Died on Wednesday, 18th February – Famous Deaths

18/02/2026

Borislav Paravac, Bosnian Serb politician, 8th Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (born 1943)

Borislav Paravac was a Bosnian Serb politician who served as the 4th Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2003 to 2006.

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18/02/2025

Gene Hackman, award-winning American actor (born 1930)

Eugene Allen Hackman was an American actor. Considered one of the greatest actors of his generation and a paragon of the New Hollywood movement, Hackman's mainstream acting career spanned over four decades. He received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, one Silver Bear and four Golden Globe Awards.

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Gerald Ridsdale, Australian laicised Catholic priest and sex offender (born 1934)

Gerald Francis Ridsdale was an Australian laicised Catholic priest and prolific sex offender.

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Hurricane, American secret service canine (born 2009)

Hurricane was a Special Operations canine of the United States Secret Service. He was a black Belgian Malinois recognized for his valor and bravery in 2014. He is considered the most decorated dog in American history.

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18/02/2020

Flavio Bucci, Italian actor and voice actor (born 1947)

Flavio Bucci was an Italian actor, voice actor and film producer.

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18/02/2019

Alessandro Mendini, Italian designer and architect (born 1931)

Alessandro Mendini was an Italian designer and architect. He played an important part in the development of Italian, Postmodern, and Radical design. He also worked, aside from his artistic career, for Casabella, Modo and Domus magazines.

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18/02/2015

Elchanan Heilprin, Slovak-born English rabbi (born 1920 or 1922)

Elchanan Halpern was a Rabbi in the Golders Green neighbourhood of London and President of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. He was also known as the Av Beit Din of Radomishl after the town of his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Shmuel Engel, Rav of Radomishl.

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18/02/2014

Mavis Gallant, Canadian-French author and playwright (born 1922)

Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant,, was a Canadian writer who spent much of her life and career in France. Best known as a short story writer, she also published novels, plays and essays.

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Maria Franziska von Trapp, Austrian-American singer (born 1914)

Maria Agatha Franziska Gobertina 'Mitzi' von Trapp was the second-oldest daughter of Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp. She was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives inspired the musical and film The Sound of Music. She was portrayed by Heather Menzies as the character "Louisa". She died at age 99, and was the last surviving sibling portrayed in the film.

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18/02/2001

Balthus, Polish-Swiss painter and illustrator (born 1908)

Balthasar Klossowski, also known as Balthus, was a Polish-French modern artist. He is known for his erotically charged images of young girls, and the dreamlike quality of his imagery.

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Dale Earnhardt, American racer and seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion (born 1951)

Ralph Dale Earnhardt was an American professional stock car driver and racing team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series, most notably driving the No. 3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. His aggressive driving style earned him the nicknames "the Intimidator", "the Man in Black" and "Ironhead"; after his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. joined the Cup Series circuit in 1999, Earnhardt was generally known by the retronyms Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Dale Sr. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history and was named as one of the NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers class in 1998.

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18/02/1982

Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand author (born 1895)

Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand writer.

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18/02/1981

Jack Northrop, American engineer and businessman, founded the Northrop Corporation (born 1895)

John Knudsen Northrop was an American aircraft industrialist and designer who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939.

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18/02/1977

Andy Devine, American actor (born 1905)

Andrew Vabre Devine was an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films, including his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers in 10 feature films. He also appeared alongside John Wayne in films such as Stagecoach (1939), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and How the West Was Won. He is also remembered as Jingles on the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok from 1951 to 1958, as Danny McGuire in A Star Is Born (1937), and as the voice of Friar Tuck in the Disney Animation Studio film Robin Hood (1973).

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18/02/1969

Dragiša Cvetković, Serbian lawyer and politician, 17th Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (born 1893)

Dragiša Cvetković was a Yugoslav politician active in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1939 to 1941. He developed the federalization of Yugoslavia through the creation of the Banovina of Croatia via the Cvetković–Maček Agreement with Croat leader Vladko Maček. He signed the Yugoslav accession to the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941. Two days later, on 27 March, a group of officers carried out a military coup, and arrested Dragiša Cvetković and other ministers. German authorities arrested him on two occasions and took him to Banjica concentration camp. He fled on 4 September 1944 for Bulgaria. He spent the rest of his life in Paris.

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18/02/1967

J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (born 1904)

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in overseeing the development of the first nuclear weapons.

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18/02/1966

Grigory Nelyubov, Soviet pilot and military officer (born 1934)

Grigory Grigoryevich Nelyubov was one of the original 20 Soviet cosmonauts, who was dismissed from the Soviet space program in 1963 for drunk and disorderly conduct. His existence in the program was kept secret until the advent of Soviet glasnost in the late 1980s. He killed himself on 18 February 1966.

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18/02/1960

Gertrude Vanderbilt, American stage actress (born c. 1885)

Gertrude Vanderbilt, also known as Gertie Vanderbilt, was an American stage actress and Vaudeville performer.

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18/02/1956

Gustave Charpentier, French composer (born 1860)

Gustave Charpentier was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.

