Died on Thursday, 12th February – Famous Deaths

12/02/2022

Ivan Reitman, Slovak-Canadian actor, director, and producer (born 1946)

Ivan Reitman was a Canadian film director and producer. He was known for his comedy films, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Reitman was the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 1998.

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12/02/2020

Christie Blatchford, Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist and broadcaster (born 1951)

Christie Marie Blatchford was a Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist and broadcaster. She published four non-fiction books.

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Geert Hofstede, Dutch social psychologist (born 1928)

Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede was a Dutch social psychologist, IBM employee, and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, well known for his pioneering research on cross-cultural groups and organizations.

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12/02/2019

Gordon Banks, English footballer (born 1937)

Gordon Banks was an English professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, he made 679 appearances during a 20-year professional career, and won 73 caps for England, highlighted by starting every game of the nation's 1966 World Cup victory.

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Lyndon LaRouche, American political activist (born 1922)

Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. was an American political activist who founded the LaRouche movement and its main organization, the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He was a prominent conspiracy theorist and perennial presidential candidate. He began in far-left politics in the 1940s and later supported the civil rights movement; however, in the 1970s, he moved to the far-right. His movement is sometimes described as, or likened to, a cult. Convicted of fraud, he served five years in prison from 1989 to 1994.

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Pedro Morales, Puerto Rican professional wrestler and commentator (born 1942)

Pedro Antonio Morales was a Puerto Rican professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances in the United States with Worldwide Wrestling Associates (WWA) and the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF).

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12/02/2018

Bill Crider, American author (born 1941)

Bill Crider was an American author of crime fiction among other work.

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12/02/2017

Al Jarreau, American singer (born 1940)

Alwin Lopez Jarreau was an American singer. His 1981 album Breakin' Away spent two years on the Billboard 200 and is considered one of the finest examples of the Los Angeles pop and R&B sound. The album won Jarreau the 1982 Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. In all, he won ten Grammy Awards and was nominated 19 other times during his career.

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Anna Marguerite McCann, first female American underwater archaeologist (born 1933)

Anna Marguerite McCann was an American art historian and archaeologist. She is known for being an early influencer—and the first American woman—in the field of underwater archaeology, beginning in the 1960s. McCann authored works pertaining to Roman art and Classical archaeology, and taught both art history and archaeology at various universities in the United States. McCann was an active member of the Archaeological Institute of America, and received its Gold Medal Award in 1998. She also published under the name Anna McCann Taggart.

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12/02/2016

Dominique D'Onofrio, Italian-Belgian footballer and coach (born 1953)

Dominique Nicolas D'Onofrio was an Italian football coach, later chairman. He was born in Castelforte, Italy.

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Yannis Kalaitzis, Greek cartoonist (born 1945)

Giannis Kalaitzis was a Greek cartoonist known for his editorial cartoons in various Greek daily newspapers.

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Yan Su, Chinese general and composer (born 1930)

Yan Su was a Chinese playwright and lyricist who served as vice-president of China Theatre Association. He held the civilian rank equivalent to general in the PLA Air Force Political Department Song and Dance Troupe. He was a National Class-A Screenwriter. He was a member of China Writers Association and China Music Copyright Association. He was a visiting professor at Heibei Institute of Communications.

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12/02/2015

Movita Castaneda, American actress and singer (born 1916)

Maria Luisa Castaneda was an American actress and the second wife of actor Marlon Brando. In films, she played exotic women and singers, such as in Flying Down to Rio (1933) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). She was the mother of Miko Castaneda Brando and Rebecca Brando Kotlizky.

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Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, Malaysian cleric and politician, 12th Menteri Besar of Kelantan (born 1931)

Nik Abdul Aziz bin Nik Mat was a Malaysian politician and Muslim cleric. He was the Menteri Besar of Kelantan from 1990 to 2013 and the Mursyidul Am or Spiritual Leader of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) from 1991 until his death in 2015. Overall, his career as an elected politician lasted for some 48 years following his election to the Parliament of Malaysia in 1967.

