Died on Tuesday, 9th December – Famous Deaths

09/12/2024

Nikki Giovanni, American poet, writer and activist (born 1943)

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. was an American poet, writer, commentator, activist and educator. One of the world's best-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She was nominated for a 2004 Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she was named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 "Living Legends". Giovanni was a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.

---

09/12/2022

Jovit Baldivino, Filipino singer and actor (born 1993)

Jovit Lasin Baldivino was a Filipino singer and actor. He was the first winner of the reality talent competition show Pilipinas Got Talent in 2010.

---

09/12/2021

Speedy Duncan, American football player (born 1942)

Leslie Herbert "Speedy" Duncan was an American professional football player who was a cornerback and return specialist in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Jackson State Tigers. Duncan played seven seasons with the San Diego Chargers, where he was a three-time AFL All-Star. He was also named to the Pro Bowl with the Washington Redskins. Duncan was inducted into the Chargers Hall of Fame and was named to their 40th and 50th anniversary teams.

---

Demaryius Thomas, American football player (born 1987)

Demaryius Antwon Thomas was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver for 10 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), primarily with the Denver Broncos. He played college football for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, earning third-team All-American honors in 2009. Thomas was selected by the Broncos in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft. With Denver, he made five Pro Bowls and won Super Bowl 50 against the Carolina Panthers. Thomas also played for the Houston Texans, New England Patriots, and New York Jets.

---

09/12/2015

Soshana Afroyim, Austrian painter (born 1927)

Soshana Afroyim was an Austrian painter of the Modernism period. Soshana was a full-time artist and traveled frequently, exhibiting her work internationally. During her journeys, she portrayed many well known personalities and her art developed in different directions. Her early period artwork was largely naturalistic in nature, showing landscapes and portraits. Later her style developed towards abstract art, strongly influenced by Asian calligraphy.

---

Norman Breslow, American statistician and academic (born 1941)

Norman Edward Breslow was an American statistician and medical researcher. At the time of his death, he was Professor (Emeritus) of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health, of the University of Washington. He is co-author or author of hundreds of published works during 1967 to 2015.

---

Juvenal Juvêncio, Brazilian lawyer and politician (born 1934)

Juvenal Juvêncio was a Brazilian lawyer, state representative, investigator of police, and president of São Paulo Futebol Clube. During the legislature 1963–1967, he took over in alternate condition, state deputy mandate. He was also head of Cecap, during the government of São Paulo state governor Laudo Natel (1971–1975). After leaving the presidency, he later became the director of an amateur football club.

---

Julio Terrazas Sandoval, Bolivian cardinal (born 1936)

Julio Terrazas Sandoval was a Cardinal Priest and Archbishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the Roman Catholic Church.

---

09/12/2014

Sacvan Bercovitch, Canadian-American author, critic, and academic (born 1933)

Sacvan Bercovitch was a Canadian literary and cultural critic who spent most of his life teaching and writing in the United States. During an academic career spanning five decades, he was considered to be one of the most influential and controversial figures of his generation in the emerging field of American studies.

---

Jane Freilicher, American painter and poet (born 1924)

Jane Freilicher was an American representational painter of urban and country scenes from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a member of the informal New York School beginning in the 1950s, and a muse to several of its poets and writers.

---

Jorge María Mejía, Argentinian cardinal (born 1923)

Jorge María Mejía was an Argentine cardinal of the Catholic Church.

---

Mary Ann Mobley, American model and actress, Miss America 1959 (born 1937)

Mary Ann Mobley was an American actress, television personality, and Miss America 1959.

---

Blagoje Paunović, Serbian footballer and manager (born 1947)

Blagoje Paunović was a Serbian football defender and manager.

---

Jože Toporišič, Slovenian linguist and author (born 1926)

Jože Toporišič was a Slovene linguist. He was the author of the most influential Slovene scientific grammar of the second half of the 20th century, a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and coauthor of the Academy's Slovene Normative Guide. In this position, he transformed the linguistic section of the academy into the central regulatory authority for codification of Slovene.

---

09/12/2013

Hristu Cândroveanu, Romanian editor, literary critic and writer (born 1928)

Hristu Cândroveanu was a Romanian editor, literary critic, poet, prose writer and translator of Aromanian ethnicity. He published several works related to the Aromanians, led several Aromanian magazines and was involved in some Aromanian organizations.

