Died on Tuesday, 24th February – Famous Deaths

24/02/2025

Roberta Flack, American singer and pianist (born 1937)

Roberta Cleopatra Flack was an American singer and pianist known for her emotive, genre-blending ballads that spanned R&B, jazz, folk, and pop and contributed to the birth of the quiet storm radio format. Her commercial success included the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song", and "Feel Like Makin' Love". She became the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in consecutive years.

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24/02/2024

Kumar Shahani, Indian film director and screenwriter (born 1940)

Kumar Shahani was an Indian film director and screenwriter, best known for his parallel cinema films Maya Darpan (1972), Tarang (1984), Khayal Gatha (1989) and Kasba (1990). His films won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film in 1972, 1990 and 1991. Due to his dedication to formalism, and with the reputation of his first feature—Maya Darpan being considered among Indian cinema's first formalist films—critics and film enthusiasts often associated him with filmmakers such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Andrei Tarkovsky and Jacques Rivette. He was also known as a teacher at his alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India, and as a theorist of cinema. His book of 51 essays Kumar Shahani: The Shock of Desire and Other Essays, was edited by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and published by Tulika Books in 2015.

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24/02/2023

Edith Roger, Norwegian dancer and choreographer (born 1922)

Edith Roger was a Norwegian dancer, choreographer, and stage director.

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24/02/2021

Ronald Pickup, English actor (born 1940)

Ronald Alfred Pickup was an English actor. He was active in television, film, and theatre, beginning with a 1964 appearance in Doctor Who. Theatre critic Michael Billington described him as "a terrific stage star and an essential member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre company". His major screen roles included the title role in The Life of Verdi and Prince Yakimov in Fortunes of War (1987).

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24/02/2020

Katherine Johnson, American physicist and mathematician (born 1918)

Creola Katherine Johnson was an American human computer whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform tasks previously requiring humans. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".

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24/02/2018

Sridevi, Indian actress (born 1963)

Sridevi Kapoor, known mononymously as Sridevi, was an Indian actress who worked in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada language films. Cited as the "first female superstar" of Indian cinema, she was the recipient of various accolades, including a National Film Award, Seven Filmfare Awards, Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, a Kerala State Film Award, and a Nandi Award. Sridevi's career spanned over 50 years in a wide range of genres. She was known for her reticent and introverted off-screen personality, but headstrong and outspoken on-screen persona, often playing strong-willed women. In 2013, Sridevi was honoured with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian honour.

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Haukur Hilmarsson, Icelandic political activist and internationalist volunteer fighter (born 1986)

Haukur Hilmarsson was an Icelandic political activist. He played a crucial role in initiating a movement for the rights of refugees in Iceland. He rose to prominence during the 2009 Icelandic financial crisis protests after climbing to the roof of the house of the Icelandic parliament, Alþingishúsið, and hoisting the flag of the Bónus supermarket chain on the building's flagpole. His arrest two weeks later resulted in an attempt by a crowd of protesters to storm the Icelandic Police headquarters in downtown Reykjavík where Haukur was held and from where he was subsequently released.

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24/02/2016

Peter Kenilorea, Solomon Islands politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (born 1943)

Sir Peter Kenilorea was a Solomon Islander politician, officially styled The Rt Hon. Sir Peter Kenilorea as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. He was the first prime minister of an independent Solomon Islands, from 1978 to 1981, and also served a second term from 1984 to 1986.

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Nabil Maleh, Syrian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1936)

Nabil Maleh was a Syrian film director, screenwriter, producer, painter and poet; he is thought to be a father of Syrian cinema. Nabil has published more than 1,000 articles, short stories, essays and poems. He is the writer and director of 120 short, experimental and documentary works and 12 feature-length films including The Extras and The Leopard. He has more than 60 awards at international film festivals, including several lifetime achievement awards. Several of his films are in the curriculum of international film schools, and he has taught film direction, acting, writing and aesthetics at many universities, centers and associations, including the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California in Los Angeles.

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George C. Nichopoulos, American soldier and physician (born 1927)

George Constantine Nichopoulos, also known as Dr. Nick, was an American physician of Greek descent. He was Elvis Presley's personal physician and was controversial due to the singer's abuse of prescription drugs. The Tennessee Medical Board permanently revoked Nichopoulos's license for years of overprescribing medications.

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24/02/2015

Mefodiy, Ukrainian metropolitan (born 1949)

Metropolitan Mefodiy was the Primate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine.