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Gary Owens, American radio host and voice actor (born 1934)

Gary Owens was an American disc jockey, voice actor, announcer and radio personality. His polished baritone speaking voice generally offered deadpan recitations of total nonsense, which he frequently demonstrated as the announcer on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Owens was equally proficient in straight or silly assignments and was frequently heard on television and radio as well as in commercials.

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Steve Strange, Welsh singer (born 1959)

Stephen John Harrington, known professionally as Steve Strange, was a Welsh singer and nightclub host and promoter. Strange began his career in several short-lived punk bands of the late 1970s. Quickly becoming disaffected by the British punk scene, he became one of the most influential figures behind the New Romantic subcultural movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which spawned the Blitz Kids.

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12/02/2014

Sid Caesar, American actor and comedian (born 1922)

Isaac Sidney Caesar was an American comic actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: Your Show of Shows (1950–1954), which was a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people, and its successor, Caesar's Hour (1954–1957), both of which influenced later generations of comedians. Your Show of Shows and its cast received seven Emmy nominations between 1953 and 1954 and tallied two wins. He also acted in films; he played Coach Calhoun in Grease (1978) and its sequel Grease 2 (1982) and appeared in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Silent Movie (1976), History of the World, Part I (1981), Cannonball Run II (1984), and Vegas Vacation (1997).

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John Pickstone, English historian and author (born 1944)

John Victor Pickstone was a British historian of science and the Wellcome Research Professor in the Centre for the History of science, Technology and Medicine, in the Faculty of Life Sciences of the University of Manchester.

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12/02/2013

Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabian prince (born 1941)

Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was a Saudi royal and politician who served as the governor of Riyadh Province from November 2011 until his death in February 2013. Before that he was the deputy governor of the province.

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Reginald Turnill, English journalist and author (born 1915)

Reginald George Turnill was the BBC's aviation correspondent for twenty years during the beginnings of crewed space exploration and the early jet age in aviation, including the breakthrough in supersonic passenger flight represented by Concorde. He covered NASA's space missions and all the Apollo program Moon missions for the BBC. Turnill's connection with the BBC, as a freelance, continued for some years after his official retirement.

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Hennadiy Udovenko, Ukrainian politician and diplomat, 2nd Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ukraine (born 1931)

Hennadiy Yosypovych Udovenko was a Ukrainian politician and diplomat. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, was the 52nd President of the United Nations General Assembly (1997–1998) and a People's Deputy of Ukraine (1998–2007). He was from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. He studied international relations at Kyiv University, having graduated in 1954. He also did graduate studies in agricultural economics at the Ukrainian Research and the Development Institute for Agricultural Economy and Organization from 1956 to 1959.

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12/02/2012

Zina Bethune, American actress, dancer, and choreographer (born 1945)

Zina Bianca Bethune was an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She was the daughter of actress Ivy Bethune.

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Denis Flannery, Australian rugby player and coach (born 1928)

Denis Flannery, also known by the nickname of "Flag Pole", was an Australian rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s. An Australian international and Queensland interstate representative winger, he played his club football in the Ipswich Rugby League for the Brothers club. He has been recognised as one of Queensland's greatest ever players

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David Kelly, Irish actor (born 1929)

David Kelly was an Irish actor who had regular roles in several film and television works from the 1950s onwards. One of the most recognisable voices and faces of Irish stage and screen, he was known for his roles as Rashers Tierney in Strumpet City, Cousin Enda in Me Mammy, the builder Mr. O'Reilly in Fawlty Towers, Albert Riddle in Robin's Nest, and Grandpa Joe in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Another notable role was as Michael O'Sullivan in Waking Ned.

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John Severin, American illustrator (born 1921)

John Powers Severin was an American comics artist noted for his distinctive work with EC Comics, primarily on the war comics Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat; for Marvel Comics, especially its war and Western comics; and for his 45-year stint with the satiric magazine Cracked. He was one of the founding cartoonists of Mad in 1952.

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12/02/2011

Peter Alexander, Austrian singer and actor (born 1926)

Peter Alexander Ferdinand Maximilian Neumayer, commonly known as Peter Alexander, was an Austrian actor, singer and one of the most popular entertainers in the German-language world between the 1950s and his retirement. His fame emerged in the 1950s and 1960s through popular film comedies and successful recordings, predominantly of Schlager and operetta repertory. Later, Alexander established himself as the acclaimed host of television shows. His career as a live singer touring the German language countries lasted until 1991, while he continued his television work until 1996.

