazines. Born in Philadelphia to newspaper owner S. Arthur Lipson, he graduated from Lafayette College in 1952, and joined his father at what would become Philadelphia. He became publisher in 1963 and owner in 1968. He purchased Boston in 1970, and launched Manhattan, inc. in 1984. He married three times and had three children. He died in Philadelphia at the age of 88.

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25/12/2016

Valery Khalilov, Russian military musician and composer (born 1952)

Valery Mikhailovich Khalilov was an Uzbek-born Russian military band conductor and composer. A lieutenant general in the Russian military, he was the Senior Director of Music of the Military Band Service of the Armed Forces of Russia and Chief Military Conductor, most famously conducting the massed Russian military bands at the annual "Victory Day" parade held in the Moscow's Red Square a record 14 times. He died when the plane he was on, en route to Syria, crashed into the Black Sea off Sochi, Russia.

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George Michael, British singer and songwriter (born 1963)

George Michael was an English singer-songwriter and record producer. Regarded as a pop culture icon, he is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. Michael was known as a creative force in songwriting, vocal performance, and visual presentation. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004.

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Vera Rubin, American astronomer (born 1928)

Vera Florence Cooper Rubin was an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves, the first evidence for the galaxy rotation problem, one key piece of evidence for dark matter. Measurements by other astronomers using 21 centimeter hydrogen line radio telescopes clinched the case.

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25/12/2015

George Clayton Johnson, American author and screenwriter (born 1929)

George Clayton Johnson was an American science fiction writer, who co-wrote with William F. Nolan the novel Logan's Run, the basis for the MGM 1976 film. He also wrote television scripts for The Twilight Zone, and the first telecast episode of Star Trek, entitled "The Man Trap". He also wrote the story and screenplay on which the 1960 film Ocean's 11 and its 2001 remake were based.

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Dorothy M. Murdock, American author and historian (born 1961)

Dorothy Milne Murdock, better known by her pen names Acharya S and D. M. Murdock, was an American writer supporting the Christ myth theory, which asserts that Jesus never existed as a historical person, but was rather a mingling of various pre-Christian myths, solar deities and dying-and-rising deities.

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25/12/2014

Ricardo Porro, Cuban-French architect (born 1925)

Ricardo Porro Hidalgo was a Cuban-born architect. He graduated in architecture from the Universidad de la Habana in 1949 and built this year his first project Villa Armenteros in Havana, following which he spent two years in post-graduate studies at the Institute of Urbanism at the Sorbonne.

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Geoff Pullar, English cricketer (born 1935)

Geoffrey Pullar was an English cricketer, who played for Lancashire and Gloucestershire and in 28 Tests for England.

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David Ryall, English actor (born 1935)

David John Ryall was an English stage, film and television actor. He had leading roles in Lytton's Diary and Goodnight Sweetheart, as well as memorable roles in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective and Andrew Davies's adaptation of To Play the King. He also portrayed Billy Buzzle in the ITV sitcom Bless Me, Father and Grandad Frank in the BBC sitcom Outnumbered.

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25/12/2013

Anthony J. Bryant, American historian and author (born 1961)

Anthony J. Bryant was an American author and editor. He worked in Japan for a period of time, and became an authority on medieval Japanese armor and samurai culture.

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David R. Harris, English geographer, anthropologist, archaeologist and academic (born 1930)

David Russell Harris, FSA, FBA was a British geographer, anthropologist, archaeologist and academic, well known for his detailed work on the origins of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals. He was a director of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, and retained a position as Professor Emeritus of the Human Environment at the Institute.

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Wayne Harrison, English footballer (born 1967)

Wayne Harrison was an English professional footballer who played as a striker.

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Mike Hegan, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1942)

James Michael Hegan was an American professional baseball player, who later worked as a sports commentator. In Major League Baseball (MLB) he was a first baseman and outfielder, and played for three different American League (AL) franchises between 1964 and 1977. He was the son of longtime Cleveland Indians catcher Jim Hegan.

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Lola Lange, Canadian rural feminist and appointee to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (born 1922)

Lola M. Lange was a Canadian rural feminist and a member of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

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Mel Mathay, Filipino politician, 8th Mayor of Quezon City (born 1932)

Ismael Austria Mathay Jr., also known as Mel Mathay, was a Filipino lawyer and politician who last served as the Mayor of Quezon City from 1992 to 2001. Previously, he had also served as vice mayor of Quezon City from 1968 to 1971, secretary to the commissioner of the General Authority Office from 1972 to 1981, vice governor of the Metro Manila Commission from 1979 to 1986, an assemblyman representing Quezon City in the Regular Batasang Pambansa from 1984 to 1986, representative for the city's 4th district from 1987 to 1992, director of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System from 1979 to 1987, and chairman of the Metro Manila Authority from 1993 to 1994.