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Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakh politician and diplomat (born 1962)

Rakhat Mukhtaruly Aliyev was a Kazakh politician and diplomat, who died in an Austrian prison awaiting trial on charges of murder. His trial was planned to start in Vienna in first half of year 2015. Austrian legal circles were giving much attention to this high-profile criminal case in which a former diplomat was facing murder charges.

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24/02/2014

Franny Beecher, American guitarist (born 1921)

Francis Eugene Beecher was the lead guitarist for Bill Haley & His Comets from 1954 to 1962, and is best remembered for his innovative guitar solos that incorporated elements of jazz. He composed the classics "Blue Comet Blues", "Goofin' Around", "Week End", "The Catwalk", and "Shaky" when he was the lead guitarist for Bill Haley and the Comets. He continued to perform with surviving members of the Comets into 2006. In 2012, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Beecher as a member of the Comets by a special committee, aimed at correcting the previous mistake of not inducting the Comets with Bill Haley.

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Alexis Hunter, New Zealand-English painter and photographer (born 1948)

Alexis Jan Atthill Hunter was a New Zealand painter and photographer, who used feminist theory in her work. She lived and worked in London UK, and Beaurainville France. Hunter was also a member of the Stuckism collective. Her archive and artistic legacy is now administered by the Alexis Hunter Trust.

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Carlos Páez Vilaró, Uruguayan painter and sculptor (born 1923)

Carlos Páez Vilaró was a Uruguayan abstract artist, painter, potter, sculptor, muralist, writer, composer and constructor. He took an active role in the search for survivors of the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andes, as his son Carlos Páez Rodríguez was a passenger.

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Harold Ramis, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1944)

Harold Allen Ramis was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. His film acting roles include Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).

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24/02/2013

Virgil Johnson, American singer (born 1935)

The Velvets were an American doo-wop group from Odessa, Texas, United States. They were formed in 1959 by Virgil Johnson, a high-school English teacher, with four of his students. Roy Orbison heard the group and signed them to Monument Records in 1960. They recorded in Nashville in Studio B, with the A Team as their backup band. Their first release was a tune called "That Lucky Old Sun". Their biggest hit single was "Tonight ", which hit #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961. The follow-up, "Laugh", peaked at #90, and after a half-dozen further singles the group disbanded.

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Con Martin, Irish footballer and manager (born 1923)

Cornelius Joseph Martin was an Irish footballer. Martin initially played Gaelic football for the Dublin county team before switching codes and embarking on a successful soccer career, playing for, among others, Drumcondra, Glentoran, Leeds United and Aston Villa.

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24/02/2012

Agnes Allen, American baseball player and therapist (born 1930)

Agnes Lorraine "Aggie" Allen was a pitcher and outfielder who played from 1950 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Listed at 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m), 120 lb, she batted and threw right-handed.

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Oliver Wrong, English nephrologist and academic (born 1925)

Professor Oliver Murray Wrong was an eminent academic nephrologist and one of the founders of the speciality in the United Kingdom. From a background as a "salt and water" physician, he made detailed clinical observations and scientifically imaginative connections which were the basis of numerous advances in the molecular biology of the human kidney. Wrong himself contributed to much of the molecular work after his own "retirement". He dictated amendments to his final paper during his final illness in his own teaching hospital, University College Hospital (UCH), London. Though academic in his leanings, he was a compassionate physician who established a warm rapport with patients, a link he regarded as the keystone of his research. He belonged to a generation of idealistic young doctors responsible for the establishment of the UK's National Health Service in the post-War years.

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24/02/2011

Anant Pai, Indian author and illustrator (born 1929)

Anant Pai, popularly known as Uncle Pai, was an Indian educationalist and a pioneer in Indian comics. He is most famous as the creator of two comic book series viz. Amar Chitra Katha, which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories, and biographies of historical characters; and Tinkle, a children's anthology.

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24/02/2010

Dawn Brancheau, senior animal trainer at SeaWorld (born 1969)

Dawn Therese Brancheau was an American animal trainer at SeaWorld. She worked with orcas at SeaWorld Orlando for fifteen years, including a leading role in revamping the Shamu show, and was SeaWorld's poster girl. She was killed by an orca, Tilikum, who was also involved in the deaths of Keltie Byrne and Daniel P. Dukes.