---

John Gabbert, American soldier, lawyer, and judge (born 1909)

John Gordon Gabbert was an American judge. He was associate justice of the California Courts of Appeal appointed by Governor Ronald Reagan in May 1970. Before that, he was a Superior Court judge for Riverside County, California.

---

Barbara Hesse-Bukowska, Polish pianist and educator (born 1930)

Barbara Stella Hesse-Bukowska was a Polish pianist. Her family had a long-standing musical history, as her father was a violinist and conductor, her mother was a pianist and teacher, and her grandfather was a piano tuner. Her mother was her first teacher. Her subsequent teachers included Czesław Aniołkiewicz and, at the Warsaw Conservatory, Maria Glińska-Wąsowska.

---

Eleanor Parker, American actress (born 1922)

Eleanor Jean Parker was an American actress. She was nominated for three Academy Awards for her roles in the films Caged (1950), Detective Story (1951), and Interrupted Melody (1955), the first of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. She was also known for her roles in the films Of Human Bondage (1946), Scaramouche (1952), The Naked Jungle (1954), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), A Hole in the Head (1959), The Sound of Music (1965), and The Oscar (1966).

---

John Wilbur, American football player (born 1943)

John Leonard Wilbur was an American professional football offensive lineman in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins. He also was a member of The Hawaiians in the World Football League (WFL). He played college football at Stanford University.

---

09/12/2012

Béla Nagy Abodi, Hungarian painter and academic (born 1918)

Béla Nagy Abodi was a Hungarian painter, and professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca. He studied in the class of Camil Ressu at the Academia de Belle-Arte in Bucharest, and then went to the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, as a student of István Szőnyi. He served for 5 years in the Hungarian army, and became a war prisoner in USSR. He worked as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca.

---

Patrick Moore, English lieutenant, astronomer, and educator (born 1923)

Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was an English amateur astronomer who attained prominence in that field as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter.

---

Alex Moulton, English engineer and businessman, founded the Moulton Bicycle Company (born 1920)

Alexander Eric Moulton was an English engineer and inventor, specialising in suspension design.

---

Jenni Rivera, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress (born 1969)

Dolores Janney "Jenni" Rivera was an American singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and producer known for her work within the regional Mexican music genre, specifically in the styles of banda, mariachi and norteño. In life and death, several media outlets including CNN, Billboard, Fox News, and The New York Times have labeled her the most important female figure and top-selling female artist in regional Mexican music. Billboard magazine named her the "top Latin artist of 2013", and the "best selling Latin artist of 2013".

---

Charles Rosen, American pianist and musicologist (born 1927)

Charles Welles Rosen was an American pianist and music critic. He is remembered for his career as a concert pianist, for his recordings, and for his many writings. He won the National Book Award for Arts and Letters for The Classical Style.

---

Riccardo Schicchi, Italian director and producer, co-founded Diva Futura (born 1953)

Riccardo Schicchi was an Italian pornographer.

---

Norman Joseph Woodland, American inventor, co-created the bar code (born 1921)

Norman Joseph Woodland was an American inventor and engineer, best known as one of the inventors of the barcode, for which he received a patent in October 1952. Later, employed by IBM, he developed the format which became the ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) of product labeling and check-out stands.

---

09/12/2010

James Moody, American saxophonist, flute player, and composer (born 1925)

James Moody was an American jazz saxophone and flute player and very occasional vocalist, playing predominantly in the bebop and hard bop styles. The annual James Moody Jazz Festival is held in Newark, New Jersey.

---

Dov Shilansky, Lithuanian-Israeli lawyer and politician, 10th Speaker of the Knesset (born 1924)

Dov Shilansky was an Israeli lawyer, politician and Speaker of the Knesset from 1988 to 1992.

---

09/12/2009

Gene Barry, American actor (born 1919)

Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor and singer. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City (1952) and The War of the Worlds (1953) and for his portrayal of the title characters in the TV series Bat Masterson and Burke's Law, among many roles.

---

09/12/2008

Ibrahim Dossey, Ghanaian footballer (born 1972)

Ibrahim Allotey Dossey was a Ghanaian professional football goalkeeper.

---

Yury Glazkov, Russian general, pilot, and astronaut (born 1939)

Yury Nikolayevich Glazkov was a Soviet Air Force officer and a cosmonaut. Glazkov held the rank of major general in the Russian Air Force.