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25/12/2012

Erico Aumentado, Filipino journalist, lawyer, and politician (born 1940)

Erico Boyles Aumentado was a former governor, vice governor, and senior provincial board member of Bohol, and congressman and deputy speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives. He is the first governor of Bohol who served for three consecutive terms (2001-2010).

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Halfdan Hegtun, Norwegian radio host and politician (born 1918)

Halfdan Hegtun was a Norwegian radio personality, comedian and writer, former politician for the Liberal Party and later the Liberal People's Party.

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Joe Krivak, American football player and coach (born 1935)

Joseph John Krivak was an American football player and coach. He served as head coach for the Maryland Terrapins football team from 1987 to 1991, where he compiled a 20–34–2 record. He also served as an assistant coach at Maryland, Syracuse, Navy, and Virginia. As a coach at Maryland, Krivak mentored future National Football League (NFL) quarterbacks Boomer Esiason, Neil O'Donnell, Frank Reich, Stan Gelbaugh, and Scott Zolak. In all, he coached on seven Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championship team staffs and in 14 bowl games as an assistant or head coach.

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Turki bin Sultan, Saudi Arabian politician (born 1959)

Turki bin Sultan Al Saud was deputy minister of culture and information of Saudi Arabia. He was a member of the House of Saud and was one of the grandsons of Saudi's founder King Abdulaziz.

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Şerafettin Elçi, Turkish lawyer, politician, government minister (born 1938)

Şerafettin Elçi was a Kurdish lawyer, politician, government minister and statesman in Turkey. He was one of the pioneers of Kurdish politics in Turkey.

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25/12/2011

Giorgio Bocca, Italian journalist (born 1920)

Giorgio Valentino Bocca was an Italian essayist and journalist, also known for his participation in the World War II partisan movement.

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Jim Sherwood, American saxophonist (born 1942)

Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood was an American rock musician notable for being a member of the original version of Frank Zappa's band the Mothers of Invention, providing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects. He appeared on all the albums of the original Mothers line-up and the 'posthumous' releases Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh, as well as certain subsequent Zappa albums. He also appeared in the films 200 Motels, Video from Hell and Uncle Meat.

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Simms Taback, American author and illustrator (born 1932)

Simms Taback was an American writer, graphic artist, and illustrator of more than 35 books. He won the 2000 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, and was a runner-up in 1998 for There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.

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25/12/2010

Carlos Andrés Pérez, Venezuelan politician, 66th President of Venezuela (born 1922)

Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez, also known by his initials CAP and often referred to as El Gocho, was a Venezuelan politician who served as the 47th and 50th president of Venezuela from 1974 to 1979 and again from 1989 to 1993. He was one of the founders of Acción Democrática, the dominant political party in Venezuela during the second half of the twentieth century.

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25/12/2009

Vic Chesnutt, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1964)

James Victor Chesnutt was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, Little, was released in 1990. His commercial breakthrough came in 1996 with the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, a charity record of alternative artists covering his songs.

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25/12/2008

Eartha Kitt, American singer and actress (born 1927)

Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby".

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25/12/2007

Des Barrick, English cricketer (born 1927)

Desmond William Barrick was an English cricketer who played in 301 first-class matches between 1949 and 1960.

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Jim Beauchamp, American baseball player and coach (born 1939)

James Edward Beauchamp was an American Major League Baseball first baseman and outfielder who played from 1963 to 1973 for the St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Colt .45s/Astros, Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, and New York Mets. He attended Grove High School in Grove, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University before being signed by the Cardinals in 1957. He was the father of former minor league baseball player Kash Beauchamp. He was 6'2' and weighed 205 pounds.

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25/12/2006

James Brown, American singer-songwriter (born 1933)

James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by various nicknames, among them "Mr. Dynamite", "the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business", "Minister of New Super Heavy Funk", "Godfather of Soul", "King of Soul", and "Soul Brother No. 1". In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first ten inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 23, 1986. His music has been heavily sampled by hip-hop musicians and other artists.

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25/12/2005

Derek Bailey, English guitarist (born 1930)

Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.

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Robert Barbers, Filipino police officer, lawyer, and politician, 15th Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (born 1944)

Robert Zabala Barbers was a Filipino police officer and politician. Barbers had served in the police force for almost three decades prior to becoming part of the government of the Philippines. He served in the legislature as the representative of the second district of Surigao del Norte (1992–1996), whose second term was ended by his appointment as secretary of the interior and local government, and as senator (1998–2004).