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18/02/1938

David King Udall, American missionary and politician (born 1851)

David King Udall, Sr. was an American politician who was a representative to the Arizona Territorial Legislature and the founder of the Udall political family.

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18/02/1933

James J. Corbett, American boxer and actor (born 1866)

James John Corbett was an American professional boxer and a World Heavyweight Champion, best known as the only man who ever defeated John L. Sullivan. Despite a career spanning only 20 bouts, Corbett faced the best competition his era had to offer, squaring off with a total of nine fighters who would later be enshrined alongside him in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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18/02/1915

Frank James, American soldier and criminal (born 1843)

Alexander Franklin James was a Confederate soldier and guerrilla; who became an outlaw in the post-Civil War period. The older brother of outlaw Jesse James, Frank was also part of the James–Younger Gang.

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18/02/1910

Lucy Stanton, American activist (born 1831)

Lucy Stanton Day Sessions was an American abolitionist and feminist figure, notable for being the first African-American woman to complete a four-year course of a study at a college or university. She completed a Ladies Literary Course from Oberlin College in 1850.

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18/02/1902

Charles Lewis Tiffany, American businessman, founded Tiffany & Co. (born 1812)

Charles Lewis Tiffany was an American businessman and jeweler who founded New York City's Tiffany & Co. in 1837. Known for his jewelry expertise, Tiffany created the country's first retail catalog and introduced the English standard of sterling silver in imported jewelry in 1851.

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18/02/1893

Serranus Clinton Hastings, American lawyer and politician, 1st Chief Justice of California (born 1814)

Serranus Clinton Hastings was an American politician, rancher, and lawyer in California. Born in Watertown, New York, he studied law as a young man and moved to the Iowa District in 1837 to open a law office. Iowa became a territory a year later, and he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the Iowa Territorial General Assembly. When the territory became the state of Iowa in 1846, he won an election to represent the state in the United States House of Representatives. After his term ended, he became Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court.

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18/02/1880

Nikolay Zinin, Russian organic chemist (born 1812)

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zinin was a Russian organic chemist.

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18/02/1873

Vasil Levski, Bulgarian activist, founded the Internal Revolutionary Organization (born 1837)

Vasil Levski, born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, was a Bulgarian revolutionary who is, today, a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, Levski ideologised and strategised a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. Levski founded the Internal Revolutionary Organisation, and sought to foment a nationwide uprising through a network of secret regional committees.

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18/02/1851

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, German mathematician and academic (born 1804)

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi was a German mathematician who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants and number theory.

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18/02/1803

Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, German poet and educator (born 1719)

Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim was a German poet, commonly associated with the Enlightenment and Rococo movements.

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18/02/1788

John Whitehurst, English geologist and clockmaker (born 1713)

John Whitehurst FRS, born in Cheshire, England, was a clockmaker and scientist, and made significant early contributions to geology. He was an influential member of the Lunar Society.

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18/02/1780

Kristijonas Donelaitis, Lithuanian pastor and poet (born 1714)

Kristijonas Donelaitis was a Prussian Lithuanian poet and Lutheran pastor. He lived and worked in Lithuania Minor, a territory in the Kingdom of Prussia, that had a sizable Lithuanian-speaking minority. He wrote the first classic Lithuanian language poem, The Seasons, which became one of the principal works of Lithuanian poetry. The poem, a classic work of Lithuanian literature, depicts everyday life of Lithuanian peasants, their struggle with serfdom, and the annual cycle of life.

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18/02/1778

Joseph Marie Terray, French economist and politician, Controller-General of Finances (born 1715)

Abbot Joseph Marie Terray was a Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV, an agent of fiscal reform.

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18/02/1772

Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, Danish politician (born 1712)

Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff was a German-Danish statesman and a member of the Bernstorff noble family of Mecklenburg. He was the son of Joachim Engelke Freiherr von Bernstorff, chamberlain to the Elector of Hanover.

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18/02/1748

Otto Ferdinand von Abensberg und Traun, Austrian field marshal (born 1677)

Otto Ferdinand Graf von Abensperg und Traun, was an Austrian Generalfeldmarschall. The current spelling of the name, and the spelling used in his time, is mostly Abensperg.

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18/02/1743

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Italian noble (born 1667)

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici was an Italian noblewoman who was the last lineal descendant of the main branch of the House of Medici. A patron of the arts, she bequeathed the Medicis' large art collection, including the contents of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, and the Medici villas, which she inherited upon her brother Gian Gastone's death in 1737, and her Palatine treasures to the Tuscan state, on the condition that no part of it could be removed from "the Capital of the grand ducal State....[and from] the succession of His Serene Grand Duke."

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18/02/1712

Louis, Dauphin of France, (born 1682)

Louis, Dauphin of France, Duke of Burgundy, was the eldest son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, and Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria and grandson of the reigning French king, Louis XIV. He is commonly known as le Petit Dauphin to distinguish him from his father. When his father died in April 1711, the Duke of Burgundy became the official Dauphin of France. Described by his contemporaries as a pious, intellectual, gentle and shy man who was faithful and loving to his wife, he never reigned, as he died in 1712 while his grandfather was still on the throne. Upon the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the Duke of Burgundy's third son became Louis XV.

