Died on Friday, 6th February – Famous Deaths

06/02/2025

Virginia Halas McCaskey, American football executive (born 1923)

Virginia Halas McCaskey was an American football executive who was the principal owner of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) from 1983 until her death in 2025. She was the daughter of team founder George Halas and inherited ownership upon his death in 1983. Under her stewardship, the team won Super Bowl XX in 1986.

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Nigel McCrery, English screenwriter, producer and writer (born 1953)

Nigel Colin McCrery was an English screenwriter, producer and writer. He was the creator of the long-running crime dramas Silent Witness (1996–present) and New Tricks (2003–2015).

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06/02/2024

Sebastian Piñera, former Chilean president (born 1949)

Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique was a Chilean businessman and politician who served as 34th and 36th president of Chile from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022. The son of a Christian Democratic politician and diplomat, he studied business administration at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and economics at Harvard University. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of US$2.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the third richest person in Chile.

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06/02/2023

Greta Andersen, Danish swimmer (born 1927)

Greta Marie Andersen was a Danish swimmer who won a gold and a silver medal in 100 m freestyle events at the 1948 Summer Olympics. In the mid-1950s she moved to the United States, where she set several world records in marathon swimming in the distances up to 50 miles.

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06/02/2022

Lata Mangeshkar, Indian singer and music composer (born 1929)

Lata Mangeshkar was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Her contribution to the Indian music industry in a career spanning eight decades gained her honorific titles such as the "Queen of Melody" and "Voice of the Millennium".

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06/02/2021

George Shultz, American politician, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor (born 1920)

George Pratt Shultz was an American economist, businessman, diplomat, and statesman who served in various positions under presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. A member of the Republican Party, he is one of the only two persons to have held four different Cabinet-level posts, the other being Elliot Richardson. As the 60th United States secretary of state, Shultz played a major role in shaping the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, and conservative foreign policy thought thereafter.

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06/02/2020

Jhon Jairo Velásquez, Colombian hitman and drug dealer (born 1962)

Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, also known by the alias "Popeye" or "JJ", was a Colombian hitman, who was part of the criminal structure of the Medellín Cartel until his surrender to the Colombian justice system in 1992. Within this structure he claimed to be a lieutenant commanding half of the sicarios.

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06/02/2019

Manfred Eigen, German Nobel Prize winning biophysical chemist (born 1927)

Manfred Eigen was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions.

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Rosamunde Pilcher, British author (born 1924)

Rosamunde E. M. L. Pilcher, OBE was a British novelist, best known for her sweeping novels set in Cornwall. Her books have sold over 60 million copies worldwide. Early in her career she was published under the pen name Jane Fraser.

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06/02/2018

Donald Lynden-Bell, English astrophysicist (born 1935)

Donald Lynden-Bell CBE FRS was a British theoretical astrophysicist. He was the first to determine that galaxies contain supermassive black holes at their centres, and that such black holes power quasars. Lynden-Bell was President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1985–1987) and received numerous awards for his work, including the inaugural Kavli Prize for Astrophysics. He worked at the University of Cambridge for his entire career, where he was the first director of its Institute of Astronomy.

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06/02/2017

Irwin Corey, American comedian and actor (born 1914)

Irwin Corey was an American stand-up comic, film actor and activist, often billed as "The World's Foremost Authority". He introduced his unscripted, improvisational style of stand-up comedy at the San Francisco club the hungry i. Lenny Bruce described Corey as "one of the most brilliant comedians of all time."

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Inge Keller, German actress (born 1923)

Inge Keller was a German stage and film actress whose career on stage and screen spanned seventy years. She was one of the most prominent performers in the former German Democratic Republic. Thomas Langhoff described her as "perhaps the most famous actress of the German Democratic Republic—a star." Deutschlandradio Kultur reporter Dieter Kranz called her "a theater legend".

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Alec McCowen, English actor (born 1925)

Alexander Duncan McCowen, was an English actor. He was known for his work in numerous film and stage productions.