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Birgit Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano (born 1918)

Märta Birgit Nilsson was a Swedish dramatic soprano. Although she sang a wide repertoire of operatic and vocal works, Nilsson was best known for her performances in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Her voice was noted for its overwhelming force, bountiful reserves of power, and the gleaming brilliance and clarity in the upper register.

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Joseph Pararajasingham, Sri Lankan journalist, businessman, and politician (born 1934)

Joseph Pararajasingham was a Sri Lankan Tamil civil servant, journalist, businessman and politician. He was Member of Parliament for Batticaloa District from 1990 to 2004 and a National List Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2005. A member of the Tamil National Alliance, he was shot dead on Christmas Day 2005 as he attended midnight mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, Batticaloa.

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25/12/2004

Gennadi Strekalov, Russian engineer and astronaut (born 1940)

Gennady Mikhailovich Strekalov was an engineer, cosmonaut, and administrator at Russian aerospace firm RSC Energia. He flew into space five times and lived aboard the Salyut 6, Salyut 7, and Mir space stations, spending over 268 days in space. The catastrophic explosion of a Soyuz rocket in 1983 led to him being one of only four people to use a launch escape system. He was decorated twice as Hero of the Soviet Union and received the Ashoka Chakra from India.

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25/12/2003

Nicholas Mavroules, American politician (born 1929)

Nicholas James Mavroules was an American Democratic Party politician from Massachusetts. He served as Mayor of Peabody, Massachusetts for a decade, then represented Peabody and much of the surrounding North Shore region in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 until 1993. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to 15 counts of racketeering and extortion and later served 15 months in prison.

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25/12/2001

Alfred A. Tomatis, French otolaryngologist and academic (born 1920)

Alfred Tomatis was a French otolaryngologist and inventor. He received his Doctorate in Medicine from the Paris School of Medicine. His alternative medicine theories of hearing and listening are known as the Tomatis method or Audio-Psycho-Phonology (APP).

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25/12/2000

Neil Hawke, Australian cricketer and footballer (born 1939)

Neil James Napier Hawke was an Australian Test cricketer and leading Australian rules footballer.

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Willard Van Orman Quine, American philosopher and academic (born 1908)

Willard Van Orman Quine was an American logician and philosopher in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". He was the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1956 to 1978.

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25/12/1998

John Pulman, English snooker player (born 1923)

Herbert John Pulman was an English professional snooker player who was the World Snooker Champion from 1957 to 1968. He first won the title at the 1957 Championship and retained it across seven challenges from 1964 to 1968, three of them against Fred Davis and two against Rex Williams. When the tournament reverted to a knockout event in 1969, he lost 18–25 in the first round to the eventual champion John Spencer. After finishing as runner-up to Ray Reardon in 1970, Pulman never again reached the final, although he was a losing semi-finalist in 1977.

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25/12/1997

Anatoli Boukreev, Kazakh mountaineer and explorer (born 1958)

Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Russian-born Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000 m.

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Denver Pyle, American actor (born 1920)

Denver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor and director. He was well known for a number of television roles from the 1960s through the 1980s, including his portrayal of Briscoe Darling in several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, as Jesse Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979 to 1985, as Mad Jack in the NBC television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and as the main character's father, Buck Webb, in CBS's The Doris Day Show. In many of his roles, he portrayed either authority figures, or gruff, demanding father figures, often as comic relief. Perhaps his most memorable film role was that of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the movie Bonnie and Clyde (1967), as the lawman who relentlessly chased down and finally killed the notorious duo in an ambush.

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25/12/1996

Bill Hewitt, Canadian sportscaster (born 1928)

Foster William Alfred Hewitt was a Canadian radio and television sportscaster. He was the son of hockey broadcaster Foster Hewitt and the grandson of Toronto Star journalist W. A. Hewitt.

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25/12/1995

Emmanuel Levinas, Lithuanian-French philosopher and academic (born 1906)

Emmanuel Levinas was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to metaphysics and ontology.

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Dean Martin, American singer and actor (born 1917)

Dean Martin was an American singer, actor, comedian and television host. Nicknamed the "King of Cool", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century.

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Chang Kee-ryo, Korean surgeon (born 1914)

Chang Kee-ryo was a surgeon, educator, and philanthropist of South Korea.

