Died on Sunday, 28th December – Famous Deaths

28/12/2025

Brigitte Bardot, French actress, singer and activist (born 1934)

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, often referred to by her initials B.B., was a French actress, singer, model, and animal rights activist. She became one of the best-known symbols of the sexual revolution and gained international fame for portraying characters associated with hedonistic lifestyles. Although she withdrew from the entertainment industry in 1973, she remained a major pop culture icon. She appeared in 47 films, performed in several musicals, and recorded more than 60 songs. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1985.

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28/12/2024

Charles Dolan, American businessman, founded Cablevision and HBO (born 1926)

Charles Francis Dolan was an American billionaire businessman and media mogul, best known as founder of Cablevision and HBO. Today, the Dolan family controls Madison Square Garden Sports, MSG Networks, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Madison Square Garden, the Sphere, Radio City Music Hall, BBC America, and AMC Networks. As of December 2024, his net worth was estimated at US$5.4 billion.

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28/12/2023

Vijayakanth, Indian actor and politician (born 1952)

Vijayaraj Alagarswami, known by his stage name Vijayakanth, was an Indian actor, filmmaker, philanthropist and politician. He worked in Tamil cinema in a career spanning four decades. He ventured into politics in the later part of his career and founded his own party Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam.

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28/12/2022

Philomena Franz, German Romani author (born 1922)

Philomena Franz was a Sinti writer and activist from Germany, who was a survivor of the Romani Holocaust, having been imprisoned in Auschwitz. She later published works that recounted her experiences and was recognised as a significant voice in Romani literature.

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28/12/2021

Grichka Bogdanoff, French television presenter and scientific essayist (born 1949)

Igor Youriévitch Bogdanoff and Grégoire "Grichka" Youriévitch Bogdanoff, alternatively spelled Bogdanov, were French television presenters, producers, and essayists who presented a variety of programmes in science fiction, popular science, and cosmology. The brothers – identical twins – were involved in a number of controversies, the most notable being the Bogdanov affair. It brought to light how they received Ph.D. degrees based on largely nonsensical physics papers that were nonetheless peer-reviewed and published in reputable scientific journals. In their later years, they were also the subject of numerous internet memes, particularly in the cryptocurrency community.

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John Madden, American football Hall of Fame coach and commentator (born 1936)

John Earl Madden was an American professional football coach and sports commentator in the National Football League (NFL). He served as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, leading them to eight playoff appearances, seven division titles, seven AFL/AFC Championship Game appearances, and the franchise's first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XI. Never having a losing season, Madden holds the highest winning percentage among NFL head coaches who coached at least 100 games. He is considered one of the greatest coaches of all time.

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Harry Reid, American lawyer, politician, and former Senate majority leader (born 1939)

Harry Mason Reid Jr. was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015.

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28/12/2017

Rose Marie, American actress and comedienne (born 1923)

Rose Marie Guy, known professionally as Rose Marie, was an American actress, singer, comedienne, and vaudeville performer with a career spanning nine decades, which included film, radio, records, theater, night clubs and television. As a child performer from the late 1920s onward, she had a successful singing career under the stage name Baby Rose Marie.

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28/12/2016

Debbie Reynolds, American actress, singer and dancer (born 1932)

Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds was an American actress, singer and entrepreneur. Her acting career spanned almost 70 years. Reynolds performed on stage and television and in films into her 80s.

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Jean-Christophe Victor, French political scientist (born 1947)

Jean-Christophe Victor was a French political scientist focusing on international relations. He was the son of the polar explorer Paul-Émile Victor and the television producer Eliane Decrais. He earned master's degrees in Chinese at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, and in political sciences at the University of Paris-1 (1982), as well as a PhD in ethnology on Nepal. He was posted as a diplomat in Afghanistan, worked as policy adviser at NATO in Brussels, and for the Policy Planning Office at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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28/12/2015

John Bradbury, English drummer and songwriter (born 1953)

John "Brad" Bradbury was an English drummer and record producer. He is best known for having been the drummer in the English ska group the Specials.