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Joost van der Westhuizen, South African rugby union footballer (born 1971)

Joost van der Westhuizen was a South African professional rugby union player who made 89 appearances in test matches for the national team, scoring 38 tries. He mostly played as a scrum-half and participated in three Rugby World Cups, most notably in the 1995 tournament, which was won by South Africa. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest scrumhalves in the history of this sport.

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06/02/2016

Dan Gerson, American screenwriter (born 1966)

Daniel Robert Gerson was an American screenwriter and voice actor, best known for his work with Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He co-wrote the screenplays of Monsters, Inc., Monsters University and Big Hero 6, which was reported to be his last film as screenwriter.

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Dan Hicks, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1941)

Daniel Ivan Hicks was an American singer-songwriter and musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. He is perhaps best known for the songs "I Scare Myself" and "Canned Music". His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" His album Live at Davies (2013) capped over forty years of music.

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06/02/2015

André Brink, South African author and playwright (born 1935)

André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist, essayist and poet. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and taught English at the University of Cape Town.

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Alan Nunnelee, American lawyer and politician (born 1958)

Patrick Alan Nunnelee was an American businessman and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Mississippi's 1st congressional district from 2011 until his death in 2015. Previously he served in the Mississippi State Senate, representing the 6th district, from 1995 to 2011. He was a member of the Republican Party.

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Pedro León Zapata, Venezuelan cartoonist (born 1929)

Pedro León Zapata was a prominent Venezuelan artist, humorist and cartoonist.

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06/02/2014

Vasiľ Biľak, Slovak politician (born 1917)

RSDr. Vasiľ Biľak was a Slovak Communist politician and leader of Rusyn origin.

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Ralph Kiner, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1922)

Ralph McPherran Kiner was an American professional baseball left fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) and later a broadcaster. Kiner played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, and Cleveland Indians from 1946 through 1955.

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Maxine Kumin, American author and poet (born 1925)

Maxine Kumin was an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982.

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Vaçe Zela, Albanian-Swiss singer and guitarist (born 1939)

Vaçe Zela was an Albanian singer and songwriter. She was a leading figure in Albania's music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

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06/02/2013

Chokri Belaid, Tunisian lawyer and politician (born 1964)

Chokri Belaïd, also transliterated as Shokri Belaïd, was a Tunisian politician and lawyer who was an opposition leader with the left-secular Democratic Patriots' Movement. Belaïd was a vocal critic of the Ben Ali regime prior to the 2011 Tunisian revolution and of the then Islamist-led Tunisian government. On 6 February 2013, he was fatally shot outside his house in El Menzah, close to the Tunisian capital, Tunis. As a result of his assassination, Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali announced his plan to dissolve the existing national government and to form a temporary "national unity" government.

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Menachem Elon, German-Israeli academic and jurist (born 1923)

Menachem Elon was an Israeli jurist and Professor of Law specializing in traditional Jewish Law, an Orthodox rabbi, and a prolific author on traditional Jewish law (Halakha). He was the head of the Jewish Law Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lost the 1983 Israeli Presidential Election to Chaim Herzog.

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06/02/2012

David Rosenhan, American psychologist and academic (born 1929)

David L. Rosenhan was an American psychologist. He is known best for the Rosenhan experiment, a study challenging the validity of psychiatry diagnoses.

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Antoni Tàpies, Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1923)

Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies was a Catalan painter, sculptor, and art theorist.

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Janice E. Voss, American engineer and astronaut (born 1956)

Janice Elaine Voss was an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. Voss received her B.S. in engineering science from Purdue University, her M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT, and her PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. She flew in space five times, jointly holding the record for American women. Voss died in Arizona on February 6, 2012, from breast cancer.

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06/02/2011

Gary Moore, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1952)

Robert William Gary Moore was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career, he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal and jazz fusion.

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06/02/2009

Philip Carey, American actor (born 1925)

Philip Carey was an American actor, well-known for playing the role of Asa Buchanan on the soap opera One Life to Live for nearly three decades.

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Shirley Jean Rickert, American actress (born 1926)

Shirley Jean Rickert was an American child actress who was briefly the "blonde girl" for the Our Gang series in 1931, during the Hal Roach early talkie period.