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Vincent Patriarca, Italian-American aviator and mercenary (born 1914)

Vincent Joseph Patriarca, later known as Maresciallo Vincenzo Joseph Patriarca, was an Italian American notable for being one of the few United States citizens to fight for Franco's Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War, rather than in the Republican International Brigades such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

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25/12/1994

Zail Singh, Indian politician, 7th President of India (born 1916)

Giani Zail Singh was an Indian politician who served as President of India from 1982 to 1987 and chief minister of Punjab in the 1970s. He was the first Sikh to become president.

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25/12/1993

Pierre Victor Auger, French physicist and academic (born 1899)

Pierre Victor Auger was a French physicist, born in Paris. He worked in the fields of atomic physics, nuclear physics, and cosmic ray physics. He is famous for being one of the discoverers of the Auger effect, named after him.

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25/12/1992

Monica Dickens, British-American nurse and author (born 1915)

Monica Enid Dickens, MBE was an English writer, the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens.

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25/12/1991

Wilbur Snyder, American football player and wrestler (born 1929)

Wilbur Snyder was an American football player and professional wrestler. He played college football for the Utah Utes.

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25/12/1989

Benny Binion, American poker player and businessman (born 1904)

Lester Ben Binion, better known as Benny Binion, was an American casino operator who established illegal gambling operations in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. In 1931, Binion was convicted of shooting and killing a rumrunner, Frank Bolding. In the 1940s, he relocated to Nevada, where gambling was legal, and opened the successful Binion's Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas.

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Elena Ceaușescu, Romanian politician, First Lady of Romania (born 1916)

Elena Ceaușescu was a Romanian communist politician who was the wife of Nicolae Ceaușescu, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and leader of the Socialist Republic of Romania. She was also the Deputy Prime Minister of Romania. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, she was executed alongside her husband on 25 December.

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Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romanian general and politician, 1st President of Romania (born 1918)

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian communist politician who led Romania as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 and as president from 1974 until his execution in 1989.

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Betty Garde, American actress (born 1905)

Katharine Elizabeth Garde was an American stage, radio, film and television actress.

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Frederick F. Houser, American judge and politician, 34th Lieutenant Governor of California (born 1905)

Frederick Francis Houser was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 34th lieutenant governor of California under Governor Earl Warren from 1943 to 1947.

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Billy Martin, American baseball player and manager (born 1928)

Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin Jr. was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) second baseman and manager, who, in addition to leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yankees. First known as a scrappy infielder who made considerable contributions to the championship Yankee teams of the 1950s, he then built a reputation as a manager who would initially make bad teams good, before ultimately being fired amid dysfunction. In each of his stints with the Yankees he managed them to winning records before being fired by team owner George Steinbrenner or resigning under fire.

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Robert Pirosh, American director and screenwriter (born 1910)

Robert Pirosh was an American screenwriter and film director. He is most known for his war and military-themed works, inspired by his experiences as a U.S. Army infantryman during World War II. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Battleground (1949), a semi-autobiographical account of the Battle of the Bulge. He was nominated for a second Oscar for Go for Broke! (1951), a film about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

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25/12/1988

Shōhei Ōoka, Japanese author and critic (born 1909)

Shōhei Ōoka was a Japanese novelist, literary critic, and lecturer and translator of French literature who was active during the Shōwa period. Ōoka belongs to the group of postwar writers whose Pacific War experiences at home and abroad figure prominently in their works. Over his lifetime, he contributed short stories and critical essays to almost every literary magazine in Japan.

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Edward Pelham-Clinton, 10th Duke of Newcastle, English entomologist and lepidopterist (born 1920)

Edward Charles Pelham-Clinton, 10th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, was an English lepidopterist and military officer as well as Duke of Newcastle for less than two months at the end of his life, inheriting the titles from a third cousin. He was thus briefly a member of the House of Lords.

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25/12/1983

Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1893)

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramist from Spain. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma, Mallorca in 1981. Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism but with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike. His difficult-to-classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and declared an "assassination of painting" in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.

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25/12/1980

Fred Emney, English actor and comedian (born 1900)

Frederick Arthur Round Emney was an English character actor and comedian.

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25/12/1979

Joan Blondell, American actress and singer (born 1906)

Rose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years.

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Jordi Bonet, Canadian painter and sculptor (born 1932)

Jordi Bonet, known professionally as Jordi Bonet, was a Spanish-born Canadian painter, ceramist, muralist, and sculptor who worked principally in Quebec.

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25/12/1977

Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director (born 1889)

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. was an English comic actor, filmmaker, film editor and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy.

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25/12/1975

Gaston Gallimard, French publisher, founded Éditions Gallimard (born 1881)

Gaston Gallimard was a French publisher.