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Eloy Inos, Mariana Islander businessman and politician, 8th Governor of the Northern Mariana Islands (born 1949)

Eulogio Songao "Eloy" Inos was a Northern Marianan politician who served as the eighth governor of the Northern Mariana Islands from 2013 to 2015. Inos, a member of the Republican Party, also served as the eighth lieutenant governor from 2009 to 2013.

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Lemmy, English musician, singer, and songwriter (born 1945)

Ian Fraser Kilmister, better known as Lemmy, was an English musician. He was the founder, lead vocalist, bassist and primary songwriter of the rock band Motörhead, of which he was the only continuous member. Kilmister had previously been a member of Hawkwind from 1971 to 1975, before being sacked from that band.

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28/12/2014

Leelah Alcorn, American transgender teenager (born 1997)

Leelah Alcorn was an American transgender girl whose suicide attracted international attention. Prior to her death, she had posted a suicide note to her Tumblr blog about societal standards affecting transgender people and expressing the hope that her death would create a dialogue about discrimination, abuse, and lack of support for transgender people.

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Vahan Hovhannisyan, Armenian politician (born 1956)

Vahan Hovhannisyan was an Armenian politician of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF). He was Vice-President of the National Assembly of Armenia from 2007 to 2008 and was a candidate in the February 2008 presidential election.

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Frankie Randall, American singer-songwriter (born 1938)

Frankie Randall was an American singer and pianist.

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28/12/2013

Halton Arp, American-German astronomer and critic (born 1927)

Halton Christian "Chip" Arp was an American astronomer. He is remembered for his 1966 book Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which catalogued unusual-looking galaxies and presented their images.

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Esther Borja, Cuban soprano and actress (born 1913)

Esther Borja Lima was a Cuban operatic soprano.

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Andrew Jacobs, Jr., American soldier, lawyer, and politician (born 1932)

Andrew Jacobs Jr. was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as an Indiana state legislator and Congressman. Jacobs represented part of Indianapolis in the United States House of Representatives for all but two years from 1965 to 1997. His father, Andrew Jacobs, was also a congressman for one term.

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Alfred Marshall, American businessman, founded Marshalls (born 1919)

Alfred Marshall was an American businessman who founded Marshalls, a chain of department stores which specializes in overstocked, irregular and out-of-season name brand clothing sold at deeply discounted prices. He opened the original Marshalls in 1956 in Beverly, Massachusetts.

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Joseph Ruskin, American actor and producer (born 1924)

Joseph Ruskin was an American character actor.

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Ilya Tsymbalar, Ukrainian-Russian footballer and manager (born 1969)

Ilya Vladimirovich Tsymbalar was a Ukrainian-Russian professional football player and coach. A midfielder, he represented both Ukraine and Russia on the international level. He primarily played as an attacking midfielder and was known for set-piece ability and technique.

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28/12/2012

Nicholas Ambraseys, Greek-English seismologist and engineer (born 1929)

Nicholas Neocles Ambraseys was a Greek engineering seismologist. He was emeritus professor of engineering seismology and senior research fellow at Imperial College London. For many years Ambraseys was considered the leading figure and an authority in earthquake engineering and seismology in Europe.

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Mark Crispin, American computer scientist and academic, designed the IMAP (born 1956)

Mark Reed Crispin is best known as the father of the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), having invented it in 1985 during his time at the Stanford Knowledge Systems Laboratory. He is the author or co-author of numerous RFCs and was the principal author of UW IMAP, one of the reference implementations of the IMAP4rev1 protocol described in RFC 3501. He also designed the MIX mail storage format.

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Václav Drobný, Czech footballer (born 1980)

Václav Drobný was a Czech footballer who notably played for Sparta Prague having spent time in their youth team as well as spells at Czech, Slovak, French and German sides. Drobný played twice for the Czech Republic and was most known in England for his short stint on loan at Aston Villa.

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Frankie Walsh, Irish hurler and manager (born 1936)

Frankie Walsh was an Irish hurler who played as a left wing-forward at senior level for the Waterford county team.

