Died on Wednesday, 4th February – Famous Deaths

04/02/2025

Aga Khan IV, 49th Imam of the Nizari Isma'ili community (born 1936)

Shah Karim al-Hussaini, known simply as Aga Khan IV, was the 49th Imam of Nizari Isma'ili Shia Islam from 1957 until his death in 2025. He inherited the Nizari imamate and the title of Aga Khan at the age of 20 upon the death of his grandfather, Sultan Muhammad Shah. During his Imamate, he was also known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Isma'ili followers.

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04/02/2024

Barry John, Welsh rugby player (born 1945)

Barry John was a Welsh rugby union fly-half who played in the 1960s and early 1970s during the amateur era of the sport. John began his rugby career as a schoolboy playing for his local team Cefneithin RFC before switching to the first-class west Wales team Llanelli RFC in 1964. Whilst at Llanelli, John was selected for the Wales national team—as a replacement for David Watkins—to face a touring Australian team.

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04/02/2023

Vani Jairam, Indian playback singer (born 1945)

Vani Jairam was an Indian playback singer in Indian cinema. She is referred to as the "Meera of modern India" Vani's career started in 1971 and has spanned over five decades. She did playback for over one thousand Indian movies recording over 20,000 songs. In addition, she recorded thousands of devotionals and private albums and also participated in numerous solo concerts in India and abroad.

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Sherif Ismail, 53rd Prime Minister of Egypt (born 1955)

Sherif Ismail was an Egyptian engineer and politician who served as the 53rd prime minister of Egypt from 2015 to 2018. He was also the minister of petroleum and mineral resources from 2013 to 2015.

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04/02/2022

Kim In-hyeok, South Korean volleyball player (born 1995)

Kim In-hyeok was a South Korean indoor volleyball player. He played as an outside hitter for Suwon KEPCO Vixtorm from 2017 to 2020 and Daejeon Samsung Fire Bluefangs from 2020 until his death in 2022.

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04/02/2021

Millie Hughes-Fulford, American astronaut, molecular biologist and NASA payload specialist (born 1945)

Millie Elizabeth Hughes-Fulford was an American medical investigator, molecular biologist, and payload specialist who flew aboard the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia in June 1991.

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04/02/2020

Daniel arap Moi, Former President of Kenya (born 1924)

Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was a Kenyan politician who served as the second president of Kenya from 1978 to 2002. He is the country's longest-serving president to date. Moi previously served as the third vice president of Kenya from 1967 to 1978 under President Jomo Kenyatta, becoming the president following the latter's death.

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04/02/2019

Matti Nykänen, Finnish Olympic-winning ski jumper and singer (born 1963)

Matti Ensio Nykänen was a Finnish ski jumper who competed from 1981 to 1991. Known as "The Flying Finn", he is one of the most successful ski jumpers of all time, having won five Winter Olympic medals, nine World Championship medals, and 22 Finnish Championship medals. Most notably, he won three gold medals at the 1988 Winter Olympics, becoming, along with Yvonne van Gennip of the Netherlands, the most medaled athlete that winter.

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04/02/2018

John Mahoney, English-American actor, voice artist, and comedian (born 1940)

Charles John Mahoney was an English-born American actor. He played retired police officer Martin Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier from 1993 to 2004, receiving nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards.

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04/02/2017

Steve Lang, Canadian bass player (born 1949)

Stephen Keith Lang was a Canadian bassist best known for his time and work with the rock band April Wine from 1976 to 1984 during the band's most successful years.

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Bano Qudsia, Pakistani writer (born 1928)

Bano Qudsia, also known as Bano Aapa, was a Pakistani novelist, playwright and spiritualist. She wrote literature in Urdu, producing novels, dramas plays and short stories. Qudsia is best recognized for her novel Raja Gidh. Qudsia also wrote for television and stage in both Urdu and Punjabi languages. Her play Aadhi Baat has been called "a classic play." Bano Qudsia died in Lahore on 4 February 2017.

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04/02/2016

Edgar Mitchell, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (born 1930)

Edgar Dean Mitchell was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine hours working on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region, and was the sixth person to walk on the Moon. He was the second Freemason to set foot on the Moon, after Buzz Aldrin.

