Died on Wednesday, 25th February – Famous Deaths

25/02/2025

Henry Kelly, Irish radio and television broadcaster, actor and journalist (born 1947)

Patrick Henry Kelly, better known as Henry Kelly, was an Irish radio and television broadcaster and journalist who was based in the United Kingdom.

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Roberto Orci, Mexican-American screenwriter and producer (born 1973)

Roberto Gaston Orcí was a Mexican film and television screenwriter and producer. He is best known for co-writing the scripts to Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) with his writing and producing partner Alex Kurtzman.

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Jane Reed, UK Magazine editor and media executive (born 1940)

Jane Barbara Reed was a British publishing executive. During the 1970s she was the editor of Woman's Own magazine. She had leading positions with the Today newspaper and News International.

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25/02/2023

Gordon Pinsent, Canadian actor, director and screenwriter (born 1930)

Gordon Edward Pinsent was a Canadian actor, writer, director, and singer. He was known for his roles in numerous productions, including Away from Her, The Rowdyman, John and the Missus, A Gift to Last, Due South, The Red Green Show, and Quentin Durgens, M.P. He was the voice of King Babar in the Babar the Elephant television and film productions from 1989 to 2015.

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25/02/2022

Farrah Forke, American actress (born 1968)

Farrah Rachael Forke was an American actress best known for her roles as Alex Lambert on the NBC sitcom Wings and Mayson Drake on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. She also voiced the character Big Barda on the animated television series Batman Beyond and Justice League Unlimited, starred as Carey on the short-lived cult sitcom Dweebs, Nikki Harkin on Mr. Rhodes, Carol Ashby in the pilot episode of the 90's remake of Fantasy Island, and appeared in several made-for-TV movies such as Nurses on the Line (1993), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1993), Bionic Ever After? (1994), and theatrical movies like Disclosure (1994) and Heat (1995).

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Shirley Hughes, English author and illustrator (born 1927)

Winifred Shirley Hughes was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred.

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25/02/2020

Dmitry Yazov, last Marshal of the Soviet Union (born 1924)

Dmitry Timofeyevich Yazov was a Marshal of the Soviet Union. A veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Yazov served as Minister of Defence from 1987 until he was arrested for his part in the 1991 August coup, four months before the fall of the Soviet Union. Yazov was the last person to be appointed to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union on 28 April 1990 and the only Marshal born in Siberia. At the time of his death on 25 February 2020, he was the last living Marshal of the Soviet Union.

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25/02/2017

Bill Paxton, American actor and filmmaker (born 1955)

William Paxton was an American actor, filmmaker and musician. A versatile character actor known for his distinctive Texan drawl and everyman screen persona, he was a four-time Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award nominee, among other accolades.

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25/02/2015

Harve Bennett, American screenwriter and producer (born 1930)

Harve Bennett was an American television and film producer and screenwriter.

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Ariel Camacho, Mexican musician and singer-songwriter; (born 1992)

José Ariel Camacho Barraza was a Mexican musician and singer-songwriter. He predominantly performed regional Mexican music, mainly corridos. He was the lead singer and lead guitarist of his group, Ariel Camacho y Los Plebes del Rancho. In 2013, Ariel Camacho y Los Plebes del Rancho signed to JG Records where they frequently played in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. In 2014 they signed with DEL Records, which allowed them to play their music in the United States.

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Eugenie Clark, American biologist and academic; noted ichthyologist (born 1922)

Eugenie Clark, popularly known as The Shark Lady, was an American ichthyologist known for both her research on shark behavior and her study of fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. Clark was a pioneer in the field of scuba diving for research purposes. In addition to being regarded as an authority in marine biology, Clark was popularly recognized and used her fame to promote marine conservation.

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25/02/2012

Louisiana Red, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1932)

Iverson Minter, known professionally as Louisiana Red, was an American blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who recorded more than 50 albums. A master of slide guitar, he played both traditional acoustic and urban electric styles, with lyrics both honest and often remarkably personal. His career includes collaborations with artists as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Eric Burdon, and others.

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25/02/2010

Ihsan Dogramaci, Turkish pediatrician and academic (born 1915)

İhsan Doğramacı was a Turkish paediatrician, entrepreneur, philanthropist, educationalist and college administrator of Iraqi Turkmen descent born in modern Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq then part of the Ottoman Empire.

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25/02/2008

Hans Raj Khanna, Indian judge and advocate; upholder of civil liberties (born 1912)

Hans Raj Khanna was an Indian judge, jurist and advocate who propounded the basic structure doctrine in 1973 and attempted to uphold civil liberties during the time of Emergency in India in a lone dissenting judgement in 1976. He entered the Indian judiciary in 1952 as an Additional District and Sessions Judge and subsequently was elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India in 1971 where he continued till his resignation in 1977.