---

09/12/2007

Rafael Sperafico, Brazilian race car driver (born 1981)

Rafael Sperafico was a Brazilian racing driver. He was the cousin of fellow racing drivers Ricardo and Rodrigo, and also related to Alexandre. He was born in Toledo, Paraná.

---

Gordon Zahn, American sociologist, author, and academic (born 1918)

Gordon Zahn was an American sociologist, pacifist, professor, and author.

---

09/12/2006

Georgia Gibbs, American singer (born 1919)

Georgia Gibbs was an American popular singer and vocal entertainer rooted in jazz. Already singing publicly in her early teens, Gibbs achieved acclaim and notoriety in the mid-1950s copying songs originating with the black rhythm and blues community and later became a featured vocalist for many radio and television variety and comedy programs. Her key attribute was tremendous versatility and an uncommon stylistic range from melancholy ballad to uptempo swinging jazz and rock and roll.

---

09/12/2005

György Sándor, Hungarian-American pianist and educator (born 1912)

György Sándor was a Hungarian pianist and writer.

---

Robert Sheckley, American author (born 1928)

Robert Sheckley was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical.

---

09/12/2003

Norm Sloan, American basketball player and coach (born 1926)

Norman Leslie Sloan Jr. was an American college basketball player and coach. Sloan was a native of Indiana and played college basketball and football at North Carolina State University. He began a long career as a basketball coach months after graduating from college in 1951, and he was the men's basketball head coach at Presbyterian College, The Citadel, North Carolina State University, and two stints at the University of Florida. Over a career that spanned 38 seasons, Sloan was named conference coach of the year five times and won the 1974 national championship at North Carolina State, his alma mater. He was nicknamed "Stormin' Norman" due to his combative nature with the media, his players, and school administrators, and his collegiate coaching career ended in controversy when Florida's basketball program was under investigation in 1989, though Sloan claimed that he was treated unfairly.

---

Paul Simon, American soldier, journalist, and politician, 39th Lieutenant Governor of Illinois (born 1928)

Paul Martin Simon was an American author and politician from Illinois. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1985 and in the United States Senate from 1985 to 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, he unsuccessfully ran for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.

---

09/12/2002

Mary Hansen, Australian singer and guitarist (born 1966)

Mary Therese Hansen was an Australian guitarist and singer. She joined the London-based avant-pop band Stereolab in 1992. As a member, Hansen recorded six studio albums from Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements to Sound-Dust.

---

Ian Hornak, American painter and sculptor (born 1944)

Ian Hornak was an American draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. He was a founding figure of the Hyperrealist and Photorealist movements and is credited with being the first Photorealist artist to incorporate the visual effects of multiple exposure photography into landscape painting. He was also among the first contemporary artists to fully extend pictorial imagery beyond the primary canvas onto its surrounding frame, expanding conventional boundaries between image and object.

---

Stan Rice, American painter and poet (born 1942)

Stanley Travis Rice Jr. was an American professor, poet and artist. He was the husband of author Anne Rice.

---

09/12/2001

Michael Carver, Baron Carver, English field marshal (born 1915)

Field Marshal Richard Michael Power Carver, Baron Carver, was a senior British Army officer. Lord Carver served as the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the professional head of the British Army, and then as the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), the professional head of the British Armed Forces. He served with distinction during the Second World War and organised the administration of British forces deployed in response to the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya and later in his career provided advice to the British government on the response to the early stages of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

---

09/12/1998

Shaughnessy Cohen, Canadian lawyer and politician (born 1948)

Elizabeth Shaughnessy Cohen was a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Windsor—St. Clair for the Liberal Party of Canada from 1993 until her death in 1998.

---

Archie Moore, American boxer and actor (born 1913)

Archie Moore was an American professional boxer and the longest reigning World Light Heavyweight Champion of all time. He had one of the longest professional careers in the history of the sport, competing from 1935 to 1963. Nicknamed "the Mongoose", and then "the Old Mongoose" in the latter half of his career, Moore was a highly strategic and defensive boxer. As of September 2025, BoxRec ranks Moore as the greatest light heavyweight boxer of all time.

---

09/12/1996

Patty Donahue, American singer-songwriter (born 1956)

Patricia Jean Donahue was an American singer. She was the lead vocalist of the American new wave band the Waitresses, known for the singles "I Know What Boys Like" and "Christmas Wrapping".