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04/02/2015

Fitzhugh L. Fulton, American colonel and pilot (born 1925)

Fitzhugh L. "Fitz" Fulton, Jr., , was a civilian research pilot at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, from August 1, 1966, until July 3, 1986, following 23 years of distinguished service as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.

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04/02/2014

Keith Allen, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and manager (born 1923)

Courtney Keith "Bingo" Allen was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman and National Hockey League (NHL) head coach and general manager. He played 28 games in the NHL for the Detroit Red Wings during the 1953–54 and 1954–55 seasons. The rest of his career, which lasted from 1941 to 1957, was spent in various minor leagues.

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Eugenio Corti, Italian soldier, author, and playwright (born 1921)

Eugenio Corti was an Italian writer born in Besana in Brianza. After participating in the Italian retreat from Russia in World War II, and a period of recovery, he joined the regular Italian army in southern Italy, to fight the Germans along with the Allies. Based on these experiences, he wrote Few Returned and The Last Soldiers of the King. His seminal work, however, is The Red Horse, a 1000-page novel again based on his experiences and those of his fellow Italians during and after the Second World War. It was voted the best book of the 1980s in a public survey in Italy and has been translated into eight languages, including Japanese. It has had thirty-four editions since it was first published in May 1983.

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Dennis Lota, Zambian footballer (born 1973)

Dennis Lota was a Zambian football striker.

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04/02/2013

Donald Byrd, American trumpet player (born 1932)

Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, composer and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop musicians who successfully explored funk and soul while remaining a jazz artist. As a bandleader, Byrd was an influence on the early career of Herbie Hancock and many others.

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Reg Presley, English singer-songwriter (born 1941)

Reginald Maurice Ball, known professionally as Reg Presley, was an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer with the 1960s rock and roll band the Troggs, whose hits included "Wild Thing" and "With a Girl Like You". He wrote the song "Love Is All Around", which was featured in the films Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually.

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04/02/2012

István Csurka, Hungarian journalist and politician (born 1934)

István Csurka was a Hungarian nationalist politician, journalist and writer. He was the founder and inaugural leader of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP) from 1993 until his death. He was also a Member of Parliament from 1990 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2002.

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Florence Green, English soldier (born 1901)

Florence Beatrice Green was an English woman who is thought to have been the last surviving veteran of the First World War from any country. She was a member of the Women's Royal Air Force.

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Robert Daniel, American farmer, soldier, and politician (born 1936)

Robert Williams Daniel, Jr. was an American farmer, businessman, teacher, and politician from Virginia who served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican. He was first elected in 1972 and served until 1983.

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Mike deGruy, American director, producer, and cinematographer (born 1951)

Michael V. deGruy was an American documentary filmmaker specializing in underwater cinematography. His credits include Life in the Freezer, Trials of Life, The Blue Planet and Pacific Abyss. He was also known for his storytelling, including a passionate TED talk about his love of the ocean on the Mission Blue Voyage. His company, Film Crew Inc., specialized in underwater cinematography, filming for the BBC, PBS, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel. His notable accomplishments include diving beneath thermal vents in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He was a member of many deep sea expeditions and was a part of the team that first filmed the vampire squid and the nautilus.

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Susanne Suba, Hungarian-born watercolorist and illustrator, active in the United States (born 1913)

Susanne Suba (1913–2012) was a Hungarian-born watercolorist and illustrator, active in the United States.

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04/02/2011

Martial Célestin, Haitian lawyer and politician, first Prime Minister of Haiti (born 1913)

Martial Lavaud Célestin was named Prime Minister of Haïti by President Leslie Manigat in February 1988 under the provisions of the 1987 Constitution, and was approved by the Parliament that formed as a result of the January 17, 1988 elections. He was deposed by the June 20, 1988 coup d'état. He was born in Ganthier and was a lawyer by profession. Célestin died on February 4, 2011, at the age of 97.

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04/02/2010

Kostas Axelos, Greek-French philosopher and author (born 1924)

Kostas Axelos was a Greek-French philosopher.

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Helen Tobias-Duesberg, Estonian-American composer (born 1919)

Helen Tobias-Duesberg was an Estonian-American composer.

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04/02/2008

Augusta Dabney, American actress (born 1918)

Augusta Keith Dabney was an American actress known for her roles on many soap operas, such as the wealthy but kindly matriarch Isabelle Alden on the daytime series Loving. She played the role from 1983 to 1987, from 1988 to 1991, and again from 1994 to 1995.