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28/12/2010

Billy Taylor, American pianist and composer (born 1921)

Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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Terry Peder Rasmussen, American serial killer (born 1943)

Terry Peder Rasmussen was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was convicted of one murder, and linked to at least six more in a series of crimes that stretched across the contiguous United States between 1978 and 2002. Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as the Chameleon Killer.

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28/12/2009

Jimmy Sullivan, American musician, composer and songwriter. Known by his stage name The Rev (born 1981)

James Owen Sullivan, also known by his stage name The Rev, was an American musician and songwriter. He was the drummer, pianist, backing vocalist, and occasional co-lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, which he co-founded in 1999. He was previously the lead vocalist and pianist of the avant-garde metal band Pinkly Smooth and drummer for the ska punk band Suburban Legends from 1998 to 1999.

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28/12/2008

Irene Lieblich, Polish-American painter and illustrator (born 1923)

Irene Lieblich was a Polish-born artist and Holocaust survivor noted for illustrating the books of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer and for her paintings highlighting Jewish life and culture. She is also a distant cousin of noted Yiddish language author and playwright Isaac Leib Peretz.

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28/12/2006

Jamal Karimi-Rad, Iranian politician, Iranian Minister of Justice (born 1956)

Jamal Karimi-Rad was the Minister of Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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28/12/2004

Jerry Orbach, American actor and singer (born 1935)

Jerome Bernard Orbach was an American actor and singer, described at the time of his death as "one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television" and a "versatile stage and film actor." Over his career he received a Tony Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award.

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Susan Sontag, American novelist, essayist, critic, and playwright (born 1933)

Susan Lee Sontag was an American writer and critic. She primarily wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp' ", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works Against Interpretation (1966), On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), the short story "The Way We Live Now" (1986) and the novels The Volcano Lover (1992) and In America (1999).

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28/12/2003

Benjamin Thurman Hacker, American admiral (born 1935)

Rear Admiral Benjamin Thurman Hacker (1935–2003) was a U.S. Naval officer, who became the first Naval Flight Officer (NFO) to achieve Flag rank.

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28/12/2001

Samuel Abraham Goldblith, American lieutenant, biologist, and engineer (born 1919)

Samuel Abraham Goldblith was an American food scientist. While involved in World War II, he studied malnutrition, and later was involved in food research important for space exploration.

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William X. Kienzle, American priest and author (born 1928)

William Xavier Kienzle was an American priest and later writer.

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28/12/1999

Clayton Moore, American actor (born 1914)

Clayton Moore was an American actor best known for playing the fictional Western character the Lone Ranger from September 1949 to September 1952 and then again from September 1954 to September 1957 on the television series of the same name and two related films from the same producers.

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28/12/1994

Jean-Louis Lévesque, Canadian businessman and philanthropist (born 1911)

Jean-Louis Lévesque, was a Canadian entrepreneur, thoroughbred racehorse owner, and philanthropist.

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28/12/1993

William L. Shirer, American journalist and historian (born 1904)

William Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist, war correspondent, and historian. His history of Nazi Germany The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich has been read and cited in scholarly works for more than 60 years; its 50th anniversary was marked by a new edition of the book.

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28/12/1992

Sal Maglie, American baseball player and coach (born 1917)

Salvatore Anthony Maglie was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB), and later a scout and a pitching coach. He played from 1945 to 1958 for the New York Giants, Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, and St. Louis Cardinals. Maglie was known as "Sal the Barber", because he gave close shaves—that is, pitched inside to hitters. A gentle personality off the field went unnoticed during games, his foreboding physical appearance contributing to his menacing presence on a pitcher's mound. He was the last of 14 players to play for the Giants, Dodgers and Yankees at a time when all three teams were in New York City. During a 10-year major league baseball career, Maglie compiled 119 wins, 862 strikeouts, and a 3.15 earned run average.

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28/12/1990

Warren Skaaren, American screenwriter and producer (born 1946)

Warren Skaaren was an American screenwriter and film producer.