---

Mary Leakey, English archaeologist and anthropologist (born 1913)

Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old.

---

Alain Poher, French lawyer and politician (born 1909)

Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher was a French politician who served as President of the Senate from 1968 to 1992. In this capacity, he was twice briefly acting President of France, in 1969 and 1974 following the resignation of Charles de Gaulle and the death of Georges Pompidou, respectively. Poher was affiliated with the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) until 1966 and later with the Democratic Centre (CD) and Centre of Social Democrats (CSD), which he joined in 1976.

---

Diana Morgan, Welsh playwright and screenwriter (born 1908)

Mary Diana Morgan was a Welsh playwright, screenwriter and novelist, mostly associated with her work for Ealing Studios as Diana Morgan. She was married to fellow screenwriter Robert MacDermot.

---

09/12/1995

Toni Cade Bambara, American author and academic (born 1939)

Toni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade, was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.

---

Douglas Corrigan, American pilot (born 1907)

Douglas Corrigan was an American aviator, nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight in July from Long Beach, California, to New York City, he then flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to Ireland, although his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach.

---

09/12/1993

Danny Blanchflower, Northern Irish footballer and manager (born 1926)

Robert Dennis Blanchflower was a Northern Ireland footballer, football manager and journalist who played for and captained Tottenham Hotspur, including during their double-winning season of 1960–61. He was twice Footballer of the Year and ranked as the greatest player in Spurs history by The Times in 2009. After a lengthy playing career, he retired at the age of 38. He became a respected football journalist and, later, a football manager.

---

09/12/1992

Vincent Gardenia, American actor (born 1922)

Vincent Gardenia was an Italian American stage, film and television actor. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, first for Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and again for Moonstruck (1987). He also portrayed Det. Frank Ochoa in Death Wish (1974) and its 1982 sequel, Death Wish II, and played Mr. Mushnik in the musical film adaptation Little Shop of Horrors (1986). His other notable feature films include Murder Inc. (1960), The Hustler (1961), The Front Page (1974), Greased Lightning (1977), Heaven Can Wait (1978) and The Super (1991).

---

09/12/1991

Berenice Abbott, American photographer (born 1898)

Berenice Alice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her portraits of cultural figures of the interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science interpretation of the 1940s to the 1960s.

---

09/12/1982

Leon Jaworski, American lawyer and politician (born 1905)

Leonidas "Leon" Jaworski was an American attorney and law professor who served as the second special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. He was appointed to that position on November 1, 1973, soon after the "Saturday Night Massacre" of October 19–20, 1973, which included the dismissal of his predecessor Archibald Cox.

---

Marguerite Henry, Australian zoologist (born 1895)

Marguerite Henry was an Australian zoologist known for her research on freshwater crustaceans; she was active in the early 20th century. Henry's work contributed to the taxonomy and ecology of Australia's freshwater entomostracans, describing dozens of new species and establishing a new genus of copepods, Gladioferens. Her research, supported by the Australian government and the Linnean Society of New South Wales, focused on cladocerans, copepods, ostracodes, and phyllopods, with her findings published in a series of detailed monographs between 1919 and 1924.

---

09/12/1979

Fulton J. Sheen, American archbishop (born 1895)

Fulton John Sheen was an American Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Rochester from 1966 to 1969. He was known for his preaching, especially on television and radio.

---

09/12/1975

William A. Wellman, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1896)

William Augustus Wellman was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and military pilot. He was known for his work in crime, adventure, and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well-regarded satirical comedies. His 1927 film, Wings, was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony.

---

09/12/1972

Louella Parsons, American writer and columnist (born 1881)

Louella Rose Oettinger, known by the pen name Louella Parsons, was an American gossip columnist and screenwriter. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide.

---

09/12/1971

Ralph Bunche, American political scientist, academic, and diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1904)

Ralph Johnson Bunche was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in the Arab–Israeli conflict. He is the first black Nobel laureate and the first person of African descent to be awarded a Nobel Prize. He was involved in the formation and early administration of the United Nations (UN), serving as the under‑secretary‑general and briefly the acting secretary-general in 1953, and played a major role in both the decolonization process and numerous UN peacekeeping operations.