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Stefan Meller, Polish academic and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland (born 1942)

Stefan Meller was a Polish diplomat and academician. He served as foreign minister of Poland from 31 October 2005, to 9 May 2006, in the cabinet of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

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04/02/2007

José Carlos Bauer, Brazilian footballer and manager (born 1925)

José Carlos Bauer, commonly known as Bauer, was a Brazilian football player and manager who played as a midfielder.

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Ilya Kormiltsev, Russian-English poet and translator (born 1959)

Ilya Valeryevich Kormiltsev was a Russian poet, translator, and publisher. Kormiltsev is most famous for working during the 1980s and the 1990s as a songwriter in Nautilus Pompilius, one of the most popular rock bands in the Soviet Union and, later, Russia. He was also a prominent literary translator and publisher. Since 1997, he translated into Russian many important pieces of modern prose, such as Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, or Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. In 2003, he established Ultra.Kultura publishing house, which immediately gained a scandalous reputation and was closed by the authorities in 2007. Through its brief history, Ultra.Kultura published numerous counter-culture books in a wide range from ultra-right to radical left authors.

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Barbara McNair, American singer and actress (born 1934)

Barbara Jean McNair (March 4, 1934 – February 4, 2007) was an American singer and theater, television, and film actress. McNair's career spanned over five decades in television, film, and stage. McNair's professional career began in music during the late 1950s, singing in the nightclub circuit. In 1958, McNair released "Till There Was You", her debut single for Coral Records, which was a commercial success. McNair performed all around the world, touring with Nat King Cole and later appearing in his Broadway stage shows I'm with You and The Merry World of Nat King Cole in the early 1960s.

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Jules Olitski, Ukrainian-American painter and sculptor (born 1922)

Jevel Demikovski, known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor.

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Alfred Worm, Austrian journalist, author, and academic (born 1945)

Alfred Worm was an Austrian journalist, author and vocational high school teacher.

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04/02/2006

Betty Friedan, American author and activist (born 1921)

Betty Friedan was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. In 1966, Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men."

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04/02/2005

Ossie Davis, American actor, director, and playwright (born 1917)

Ossie Davis was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, from 1948 until his death. He received numerous accolades including an Emmy, a Grammy and a Writers Guild of America Award as well as nominations for four additional Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and Tony Award. Davis was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994 and received the National Medal of Arts in 1995, then Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.

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04/02/2004

Hilda Hilst, Brazilian poet, novelist, and playwright (born 1930)

Hilda de Almeida Prado Hilst was a Brazilian poet, novelist, and playwright. Her work touches on the themes of mysticism, insanity, the body, eroticism, and female sexual liberation. Hilst greatly revered the work of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, and the influence of their styles—like stream of consciousness and fractured reality—is evident in her own work.

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04/02/2003

Benyoucef Benkhedda, Algerian pharmacist and politician (born 1920)

Benyoucef Benkhedda was an Algerian politician. He headed the third GPRA exile government of the National Liberation Front (FLN), acting as a leader during the Algerian War (1954–62). At the end of the war, he was briefly the de jure leader of the country, however he was quickly sidelined by more conservative figures.

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04/02/2002

Count Sigvard Bernadotte of Wisborg (born 1907)

Sigvard Oscar Fredrik, Prince Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg born as, and until 1934 known as, Prince Sigvard of Sweden, Duke of Uppland, was a member of the Swedish Royal Family and a successful industrial designer.

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04/02/2000

Carl Albert, American lawyer and politician, 54th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (born 1908)

Carl Bert Albert was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 46th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and represented Oklahoma's 3rd congressional district as a Democrat from 1947 to 1977.

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04/02/1995

Patricia Highsmith, American novelist and short story writer (born 1921)

Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories in a career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing was influenced by existentialist literature and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene.

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04/02/1992

John Dehner, American actor (born 1915)

John Dehner Forkum was an American actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list of performance credits, often in roles as sophisticated con men, shady authority figures, and other smooth-talking villains. His credits just in feature films, televised series, and in made-for-TV movies number almost 300 productions.