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James Whitmore, American actor (born 1921)

James Allen Whitmore Jr. was an American actor who appeared in over 150 stage, film, and television roles over a 50-year career. He received numerous honors, notably a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. He was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actor for Battleground (1949) and Best Actor for Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1975).

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06/02/2008

Tony Rolt, English race car driver and engineer (born 1918)

Major Anthony Peter Roylance Rolt, MC & Bar, was a British racing driver, soldier and engineer. A war hero, Rolt maintained a long connection with the sport, albeit behind the scenes. The Ferguson 4WD project he was involved in paid off with spectacular results, and he was involved in other engineering projects.

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06/02/2007

Lew Burdette, American baseball player and coach (born 1926)

Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr. was an American right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played primarily for the Boston / Milwaukee Braves. The team's top right-hander during its years in Milwaukee, he was the Most Valuable Player of the 1957 World Series, leading the franchise to its first championship in 43 years, and the only title in Milwaukee history. An outstanding control pitcher, his career average of 1.84 walks per nine innings pitched places him behind only Robin Roberts (1.73), Greg Maddux (1.80), Carl Hubbell, (1.82) and Juan Marichal (1.82) among pitchers with at least 3,000 innings since 1920.

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Frankie Laine, American singer-songwriter and actor (born 1913)

Frankie Laine was an American singer and songwriter whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as "America's Number One Song Stylist", Laine's other nicknames include "Mr. Rhythm", "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils". His hits included "That's My Desire", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Mule Train", "Jezebel", "High Noon", "I Believe", "Hey Joe!", "The Kid's Last Fight", "Cool Water", "Rawhide", and "You Gave Me a Mountain".

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Willye White, American runner and long jumper (born 1939)

Willye Brown White was an American track and field athlete who took part in five Olympics from 1956 to 1972. She was America's best female long jumper of the time and also competed in the 100 meters sprint. White was a Tennessee State University Tigerbelle under Coach Ed Temple. An African-American, White was the first U.S. athlete to compete in track in five Olympics.

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06/02/2005

Karl Haas, German-American pianist, conductor, and radio host (born 1913)

Karl Haas was a German-American classical music radio host, known for his sonorous speaking voice, humanistic approach to music appreciation, and popularization of classical music. He was the host of the classical music radio program Adventures in Good Music, which was syndicated to commercial and public radio stations around the world. He also published the book Inside Music. He was a respected musicologist, as well as an accomplished pianist and conductor. In 1996, he received an honorary degree in Doctor of Letters from Oglethorpe University.

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06/02/2004

Gerald Bouey, Canadian lieutenant and economist (born 1920)

Gerald Keith Bouey was a Canadian economist who served as the fourth governor of the Bank of Canada from 1973 to 1987, succeeding Louis Rasminsky. He was succeeded by John Crow.

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06/02/2002

Max Perutz, Austrian-English biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1914)

Max Ferdinand Perutz was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes.

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06/02/2001

Filemon Lagman, Filipino theoretician and activist (born 1953)

Filemon Castelar Lagman, also known by the aliases Ka Popoy and Carlos Forte, was a Filipino revolutionary socialist and labor leader who supported Marxism-Leninism. He split with the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1991 due to ideological disagreements to form the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) and Sanlakas. He was assassinated in 2001 at the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City while working for the launch of the electoral party Partido ng Manggagawa.

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Trần Văn Lắm, South Vietnamese diplomat and politician (born 1913)

Trần Văn Lắm, also known as Charles Trần Văn Lắm, was a South Vietnamese diplomat and politician, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Vietnam under Prime Minister Trần Thiện Khiêm during the height of the Vietnam War. He was most notable for his role in the Paris Peace Accords that occurred in 1973. In the late 1950s to early 1960s he served as the South Vietnamese Ambassador to both Australia and New Zealand. Lắm served as the President of the Senate of the Republic of Vietnam from 1973 until the Fall of Saigon in 1975.

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06/02/2000

Phil Walters, American race car driver (born 1916)

Philip F. Walters was an American racing driver, who won both the 12 Hours of Sebring and Watkins Glen Grand Prix twice.