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Betty Garrett, American actress, singer, and dancer (born 1919)

Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedian, singer and dancer. She originally performed on Broadway, and was then signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She appeared in several musical films, then returned to Broadway and made guest appearances on several television series.

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Kenneth Mars, American actor and comedian (born 1935)

Kenneth Mars was an American actor. He appeared in two Mel Brooks films: as the deranged Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind in The Producers (1967) and Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Friedrich Kemp in Young Frankenstein (1974). He also co-starred in Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc? (1972) as well as appearing in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) and Shadows and Fog (1991).

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12/02/2010

Nodar Kumaritashvili, Georgian luger (born 1988)

Nodar Kumaritashvili was a Georgian luge athlete who suffered a fatal crash during a training run for the 2010 Winter Olympics competition in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, on the day of the opening ceremony. He became the fourth athlete to die during preparations for a Winter Olympics, and the eighth athlete to die as a result of Olympic competition or during practice at their sport's venue at an Olympic Games.

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12/02/2009

Colgan Air Flight 3407 victims:

Colgan Air Flight 3407 was a scheduled passenger flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. Approaching Buffalo, the Bombardier Q400, entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover and crashed into a house at 6038 Long Street in Clarence Center, New York, at 10:17 pm EST, about 5 miles from the end of the runway, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board and one person inside the house.

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Alison Des Forges, American historian and activist (born 1942)

Alison Des Forges was an American historian and human rights activist who specialized in the African Great Lakes region, particularly the 1994 Rwandan genocide. At the time of her death, she was a senior advisor for the African continent at Human Rights Watch. She died in a plane crash on 12 February 2009.

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Beverly Eckert, American activist (born 1951)

Beverly Eckert was an American activist and advocate for the creation of the 9/11 Commission. She was one of the members of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission. Eckert's husband, Sean Rooney, died at age 50 in the attacks of September 11, 2001. She pushed for a commission to investigate 9/11 and to establish a memorial.

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Mat Mathews, Dutch accordion player (born 1924)

Mat Mathews, born Mathieu Hubert Wijnandts Schwarts, was a Dutch jazz accordionist.

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Coleman Mellett, American guitarist (born 1974)

Coleman Mellett was an American jazz guitarist in Chuck Mangione's band. He had been scheduled to play with Mangione and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra on February 13, 2009, but was killed the night before in the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 with band member Gerry Niewood.

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Gerry Niewood, American saxophonist (born 1943)

Gerry Niewood, born Gerard Joseph Nevidosky, was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist who worked often with Chuck Mangione. Like Mangione, Niewood was born in Rochester, New York, and graduated from the Eastman School of Music.

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12/02/2008

David Groh, American actor (born 1939)

David Lawrence Groh was an American actor best known for his portrayal of Joe Gerard in the 1970s television series Rhoda, opposite Valerie Harper.

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12/02/2007

Ann Barzel, American writer and dance critic (born 1905)

Ann Barzel was an American writer, critic and lecturer on dance.

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Peggy Gilbert, American saxophonist and bandleader (born 1905)

Peggy Gilbert, born Margaret Fern Knechtges, was an American jazz saxophonist and bandleader.

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12/02/2005

Dorothy Stang, American-Brazilian nun and missionary (born 1931)

Dorothy Mae Stang, SNDdeN, was an American-born Brazilian Catholic Religious Sister and missionary. She was murdered in Anapu, Pará, in the Amazon Basin in 2005. Stang had been outspoken in her efforts on behalf of the poor and the environment and had previously received death threats from loggers and landowners.

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12/02/2002

John Eriksen, Danish footballer (born 1957)

John Hartmann Eriksen was a Danish professional footballer who played as a striker. He scored 319 league goals over the course of 15 seasons. He played in four countries, namely his native Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland. Eriksen was a Danish international in the 1980s, appearing in the 1986 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 1988.