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25/02/2005

Peter Benenson, English lawyer, founded Amnesty International (born 1921)

Peter Benenson was a British barrister, human rights activist and the founder of the human rights group Amnesty International (AI); a global movement of more than 10 million people, currently, and in over 150 countries and territories who campaign to end abuses on human rights and to secure the release of political prisoners.

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25/02/2001

A. R. Ammons, American poet and critic (born 1926)

Archibald Randolph Ammons was an American poet and professor of English at Cornell University. Ammons published nearly thirty collections of poems in his lifetime. Revered for his impact on American romantic poetry, Ammons received several major awards for his work, including two National Book Awards for Poetry, one in 1973 for Collected Poems and another in 1993 for Garbage.

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Don Bradman, Australian international cricketer; holder of world record batting average (born 1908)

Sir Donald George Bradman, nicknamed "the Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. His cricketing successes have been claimed by Shane Warne, among others, to make Bradman the "greatest sportsperson" in history. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is considered by some to be the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.

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25/02/1999

Glenn T. Seaborg, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1912)

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in this area also led to his development of the actinide concept and the arrangement of the actinide series in the periodic table of the elements.

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25/02/1998

W. O. Mitchell, Canadian author and playwright (born 1914)

William Ormond Mitchell, was a Canadian writer and broadcaster. His "best-loved" novel is Who Has Seen the Wind (1947), which portrays life on the Canadian Prairies from the point of view of a small boy and sold almost a million copies in Canada. As a broadcaster, he is known for his radio series Jake and the Kid, which aired on CBC Radio between 1950 and 1956 and was also about life on the Prairies.

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25/02/1997

Andrei Sinyavsky, Russian journalist and publisher (born 1925)

Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer and Soviet dissident known as a defendant in the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial of 1965.

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25/02/1996

Haing S. Ngor, Cambodian-American physician and author (born 1940)

Haing Somnang Ngor was a Cambodian and American actor, physician, and activist. He made his acting debut in the biographical drama film The Killing Fields (1984) as journalist Dith Pran, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the first actor of Asian descent to win the award and one of the only two amateur actors to win an Academy Award, following Harold Russell.

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25/02/1983

Tennessee Williams, American playwright, and poet (born 1911)

Thomas Lanier Williams III, known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.

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25/02/1980

Robert Hayden, American poet and academic (born 1913)

Robert Hayden was an American poet, essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was the first African-American writer to hold the office.

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25/02/1978

Daniel James, Jr., American general and pilot (born 1920)

Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force who, in 1975, became the first African American to reach the rank of four-star general in the United States Armed Forces. Three years later, James was forced to retire prematurely due to heart issues, just weeks before dying of a heart attack.

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25/02/1975

Elijah Muhammad, American religious leader (born 1897)

Elijah Muhammad was an American religious leader who led the Nation of Islam from 1933 until his death in 1975. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam grew from a small Detroit-based movement into a nationwide organization with tens of thousands of members in the United States during the civil rights movement, promoting black nationalism and a distinctive theology that white people are a race of "devils" created by an evil black Meccan scientist named Yakub, and that there are multiple gods, each a black man named Allah, whom he is the messenger of.

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25/02/1972

Gottfried Fuchs, German-Canadian Olympic soccer player (born 1889)

Gottfried Erik Fuchs, also known as Godfrey Fuchs, was a German Olympic footballer. He scored a then-world record 10 goals for the Germany national team in a 16–0 win against Russia at the 1912 Olympics. He left Germany to escape the Holocaust, as he was Jewish, and ultimately emigrated to Canada.

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25/02/1971

Theodor Svedberg, Swedish chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1884)

Theodor Svedberg was a Swedish chemist and Nobel laureate for his research on colloids and proteins using the ultracentrifuge. Svedberg was active at Uppsala University from the mid-1900s to late 1940s. While at Uppsala, Svedberg started as a docent before becoming the university's physical chemistry head in 1912. After leaving Uppsala in 1949, Svedberg was in charge of the Gustaf Werner Institute until 1967. Apart from his 1926 Nobel Prize, Svedberg was named a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1944 and became part of the National Academy of Sciences in 1945.

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25/02/1970

Mark Rothko, Latvian-American painter and academic (born 1903)

Mark Rothko was an American abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular regions of color, which he produced from 1949 to 1970. Although Rothko did not personally subscribe to any one school, he is associated with the American abstract expressionism movement of modern art.