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24/02/2008

Larry Norman, American singer-songwriter and producer (born 1947)

Larry David Norman was an American musician, singer, songwriter, record label owner, and record producer. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Christian rock music and released more than 100 albums.

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24/02/2007

Bruce Bennett, American shot putter and actor (born 1906)

Bruce Bennett was an American film and television actor who was a college athlete in football and in intercollegiate and international track-and-field competitions. In 1928, he won the silver medal for the shot put at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam. His acting career in film and television spanned more than 40 years.

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Damien Nash, American football player (born 1982)

Damien Darnell Nash was an American professional football running back who played for the Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). He died after the 2006 season, his only season with the Broncos.

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24/02/2006

Octavia E. Butler, American author and educator (born 1947)

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction and speculative fiction writer who won several awards for her works, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

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Don Knotts, American actor and comedian (born 1924)

Jesse Donald Knotts was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on the 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also played Ralph Furley on the sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He starred in multiple comedic films, including leading roles in The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966). In 2004, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time" list.

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John Martin, Canadian broadcaster, co-founded MuchMusic (born 1947)

John Martin was a Canadian broadcaster, credited with "almost single-handedly" creating music television in Canada.

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Dennis Weaver, American actor, director, and producer (born 1924)

Billy Dennis Weaver was an American actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, best known for his work in television and films from the early 1950s until just before his death in 2006. Weaver's two most famous roles were as Marshal Matt Dillon's deputy Chester Goode on the western Gunsmoke and as Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud on the police drama McCloud. He starred in the 1971 television film Duel, the first film of director Steven Spielberg. He is also remembered for his role as the twitchy motel attendant in Orson Welles's film Touch of Evil (1958).

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24/02/2005

Coşkun Kırca, Turkish diplomat, journalist and politician (born 1927)

Coşkun Kırca was a Turkish diplomat, journalist and politician. He served as the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1995. He was at first a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), then of the Republican Reliance Party (CGP), then of the True Path Party (DYP).

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24/02/2004

John Randolph, American actor (born 1915)

Emanuel Hirsch Cohen, better known by the stage name John Randolph, was an American film, television and stage actor.

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24/02/2002

Leo Ornstein, Ukrainian-American pianist and composer (born 1893)

Leo Ornstein was an American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic. The bulk of his experimental works were written for piano.

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24/02/2001

Theodore Marier, American composer and educator, founded the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School (born 1912)

Theodore Norbert Marier was a church musician, educator, arranger and scholar of Gregorian Chant. He founded St. Paul's Choir School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963, and served as the second president of the Church Music Association of America.

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Claude Shannon, American mathematician, cryptographer, and engineer (born 1916)

Claude Elwood Shannon was an American polymath who was a mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of the Information Age.

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24/02/1999

Andre Dubus, American short story writer, essayist, and memoirist (born 1936)

Andre Jules Dubus II was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays.

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24/02/1998

Antonio Prohías, Cuban-American cartoonist (born 1921)

Antonio Prohías was a Cuban-American cartoonist. He was the creator of the satirical comic strip Spy vs. Spy, which he illustrated for Mad magazine from 1961 to 1987.

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Henny Youngman, English-American comedian and violinist (born 1906)

Henry "Henny" Youngman was an American comedian and musician famous for his mastery of the "one-liner", his best known being "Take my wife... please".

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24/02/1994

Jean Sablon, French singer and actor (born 1906)

Jean Sablon was a French singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He was one of the first French singers to immerse himself in jazz. The man behind several songs by big French and American names, he was the first to use a microphone on a French stage in 1936. Star of vinyl records and the radio, he left France in 1937 to take a contract with NBC in the United States. His radio and later televised shows made him a huge star in America. Henceforth the most international of French singers among his contemporaries, he became an ambassador of French songwriting and dedicated his career to touring internationally, occasionally returning to France to appear on stage. His sixty-one year career came to an end in 1984.

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Dinah Shore, American actress and singer (born 1916)

Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, television personality, author, and talk show host. Born in Winchester, Tennessee and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, She rose to prominence as a recording artist during the Big Band era. She achieved even greater success a decade later in television, mainly as the host of a series of variety programs sponsored by Chevrolet. After failing singing auditions for the bands of Benny Goodman, and both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own. She became the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success. She had a string of eighty charted popular hits, spanning from 1940 to 1957, and after appearing in a handful of feature films, she went on to a four-decade career in American television. She starred in her own music and variety shows from 1951 through 1963 and hosted two talk shows in the 1970s. TV Guide ranked her at number 16 on their list of the top 50 television stars of all time. Stylistically, Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, Jo Stafford and Patti Page.