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12/02/2001

Kristina Söderbaum, Swedish-German actress and producer (born 1912)

Beata Margareta Kristina Söderbaum was a Swedish-German film actress, film producer, and photographer. She performed in Nazi-era films made by a German state-controlled production company, several of them directed by her husband Veit Harlan.

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12/02/2000

Tom Landry, American football player and coach (born 1924)

Thomas Wade Landry was an American professional football coach, player, and World War II bomber pilot. Regarded as one of the greatest head coaches of all time, he was the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL), a position he held for 29 seasons. During his coaching career, he created many new formations and methods, such as the now default 4–3 defense that is used by a majority of teams in the NFL, and the "flex defense" system made famous by the "Doomsday Defense" squads he built during his tenure with the Cowboys. His 29 consecutive years from 1960 to 1988 as the coach of one team is an NFL record, along with his 20 consecutive winning seasons, which is considered to be his most impressive professional accomplishment.

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Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist, created Peanuts (born 1922)

Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist who created the comic strip Peanuts, featuring the characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

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12/02/1998

Gardner Ackley, American economist and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Italy (born 1915)

Hugh Gardner Ackley was an American economist and diplomat.

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12/02/1995

Philip Taylor Kramer, American bass player (born 1952)

Philip Taylor Kramer was an American bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly and associated groups between 1974 and 1980. He later became a computer engineering executive and inventor. He disappeared in February 1995 and was found dead in May 1999.

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12/02/1994

Donald Judd, American painter and sculptor (born 1928)

Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy. He is generally considered the leading international exponent of "minimalism", and its most important theoretician through such writings as "Specific Objects" (1964). Judd voiced his unorthodox perception of minimalism in Arts Yearbook 8, where he says, "The new three dimensional work doesn't constitute a movement, school, or style. The common aspects are too general and too little common to define a movement. The differences are greater than the similarities."

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12/02/1992

Bep van Klaveren, Dutch boxer (born 1907)

Lambertus "Bep" van Klaveren was a Dutch boxer, who won the gold medal in the featherweight division at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Van Klaveren remains the only Dutch boxer to have won an Olympic gold medal. His younger brother Piet competed as a boxer at the 1952 Summer Olympics.

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12/02/1991

Roger Patterson, American bass player (born 1968)

Roger Patterson was an American bass player known for his work in the Florida technical death metal band Atheist. His playing style is characterized by its speed and complexity. Alex Webster, bassist with Cannibal Corpse, has acknowledged Patterson as "a big influence", describing his playing on the album Piece of Time as "phenomenal".

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12/02/1989

Thomas Bernhard, Austrian playwright and author (born 1931)

Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright, poet and polemicist who is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era. He explored themes of death, isolation, obsession and illness in controversial literature that was pessimistic about the human condition and highly critical of post-war Austrian and European culture. He developed a distinctive prose style often featuring multiple perspectives on characters and events, idiosyncratic vocabulary and punctuation, and long monologues by protagonists on the verge of insanity.

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12/02/1985

Nicholas Colasanto, American actor and director (born 1924)

Nicholas Colasanto was an American actor and television director. He is best known for his role as Ernie Pantusso in the American television sitcom Cheers (1982–1985).

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12/02/1984

Anna Anderson, Polish-American woman, who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (born 1896)

Anna Anderson was an impostor who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas II and Alexandra, was murdered along with her parents and siblings on 17 July 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Yekaterinburg, Russia, but the location of her body was unknown until 2007.

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Julio Cortázar, Belgian-Argentinian author and poet (born 1914)

Julio Florencio Cortázar was an Argentine and naturalised French novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe.