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04/02/1990

Whipper Billy Watson, Canadian-American wrestler and trainer (born 1915)

William John Potts, was a Canadian professional wrestler best known by his ring name "Whipper" Billy Watson. He was a two-time world champion, having held both the National Wrestling Association title and the National Wrestling Alliance title. On February 21, 1947, he became the first man to win a world heavyweight wrestling championship on TV.

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04/02/1987

Liberace, American singer-songwriter and pianist, (born 1919)

Władziu Valentino Liberace was an American pianist, singer, and actor. He was born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin and enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordings, television, motion pictures, and endorsements. At the height of his fame, from the 1950s to 1970s, he was the highest-paid entertainer in the world, with established concert residencies in Las Vegas and an international touring schedule.

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Meena Keshwar Kamal, Afghan activist, founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (born 1956)

Meena Keshwar Kamal, commonly known as Meena, was an Afghan revolutionary political activist, women's rights activist, and founder of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). She was assassinated in 1987.

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Carl Rogers, American psychologist and academic (born 1902)

Carl Ransom Rogers was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of humanistic psychology and was known especially for his person-centered psychotherapy. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research and was honored for his research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1956.

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04/02/1983

Karen Carpenter, American singer (born 1950)

Karen Anne Carpenter was an American musician who was the lead vocalist and drummer of the highly successful duo the Carpenters, formed with her older brother Richard. With a distinctive three-octave contralto range, she was praised by her peers for her vocal skills. Carpenter appeared on Rolling Stone's 2010 list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.

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04/02/1982

Alex Harvey, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1935)

Alexander James Harvey was a Scottish rock and blues musician. Although his career spanned almost three decades, he is best remembered as the frontman of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, with whom he built a reputation as an exciting live performer during the era of glam rock in the 1970s.

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Georg Konrad Morgen, German lawyer and judge (born 1909)

Georg Konrad Morgen was a German SS Investigating Judge and Reich Police Official who investigated members of the SS for corruption and murder, especially in the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. He rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major). After the war, Morgen served as witness at several anti-Nazi trials and continued his legal career in Frankfurt.

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04/02/1975

Louis Jordan, American singer-songwriter and saxophonist (born 1908)

Louis Thomas Jordan was an American jazz, blues and jump blues saxophonist, vocalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "the King of the Jukebox", he earned his highest profile towards the end of the swing era.

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04/02/1974

Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian physicist, mathematician, and academic (born 1894)

Satyendra Nath Bose was an Indian theoretical physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, in developing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics, and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1954 by the Government of India.

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04/02/1970

Louise Bogan, American poet and critic (born 1897)

Louise Bogan was an American poet. She was appointed the fourth Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945, and was the first woman to hold this title. Throughout her life she wrote poetry, fiction, and criticism, and became the regular poetry reviewer for The New Yorker.

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04/02/1968

Neal Cassady, American novelist and poet (born 1926)

Neal Leon Cassady was an American writer who was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.

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04/02/1959

Una O'Connor, Irish-American actress (born 1880)

Una O'Connor was an Irish-born American actress who worked extensively in theatre before becoming a character actress in film and in television. She often portrayed comical wives, housekeepers and servants. In 2020, she was listed at number 19 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

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04/02/1958

Henry Kuttner, American author and screenwriter (born 1915)

Henry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.

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04/02/1956

Savielly Tartakower, Russian-French chess player, journalist, and author (born 1887)

Savielly Tartakower was a Austro-Hungarian by birth, then Polish, later naturalised French chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster in its inaugural year, 1950. Tartakower was also a leading chess journalist and author of the 1920s and 1930s and is noted for his many witticisms.

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04/02/1944

Arsen Kotsoyev, Russian author and translator (born 1872)

Arsen Kotsoyev was one of the founders of Ossetic prose, who had a large influence on the formation of the modern Ossetic language and its functional styles. He participated in all of the first Ossetic periodicals, and was one of the most notable Ossetian publicists.

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04/02/1943

Frank Calder, English-Canadian ice hockey player and journalist (born 1877)

Frank Sellick Calder was a British-born Canadian ice hockey executive, journalist, and athlete.

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04/02/1940

Nikolai Yezhov, Russian police officer and politician (born 1895)

Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, at the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture, and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell out of favour with Stalin and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge.