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24/02/1993

Danny Gallivan, Canadian sportscaster (born 1917)

Daniel Leo Gallivan was a Canadian radio and television broadcaster and sportscaster.

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Bobby Moore, English footballer and manager (born 1941)

Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore was an English professional footballer. He captained West Ham United for more than ten years, and was the captain of the England national team that won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders in the history of football, and was cited by Pelé as the greatest defender he had ever played against. Moore is considered one of the greatest players of all time.

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24/02/1991

John Daly, American journalist and game show host (born 1914)

John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly was an American journalist, host, CBS radio and television personality, ABC News executive, TV anchor, and game show host, best known for his work on the CBS panel game show What's My Line?

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George Gobel, American actor (born 1919)

George Leslie Goebel was an American humorist, actor, and comedian. He was best known as the star of his own weekly comedy variety television series, The George Gobel Show, on NBC from 1954 to 1959 and on CBS from 1959 to 1960. He was also a familiar panelist on the NBC game show Hollywood Squares.

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Webb Pierce, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1921)

Michael Webb Pierce was an American country music vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist of the 1950s, one of the most popular of the genre, charting more number-one hits than any other country and western performer during the decade.

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24/02/1990

Tony Conigliaro, American baseball player (born 1945)

Anthony Richard Conigliaro, nicknamed "Tony C" and "Conig", was an American Major League Baseball outfielder and right-handed batter who played for the Boston Red Sox and California Angels (1971). Born in Revere, Massachusetts, he was a 1962 graduate of St. Mary's High School in Lynn, Massachusetts. Conigliaro started his MLB career as a teenager, hitting a home run in his first at-bat during his home field debut in 1964, and reaching 100 career home runs faster than any player in American League history.

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Malcolm Forbes, American sergeant and publisher (born 1917)

Malcolm Stevenson Forbes was an American businessman and politician most prominently known as the publisher of Forbes magazine, which was founded by his father B. C. Forbes. He represented Somerset County in the New Jersey Senate from 1952 to 1958 and ran two campaigns for Governor of New Jersey. In 1953, he lost the Republican nomination to Paul L. Troast, who had the support of most of the party establishment. In 1957, he won the Republican nomination but lost the general election to incumbent Governor Robert Meyner. He was known as an avid promoter of capitalism and free market economics and for an extravagant lifestyle, spending on parties, travel, and his collection of homes, yachts, aircraft, art, motorcycles, and Fabergé eggs.

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Sandro Pertini, Italian journalist and politician, 7th President of Italy (born 1896)

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio "Sandro" Pertini was an Italian politician, socialist, partisan and journalist who served as the president of Italy from 1978 to 1985.

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Johnnie Ray, American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1927)

John Alvin Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Highly popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor to what became rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music, and his animated stage personality. Tony Bennett called Ray the "father of rock and roll", and historians have noted him as a pioneering figure in the development of the genre.

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24/02/1986

Rukmini Devi Arundale, Indian Bharatnatyam dancer (born 1904)

Rukmini Devi Arundale was an Indian theosophist, dancer and choreographer of the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, and an activist for animal welfare.

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Tommy Douglas, Scottish-Canadian minister and politician, 7th Premier of Saskatchewan (born 1904)

Thomas Clement Douglas was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as the seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Baptist minister, he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in 1935 as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). He left federal politics to become leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and then the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan. His government introduced the continent's first single-payer, universal health care program.

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24/02/1982

Virginia Bruce, American actress (born 1910)

Virginia Bruce was an American actress and singer.

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24/02/1978

Alma Thomas, American painter and educator (born 1891)

Alma Woodsey Thomas was an African-American artist and art teacher who lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and is now recognized as a major American painter of the 20th century. She is the first African-American woman to be included in the White House's permanent art collection. Thomas is best known for the "exuberant", colorful, abstract paintings that she created after she retired from a 35-year career teaching art at Washington's Shaw Junior High School.

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24/02/1975

Hans Bellmer, German artist (born 1902)

Hans Bellmer was a German artist, best known for his drawings, etchings that illustrates the 1940 edition of Histoire de l’œil, and the life-sized female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.