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12/02/1983

Eubie Blake, American pianist and composer (born 1887)

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. Blake began his career in 1912, and during World War I he worked in partnership with the singer, drummer, and comedian Broadway Jones. After the war he began a collaboration with Noble Sissle with whom he wrote Shuffle Along (1921), one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. When his collaboration with Sissle ended in 1927, he resumed a partnership with Jones which lasted until either 1932 or 1933. He reunited with Sissle briefly for Shuffle Along of 1933, and later the pair worked together in the United Service Organizations during World War II. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works, and in 1981, President Ronald Reagan awarded Blake the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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12/02/1982

Victor Jory, Canadian-American actor (born 1902)

Victor Jory was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast in villainous or sinister roles, such as Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and carpetbagger Jonas Wilkerson in Gone with the Wind (1939). From 1959 to 1961, he had a lead role in the 78-episode television police drama Manhunt. He also recorded numerous stories for Peter Pan Records and was a guest star in dozens of television series as well as a supporting player in dozens of theatrical films, occasionally appearing as the leading man.

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12/02/1980

Muriel Rukeyser, American poet and activist (born 1913)

Muriel Rukeyser was an American poet, essayist, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, and political activist. She wrote across genres and forms, addressing issues related to racial, gender, and class justice, war and war crimes, Jewish culture and diaspora, and American history, politics, and culture. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her "exact generation." Anne Sexton famously described her as "beautiful Muriel, mother of everyone"; Adrienne Rich wrote that she was “our twentieth-century Coleridge; our Neruda."

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12/02/1979

Jean Renoir, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1894)

Jean Renoir was a French filmmaker, actor, producer and author. His La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made. In 2002, he was ranked fourth on the BFI's Sight & Sound poll of the greatest directors. Among numerous honours accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the uncle of the cinematographer Claude Renoir. With Claude, he made The River (1951), the first color film shot in India. A lifelong lover of theater, Renoir turned to the stage for The Golden Coach (1952) and French Cancan (1955). He was one of the first filmmakers to be known as an auteur; the critic Penelope Gilliatt said a Renoir shot could be identified "in a thousand miles of film."

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12/02/1977

Herman Dooyeweerd, Dutch philosopher and scholar (born 1894)

Herman Dooyeweerd, also spelled Herman Dooijeweerd, was a professor of law and jurisprudence at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam from 1926 to 1965. He was also a philosopher and principal founder of Reformational philosophy, a significant development within the Neo-Calvinist school of thought. Dooyeweerd made several contributions to philosophy and other academic disciplines concerning: the nature of diversity and coherence in everyday experience; the transcendental conditions for theoretical thought; the relationship between religion, philosophy, and scientific theory; and an understanding of meaning, being, time and self.

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12/02/1976

Frank Stagg, Irish Republican died on hunger strike (born 1941)

Frank Stagg was an Irish militant and Republican activist. He was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker from County Mayo, Ireland who died in 1976 in Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire, England after 62 days on hunger strike. Stagg was one of 22 Irish republicans to die on hunger strike in the twentieth century.

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Sal Mineo, American actor (born 1939)

Salvatore Mineo Jr. was an American actor. He was best known for his role as John "Plato" Crawford in the coming-of-age drama film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at age 17, making him the fifth-youngest nominee in the category.

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12/02/1975

Carl Lutz, Swiss vice-consul to Hungary during WWII, credited with saving over 62,000 Jews (born 1895)

Carl Lutz was a Swiss diplomat. He served as the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary, from 1942 until the end of World War II. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews during the Second World War in possibly the largest rescue operation of the Holocaust.

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12/02/1971

James Cash Penney, American businessman and philanthropist, founded J. C. Penney (born 1875)

James Cash Penney Jr. was an American businessman and entrepreneur who founded the JCPenney stores in 1902.

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12/02/1970

Clare Turlay Newberry, American author and illustrator (born 1903)

Clare Turlay Newberry was an American writer and illustrator of 17 published children's books, who achieved fame for her drawings of cats, the subject of all but three of her books. Four of her works were named Caldecott Honor Books.

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12/02/1960

Oskar Anderson, Bulgarian-German mathematician and academic (born 1887)

Oskar Johann Viktor Anderson was a Russian-German mathematician of Baltic German descent. He is best known for his work on mathematical statistics and econometrics.

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12/02/1958

Douglas Hartree, English mathematician and physicist (born 1897)

Douglas Rayner Hartree was an English mathematician and physicist most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to the Hartree–Fock equations of atomic physics and the construction of a differential analyser using Meccano.