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Gunnar Kangro, Estonian mathematician and author (born 1913)

Gunnar Kangro was an Estonian mathematician. He worked mainly on summation theory. He taught various courses on mathematical analysis, functional analysis and algebra in the University of Tartu and he has written several university textbooks.

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25/12/1973

İsmet İnönü, Turkish general and politician, 2nd President of Turkey (born 1884)

Mustafa İsmet İnönü was a Turkish politician and military officer who served as the president of Turkey from 1938 to 1950, and as its prime minister three times: from 1923 to 1924, 1925 to 1937, and 1961 to 1965.

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Gabriel Voisin, French pilot and engineer (born 1880)

Gabriel Voisin was a French aviation pioneer and the creator of Europe's first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained (1 km), circular, controlled flight, which was made by Henri Farman on 13 January 1908 near Paris, France. During World War I, the company founded by Voisin became a major producer of military aircraft, notably the Voisin III. Subsequently, he switched to the design and production of luxury automobiles under the name Avions Voisin.

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25/12/1970

Michael Peto, Hungarian-English photographer and journalist (born 1908)

Michael Peto was an internationally recognized Hungarian-British photojournalist of the twentieth century. Emigrating to London before World War II through business, in the postwar years he became one of a generation of Hungarian artists working abroad. During the war, he worked for the British Ministry of Labour. With exiled Hungarians, he also worked to found a postwar socialist government in Hungary, but they were defeated by the Soviet Union.

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25/12/1963

Tristan Tzara, Romanian-French poet, playwright, painter, and critic (born 1896)

Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement. Under the influence of Adrian Maniu, the adolescent Tzara became interested in Symbolism and co-founded the magazine Simbolul with Ion Vinea and painter Marcel Janco.

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25/12/1961

Owen Brewster, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 54th Governor of Maine (born 1888)

Ralph Owen Brewster was an American politician from Maine. Brewster, a Republican, served as the 54th governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929, in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1935 to 1941 and in the U.S. Senate from 1941 to 1952. Brewster was a close confidant of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and an antagonist of Howard Hughes. He was defeated by Frederick G. Payne, whose campaign was heavily funded by Hughes, in the 1952 Republican primary.

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Otto Loewi, German-American pharmacologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1873)

Otto Loewi was a German-born pharmacologist and psychobiologist who discovered the role of acetylcholine as an endogenous neurotransmitter. For this discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1936, which he shared with Sir Henry Dale, who was a lifelong friend that helped to inspire the neurotransmitter experiment. Loewi met Dale in 1902 when spending some months in Ernest Starling's laboratory at University College, London.

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25/12/1957

Charles Pathé, French record producer, founded Pathé Records (born 1863)

Charles Morand Pathé was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathé Frères, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathé and his brothers pioneered the development of the moving image. Pathé adopted the national emblem of France, the cockerel, as the trademark for his company. The firm, as Compagnie Générale des Éstablissements Pathé Frères Phonographes & Cinématographes, invented the cinema newsreel with Pathé-Journal.

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25/12/1956

Robert Walser, Swiss author and playwright (born 1878)

Robert Walser was a German language Swiss writer. He additionally worked as a copyist, an inventor's assistant, a butler, and in various other low-paying trades. Despite marginal early success in his literary career, the popularity of his work gradually diminished over the second and third decades of the 20th century, making it increasingly difficult for him to support himself through writing. He eventually had a nervous breakdown and spent the remainder of his life in sanatoria.

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25/12/1953

Patsy Donovan, Irish-American baseball player and manager (born 1865)

Patrick Joseph Donovan was an Irish born right fielder and manager in Major League Baseball who played for several teams from 1890 to 1907, most notably the Pittsburgh Pirates. Donovan started his career with Boston in 1890 but shuffled over to Brooklyn before the season ended, which saw him win the National League pennant. He played for Louisville and Washington of the American Association for a season each before he found himself with the Pirates in 1892, where he would play for the next seven years. In his first full season with the team, he had his first .300 season as a National League player, batting .317 with 46 stolen bases and 158 hits in 113 games. He batted .300 in each of the next five seasons with Pittsburgh before his tenure ended in 1899. He joined St. Louis in 1900 and played the next four seasons for the team, which saw him bat .300 three straight times and lead the NL in stolen bases with 45 in 1900. He played a season in Washington before sitting out 1905; he played eight combined games in 1906 and 1907 with Brooklyn to end his career.

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William Haselden, British cartoonist (born 1872)

William Kerridge Haselden was an English cartoonist and caricaturist.