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28/12/1989

Hermann Oberth, Romanian-German physicist and engineer (born 1894)

Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and rocket pioneer of Transylvanian Saxon descent. Oberth supported Nazi Germany's war effort and received the War Merit Cross in 1943.

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28/12/1986

John D. MacDonald, American colonel and author (born 1916)

John Dann MacDonald was an American writer of novels and short stories. He is known for his thrillers. A prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many set in his adopted home of Florida, he was one of the most successful American novelists of his time. MacDonald sold an estimated 70 million books. His best-known works include the popular and critically acclaimed Travis McGee series and his 1957 novel The Executioners, which was filmed twice as Cape Fear, once in 1962 and again in 1991.

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Jan Nieuwenhuys, Dutch painter (born 1922)

Jan Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch painter and one of the early active founders of the Dutch Experimentalists group (Reflex) that later became part of CoBrA.

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28/12/1984

Sam Peckinpah, American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1925)

David Samuel Peckinpah was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. His 1969 Western epic The Wild Bunch received two Academy Award nominations and was ranked No. 80 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list. His films employed a visually innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence, as well as a revisionist approach to the Western genre.

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Mary Stewart, Baroness Stewart of Alvechurch, British politician and educator (born 1903)

Mary Elizabeth Henderson Stewart, Baroness Stewart of Alvechurch, Baroness Stewart of Fulham, was a British politician and educator. She was a baroness in her own right and the wife of Labour Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart.

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Peter Kihss, American journalist

Peter Frederick Kihss was an American reporter for The New York Times and other news organizations for nearly half a century until his retirement in 1982. Kihss was known for his reporting on a wide range of topics, including immigrants, state and city governments, crime, the weather and other subjects.

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28/12/1983

Dennis Wilson, American drummer, songwriter, and producer (born 1944)

Dennis Carl Wilson was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys in 1961. He served as the band's drummer and was the middle brother of bandmates Brian and Carl Wilson. The only dedicated surfer in the group, his lifestyle embodied the “California myth” that inspired and was celebrated in many of the band's early songs. Over time, Wilson also emerged as a songwriter and contributed original material to the band's repertoire, including "Forever" (1970), his best-known composition.

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28/12/1981

Allan Dwan, Canadian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1885)

Allan Dwan was a pioneering Canadian and American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.

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28/12/1976

Katharine Byron, American politician (born 1903)

Katharine Byron, a Democrat, was a U.S. Congresswoman who represented the 6th congressional district of Maryland from May 27, 1941, to January 3, 1943. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Maryland.

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28/12/1971

Max Steiner, Austrian-American pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1888)

Maximilian Raoul Steiner was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and became one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers.

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28/12/1968

David Ogilvy, 12th Earl of Airlie, Scottish peer, soldier and courtier (born 1893)

Colonel David Lyulph Gore Wolseley Ogilvy, 12th Earl of Airlie, was a Scottish peer, soldier and courtier. He was the father-in-law of Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy.

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28/12/1967

Katharine McCormick, American biologist and philanthropist (born 1875)

Katharine Dexter McCormick was an American suffragist, philanthropist and, after her husband's death, heir to a substantial part of the McCormick family fortune. She funded most of the research necessary to develop the first birth control pill.

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28/12/1963

Paul Hindemith, German violist, composer, and conductor (born 1895)

Paul Hindemith was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as Kammermusik, including works with viola and viola d'amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), his oratorio Das Unaufhörliche (1931), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera Mathis der Maler (1938) and the symphony Mathis der Maler (1934), the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943), and the oratorio When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1946), a requiem based on Walt Whitman's poem. Hindemith and his wife emigrated to Switzerland and the United States ahead of World War II, after worsening difficulties with the Nazi German regime. In his later years, he conducted and recorded much of his own music.

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28/12/1960

Philippe Panneton, Canadian physician, academic, and diplomat (born 1895)

Philippe Panneton was a Canadian physician, academic, diplomat and writer.