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04/02/1936

Wilhelm Gustloff, German-Swiss soldier, founded Swiss NSDAP/AO (born 1895)

Wilhelm Gustloff was a German politician and meteorologist who founded the Swiss branch of the Nazi Party/Foreign Organization (NSDAP/AO) at Davos in 1932. The NSDAP/AO was formed as the wing of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) for German citizens living outside Germany. Gustloff continued to lead the Swiss branch of the NSDAP/AO until 1936, when he was assassinated by David Frankfurter, a Croatian Jew who was outraged by the growth of the Nazi Party. After killing Gustloff, Frankfurter immediately surrendered to the authorities and confessed to the Swiss police that "I fired the shots because I am a Jew."

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04/02/1933

Archibald Sayce, English linguist and educator (born 1846)

Archibald Henry Sayce was a pioneer British Assyriologist and linguist, who held a chair as Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford from 1891 to 1919. He was able to write in at least twenty ancient and modern languages, and was known for his emphasis on the importance of archaeological and monumental evidence in linguistic research. He was a contributor to articles in the 9th, 10th and 11th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

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04/02/1928

Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1853)

Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was a Dutch theoretical physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for their discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He derived the Lorentz transformation of the special theory of relativity, as well as the Lorentz force, which describes the force acting on a charged particle in an electromagnetic field. He was also responsible for the Lorentz oscillator model, a classical model used to describe the anomalous dispersion observed in dielectric materials when the driving frequency of the electric field was near the resonant frequency of the material, resulting in abnormal refractive indices.

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04/02/1926

İskilipli Âtıf Hodja, Turkish author and scholar (born 1875)

Mehmed Âtıf Hoca was a Turkish Islamist. He was born in the village of Toyhane, in the district of Bayat, Çorum Province, in the Ottoman Empire and went to school there. After a couple of years as an imam in İskilip in 1893 he went to Istanbul to continue his education, first at a medrese and from 1902 at Darü'l-fünun Faculty of Divinity. He graduated in 1903 and took a job teaching as Ders-i Amm (Ulama), at the madrasah in the Fatih Mosque, Istanbul. He was later arrested and jailed several times, but freed. He and Mustafa Sabri were the founding members of Cemiyet-i Müderrisin. They were fiercely against the national government in Ankara which led the Turks to the Turkish War of Independence. His father was a Turk from the Akkoyunlu Bayındır tribe, while his mother was an Arab originally from Hijaz.

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04/02/1912

Franz Reichelt, French tailor and inventor (born 1878)

Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, was an Austro-Hungarian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor. He is remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design, a device that today might be called a wingsuit. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft in mid-air. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.

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04/02/1905

Louis-Ernest Barrias, French sculptor and academic (born 1841)

Louis-Ernest Barrias was a French sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school. In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome.

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04/02/1891

Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos, Roman Catholic archbishop and Mexican politician who served as regent during the Second Mexican Empire (born 1816)

José Antonio Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos was a Roman Catholic Mexican prelate, lawyer, and doctor of canon law. He notably served as the Archbishop of Mexico (1863-1891), and was a regent of the Second Mexican Empire (1863) until eventually being dismissed from the position and replaced by Juan Bautista Ormaechea.

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04/02/1843

Theodoros Kolokotronis, Greek general (born 1770)

Theodoros Kolokotronis was a Greek general and the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) against the Ottoman Empire.

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04/02/1799

Étienne-Louis Boullée, French architect and educator (born 1728)

Étienne-Louis Boullée was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects.

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04/02/1781

Josef Mysliveček, Czech composer (born 1737)

Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer. He contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music. Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant compositional models in the genres of symphony, Italian serious opera, and violin concerto; both Wolfgang and his father Leopold Mozart considered him an intimate friend from the time of their first meetings in Bologna in 1770 until he betrayed their trust over the promise of an operatic commission for Wolfgang to be arranged with the management of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. His closeness to the Mozart family resulted in frequent references to him in the Mozart correspondence.

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04/02/1774

Charles Marie de La Condamine, French mathematician and geographer (born 1701)

Charles Marie de La Condamine was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician. He spent ten years in territory which is now Ecuador, measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the equator and preparing the first map of the Amazon region based on astro-geodetic observations. Furthermore he was a contributor to the Encyclopédie.

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04/02/1713

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, English philosopher and politician (born 1671)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury was an English Whig politician, philosopher and writer.