---

Sergey Konenkov, Russian sculptor and painter (born 1874)

Sergey Timofeyevich Konenkov, also Sergei Konyonkov was a Russian and Soviet sculptor. He was often called "the Russian Rodin".

---

Rev. Aeneas Francon Williams, Church of Scotland Minister, Missionary in India and China, writer and poet (born 1886)

Aeneas Francon Williams, FRSGS was a Minister of the Church of Scotland, a missionary, chaplain, writer, and poet. Williams was a missionary in the Eastern Himalayas and China and writer of many published works.

---

09/12/1970

Artem Mikoyan, Armenian-Russian engineer and businessman, co-founded the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau (born 1905)

Artem (Artyom) Ivanovich Mikoyan was a Soviet Armenian aircraft designer, who cofounded the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau along with Mikhail Gurevich.

---

Feroz Khan Noon, Pakistani politician, 7th Prime Minister of Pakistan (born 1893)

Sir Malik Firoz Khan Noon was a Pakistani politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Pakistan from December 1957 until being ousted in October 1958 when president Iskandar Ali Mirza imposed martial law and appointed Ayub Khan as the chief martial law administrator. He also served as the third chief minister of West Punjab from 1953 to 1955.

---

09/12/1968

Enoch L. Johnson, American mob boss (born 1883)

Enoch Lewis "Nucky" Johnson was an American politician from the Republican Party who served as an Atlantic City political boss, sheriff of Atlantic County, businessman, and crime boss who was the leader of the political machine that controlled Atlantic City and the Atlantic County government from the 1910s until his conviction and imprisonment in 1941. His rule encompassed the Roaring Twenties when Atlantic City was at the height of its popularity as a refuge from Prohibition. In addition to bootlegging, the criminal aspect of his organization was also involved in gambling and prostitution. The HBO series Boardwalk Empire was loosely based on Johnson, portrayed by Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson.

---

09/12/1967

Charles Léon Hammes, Luxembourgish lawyer and judge, 3rd President of the European Court of Justice (born 1898)

Charles-Léon Hammes was a Luxembourgish lawyer, judge and the third president of the European Court of Justice.

---

09/12/1965

Branch Rickey, American baseball player and manager (born 1884)

Wesley Branch Rickey was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, sports executive, and team owner. He was instrumental in breaking the baseball color line by signing black player Jackie Robinson. He also created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, encouraged the major leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, introduced the batting helmet, and created the standard 20-80 scouting scale. He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.

---

09/12/1964

Edith Sitwell, English poet and critic (born 1887)

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess. She never married but became passionately attached to Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was generous and helpful.

---

09/12/1963

Daniel O. Fagunwa, Nigerian author and educator (born 1903)

Chief Daniel Olorunfẹmi Fágúnwà MBE, popularly known as D. O. Fágúnwà, was a Nigerian author of Yoruba heritage who pioneered the Yoruba language novel.

---

Perry Miller, American historian, author, and academic (born 1905)

Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller was an American intellectual historian and a co-founder of the field of American Studies. Miller specialized in the history of early America and took an active role in a revisionist view of the colonial Puritan theocracy that was cultivated at Harvard University beginning in the 1920s. Heavy drinking led to his premature death at the age of 58.

---

09/12/1957

Ali İhsan Sâbis, Turkish general (born 1882)

Ali İhsan Pasha was the commander for the Sixth Army of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. After the war he was exiled to Malta by the British occupation forces. After returning to Turkey, he was appointed to the commandship of the First Army of Turkey. But shortly before the battle of Dumlupınar, he retired. During World War II, Pasha, director for the pro-Nazi Türkische Post, was court-martialed and imprisoned for 15 months for sending threatening letters against President İsmet İnönü for taking an increasingly anti-German stance. In 1941, Hitler personally invited him and Hüseyin Hüsnü Emir Erkilet to the Eastern Front, albeit Ali Ilhsan was replaced by General Ali Fuad Erden.

---

09/12/1945

Yun Chi-ho, South Korean activist and politician (born 1864)

Yun Ch'iho was a Korean politician. His name is sometimes spelled Yun Tchi-Ho, his art name was Chwaong (좌옹), and his courtesy name was Sŏnghŭm (성흠).

---

09/12/1944

Laird Cregar, American actor (born 1913)

Samuel Laird Cregar was an American stage and film actor. Cregar was best known for his villainous performances in films such as I Wake Up Screaming (1941), This Gun For Hire (1942) and The Lodger (1944).