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12/02/1954

Dziga Vertov, Polish-Russian director and screenwriter (born 1896)

Denis Arkadyevich Vertov, better known as Dziga Vertov, was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary movie-making and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical film-making cooperative which was active from 1968 to 1972. He was a member of the Kinoks collective, with Elizaveta Svilova and Mikhail Kaufman.

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12/02/1949

Hassan al-Banna, Egyptian educator, founded the Muslim Brotherhood (born 1906)

Hassan Ahmed Abd al-Rahman Muhammed al-Banna, known as Hassan al-Banna, was an Egyptian schoolteacher and Imam, best known for founding the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest and most influential global Islamist movements, and for his death at the hands of the Egyptian government.

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12/02/1947

Moses Gomberg, Ukrainian-American chemist and academic (born 1866)

Moses Gomberg was a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and served as president of the American Chemical Society.

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12/02/1942

Eugene Esmonde, Irish-English lieutenant and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1909)

Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde, was a distinguished Irish pilot in the Fleet Air Arm who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy awarded to members of Commonwealth forces. Esmonde earned this award while in command of a torpedo bomber squadron in the Second World War - in an action known as Operation Fuller, the 'Channel Dash’.

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Avraham Stern, Polish-Israeli militant leader (born 1907)

Avraham Stern, alias Yair, was one of the leaders of the Jewish paramilitary organization Irgun. In September 1940, he founded a breakaway militant Zionist group named Lehi, called the "Stern Gang" by the British authorities and by the mainstream in the Yishuv Jewish establishment. The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out terrorist attacks.

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Grant Wood, American painter and academic (born 1891)

Grant DeVolson Wood was an American artist and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for American Gothic (1930), which has become an iconic example of early 20th-century American art.

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12/02/1935

Auguste Escoffier, French chef and author (born 1846)

Georges Auguste Escoffier was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularised and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoine Carême, one of the codifiers of French haute cuisine; Escoffier's achievement was to simplify and modernise Carême's elaborate and ornate style. In particular, he codified the recipes for the five mother sauces. Referred to by the French press as roi des cuisiniers et cuisinier des rois, Escoffier was a preeminent figure in London and Paris during the 1890s and the early part of the 20th century.

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12/02/1931

Samad bey Mehmandarov, Azerbaijani-Russian general and politician, 3rd Azerbaijani Minister of Defense (born 1855)

Samad bey Sadykh bey oghlu Mehmandarov was an Azerbaijani General of the Artillery in the Russian Imperial Army, a member of the Independence faction of the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the Minister of Defense of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and a military figure of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union.

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12/02/1929

Lillie Langtry, English singer and actress (born 1853)

Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe, known as Lillie Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer.

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12/02/1916

Richard Dedekind, German mathematician, philosopher, and academic (born 1831)

Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind was a German mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, abstract algebra, and the axiomatic foundations of arithmetic. His best known contribution is the definition of real numbers through the notion of Dedekind cut. He is also considered a pioneer in the development of modern set theory and of the philosophy of mathematics known as logicism.

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12/02/1915

Émile Waldteufel, French pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1837)

Charles Émile Waldteufel was a French composer, pianist, and conductor known for his numerous popular salon pieces. Among his best known works is "Les Patineurs" (1882), known as "The Skater's Waltz".

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12/02/1912

Gerhard Armauer Hansen, Norwegian physician (born 1841)

Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen was a Norwegian physician, remembered for his identification of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae in 1873 as the etiologic agent of leprosy. His distinguished work was recognized at the International Leprosy Congress held at Bergen in 1909.

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12/02/1896

Ambroise Thomas, French composer and academic (born 1811)

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868).

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12/02/1894

Hans von Bülow, German pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1830)

Freiherr Hans Guido von Bülow was a German conductor, pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. As one of the most distinguished conductors of the 19th century, his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, especially Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms. Alongside Carl Tausig, Bülow was perhaps the most prominent of the early students of the Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor Franz Liszt; he gave the first public performance of Liszt's Sonata in B minor in 1857. He became acquainted with, fell in love with and eventually married Liszt's daughter Cosima, who later left him for Wagner. Noted for his interpretation of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, he was one of the earliest European musicians to tour the United States.