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Nikolai Bulganin, Russian marshal and politician, 6th Premier of the Soviet Union (born 1895)

Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1958. He also served as Minister of Defense, following service in the Red Army during World War II.

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24/02/1974

Margaret Leech, American historian and author (born 1895)

Margaret Kernochan Leech, also known as Margaret Pulitzer, was an American historian and fiction writer. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History both in 1942 and in 1960.

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24/02/1970

Conrad Nagel, American actor (born 1897)

John Conrad Nagel was an American film, stage, television and radio actor. He was considered a famous matinée idol and leading man of the 1920s and 1930s. He was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1940, and three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

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24/02/1967

Mir Osman Ali Khan, Last Nizam of Hyderabad State (born 1886)

Mir Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII was the last Nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad State, the largest state in the erstwhile Indian Empire. He ascended the throne on 29 August 1911, at the age of 25 and ruled the State of Hyderabad until 1948, when the Indian Union annexed it. He was styled as His Exalted Highness (H.E.H) the Nizam of Hyderabad, and was widely considered one of the world's wealthiest people of all time. With some estimates placing his wealth at 2% of U.S. GDP, his portrait was on the cover of Time magazine in 1937. As a semi-autonomous monarch, he had his mint, printing his currency, the Hyderabadi rupee, and had a private treasury that was said to contain £100 million in gold and silver bullion, and a further £400 million of jewels. The major source of his wealth was the Golconda mines, the only supplier of diamonds in the world at that time. Among them was the Jacob Diamond, valued at some £50 million, and used by the Nizam as a paperweight.

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24/02/1953

Robert La Follette Jr., American politician, senator of Wisconsin (born 1895)

Robert Marion La Follette Jr. was an American politician who served as United States senator from Wisconsin from 1925 to 1947. A member of the La Follette family, he was often referred to by the nickname "Young Bob" to distinguish him from his father, Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who had served as a U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin. Robert Jr., along with his brother Philip La Follette, carried on their father's legacy of progressive politics and founded the Wisconsin Progressive Party. Robert Jr. was the last major Progressive Party politician in the U.S. Senate, ending in 1946 when the party disbanded. La Follette was defeated in the 1946 Republican Senate primary by Joseph McCarthy.

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Gerd von Rundstedt, German field marshal (born 1875)

Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a German Generalfeldmarschall in the Heer (Army) of Nazi Germany and Oberbefehlshaber West during World War II. At the end of the war, aged 69, with over 52 years of service, he was the Army's most senior officer.

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24/02/1930

Hermann von Ihering, German-Brazilian zoologist (born 1850)

Hermann Friedrich Albert von Ihering was a German Brazilian doctor, professor and ornithologist. He was the oldest son of Rudolf von Jhering.

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24/02/1929

André Messager, French pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1853)

André Charles Prosper Messager was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage works, among which his ballet Les Deux Pigeons (1886) and opéra comique Véronique (1898) have had lasting success; Les p'tites Michu (1897) and Monsieur Beaucaire (1919) were also popular internationally.

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24/02/1927

Edward Marshall Hall, English lawyer and politician (born 1858)

Sir Edward Marshall Hall, was an English barrister who had a formidable reputation as an orator. He successfully defended many people accused of notorious murders and became known as "The Great Defender".

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24/02/1925

Hjalmar Branting, Swedish journalist and politician, 16th Prime Minister of Sweden, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1860)

Karl Hjalmar Branting was a Swedish statesman and diplomat who served as Prime Minister of Sweden on three occasions from 1920 to 1925. From 1907 until his death in 1925, Branting led the Social Democratic Party (SAP), playing a major role in advocating universal suffrage, an eight-hour workday, and other labor rights. He was also instrumental in foreign policy, including his support for the League of Nations.

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24/02/1914

Joshua Chamberlain, American general and politician, 32nd Governor of Maine (born 1828)

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was an American college professor and politician from Maine who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army. He became a highly respected and decorated Union officer, reaching the rank of brigadier general. He is best known for his gallantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, leading a bayonet charge, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

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24/02/1910

Osman Hamdi Bey, Turkish archaeologist and painter (born 1842)

Osman Hamdi Bey was an Ottoman Turkish administrator, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering painter. He was the Ottoman Empire's first modern archaeologist, and is regarded as the founding father of both archaeology and the museum curator's professions in Turkey. He was the founder of Istanbul Archaeology Museums and of the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts known today as the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. He was also the first mayor of Kadıköy.