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Hani al-Rahib, Syrian novelist and literary academic (born 1939)

Hani Muhammad-Ali al-Rahib was a Syrian novelist and literary academic who wrote a number of distinguished novels. The Defeated was his first novel, which was published in 1961 when he was 22 years old. In the same year, he won the Al-Adab magazine literature award. His second novel was titled A Crack in a Long History (1970) then came A Thousand and Two Nights in 1977, followed in the early 1980s by The Epidemic, which some critics chose as one of the 100 most important Arab novels published in the twentieth century, according to Al-Faisal Magazine.

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06/02/1999

Don Dunstan, Australian lawyer and politician, 35th Premier of South Australia (born 1926)

Donald Allan Dunstan was an Australian politician who served as the 35th premier of South Australia from 1967 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1979. He was a member of the House of Assembly (MHA) for the division of Norwood from 1953 to 1979, and leader of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party from 1967 to 1979. Before becoming premier, Dunstan served as the 38th attorney-general of South Australia and the treasurer of South Australia. He is the fourth longest serving premier in South Australian history.

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Jimmy Roberts, American tenor (born 1924)

Jimmy Roberts was an American tenor singer. He was a featured performer on the TV variety program The Lawrence Welk Show during its entire broadcast run from 1955 to 1982.

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06/02/1998

Falco, Austrian pop-rock musician (born 1957)

Johann "Hans" Hölzel, better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian musician. He had several international hits, including "Der Kommissar" (1981), "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", which reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home ", and posthumously released "Out of the Dark".

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06/02/1995

James Merrill, American poet and playwright (born 1926)

James Ingram Merrill was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for Divine Comedies. His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyric poetry of his early career, and the epic narrative of occult communication with spirits and angels, titled The Changing Light at Sandover, which dominated his later career. Although most of his published work was poetry, he also wrote essays, fiction, and plays.

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06/02/1994

Joseph Cotten, American actor (born 1905)

Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story (1939) and Sabrina Fair (1953). He gained worldwide fame for his collaborations with Orson Welles on films Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943). Cotten starred in the latter and was also credited with the screenplay.

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Jack Kirby, American author and illustrator (born 1917)

Jack Kirby was an American comic book artist, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics.

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06/02/1993

Arthur Ashe, American tennis player and sportscaster (born 1943)

Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was an American professional tennis player. He won three Grand Slam titles in singles and two in doubles. Ashe was the first Black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team, and the only Black man ever to win the singles titles at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open. He retired in 1980.

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06/02/1991

Salvador Luria, Italian biologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1912)

Salvador Edward Luria was an Italian microbiologist, later a naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with Max Delbrück and Alfred Hershey, for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses. Salvador Luria also showed that bacterial resistance to viruses (phages) is genetically inherited.

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Danny Thomas, American actor, producer, and humanitarian (born 1914)

Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz, known professionally as Danny Thomas, was an American entertainer, producer, and philanthropist. After launching his career in the 1940s in radio and cinema, he created and starred in the 1953–1964 television sitcom Make Room for Daddy / The Danny Thomas Show, and went on to produce a number of successful television programs. In 1962, he leveraged his celebrity status to establish St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a leading center in pediatrics research and treatment, with a focus on pediatric cancer. He was the father of Marlo Thomas, Terre Thomas, and Tony Thomas.

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06/02/1990

Jimmy Van Heusen, American pianist and composer (born 1913)

James Van Heusen was an American composer. He wrote songs for films, television, and theater, and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his compositions later went on to become jazz standards.

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06/02/1989

Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian and author (born 1912)

Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian, journalist and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971), a biography of General Joseph Stilwell.

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06/02/1987

Julien Chouinard, Canadian lawyer and jurist (born 1929)

Julien Chouinard, was a Canadian lawyer and civil servant who served as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1979 to 1987. He was the sole Clark appointee to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court.

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06/02/1986

Frederick Coutts, Scottish 8th General of The Salvation Army (born 1899)

Frederick Coutts, CBE was the eighth General of The Salvation Army (1963–1969).

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Dandy Nichols, English actress (born 1907)

Dandy Nichols was an English actress best known for her role as Else Garnett, the long-suffering wife of the character Alf Garnett, in the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part.