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25/12/1952

Margrethe Mather, American photographer (born 1886)

Margrethe Mather was an American photographer. She was one of the best known female photographers of the early 20th century. Initially she influenced and was influenced by Edward Weston while working in the pictorial style, but she independently developed a strong eye for patterns and design that transformed some of her photographs into modernist abstract art. She lived a mostly uncompromising lifestyle in Los Angeles that alternated between her photography and the creative Hollywood community of the 1920s and 1930s. In later life she abandoned photography, and she died unrecognized for her photographic accomplishments."in artistic matters Margaret was, of course, the teacher, Edward (Weston) the pupil" — Imogen Cunningham

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25/12/1950

Neil Francis Hawkins, English politician (born 1903)

Neil Lanfear Maclean Francis Hawkins was a British writer and politician who was a leading proponent of British fascism in the United Kingdom both before and after the Second World War. He played a leading role in the British Union of Fascists and controlled the organisational structure of the movement.

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25/12/1949

Leon Schlesinger, American animator and producer, founded Warner Bros. Cartoons (born 1884)

Leon Schlesinger was an American film producer and businessman who founded Leon Schlesinger Productions, later known as Warner Bros. Cartoons, a prolific producer of animated short films during the Golden Age of American animation.

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25/12/1947

Gaspar G. Bacon, American lawyer and politician, 51st Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (born 1886)

Gaspar Griswold Bacon Sr. was an American politician who served as the president of the Massachusetts Senate from 1929 to 1932 and as the 51st lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1933 to 1935.

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25/12/1946

W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, juggler, and screenwriter (born 1880)

William Claude Dukenfield, better known as W. C. Fields, was an American actor, comedian, juggler and writer. His career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a silent juggler. He began to incorporate comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels or henpecked everyman characters.

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25/12/1944

George Steer, South African-English journalist and author (born 1909)

George Lowther Steer was a South African-born British journalist, author and war correspondent who reported on wars preceding the Second World War, especially the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War. During those wars, he was employed by The Times, and his eyewitness reports did much to alert Western nations of war crimes committed by the Italians in Ethiopia and by the Germans in Spain although little was done to prevent them by the League of Nations. His 1937 exclusive on the bombing of Guernica inspired Pablo Picasso to paint his anti-war masterpiece, Guernica. He returned to Ethiopia after the start of the Second World War and helped the campaign that defeated the Italians and restored Hailie Selassie to the throne.

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25/12/1941

Richard S. Aldrich, American lawyer and politician (born 1884)

Richard Steere Aldrich was an American politician. He was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and served in the Rhode Island State Senate and the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

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25/12/1940

Agnes Ayres, American actress (born 1898)

Agnes Ayres was an American actress who rose to fame during the period of silent films. She was known for her role as Lady Diana Mayo in The Sheik opposite Rudolph Valentino.

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25/12/1938

Karel Čapek, Czech author and playwright (born 1890)

Karel Čapek was a Czech writer, playwright, critic and journalist. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel War with the Newts (1936) and play R.U.R., which introduced the word robot. He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism, he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe.

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25/12/1935

Paul Bourget, French author and critic (born 1852)

Paul Charles Joseph Bourget was a French poet, novelist and critic. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times.

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25/12/1933

Francesc Macià, Catalan colonel and politician, 122nd President of Catalonia (born 1859)

Francesc Macià i Llussà was a Catalan politician who served as the 122nd president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, and formerly an officer in the Spanish Army.

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25/12/1930

Jakob Mändmets, Estonian journalist and author (born 1871)

Jakob Mändmets was an Estonian writer and journalist.

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25/12/1928

Miles Burke, American boxer (born 1885)

Miles J. Burke was an American flyweight boxer who competed in the early twentieth century. He died in St. Louis, Missouri.

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25/12/1926

Emperor Taishō of Japan (born 1879)

Emperor Taishō was Emperor of Japan from 29 July 1912 until his death in 1926. His reign was marked by a domestic political shift toward liberal democracy, called Taishō democracy. He oversaw Japan's participation in World War I on the side of the Allies, the Spanish flu epidemic, and the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. His poor health limited his public duties and contributed to his death at age 47.

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25/12/1925

Karl Abraham, German psychoanalyst and author (born 1877)

Karl Abraham was an influential German psychoanalyst, and a collaborator of Sigmund Freud, who called him his 'best pupil'.

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25/12/1921

Vladimir Korolenko, Russian journalist, author, and activist (born 1853)

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was a Russian writer, journalist and humanitarian of Ukrainian origin. His best-known work includes the short novel The Blind Musician (1886), as well as numerous short stories based upon his experience of exile in Siberia. Korolenko was a strong critic of the Tsarist regime and in his final years of the Bolsheviks.