---

09/12/1943

Georges Dufrénoy, French painter (born 1870)

Georges Dufrénoy was a French post-Impressionist painter associated with Fauvism.

---

09/12/1941

Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Russian author, poet, and philosopher (born 1865)

Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic. A seminal figure of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, regarded as a co-founder of the Symbolist movement, Merezhkovsky – with his wife, the poet Zinaida Gippius – was twice forced into political exile. During his second exile (1918–1941) he continued publishing successful novels and gained recognition as a critic of the Soviet Union. Known both as a self-styled religious prophet with his own slant on apocalyptic Christianity, and as the author of philosophical historical novels which combined fervent idealism with literary innovation, Merezhkovsky became a nine-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he came closest to winning in 1933. However, due to contested claims that he expressed regard for Fascism as a lesser evil than Communism during the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR shortly prior to his death, his work largely fell into neglect after World War II

---

09/12/1937

Lilias Armstrong, English phonetician (born 1882)

Lilias Eveline Armstrong was an English phonetician. She worked at University College London, where she attained the rank of reader. Armstrong is most known for her work on English intonation as well as the phonetics and tone of Somali and Kikuyu. Her book on English intonation, written with Ida C. Ward, was in print for 50 years. Armstrong also provided some of the first detailed descriptions of tone in Somali and Kikuyu.

---

Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1869)

Nils Gustaf Dalén was a Swedish engineer and inventor who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 "for his invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys".

---

09/12/1935

Walter Liggett, American journalist and activist (born 1886)

Walter William Liggett, was an American journalist who worked at several newspapers in New York City, including the New York Times, The Sun, New York Post, and the New York Daily News. In the Twin Cities during the 1930s, Liggett worked as an investigative journalist and editor of the newspaper Midwest American. He specialized in exposés of Minneapolis and Saint Paul organized crime and their connections to corrupt politicians. He wrote novels including The River Riders. Subjects he wrote about included the timber business in northern Minnesota and the Alaskan gold rush events. He became involved in politics and covered political corruption. He was murdered as a result.

---

09/12/1932

Karl Blossfeldt, German photographer, sculptor, and educator (born 1865)

Karl Blossfeldt was a German photographer and sculptor. He is best known for his close-up photographs of plants and living things, published in 1929 as Urformen der Kunst. He was inspired, as was his father, by nature and the ways in which plants grow.

---

Begum Rokeya, Bangladeshi social worker and author (born 1880)

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, commonly known as Begum Rokeya, was a prominent Bengali feminist thinker, writer, educator and political activist from British India. She is widely regarded as a pioneer of feminism in Bangladesh and India.

---

09/12/1930

Rube Foster, American baseball player and manager (born 1879)

Andrew "Rube" Foster was an American baseball co-founder, player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

---

09/12/1924

Bernard Zweers, Dutch composer and educator (born 1854)

Bernard Zweers was a Dutch composer and music teacher.

---

09/12/1916

Natsume Sōseki, Japanese author and poet (born 1867)

Natsume Sōseki was a Japanese novelist, poet, and scholar. He is considered one of the greatest writers in modern Japanese history and is often called the first modern novelist of Japan. Sōseki's fiction explored themes of individualism, loneliness, and the conflict between traditional Japanese values and the rapid Westernization of the Meiji era. His major works include I Am a Cat (1905), Botchan (1906), Sanshirō (1908), Kokoro (1914), and his unfinished final novel Light and Dark (1916).

---

09/12/1907

Eva Nansen, Norwegian mezzo-soprano singer and pioneer on women's skiing (born 1858)

Eva Helene Nansen was a celebrated Norwegian mezzo-soprano singer. She was also a pioneer of women's skiing.

---

09/12/1906

Ferdinand Brunetière, French author and critic (born 1849)

Ferdinand Vincent-de-Paul Marie Brunetière was a French writer and critic.

---

09/12/1887

Mahmadu Lamine, Senegalese religious leader

al-Hajj Mahmadu Lamine Drame, also known as Ma Lamine Demba Dibassi, was a nineteenth-century Tijani marabout who led a series of rebellions against the French colonial government in what is now Senegal.