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28/12/1959

Ante Pavelić, Croatian fascist dictator during World War II (born 1889)

Ante Pavelić was a Croatian politician who founded and headed the Ustaše in 1929 and was dictator of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state built out of parts of occupied Yugoslavia by the authorities of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, from 1941 to 1945. Pavelić and the Ustaše persecuted many racial minorities and political opponents in the NDH during the war, including Serbs, Jews, Romani, and Yugoslav Partisans, becoming one of the key figures of the genocide of Serbs, the Porajmos and the Holocaust in the NDH.

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28/12/1949

Jack Lovelock, New Zealand runner and soldier (born 1910)

John Edward Lovelock was a New Zealand athlete who became the world 1500m and mile record holder and 1936 Olympic champion in the 1500 metres.

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28/12/1947

Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (born 1869)

Victor Emmanuel III was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albanians from 1939 to 1943, following the Italian invasions of Ethiopia and Albania. During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in World War I and in World War II. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of the Fascist regime.

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28/12/1946

Elie Nadelman, Polish-American sculptor (born 1882)

Elie Nadelman was a Polish-American sculptor, draughtsman of the School of Paris and a collector of folk art.

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28/12/1945

Theodore Dreiser, American novelist and journalist (born 1871)

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. Dreiser's best-known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925).

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28/12/1943

Steve Evans, American baseball player (born 1885)

Louis Richard (Steve) Evans was an American right fielder in Major League Baseball. He played in the National League (NL) for the New York Giants (1908) and St. Louis Cardinals (1910–13), and in the Federal League (FL) for the Brooklyn Tip-Tops (1914–15) and Baltimore Terrapins (1915). Evans batted and threw left-handed.

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28/12/1942

Alfred Flatow, German gymnast (born 1869)

Alfred Flatow was a Jewish German gymnast. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. He was murdered in the Holocaust.

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28/12/1938

Florence Lawrence, Canadian actress (born 1886)

Florence Lawrence was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was long thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.

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28/12/1937

Maurice Ravel, French pianist and composer (born 1875)

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.

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28/12/1935

Clarence Day, American author and illustrator (born 1874)

Clarence Shepard Day Jr. was an American author and cartoonist, best known for his 1935 work Life with Father.

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28/12/1932

Jack Blackham, Australian cricketer (born 1854)

John McCarthy Blackham was a Test cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia.

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28/12/1924

Léon Bakst, Russian painter and costume designer (born 1866)

Léon (Lev) Samoylovich Bakst, born Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich Rosenberg, was a Russian painter and scene and costume designer of Jewish origin. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes. He designed the décor for such productions as Carnaval (1910), Spectre de la rose (1911), Daphnis and Chloe (1912), The Sleeping Princess (1921) and others.

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28/12/1919

Johannes Rydberg, Swedish physicist and academic (born 1854)

Johannes (Janne) Robert Rydberg was a Swedish physicist known for devising the Rydberg formula, in 1888, which is used to describe the wavelengths of photons emitted by changes in the energy level of an electron in a hydrogen atom.

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28/12/1918

Olavo Bilac, Brazilian poet and journalist (born 1865)

Olavo Brás Martins dos Guimarães Bilac, known simply as Olavo Bilac, was a Brazilian Parnassian poet, journalist and translator. Alongside Alberto de Oliveira and Raimundo Correia, he was a member of the "Parnassian Triad". He was elected the "Prince of Brazilian Poets" in 1907 by the magazine Fon-Fon. He wrote the lyrics of the Brazilian Flag Anthem.

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28/12/1917

Alfred Edwin McKay, Canadian captain and pilot (born 1892)

Captain Alfred Edwin "Eddie" McKay MC was a Canadian flying ace who flew with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.

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28/12/1916

Eduard Strauss, Austrian violinist and composer (born 1835)

Eduard "Edi" Strauss was an Austrian composer who, together with his brothers Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss made up the Strauss musical dynasty. He was the son of Johann Strauss I and Maria Anna Streim. The family dominated the Viennese light music world for decades, creating many waltzes and polkas for many Austrian nobility as well as dance-music enthusiasts around Europe. He was affectionately known in his family as 'Edi'.