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25/02/1964

Alexander Archipenko, Ukrainian sculptor and illustrator (born 1887)

Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles of Cubism to architecture, analyzing human figures into geometrical forms.

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Grace Metalious, American author (born 1924)

Grace Metalious was an American author known for her novel Peyton Place, one of the best selling works in publishing history.

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25/02/1963

Melville J. Herskovits, American anthropologist and academic (born 1895)

Melville Jean Herskovits was an American anthropologist who helped to first establish African and African Diaspora studies in American academia. He is known for exploring the cultural continuity from African cultures as expressed in African-American communities. He worked with his wife Frances (Shapiro) Herskovits, also an anthropologist, in the field in South America, the Caribbean and Africa. They jointly wrote several books and monographs.

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25/02/1957

Mark Aldanov, Russian author and critic (born 1888)

Mark Aldanov was a Russian and later French writer and critic, known for his historical novels.

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Bugs Moran, American mob boss (born 1893)

George Clarence "Bugs" Moran was an American Chicago Prohibition-era gangster. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Seven members of his gang were gunned down and killed in a warehouse in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of February 14, 1929, supposedly on the orders of his rival Al Capone.

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25/02/1954

Joseph Beech, American Methodist missionary and educator (born 1867)

Joseph Beech, or Joe Beech as he was more commonly known, was an American Methodist missionary and educator, member of Psi Upsilon and Phi Beta Kappa, and founding president of the West China Union University. He was a recipient of the Order of Brilliant Jade.

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25/02/1953

Sergei Winogradsky, Ukrainian-Russian microbiologist and ecologist (born 1856)

Sergei Nikolaevich Winogradsky (Russian: Сергей Николаевич Виноградский; Ukrainian: Сергій Миколайович Виноградський; 13 September [O.S. 1 September] 1856 – 24 February 1953), also published under the name Sergius Winogradsky, was a Ukrainian and Russian microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist who pioneered the cycle-of-life concept. Winogradsky discovered the first known form of lithotrophy during his research with Beggiatoa in 1887. He reported that Beggiatoa oxidized hydrogen sulfide (H2S) as an energy source and formed intracellular sulfur droplets. This research provided the first example of lithotrophy, but not autotrophy. Born in the capital of present-day Ukraine, his legacy is also celebrated by this nation.

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25/02/1950

George Minot, American physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1885)

George Richards Minot was an American medical researcher who shared the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George Hoyt Whipple and William P. Murphy for their pioneering work on pernicious anemia.

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25/02/1945

Mário de Andrade, Brazilian author, poet, and photographer (born 1893)

Mário Raul de Morais Andrade was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry, Paulicéia Desvairada, published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.

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25/02/1934

Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, American botanist and academic (born 1857)

Elizabeth Gertrude Britton was an American botanist, bryologist, and educator. She and her husband, Nathaniel Lord Britton, played a significant role in the fundraising and creation of the New York Botanical Garden. She was a co-founder of the precursor body to the American Bryological and Lichenological Society. She was an activist for the protection of wildflowers, inspiring local chapter activities and the passage of legislation. Elizabeth Britton made major contributions to the literature of mosses, publishing 170 papers in that field.

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John McGraw, American baseball player and manager (born 1873)

John Joseph McGraw was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager who was for almost thirty years manager of the New York Giants. He was also the third baseman of the pennant-winning 1890s Baltimore Orioles teams, noted for their innovative, aggressive play.

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25/02/1928

William O'Brien, Irish journalist and politician (born 1852)

William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was particularly associated with the campaigns for land reform in Ireland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as his conciliatory approach to attaining Irish Home Rule.

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25/02/1920

Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy, French archaeologist and engineer (born 1844)

Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy was a French archaeologist, noted for his excavations at Susa in 1885 and for his work, L'Art antique de la Perse.

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25/02/1915

Charles Edwin Bessey, American botanist, author, and academic (born 1845)

Charles Edwin Bessey was an American botanist.

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25/02/1914

John Tenniel, English illustrator (born 1820)

Sir John Tenniel was an English illustrator, graphic humourist and political cartoonist prominent in the second half of the 19th century. An alumnus of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, he was knighted for artistic achievements in 1893, the first such honour ever bestowed on an illustrator or cartoonist. According to the V&A, "his intelligent, detailed style elevated the fame and standing of cartoonists immeasurably."

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25/02/1912

William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (born 1852)

William IV was Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 17 November 1905 until his death in 1912. He succeeded his father, Adolphe. Like his father, William did not participate in politics, despite being vested with considerable power by the Constitution.