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12/02/1886

Randolph Caldecott, English-American painter and illustrator (born 1846)

Randolph Caldecott was a British artist and illustrator, born in Chester. The Caldecott Medal was named in his honour. He exercised his art chiefly in book illustrations. His abilities as an artist were promptly and generously recognised by the Royal Academy. Caldecott greatly influenced illustration of children's books during the nineteenth century. Two books illustrated by him, priced at a shilling each, were published every Christmas for eight years.

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12/02/1834

Friedrich Schleiermacher, German philosopher and scholar (born 1768)

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, pastor, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, typically seen to be spearheaded by Karl Barth, was in many ways an attempt to challenge his influence. As a philosopher he was a leader of German Romanticism.

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12/02/1804

Immanuel Kant, German anthropologist, philosopher, and academic (born 1724)

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher. Born in Königsberg in the Kingdom of Prussia, he is considered one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment. His comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and highly discussed figures in modern Western philosophy.

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12/02/1789

Ethan Allen, American farmer, general, and politician (born 1738)

Ethan Allen was an American farmer, writer, military officer, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of Vermont and for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolutionary War, and was also the brother of Ira Allen and the father of Fanny Allen.

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12/02/1771

Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (born 1710)

Adolf Frederick was King of Sweden from 1751 until his death in 1771. He was the son of Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp, Prince of Eutin, and Albertina Frederica of Baden-Durlach. He was an uncle of Catherine the Great and husband to Louisa Ulrika of Prussia.

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12/02/1763

Pierre de Marivaux, French author and playwright (born 1688)

Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist.

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12/02/1728

Agostino Steffani, Italian priest and composer (born 1653)

Agostino Steffani was an Italian bishop, polymath, diplomat and composer.

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12/02/1713

Jahandar Shah, Mughal emperor (born 1664)

Jahandar Shah was the ninth Mughal emperor briefly from 1712 to 1713. He was the son of Emperor Bahadur Shah I, and the grandson of Emperor Aurangzeb.

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12/02/1624

George Heriot, Scottish goldsmith and philanthropist, founded George Heriot's School (born 1563)

George Heriot was a Scottish goldsmith and philanthropist. He is chiefly remembered today as the founder of George Heriot's School, a large independent school in Edinburgh; his name has also been given to Heriot-Watt University, as well as several streets in the same city.

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12/02/1612

Jodocus Hondius, Flemish cartographer (born 1563)

Jodocus Hondius was a Flemish engraver and cartographer. He is sometimes called Jodocus Hondius the Elder to distinguish him from his son Jodocus Hondius II. Hondius is best known for his early maps of the New World and Europe, for re-establishing the reputation of the work of Gerard Mercator, and for his portraits of Francis Drake. He inherited and republished the plates of Mercator, thus reviving his legacy, also making sure to include independent revisions to his work. One of the notable figures in the Golden Age of Dutch cartography, he helped establish Amsterdam as the center of cartography in Europe in the 17th century.

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12/02/1600

Edward Denny, Knight Banneret of Bishop's Stortford, English soldier, privateer and adventurer (born 1547)

Sir Edward Denny, Knight Banneret, of Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire, was a soldier, privateer and adventurer during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

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12/02/1590

François Hotman, French lawyer and author (born 1524)

François Hotman was a French lawyer and writer, associated with the legal humanists and with the monarchomaques, who struggled against absolute monarchy. His first name is often written 'Francis' in English. His surname is Latinized by himself as Hotomanus, by others as Hotomannus and Hottomannus. He has been called "one of the first modern revolutionaries".

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12/02/1578

Pari Khan Khanum, Iranian princess (born 1548)

Pari Khan Khanum was an Iranian princess, daughter of the second Safavid shah, Tahmasp I, and his Circassian consort, Sultan-Agha Khanum. She was her father's favourite child and allowed to partake in court activities, gradually becoming an influential figure who attracted the attentions of the prominent leaders of the Qizilbash tribes.

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12/02/1571

Nicholas Throckmorton, English politician and diplomat (born 1515)

Sir Nicholas Throckmorton was an English diplomat and politician, who was an ambassador to France and later Scotland. He played a key role in the relationship between Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots.