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Minoru Yamasaki, American architect, designed the World Trade Center (born 1912)

Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. He and fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of "New Formalism".

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06/02/1985

James Hadley Chase, English-Swiss soldier and author (born 1906)

James Hadley Chase was an English writer. While his birth name was René Lodge Brabazon Raymond, he was well known by his various pseudonyms, including James Hadley Chase, James L. Docherty, Raymond Marshall, R. Raymond, and Ambrose Grant. He was one of the best known thriller writers of all time. The canon of Chase, comprising 90 titles, earned him a reputation as the king of thriller writers in Europe. He was also one of the internationally best-selling authors, and to date 50 of his books have been made into films.

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06/02/1982

Ben Nicholson, British painter (born 1894)

Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM was an English painter of abstract compositions, landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in England.

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06/02/1981

Hugo Montenegro, American composer and conductor (born 1925)

Hugo Mario Montenegro was an American orchestra leader and composer of film soundtracks. His best-known work is interpretations of the music from Spaghetti Westerns, especially his cover version of Ennio Morricone's main theme from the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He composed the score for the 1969 Western Charro!, which starred Elvis Presley. He also wrote for various television series, most notably the theme to "I Dream of Jeannie"

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06/02/1976

Ritwik Ghatak, Bangladeshi-Indian director and screenwriter (born 1925)

Ritwik Kumar Ghatak was an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor and playwright. Widely considered as one of the greatest film makers of all time, his works remained largely underrated and ignored during his lifetime. Along with prominent contemporary Bengali filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha and Mrinal Sen, his cinema is primarily remembered for its meticulous depiction of social reality, partition and feminism. He won the National Film Award's Rajat Kamal Award for Best Story in 1974 for his Jukti Takko Aar Gappo and Best Director's Award from Bangladesh Cine Journalist's Association for Titash Ekti Nadir Naam. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri for Arts in 1970.

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Vince Guaraldi, American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1928)

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody "Linus and Lucy" and the holiday standard "Christmas Time Is Here". Guaraldi is also known for his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader's 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. Guaraldi's 1962 composition "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm on February 6, 1976, at age 47, moments after concluding the first half of a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California.

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06/02/1972

Julian Steward, American anthropologist (born 1902)

Julian Haynes Steward was an American anthropologist known best for his role in developing "the concept and method" of cultural ecology, as well as a scientific theory of culture change.

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06/02/1971

Lew "Sneaky Pete" Robinson, drag racer (born 1933)

Lew Russell Robinson, nicknamed "Sneaky Pete", was an American drag racer.

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06/02/1967

Martine Carol, French actress (born 1920)

Martine Carol was a French film actress. She frequently was cast as an elegant blonde seductress. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was the leading sex symbol and a top box-office draw of French cinema, and she was considered a French version of America's Marilyn Monroe. One of her more famous roles was as the title character in Lola Montès (1955), directed by Max Ophüls, in a role that required dark hair. However, by late 1956, roles for Carol had become fewer, partly because of the introduction of Brigitte Bardot.

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06/02/1964

Emilio Aguinaldo, Filipino general and politician, 1st President of the Philippines (born 1869)

Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who was the first president of the Philippines from 1899 to 1901, and the first president of an Asian constitutional republic. He led the Philippine forces first against Spain in the Philippine Revolution (1896–1898), then in the Spanish–American War (1898), and finally against the United States during the Philippine–American War (1899–1901). He is regarded in the Philippines as having been the country's first president during the period of the First Philippine Republic, though he was not recognized as such outside of the revolutionary Philippines.

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06/02/1963

Piero Manzoni, Italian painter and sculptor (born 1933)

Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced, the work of a generation of younger Italian artists brought together by the critic Germano Celant in the first Arte Povera exhibition held in Genoa, 1967. Manzoni is most famous for a series of artworks that call into question the nature of the art object, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art. His work eschews normal artist's materials, instead using everything from rabbit fur to human excrement in order to "tap mythological sources and to realize authentic and universal values".