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28/12/1913

Ahmet Mithat Efendi, Turkish journalist and translator (born 1844)

Ahmet Mithat was an Ottoman journalist, author, translator and publisher during the Tanzimat period. In scholarship, he is typically referred to as Ahmet Mithat Efendi to distinguish him from the contemporary politician Midhat Pasha; Ahmet Mithat took on his second name "Mithat" while working for Midhat Pasha as an official and newspaper editor in the Vilayet of the Danube.

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28/12/1907

Louise Granberg, Swedish playwright (born 1812)

Louise Elisabeth Granberg was a Swedish playwright, translator and theatre director.

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28/12/1900

Alexandre de Serpa Pinto, Portuguese soldier and explorer (born 1846)

Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto, Viscount of Serpa Pinto was a Portuguese explorer of southern Africa and a colonial administrator.

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28/12/1897

William Corby, American priest and academic (born 1833)

William Corby, C.S.C. was an American Catholic priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross and a Union Army chaplain in the American Civil War attached to the Irish Brigade. He served twice as president of the University of Notre Dame.

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28/12/1890

Dennis Miller Bunker, American painter (born 1861)

Dennis Miller Bunker was an American painter and innovator of American Impressionism. His mature works include both brightly colored landscape paintings and dark, finely drawn portraits and figures. One of the major American painters of the late 19th century, and a friend of many prominent artists of the era, Bunker died from meningitis at the age of 29.

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28/12/1872

James Van Ness, American lawyer and politician, 7th Mayor of San Francisco (born 1808)

James Van Ness was an American politician who served as the 7th mayor of San Francisco from 1855 to 1856.

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28/12/1859

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, English historian and politician, Secretary at War (born 1800)

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, was a British historian, poet and Whig politician who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster General between 1846 and 1848. He is best known for his The History of England, a seminal example of Whig history which expressed Macaulay's belief in the inevitability of sociopolitical progress and has been widely commended for its prose style. Macaulay also played a substantial role in determining India's education policy.

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28/12/1795

Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian physician and lawyer (born 1747)

Francisco Javier Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo[a] was a medical pioneer, writer and lawyer of indigenous origin in colonial Ecuador. Although he was a notable scientist and writer, he stands out as a polemicist who inspired the separatist movement in Quito. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in colonial Ecuador. He was Quito's first journalist and hygienist.

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28/12/1785

Peter Ernst Wilde, Polish-Estonian physician and journalist (born 1732)

Peter Ernst Wilde was a Baltic German physician and Enlightenment era Estophile. He lived in what was then the Russian Empire.

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28/12/1736

Antonio Caldara, Italian composer (born 1670)

Antonio Caldara was an Italian Baroque composer.

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28/12/1734

Rob Roy MacGregor, Scottish outlaw (born 1671)

Robert Roy MacGregor was a Jacobite Scottish outlaw, who later became a Scottish and Jacobite folk hero.

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28/12/1715

William Carstares, Scottish minister and academic (born 1649)

William Carstares was a Scottish religious minister who was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1705, 1708, 1711 and 1715. He was active in Whig politics and was Principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1703 to 1715.

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28/12/1708

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, French botanist and mycologist (born 1656)

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages.

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28/12/1706

Pierre Bayle, French philosopher and author (born 1647)

Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher, author, and lexicographer. He is best known for his Historical and Critical Dictionary, whose publication began in 1697. Many of the more controversial ideas in the book were hidden away in the voluminous footnotes, or they were slipped into articles on seemingly uncontroversial topics. Bayle is commonly regarded as a forerunner of the Encyclopédistes of the mid-18th century.

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28/12/1694

Mary II of England (born 1662)

Mary II was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband, King William III and II, from 1689 until her death in 1694. She was also Princess of Orange following her marriage on 4 November 1677. Her joint reign with William over Britain is known as that of William and Mary.

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28/12/1671

Johann Friedrich Gronovius, German scholar and critic (born 1611)

Johann Friedrich Gronovius was a German classical scholar, librarian and critic.