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25/12/1916

Albert Chmielowski, Polish saint, founded the Albertine Brothers (born 1845)

Albert Chmielowski – born Adam Hilary Bernard Chmielowski – was a Polish Franciscan tertiary, painter, and disabled veteran of the Uprising of 1863. He was founder of both the Albertine Brothers and Albertine Sisters who are servants of the homeless and destitute.

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25/12/1880

Fridolin Anderwert, Swiss lawyer and politician, President of the Swiss National Council (born 1828)

Fridolin Anderwert was a Swiss politician.

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25/12/1875

Young Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (born 1851)

Thomas Morris, better known as Young Tom Morris, was a Scottish professional golfer. He is considered one of the pioneers of professional golf, and was the first young prodigy in golf history. He won four consecutive titles in the Open Championship, and did this by the age of 21.

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25/12/1868

Linus Yale, Jr., American engineer and businessman (born 1821)

Linus Yale Jr. was an American businessman, inventor, mechanical engineer, and metalsmith. He was a co-founder with millionaire Henry R. Towne of the Yale Lock Company, which became the premier manufacturer of locks in the United States. He was the country's leading expert on bank locks and its most important maker. By the early 20th century, about three-quarters of all banks in America used his bank locks. He is best remembered for his inventions of locks, especially the cylinder lock, and his basic lock design is still widely distributed today, and constitutes a majority of personal locks and safes.

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25/12/1866

Hayrullah Efendi, Ottoman physician, historian, and official (born 1818)

Hayrullah Efendi was an Ottoman historian, physician, and statesman, who served as the Ottoman ambassador to Iran from 1865 until his death.

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25/12/1824

Barbara von Krüdener, German mystic and author (born 1764)

Beate Barbara Juliane Freifrauvon Krüdener, often called by her formal French name, Madame de Krüdener, was a Baltic German religious mystic, author, and Pietist Lutheran theologian who exerted influence on wider European Protestantism, including the Swiss Reformed Church and the Moravian Church, and whose ideas influenced Tsar Alexander I of Russia.

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William Lawless, Irish revolutionary, later French Army general (born 1772)

General William Lawless was a Dublin-born surgeon and important member of the Society of the United Irishmen, a revolutionary republican organisation in late 18th century Ireland.

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25/12/1796

Velu Nachiyar, Queen of Sivagangai (born 1730)

"Veeramangai" Rani Velu Nachiyar was a queen of Sivaganga estate from c. 1780–1790. She was the first Indian queen to wage war with the East India Company (EIC) in India. She is proudly called by Tamils as Veeramangai.

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25/12/1784

Yosa Buson, Japanese poet and painter (born 1716)

Yosa (no) Buson was a Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period. He lived from 1716 – January 17, 1784. Along with Matsuo Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, Buson is considered among the greatest poets of the Edo Period. He is also known for completing haiga as a style of art, working with haibun prose, and experimenting with a mixed Chinese-Japanese style of poetry.

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25/12/1758

James Hervey, English priest and author (born 1714)

James Hervey was an English clergyman and writer.

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25/12/1730

Henry Scott, 1st Earl of Deloraine, Scottish peer and general (born 1676)

Major-General Henry Scott, 1st Earl of Deloraine, KB was a British Army officer and politician.

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25/12/1708

Jørgen Thormøhlen, German-Norwegian merchant (born c.1640)

Jørgen Thormøhlen was a German-born Norwegian merchant, shipowner, slave trader and industrialist.

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25/12/1683

Kara Mustafa Pasha, Ottoman general and politician, 111th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (born 1634)

Kara Mustafa Pasha was an Ottoman nobleman, military figure and Grand Vizier, who was a central character in the Ottoman Empire's last attempts at expansion into both Central and Eastern Europe.

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25/12/1676

William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire (born 1592)

William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne,, who after 1665 styled himself as Prince William Cavendish, was an English courtier and supporter of the arts. He was a renowned horse breeder, as well as being patron of the playwright Ben Jonson and the intellectual group known as the Welbeck Circle.

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Matthew Hale, English lawyer and jurist, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales (born 1609)

Sir Matthew Hale was an influential English lawyer, most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown. He occupied various public offices both under the Cromwellian Commonwealth and the Stuart Restoration. From 1671 until his retirement in 1676, he served as Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Hale is widely regarded as one of the key figures in the development of the common law.