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25/02/1911

Friedrich Spielhagen, German author, theorist, and translator (born 1829)

Friedrich Spielhagen was a German novelist, literary theorist and translator. He tried a number of careers in his early 20s, but at 25 began writing and translating. His best known novel is Sturmflut and his novel In Reih' und Glied was quite successful in Russia.

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25/02/1910

Worthington Whittredge, American painter and educator (born 1820)

Thomas Worthington Whittredge was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Robinson Gifford. He traveled widely and excelled at landscape painting, many examples of which are now in major museums. He served as president of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1875 and was a member of the selection committees for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition, both important venues for artists of the day.

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25/02/1906

Anton Arensky, Russian pianist and composer (born 1861)

Anton Stepanovich Arensky was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music.

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25/02/1899

Paul Reuter, German-English journalist and businessman, founded Reuters (born 1816)

Paul Julius Reuter, later ennobled as Freiherr von Reuter, was a German-born British entrepreneur who was a pioneer of telegraphy and news reporting. He was a reporter, media owner, and the founder of the Reuters news agency, which became part of the Thomson Reuters conglomerate in 2008.

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25/02/1878

Townsend Harris, American merchant, politician, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Japan (born 1804)

Townsend Harris was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the Harris Treaty between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened Shogunate Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period.

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25/02/1877

Jung Bahadur Rana, Nepalese ruler (born 1816)

Jung Bahadur Rana,, was the Prime Minister of Nepal and the 1st maharaja of Lamjung and Kaski. He was born Bir Narsingh Kunwar (1817-1877). His mother, Ganesh Kumari, was the daughter of Kaji Nain Singh Thapa, the brother of Mukhtiyar Bhimsen Thapa from the prominent Thapa dynasty of Chhetri clan. During his lifetime, Jung Bahadur eliminated factional fighting at court, removed his family's rivals such as the Pandes and Basnyats, introduced innovations in the bureaucracy and judiciary, and made efforts to modernize Nepal. He is considered a significant figure in Nepalese history. Some modern historians blame Jung Bahadur for initiating a dark period in Nepalese history marked by an oppressive dictatorship that lasted 104 years, while others attribute this period to his nephews, the Shumsher Ranas. Rana's rule is often associated with tyranny, debauchery, economic exploitation, and religious persecution.

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25/02/1870

Henrik Hertz, Danish poet and playwright (born 1797)

Henrik Hertz was a Danish poet.

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25/02/1865

Otto Ludwig, German author, playwright, and critic (born 1813)

Otto Ludwig was a German dramatist, novelist and critic born in Eisfeld in Thuringia. He was one of Germany's first modern realists and one of the most notable dramatists of the period.

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25/02/1852

Thomas Moore, Irish poet and lyricist (born 1779)

Thomas Moore was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist, widely regarded in his lifetime as Ireland's "national bard". The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his Irish Melodies. In these, Moore set to old Irish tunes verses that spoke to a narrative of Irish dispossession, loss, and resistance. With his romantic work Lalla Rookh (1817), in which these same themes are explored in an elaborate orientalist allegory, Moore achieved wider critical recognition. Translated into several languages, and adapted and arranged for musical performance by, among others, Robert Schumann, the chivalric verse-narrative established Moore as one of the leading exemplars of European romanticism.

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25/02/1850

Daoguang Emperor of China (born 1782)

The Daoguang Emperor, also known by his temple name Emperor Xuanzong of Qing, personal name Minning, was the seventh emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign was marked by "external disaster and internal rebellion". These include the First Opium War and the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion which nearly brought down the dynasty. The historian Jonathan Spence characterizes the Daoguang Emperor as a "well meaning but ineffective man" who promoted officials who "presented a purist view even if they had nothing to say about the domestic and foreign problems surrounding the dynasty".

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25/02/1841

Philip P. Barbour, American lawyer, judge, and politician, 12th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (born 1783)

Philip Pendleton Barbour was the tenth speaker of the United States House of Representatives and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is the only individual to serve in both positions.

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25/02/1822

William Pinkney, American politician and diplomat, 7th United States Attorney General (born 1764)

William Pinkney was an American statesman and diplomat, and was appointed the seventh U.S. attorney general by President James Madison.

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25/02/1819

Francisco Manoel de Nascimento, Portuguese-French poet and educator (born 1734)

Francisco Manoel de Nascimento, better known by the literary name of Filinto Elísio, bestowed on him by the Marquise of Alorna, was a Portuguese poet and the reputed son of a Lisbon boat-owner.

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25/02/1805

Thomas Pownall, English politician, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (born 1722)

Thomas Pownall was a British colonial administrator and politician. He was governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1757 to 1760, and afterwards sat in the House of Commons from 1767 to 1780. He travelled widely in British North America prior to the American Revolutionary War, opposed Parliamentary attempts to tax the colonies, and was a minority advocate of colonial positions until the Revolution.