---

09/12/1858

Robert Baldwin, Canadian lawyer and politician, 3rd Premier of Canada West (born 1804)

Robert Baldwin was an Upper Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine of Lower Canada, led the first responsible government ministry in the Province of Canada. "Responsible Government" marked the province's democratic self-government, without a revolution, although not without violence. This achievement also included the introduction of municipal government, the introduction of a modern legal system, reforms to the jury system in Upper Canada, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt. Baldwin is also noted for feuding with the Orange Order and other fraternal societies. The Lafontaine-Baldwin government enacted the Rebellion Losses Bill to compensate Lower Canadians for damages suffered during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838. The passage of the Bill outraged Anglo-Canadian Tories in Montreal, resulting in the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal in 1849.

---

09/12/1854

Almeida Garrett, Portuguese journalist and author (born 1799)

João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, 1st Viscount of Almeida Garrett was a Portuguese poet, orator, playwright, novelist, journalist, politician, and a peer of the realm. A major promoter of theater in Portugal he is considered the greatest figure of Portuguese Romanticism and a true revolutionary and humanist. He proposed the construction of the D. Maria II National Theatre and the creation of the Conservatory of Dramatic Art.

---

09/12/1851

William Thornhill, English army officer (born 1768)

William Thornhill was a British Army officer of the Peninsular War and the Waterloo Campaign. His nephew was the politician William Pole Thornhill.

---

09/12/1830

Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher, Danish surgeon, botanist, and academic (born 1757)

Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher was a Danish surgeon, botanist and professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen. Schumacher carried out significant research work in malacology, in other words on molluscs, and described several taxa.

---

09/12/1798

Johann Reinhold Forster, German pastor, botanist, and ornithologist (born 1729)

Johann Reinhold Forster was a German Reformed pastor and naturalist. Born in Dirschau, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, he attended school in Dirschau and Marienwerder before being admitted at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin in 1745. Skilled in classical and biblical languages, he studied theology at the University of Halle. In 1753, he became a parson at a parish just south of Danzig. He married his cousin Justina Elisabeth Nicolai in 1754, and they had seven children; the oldest child was George Forster, also known as Georg.

---

09/12/1793

Yolande de Polastron, French-Austrian educator (born 1749)

Yolande de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac was the favourite of Marie Antoinette, whom she met when she was presented at the Palace of Versailles in 1775, the year after Marie Antoinette became the Queen of France. She was considered one of the great beauties of pre-Revolutionary society, but her extravagance and exclusivity earned her many enemies.

---

09/12/1761

Tarabai, Queen of Chatrapati Rajaram (born 1675)

Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle was the regent of the Maratha Empire from 1700 until 1708. She was the queen of Rajaram I, and daughter-in-law of the kingdom's founder Shivaji I. She is acclaimed for her role in keeping alive the resistance against Mughal rule in Konkan, and acting as the regent of the Maratha Kingdom during the minority of her son, Shivaji II. She defeated Mughal forces of Aurangzeb in several battles and expanded the Maratha Kingdom.

---

09/12/1718

Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian monk and cartographer (born 1650)

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli was an Italian Franciscan friar, cosmographer, cartographer, publisher, and encyclopedist known in particular for his atlases and globes. He is considered one of the leading geographers and cartographers of the Baroque period.

---

09/12/1706

Peter II of Portugal (born 1648)

Dom Pedro II, nicknamed the Pacific was King of Portugal from 1683 until his death, previously serving as regent for his brother Afonso VI from 1668 until his own accession. He was the fifth and last child of John IV and Luisa de Guzmán.

---

09/12/1674

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English historian and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (born 1609)

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English statesman, lawyer, diplomat and historian who served as chief adviser to Charles I during the First English Civil War, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II from 1660 to 1667.

---

09/12/1669

Pope Clement IX (born 1600)

Pope Clement IX, born Giulio Rospigliosi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 20 June 1667 to his death in December 1669.

---

09/12/1641

Anthony van Dyck, Belgian-English painter and illustrator (born 1599)

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy.

---

09/12/1636

Fabian Birkowski, Polish preacher and author (born 1566)

Fabian Birkowski was a Polish writer and preacher.

---

09/12/1625

Ubbo Emmius, Dutch historian and geographer (born 1547)

Ubbo Emmius was a German historian and geographer.

---

09/12/1603

William Watson, English priest (born 1559)

William Watson was an English Roman Catholic priest and conspirator, executed for treason.