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24/02/1879

Shiranui Kōemon, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 11th Yokozuna (born 1825)

Shiranui Kōemon was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Kikuchi, Higo Province. He was the sport's 11th yokozuna. He gives his name to one of the two styles for the yokozuna's in-ring ceremony, although the question of whether he himself practiced this style is highly debated.

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24/02/1876

Joseph Jenkins Roberts, American-Liberian politician, 1st President of Liberia (born 1809)

Joseph Jenkins Roberts was an African American merchant who emigrated to Liberia in 1829, where he became a politician. Elected as the first (1848–1856) and seventh (1872–1876) president of Liberia after independence, he was the first man of African descent to govern the country, serving previously as governor from 1841 to 1848. He later returned to office in the 1871 general election following the 1871 Liberian coup d'état. Born free in Norfolk, Virginia, Roberts emigrated as a young man with his mother, siblings, wife, and child to the young West African colony. He opened a trading firm in Monrovia and later engaged in politics.

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24/02/1856

Nikolai Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician and academic (born 1792)

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was a Russian mathematician and geometer, known primarily for his work on hyperbolic geometry, otherwise known as Lobachevskian geometry, and also for his fundamental study on Dirichlet integrals, known as the Lobachevsky integral formula.

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24/02/1825

Thomas Bowdler, English physician and philanthropist (born 1754)

Thomas Bowdler was an English physician known for publishing The Family Shakespeare, an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's plays edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler. The two sought a version they saw as more appropriate than the original for 19th-century women and children. Bowdler also published works reflecting an interested knowledge of continental Europe. His last work was an expurgation of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published posthumously in 1826 under the supervision of his nephew and biographer, Thomas Bowdler the Younger. From his name derives the eponym verb bowdlerise or bowdlerize, meaning to expurgate or to censor something through the omission of elements deemed unsuited to children in literature and films and on television.

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24/02/1815

Robert Fulton, American engineer (born 1765)

Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat, the North River Steamboat. In 1807, that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 nautical miles, in 62 hours. The success of his steamboat changed river traffic and trade on major American rivers.

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24/02/1812

Étienne-Louis Malus, French physicist and mathematician (born 1775)

Étienne-Louis Malus was a French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician.

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24/02/1810

Henry Cavendish, French-English physicist and chemist (born 1731)

Henry Cavendish was an English experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper, On Factitious Airs. Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name.

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24/02/1799

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist and academic (born 1742)

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. He was the first person in Germany to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics. He is remembered for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modelled on the English bookkeeping term "waste books" or "scrapbooks", and for his discovery of the tree-like electrical discharge patterns now called Lichtenberg figures.

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24/02/1785

Carlo Buonaparte, Corsican lawyer and politician (born 1746)

Carlo Maria Buonaparte, also known as Carlo Maria di Buonaparte and Charles-Marie Bonaparte, was a Corsican attorney and politician, best known as the father of Napoleon Bonaparte and grandfather of Napoleon III.

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24/02/1777

Joseph I of Portugal (born 1714)

Dom Joseph I, known as the Reformer, was King of Portugal from 31 July 1750 until his death in 1777. Among other activities, he was devoted to hunting and the opera. His government was controlled by Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, who implemented new laws, modernized the economy and Portuguese society, marking Joseph's reign as a time of modernization of Portugal.

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24/02/1732

Francis Charteris, Scottish soldier (born 1675)

Colonel Francis Charteris, nicknamed "The Rape-Master General", was a Scottish soldier and adventurer who earned a substantial sum of money through gambling and the South Sea Bubble. He was also a serial rapist who was convicted of raping a servant in 1730 and sentenced to death, but subsequently pardoned, before dying of natural causes shortly afterwards.

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24/02/1721

John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, English poet and politician, Lord President of the Council (born 1648)

John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby was a British military officer, writer and Tory politician who served as Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council. He was also known by his original title, Lord Mulgrave.

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24/02/1714

Edmund Andros, English courtier and politician, 4th Colonial Governor of New York (born 1637)

Sir Edmund Andros was an English army officer and colonial administrator. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served as governor of the provinces of New York, East and West Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.

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24/02/1704

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, French composer (born 1643)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his Te Deum H.146, Marche en rondeau. This theme is still used today as a fanfare during television broadcasts of the Eurovision Network and the European Broadcasting Union.