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28/12/1663

Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Italian mathematician and physicist (born 1618)

Francesco Maria Grimaldi was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician and physicist who taught at the Jesuit college in Bologna. He was born in Bologna to Paride Grimaldi and Anna Cattani.

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28/12/1622

Francis de Sales, French bishop and saint (born 1567)

Francis de Sales, C.O., O.M. was a Savoyard Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Geneva and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God.

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28/12/1558

Hermann Finck, German organist and composer (born 1527)

Hermann Finck was a German music theorist, composer and organist.

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28/12/1547

Konrad Peutinger, German humanist and antiquarian (born 1465)

Konrad Peutinger was a German humanist, jurist, diplomat, politician, economist and archaeologist, serving as Emperor Maximilian I's chief archaeological adviser. A senior official in the municipal government of the Imperial City of Augsburg, he served as a counselor to Emperor Maximilian I and his successor Charles V. Also known as a passionate antiquarian, he collected, with the help of his wife Margareta Welser (1481–1552), one of the largest private libraries north of the Alps.

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28/12/1538

Andrea Gritti, Doge of Venice (born 1455)

Andrea Gritti was the Doge of the Venetian Republic from 1523 to 1538, following a distinguished diplomatic and military career. He started out as a successful merchant in Constantinople and transitioned into the position of Bailo, a diplomatic role. He was arrested for espionage but was spared execution thanks to his good relationship with the Ottoman vizier. After being freed from imprisonment, he returned to Venice and began his political career. When the War of the League of Cambrai broke out, despite his lack of experience, he was given a leadership role in the Venetian military, where he excelled. After the war, he was elected doge, and he held that post until his death.

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28/12/1503

Piero the Unfortunate, Italian ruler (born 1471)

Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, called Piero the Fatuous or Piero the Unfortunate, was the lord of Florence from 1492 until his exile in 1494.

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28/12/1491

Bertoldo di Giovanni, Italian sculptor (born c. 1435)

Bertoldo di Giovanni was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and medallist.

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28/12/1446

Antipope Clement VIII (born 1369)

Clement VIII, born Gil Sánchez Muñoz y Carbón, was one of the antipopes of the Avignon obedience, reigning from 10 June 1423 to 26 July 1429. When King Alfonso V of Aragon reached an agreement with Pope Martin V, Sánchez Muñoz abdicated, made his submission and was appointed bishop of Mallorca.

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28/12/1394

Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina, queen of Epirus (born 1350)

Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina, also known as Marija Angelina Nemanjić or Anna Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina, was a Byzantine Greek-Serbian aristocrat and self-proclaimed basilissa of Epirus from 1384 to 1385, succeeding the rule of her murdered husband, Thomas Preljubović. Maria and her husband were a famed couple and patrons of the arts during Thomas's rule of Ioannina from 1366 to 1384. She is depicted in icons.

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28/12/1367

Ashikaga Yoshiakira, Japanese shōgun (born 1330)

Ashikaga Yoshiakira was the second shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1358 to 1367 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshiakira was the son of the founder and first shōgun of the Muromachi shogunate, Ashikaga Takauji. His mother was Akahashi Tōshi (赤橋登子), also known as Hōjō Nariko.

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28/12/1326

Sir David II Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, Constable of Scotland, and Chief Warden of Northumberland

Sir David II Strathbogie was Earl of Atholl, Constable of Scotland, and Chief Warden of Northumberland.

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28/12/1297

Hugh Aycelin, French cardinal (born 1230)

Hugh Aycelin was a French Cardinal. He was also known as Hughes of Billom, Ugo Billomo, Hughes Séguin, Ugo Seguin de Billon, Hughes Aycelin de Montaigut and Hugues Séguin de Billon.

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28/12/1218

Robert II, Count of Dreux (born 1154)

Robert II of Dreux, Count of Dreux and Braine, was the eldest surviving son of Robert I, Count of Dreux, and Agnes de Baudemont, countess of Braine, and a grandson of King Louis VI of France.

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28/12/0925

Wang Zongbi, general of the Chinese state of Former Shu

Wang Zongbi was a Chinese military general and politician of the Former Shu dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

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