---

09/12/1565

Pope Pius IV (born 1499)

Pope Pius IV, born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 December 1559 to his death, in December 1565.

---

09/12/1544

Teofilo Folengo, Italian poet (born 1491)

Teofilo Folengo, who wrote under the pseudonym of Merlino Coccajo or Merlinus Cocaius in Latin, was one of the principal Italian macaronic poets.

---

09/12/1437

Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1368)

Sigismund of Luxembourg was Holy Roman Emperor from 1433 until his death in 1437. As the husband of Mary, Queen of Hungary, he was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1387. He was elected King of Germany in 1410, and was also King of Bohemia from 1419, as well as prince-elector of Brandenburg. He was the last male member of the House of Luxembourg.

---

09/12/1299

Bohemond I, Archbishop of Trier

Bohemond of Warnesberg was the Archbishop of Trier and a Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 1286 to his death.

---

09/12/1268

Vaišvilkas, Prince of Black Ruthenia, Grand Duke of Lithuania

Vaišvilkas or Vaišelga was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1264 until his death in 1267. He was a son of Mindaugas, the first and only Christian King of Lithuania.

---

09/12/1242

Richard le Gras, Lord Keeper of England and Abbot of Evesham

Richard le Gras was Lord Keeper of England and Abbot of Evesham in the 13th century.

---

09/12/1165

Malcolm IV of Scotland (born 1141)

Malcolm IV, nicknamed Virgo, "the Maiden" was King of Scotland from 1153 until his death. He was the eldest son of Henry, Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria and Ada de Warenne. The original Malcolm Canmore, a name now associated with his great-grandfather Malcolm III, he succeeded his grandfather David I, and shared David's Anglo-Norman tastes.

---

09/12/1117

Gertrude of Brunswick, Markgräfin of Meißen

Gertrud of Brunswick was Countess of Katlenburg by marriage to Dietrich II, Count of Katlenburg, Margravine of Frisia by marriage to Henry, Margrave of Frisia, and Margravine of Meissen by marriage to margrave Henry I.

---

09/12/0933

Li Congrong, prince of Later Tang

Li Congrong, formally the Prince of Qin (秦王), was a son of Li Siyuan, the second emperor of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Later Tang. During Li Siyuan's reign, he, as Li Siyuan's oldest surviving biological son, was commonly expected to be Li Siyuan's heir. When his father became deathly ill, however, he, worried that his father's officials might try to divert succession away from him, tried to seize power by force, but was then defeated and killed.

---

09/12/0748

Nasr ibn Sayyar, Umayyad general and politician (born 663)

Naṣr ibn Sayyār al-Lāythi al-Kināni was an Arab general and the last Umayyad governor of Khurasan in 738–748. Nasr played a distinguished role in the wars against the Turgesh, although he failed to decisively confront the rebellion of al-Harith ibn Surayj in its early stages. Although respected as a soldier and a statesman, he owed his appointment as governor more to his obscure tribal background, which rendered him dependent on the caliph. His tenure was nevertheless successful, as Nasr introduced long-overdue tax reforms that alleviated social tension and largely restored and stabilized Umayyad control in Transoxiana, which had been greatly reduced under the Turgesh onslaught. His last years were occupied by inter-tribal rivalries and uprisings, however, as the Umayyad Caliphate itself descended into a period of civil war. In 746 Nasr was driven from his capital by Ibn Surayj and Juday al-Kirmani, but returned after the latter fell out among themselves, resulting in Ibn Surayj's death. Preoccupied with this conflict, Nasr was unable to stop the outbreak and spread of the Abbasid Revolution, whose leader, Abu Muslim, exploited the situation to his advantage. Evicted from his province in early 748, he fled to Persia pursued by the Abbasid forces, where he died on 9 December 748.

---

09/12/0730

Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah, Arab general

Abu Uqba al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami was an Arab nobleman and general of the Hakami tribe. During the course of the early 8th century, he was at various times governor of Basra, Sistan and Khurasan, Armenia and Adharbayjan. A legendary warrior already during his lifetime, he is best known for his campaigns against the Khazars on the Caucasus front, culminating in his death in the Battle of Marj Ardabil in 730.

---

09/12/0638

Sergius I of Constantinople

Sergius I of Constantinople was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 610 to 638. He is most famous for promoting Monothelitism Christianity, especially through the Ecthesis.

---