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04/02/1617

Lodewijk Elzevir, Dutch publisher, co-founded the House of Elzevir (born 1546)

Lodewijk Elzevir, originally Lodewijk or Louis Elsevier or Elzevier, was a printer, born in the city of Leuven. He was the founder of the House of Elzevir, which printed works such as "Two New Sciences", written by Galileo, at a time when his work was suppressed for religious reasons. Although the House of Elzevir ceased publishing in 1712, the modern Dutch Elsevier company was founded in 1880 and took its name from the historic Dutch publishing house.

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04/02/1615

Giambattista della Porta, Italian playwright and scholar (born 1535)

Giambattista della Porta, also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar, polymath and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution and Counter-Reformation.

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04/02/1590

Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian composer and theorist (born 1517)

Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.

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04/02/1555

John Rogers, English clergyman and translator (born 1505)

John Rogers was an English clergyman, Bible translator and commentator. He guided the development of the Matthew Bible in vernacular English during the reign of Henry VIII and was the first English Protestant executed as a heretic under Mary I.

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04/02/1508

Conrad Celtes, German poet and scholar (born 1459)

Conrad Celtes was a German Renaissance humanist scholar and poet of the German Renaissance born in Franconia. He led the theatrical performances at the Viennese court and reformed the syllabi.

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04/02/1505

Jeanne de Valois, daughter of Louis XI of France (born 1464)

Joan of France, sometimes called Joan the Lame, was briefly Queen of France as wife of King Louis XII, in between the death of her brother, King Charles VIII, and the annulment of her marriage. After that, she retired to her domain, where she soon founded the monastic Order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where she served as abbess. From this Order later sprang the religious congregation of the Apostolic Sisters of the Annunciation, founded in 1787 to teach the children of the poor. She was canonized on 28 May 1950.

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04/02/1498

Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Italian artist (born 1429/1433)

Antonio del Pollaiuolo, also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith, who made important works in all these media, as well as designing works in others, for example vestments, metal embroidery being a medium he worked in at the start of his career.

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04/02/1169

John of Ajello, Bishop of Catania

John of Ajello was the Bishop of Catania from November 1167 until his death. He was a brother of the chancellor Matthew of Ajello.

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04/02/0870

Ceolnoth, archbishop of Canterbury

Ceolnoth or Ceolnoþ was a medieval English Archbishop of Canterbury. Although later chroniclers stated he had previously held ecclesiastical office in Canterbury, there is no contemporary evidence of this, and his first appearance in history is when he became archbishop in 833. Ceolnoth faced two problems as archbishop – raids and invasions by the Vikings and a new political situation resulting from a change in overlordship from one kingdom to another during the early part of his archiepiscopate. Ceolnoth attempted to solve both problems by coming to an agreement with his new overlords for protection in 838. Ceolnoth's later years in office were marked by more Viking raids and a decline in monastic life in his archbishopric.

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04/02/0856

Rabanus Maurus, Frankish archbishop and theologian (born 780)

Rabanus Maurus Magnentius, also known as Hrabanus or Rhabanus, was a Frankish Benedictine monk, theologian, poet, encyclopedist and military writer who became archbishop of Mainz in East Francia. He was the author of the encyclopaedia De rerum naturis. He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible. He was one of the most prominent teachers and writers of the Carolingian age, and was called "Praeceptor Germaniae", or "the teacher of Germany". In the most recent edition of the Roman Martyrology, his feast is given as 4 February and he is qualified as a Saint ('sanctus').

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04/02/0708

Pope Sisinnius (born 650)

Pope Sisinnius was the bishop of Rome from 15 January 708 to his death on 4 February 708. Besides being Syrian and his father being named John, little is known of Sisinnius' early life or career. At the time of his election to the papal throne, Sisinnius suffered from severe gout, leaving him weak. During the course of his twenty-day papacy, Sisinnius consecrated a bishop for Corsica and ordered the reinforcement of the walls surrounding the papal capital of Rome. On his death, Sisinnius was buried in Old St. Peter's Basilica. He was succeeded by Pope Constantine.

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04/02/0211

Septimius Severus, Roman emperor (born 145)

Lucius Septimius Severus was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna, Libya in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus was the final contender to seize power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.

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