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12/02/1554

Lord Guildford Dudley, English son of Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland (born 1536; executed)

Lord Guildford Dudley was an English nobleman who was married to Lady Jane Grey. She occupied the English throne from 10 July until 19 July 1553, having been declared the heir of King Edward VI. Guildford Dudley had a humanist education and married Jane in a magnificent celebration about six weeks before the King's death. After Guildford's father, the Duke of Northumberland, had engineered Jane's accession, Jane and Guildford spent her brief rule residing in the Tower of London. They were still in the Tower when their regime collapsed and remained there in different quarters as prisoners. They were condemned to death for high treason in November 1553. Queen Mary I was inclined to spare their lives, but Thomas Wyatt's rebellion against Mary's plans to marry Philip of Spain led to the young couple's execution, a measure that was widely seen as unduly harsh.

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Lady Jane Grey, de facto monarch of England and Ireland for nine days (born 1537; executed)

Lady Jane Grey, also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage, and nicknamed as the "Nine Days Queen", was an English noblewoman who was proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland on 10 July 1553 and reigned until she was deposed by the Privy Council of England, which proclaimed her cousin, Mary I, as the new Queen on 19 July. Jane was later beheaded for high treason.

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12/02/1538

Albrecht Altdorfer, German painter, engraver, and architect (born 1480)

Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter, engraver and architect of the Renaissance working in Regensburg, Bavaria. Along with Lucas Cranach the Elder and Wolf Huber he is regarded to be the main representative of the Danube School, setting biblical and historical subjects against landscape backgrounds of expressive colours. He is remarkable as one of the first artists to take an interest in landscape as an independent subject. As an artist also making small intricate engravings he is seen to belong to the Nuremberg Little Masters.

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12/02/1517

Catherine of Navarre (born 1468)

Catherine was Queen of Navarre from 1483 until 1517. She was also Duchess of Gandia, Montblanc, and Peñafiel, Countess of Foix, Bigorre, and Ribagorza, and Viscountess of Béarn.

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12/02/1266

Amadeus of the Amidei, Italian saint

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order were seven men of the town of Florence who became bound to each other in a spiritual friendship and started the Servite Order in the 13th century. They felt called by Mary, mother of Jesus, towards whom they practised an intense devotion. They reported a vision, apparently shared by all separately at the same moment. None of them was aware that the others also had experienced it. The call was to "leave the world, the better to serve almighty God".

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12/02/1247

Ermesinde, Countess of Luxembourg, ruler (born 1185)

Ermesinde ruled as the countess of Luxembourg from 1197 until her death. She was the only child of Count Henry IV and his second wife Agnes of Guelders.

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12/02/0981

Ælfstan, bishop of Ramsbury

Ælfstan was a medieval Bishop of Ramsbury.

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12/02/0941

Wulfhelm, Archbishop of Canterbury

Wulfhelm was Bishop of Wells before being promoted to the Archbishopric of Canterbury about 926. Nothing is known about his time at Wells, but as archbishop he helped codify royal law codes and gave lands to monasteries. He went to Rome soon after his selection as archbishop. Two religious books that he gave to his cathedral are still extant.

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12/02/0914

Li, empress of Yan

Empress Li, personal name unknown, was one of the two wives of Liu Shouguang, the only ruler of Yan during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Era of Chinese history.

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12/02/0901

Antony II, patriarch of Constantinople

Antony II Kauleas was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from August 893 to 12 February 901.

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12/02/0890

Henjō, Japanese priest and poet (born 816)

Yoshimine no Munesada (良岑宗貞), better known as Henjō , was Japanese waka poet and Buddhist priest. In the poetry anthology Kokin Wakashū, he is listed as one of the six notable waka poets and one of the thirty-six immortals of poetry.

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12/02/0821

Benedict of Aniane, French monk and saint (born 747)

Benedict of Aniane, born Witiza and called the Second Benedict, was a Benedictine monk and monastic reformer who had a substantial impact on the religious practice of the Carolingian Empire. His feast day is either February 11 or 12, depending on the liturgical calendar.

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