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18/02/1695

William Phips, governor of Massachusetts (born 1650)

Sir William Phips was the first royally appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the first native-born person from New England to be knighted. Phips was famous in his lifetime for recovering a large treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon but is perhaps best remembered today for establishing the court associated with the infamous Salem Witch Trials, which he grew unhappy with and was forced to prematurely disband after five months.

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18/02/1683

Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Dutch painter (born 1620)

Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem was a highly esteemed and prolific Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and genre pieces.

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18/02/1658

John Villiers, Viscount Purbeck, English courtier (born c. 1591)

John Villiers was an English courtier from the Villiers family. The eldest son of Sir George Villiers and Mary Beaumont, later Countess of Buckingham, he was the brother of King James I's favourite, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.

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18/02/1654

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, French author (born 1594)

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac was a French author in Baroque Précieuses style, best known for his epistolary essays, which were widely circulated and read in his day. He was one of the founding members of the Académie française.

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18/02/1564

Michelangelo, Italian sculptor and painter (born 1475)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. He was born in the Republic of Florence but was mostly active in Rome from his 30s onwards. His work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era.

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18/02/1546

Martin Luther, German priest and theologian, leader of the Protestant Reformation (born 1483)

Martin Luther was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs form the basis of Lutheranism. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Western and Christian history.

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18/02/1535

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, German magician, astrologer, and theologian (born 1486)

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German Renaissance polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, knight, theologian, and occult writer.

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18/02/1502

Hedwig Jagiellon, duchess of Bavaria (born 1457)

Hedwig Jagiellon, baptized as Hedwigis, was a princess of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and member of the Jagiellonian dynasty. She was Duchess of Bavaria by marriage to George, Duke of Bavaria.

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18/02/1478

George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, English nobleman (born 1449; executed)

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, was the sixth child and third surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of English kings Edward IV and Richard III. He played an important role in the dynastic struggle between rival factions of the Plantagenets now known as the Wars of the Roses.

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18/02/1455

Fra Angelico, Italian priest and painter (born 1395)

Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, known posthumously as Fra Angelico, was an Italian Dominican friar and painter active during the early Florentine Renaissance.

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18/02/1397

Enguerrand VII, French nobleman (born 1340)

Enguerrand VII de Coucy,, also known as Ingelram de Coucy and Ingelram de Couci, was a medieval French nobleman and the last Lord of Coucy. He became a son-in-law of King Edward III of England following his marriage to the king's daughter, Isabella of England, and the couple was subsequently granted several English estates, among them the title Earl of Bedford. Coucy fought in the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 as part of a failed crusade against the Ottoman Empire, but was taken prisoner and contracted the bubonic plague. He died in captivity the following year at Bursa.

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18/02/1379

Albert II, duke of Mecklenburg (born 1318)

Albert II, Duke of Mecklenburg was a feudal lord in Northern Germany on the shores of the Baltic Sea. He reigned as the head of the House of Mecklenburg. His princely seat was located in Schwerin beginning in the 1350s.

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18/02/1294

Kublai Khan, Mongol emperor (born 1215)

Kublai Khan, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the dynastic name "Great Yuan" in 1271, and ruled Yuan China until his death in 1294.

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18/02/1225

Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, Norman nobleman

Hugh Bigod was a member of the powerful early Norman Bigod family and was for a short time the 3rd Earl of Norfolk.

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18/02/1218

Berthold V, duke of Zähringen (born 1160)

Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen, also known as Bertold V or Berchtold V, was Duke of Zähringen from 1186 until his death. He was the son of Berthold IV and Heilwig of Frohburg.

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18/02/1139

Yaropolk II, Grand Prince of Kiev (born 1082)

Yaropolk II Vladimirovich was Prince of Pereyaslavl (1114–1132) and Grand Prince of Kiev (1132–1139). He was a son of Vladimir II Monomakh and Gytha of Wessex. He fought in several campaigns against the Cumans, once in 1103 and again in 1116.

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18/02/0999

Gregory V, pope of the Catholic Church (born 972)

Year 999 (CMXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.

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18/02/0901

Thābit ibn Qurra, Arab astronomer and physician (born 826)

Thābit ibn Qurra, was a scholar known for his work in mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and translation. He lived in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century during the time of the Abbasid Caliphate.

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18/02/0814

Angilbert, Frankish monk and diplomat (born 760)

Angilbert, Count of Ponthieu was a noble Frankish poet who was educated under Alcuin and served Charlemagne as a secretary, diplomat, and son-in-law. He is venerated as a pre-Congregation saint and is still honored on the day of his death, 18 February.

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18/02/0675

Colmán, bishop of Lindisfarne

Colmán of Lindisfarne also known as Saint Colmán was Bishop of Lindisfarne from 661 until 664.

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