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24/02/1685

Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Cumberland (born 1629)

Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle was an English military leader and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1653 and 1660 and was created Earl of Carlisle in 1661.

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24/02/1674

Prataprao Gujar, 3rd Commander-in-chief of Maratha Confederacy

Prataprao Gujar was a Maratha general who served as the 3rd Senapati of the Maratha Empire during the reign of Chhatrapati Shivaji. He commanded the Maratha Army until 1674.

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24/02/1666

Nicholas Lanier, English composer and painter (born 1588)

Nicholas Lanier, sometimes Laniere was an English composer and musician; the first to hold the title of Master of the King's Music from 1625 to 1666, an honour given to musicians of great distinction. He was the court musician, a composer and performer and Groom of the Chamber in the service of King Charles I and Charles II. He was also a singer, lutenist, scenographer and painter.

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24/02/1588

Johann Weyer, Dutch physician and occultist (born 1515)

Johannes Wier was a Dutch physician who was among the first to publish a thorough treatise against the trials and persecution of people accused of witchcraft. His most influential work is De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis.

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24/02/1580

Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel, English nobleman (born 1511)

Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel was an English nobleman, who over his long life assumed a prominent place at the court of all the later Tudor sovereigns.

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24/02/1563

Francis, Duke of Guise (born 1519)

François de Lorraine, 2nd Duke of Guise, 1st Prince of Joinville, and 1st Duke of Aumale, was a French general and statesman. A prominent leader during the Italian War of 1551–1559 and French Wars of Religion, he was assassinated during the siege of Orleans in 1563.

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24/02/1530

Properzia de' Rossi, Italian Renaissance sculptor

Properzia de' Rossi was a female Italian Renaissance sculptor and one of only four women to receive a biography in Vasari's Lives of the Artists.

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24/02/1525

Jacques de La Palice, French nobleman and military officer (born 1470)

Jacques de La Palice was a French nobleman and military officer. He was the lord of Chabannes, La Palice, Pacy, Chauverothe, Bort-le-Comte and Héron. In 1511, he received the title of Grand Master of France.

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Guillaume Gouffier, seigneur de Bonnivet, French soldier (born c. 1488)

Guillaume Gouffier, seigneur de Bonnivet was a French soldier.

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Richard de la Pole, last Yorkist claimant to the English throne (born 1480)

Richard de la Pole was a pretender to the English crown. Commonly nicknamed "White Rose", he was the last Yorkist claimant to actively and openly seek the crown of England. He lived in exile after many of his relatives were executed, becoming allied with Louis XII of France in the War of the League of Cambrai. Louis saw him as a more favourable ally and prospect for an English king than Henry VIII.

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24/02/1496

Eberhard I, Duke of Württemberg (born 1445)

Eberhard I of Württemberg also known as Eberhard im Bart was the first Duke of Württemberg. After the death of his older brother in 1459 he became the Count of Württemberg-Urach as Eberhard V. In 1482 he signed the Treaty of Münsingen with his cousin Eberhard VI of Württemberg-Stuttgart reuniting Württemberg-Urach with Württemberg-Stuttgart under his rule. In exchange his cousin was designated as his heir. He moved the capital to Stuttgart and in July 1495 he was elevated to Duke of Württemberg by Emperor Maximilian I.

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24/02/1386

Charles III of Naples (born 1345)

Charles III of Naples, also called Charles the Small or Charles of Durazzo, was King of Naples and the titular King of Jerusalem from 1382 to 1386 as Charles III, and also King of Hungary from 1385 to 1386 as Charles II. In 1381, Charles created the chivalric Order of the Ship. In 1383, he succeeded to the Principality of Achaea on the death of James of Baux.

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24/02/1114

Thomas, archbishop of York

Thomas II was a medieval archbishop of York.

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24/02/1018

Borrell, bishop of Vic

Borrell was the bishop of Vic from 1010 until 1017. He was elected to replace Arnulf, who had died in battle against the Córdobans, and his episcopate coincided with the renewed colonisation of the west of Catalonia.

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24/02/0951

Liu Yun, Chinese governor (jiedushi)

Liu Yun, probably known as Liu Chengyun before 949, referred to in historical sources as the Duke of Xiangyin (湘陰公), was a military governor of the Later Han dynasty during the Five Dynasties period. He was an ethnic Shatuo.

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24/02/0616

Æthelberht of Kent

Æthelberht was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, lists him as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the late-ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he is referred to as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". He was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity.

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