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25/12/1635

Samuel de Champlain, French soldier, geographer, and explorer (born 1567)

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, cartographer, soldier, geographer, diplomat, and chronicler who founded Quebec City and established New France as a permanent French colony in North America.

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25/12/1634

Lettice Knollys, English noblewoman (born 1543)

Lettice Knollys was an English noblewoman and mother to the courtiers Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Penelope, Lady Rich. She was Countess of Essex during her first marriage to Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and became Countess of Leicester after her second marriage to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. With her marriage to Elizabeth I's favourite, she incurred the Queen's unrelenting displeasure.

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25/12/1553

Pedro de Valdivia, Spanish explorer and politician, 1st Royal Governor of Chile (born 1500)

Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia or Valdiva was a Spanish conquistador and the first Governor of Colonial Chile. After having served with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders, he was sent to South America in 1535, where he served as a soldier under the Pizarro brothers in Peru, gradually rising in power.

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25/12/1505

George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent, English politician (born 1454)

George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent, was the son of Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent and Lady Katherine Percy. He was the Second Earl of Kent from 1490 to 1505.

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25/12/1406

Henry III of Castile (born 1379)

Henry III of Castile, called the Suffering due to his ill health, was the son of John I and Eleanor of Aragon. He succeeded his father as King of Castile in 1390.

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25/12/1395

Elisabeth, Countess of Neuchâtel, Swiss ruler

Elisabeth, Countess of Neuchâtel or Isabelle de Neuchâtel was ruling countess suo jure of the County of Neuchâtel from 1373 until 1395. She was the daughter of Louis I of Neuchâtel and Jeanne de Montfaucon and married Rodolphe IV de Nidau.

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25/12/1294

Mestwin II, Duke of Pomerania

Mestwin II was a Duke of Gdańsk Pomerania, member of the Samborides dynasty. He ruled Gdańsk Pomerania as a sole ruler from 1273 to 1294.

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25/12/1156

Peter the Venerable, French abbot and saint (born 1092)

Peter the Venerable, also known as Peter of Montboissier, was the abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Cluny. He has been honored as a saint although he was never canonized in the Middle Ages. Since in 1862 Pope Pius IX confirmed his historical cult, and the Martyrologium Romanum, issued by the Holy See in 2004, regards him as a blessed.

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Sverker the Elder, king of Sweden

Sverker the Elder, also known as Sverker I, was King of Sweden from about 1132 until his murder. Of non-royal descent, he founded the House of Sverker, the rulers of which alternated with the rival House of Erik over the next century.

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25/12/1147

Guy II, Count of Ponthieu (born c. 1120)

Guy II of Ponthieu was the son of William III of Ponthieu and Helie of Burgundy.

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25/12/0940

Makan ibn Kaki, Iranian general

Abu Mansur Makan ibn Kaki was a Daylamite military leader active in northern Iran in the early 10th century. He became involved in the succession disputes of the Alids of Tabaristan, and managed to establish himself as the ruler of Tabaristan and Gurgan for short periods of time, in competition to other Daylamite warlords such as Asfar ibn Shiruya or the Ziyarid brothers Mardavij and Vushmgir. He alternately opposed and secured support from the Samanid governors of Khurasan, and eventually fell in battle against a Samanid army.

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25/12/0936

Zhang Jingda, general of Later Tang

Zhang Jingda, courtesy name Zhitong (志通), nickname Shengtie, was a Chinese military general and politician of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period Later Tang state. At the end of Later Tang, when Shi Jingtang rebelled against Later Tang's last emperor Li Congke, Zhang commanded the Later Tang army against Shi, but was defeated by the joint forces of Shi and Emperor Taizong of Liao. His deputy Yang Guangyuan then killed him and surrendered, leading to Later Tang's fall.

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25/12/0820

Emperor Leo V

Leo V the Armenian was the Byzantine emperor from 813 to 820. He is chiefly remembered for ending the decade-long war with the Bulgars, as well as initiating the second period of Byzantine iconoclasm.

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25/12/0795

Pope Adrian I

Pope Adrian I was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 until his death on 25 December 795. Descended from a family of the military aristocracy of Rome known as domini de via Lata, he was the son of Theodore, who died when Hadrian was still very young; he was welcomed by his paternal uncle Theodotus consul, dux et primicerius Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae.

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25/12/0304

Saint Anastasia

Saint Anastasia is a Christian saint and martyr who died at Sirmium in the Roman province of Pannonia Secunda. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, she is venerated as St. Anastasia the Pharmakolytria, i.e. "Deliverer from Potions". This epithet is also translated as "One who Cures (Wounds)" in Lampe's A Patristic Greek Lexicon.

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