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25/02/1796

Samuel Seabury, American bishop (born 1729)

Samuel Seabury was the first American Episcopal bishop, the second Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and the first Bishop of Connecticut. He was a leading Loyalist in New York City during the American Revolution and a known rival of Alexander Hamilton.

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25/02/1756

Eliza Haywood, English actress and poet (born 1693)

Eliza Haywood, was an English writer, actress and publisher. An increase in interest and recognition of Haywood's literary works began in the 1980s. Described as "prolific even by the standards of a prolific age", Haywood wrote and published over 70 works in her lifetime, including fiction, drama, translations, poetry, conduct literature and periodicals. Haywood today is studied primarily as one of the 18th-century founders of the novel in English. She is especially famous for her novel Love in Excess (1719-20).

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25/02/1723

Christopher Wren, English architect, designed St Paul's Cathedral (born 1632)

Sir Christopher Wren FRS was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who is one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.

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25/02/1713

Frederick I of Prussia (born 1657)

Frederick I, of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Elector of Brandenburg (1688–1713) and Duke of Prussia in personal union (Brandenburg–Prussia). The latter function he upgraded to royalty, becoming the first King in Prussia (1701–1713). From 1707 he was also Prince of Neuchâtel.

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25/02/1710

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, French soldier and explorer (born 1639)

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut was a French soldier and explorer who is the first European known to have visited the area where the city of Duluth, Minnesota, United States, is now located and the head of Lake Superior in Minnesota. His name is sometimes anglicized as "DuLuth", and he is the namesake of Duluth, Minnesota, as well as Duluth, Georgia. Daniel Greysolon signed himself "Dulhut" on surviving manuscripts.

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25/02/1682

Alessandro Stradella, Italian composer (born 1639)

Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.

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25/02/1655

Daniël Heinsius, Flemish poet and scholar (born 1580)

Daniel Heinsius was one of the most famous scholars of the Dutch Renaissance.

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25/02/1636

Santorio Santorio, Italian biologist (born 1561)

Santorio Santorio whose real name was Santorio Santori better known in English as Sanctorius of Padua was an Italian physiologist, physician, and professor, who introduced the quantitative approach into the life sciences and is considered the father of experimental physiology. He is also known as the inventor of several medical devices. His work De Statica Medicina, written in 1614, saw many publications and influenced generations of physicians.

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25/02/1634

Albrecht von Wallenstein, Austrian general and politician (born 1583)

Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, also von Waldstein, was a Bohemian military leader, statesman and a major figure of the Thirty Years' War, fighting on the Catholic side as supreme commander of the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. His successful martial career made him one of the richest and most influential men in the Holy Roman Empire by the time of his death. He is considered one of the most important military leaders produced by the early modern period.

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25/02/1601

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (born 1566)

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex was an English army officer who was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I.

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25/02/1547

Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara (born 1490)

Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, was an Italian noblewoman and poet. As an educated and married noblewoman whose husband was in captivity, Colonna was able to develop relationships within the intellectual circles of Ischia and Naples. Her early poetry began to attract attention in the late 1510s and she ultimately became one of the most popular poets of 16th-century Italy. Upon the early death of her husband, she took refuge at a convent in Rome. She remained a laywoman but experienced a strong spiritual renewal and remained devoutly religious for the rest of her life.

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25/02/1536

Berchtold Haller, German-Swiss theologian and reformer (born 1492)

Berchtold Haller was a German Protestant reformer. He was the reformer of the city of Bern, Switzerland, where the Reformation received little to none opposition.

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25/02/1522

William Lily, English scholar and educator (born 1468)

William Lily was an English classical grammarian and scholar. He was an author of the most widely used Latin grammar textbook in England and was the first high master of St Paul's School, London.

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25/02/1099

Anselm of Ribemont, Frankish nobleman and participant of the First Crusade

Anselm of Ribemont was a Frankish noblemen from Flanders and a participant in the First Crusade. His letters to archbishop Manasses II of Reims are key pieces of eyewitness accounts to the First Crusade.

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25/02/0891

Fujiwara no Mototsune, Japanese regent (born 836)

Fujiwara no Mototsune , also known as Horikawa Daijin (堀川大臣), was a Japanese statesman, courtier and aristocrat of the early Heian period. He was the first kampaku, a regent of an adult emperor, in Japanese history.

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25/02/0806

Tarasios, patriarch of Constantinople

Tarasios of Constantinople was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 25 December 784 until his death on 25 February 806.

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