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06/02/1958

victims of the Munich air disaster

Geoffrey Bent was an English footballer who played as a left back for Manchester United from 1948 until 1958. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid-1950s. Bent only made twelve first-team appearances for Manchester United, who already had an international-quality left back in Roger Byrne. Modern writers speculate that at most other teams Bent would have been a regular starter, and he was the subject of interest from fellow First Division clubs, but Busby refused to let him leave. He was one of eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster, when their aircraft crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport after a European Cup match in Belgrade.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

Roger William Byrne was an English footballer who played as a full-back and captain of Manchester United. He died at the age of 28 in the Munich air disaster. He was one of the eight Manchester United players who lost their lives in the disaster on 6 February 1958. He made 33 appearances for the England national team.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

Edward Colman was an English football player who played as an wing-half and one of the eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

Walter Raymond Crickmer was an English football club secretary and manager.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

Mark Jones was an English footballer and one of eight Manchester United players to lose their lives in the Munich air disaster. Jones was born in Wombwell, near Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1933, the third of seven children born to miner Amos Jones (1894–1968) and his wife Lucy (1896–1957). He was the club's first-choice centre-half for much of the 1950s and collected two League Championship winner's medals.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

David Pegg was an English footballer who played as an outside-left and one of the eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster on 6 February 1958.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

Frank Victor Swift was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper for Manchester City and England. After starting his career with Fleetwood, near his hometown of Blackpool, in 1932 he was signed by First Division Manchester City, with whom he played his entire professional career.

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victims of the Munich air disaster

Thomas Taylor was an English footballer, who played as a centre-forward and was known for his aerial ability. He was one of the eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster.

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06/02/1952

George VI of the United Kingdom (born 1895)

George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947, and the first Head of the Commonwealth following the London Declaration of 1949.

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06/02/1951

Gabby Street, American baseball player, coach, and manager (born 1882)

Charles Evard "Gabby" Street, also nicknamed "the Old Sarge", was an American catcher, manager, coach, and radio broadcaster in Major League Baseball during the first half of the 20th century. As a catcher, he participated in one of the most publicized baseball stunts of the century's first decade. As a manager, he led the St. Louis Cardinals to two National League championships (1930–31) and one world title (1931). As a broadcaster, he entertained St. Louis baseball fans in the years following World War II.

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06/02/1942

Jaan Soots, Estonian general and politician, 7th Estonian Minister of War (born 1880)

Jaan Soots was an Estonian military commander during the Estonian War of Independence and politician.

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06/02/1938

Marianne von Werefkin, Russian-Swiss painter (born 1860)

Mariamna Vladimirovna Veryovkina, commonly known as Marianne von Werefkin, was a Russian-born painter, active in Germany and Switzerland during the late Belle Époque and interwar periods. She is particularly known for her Expressionist works.

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06/02/1932

John Earle, Australian politician, 22nd Premier of Tasmania (born 1865)

John Earle was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Tasmania from 1914 to 1916 and also for one week in October 1909. He later served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1917 to 1923. Prior to entering politics, he worked as a miner and prospector. He began his career in the Australian Labor Party (ALP), helping to establish a local branch of the party, and was Tasmania's first ALP premier. However, he was expelled from the party during the 1916 split and joined the Nationalists, whom he represented in the Senate.

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06/02/1931

Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (born 1861)

Motilal Nehru was an Indian lawyer, activist, and politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress. He served as the Congress President twice, from 1919 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1929. He was a patriarch of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the father of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister.

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06/02/1929

Maria Christina of Austria (born 1858)

Maria Christina Henriette Desideria Felicitas Raineria of Austria was Queen of Spain as the second wife of Alfonso XII. She was queen regent during the vacancy of the throne between her husband's death in November 1885 and the birth of their son Alfonso XIII in May 1886, and subsequently also until her son came of age in May 1902.

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06/02/1918

Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter and illustrator (born 1862)

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. He is best known for The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

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06/02/1916

Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat (born 1867)

Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, known as Rubén Darío, was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-language literary movement known as modernismo (modernism) that flourished at the end of the 19th century. Darío had a great and lasting influence on 20th-century Spanish-language literature and journalism.

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06/02/1908

Harriet Samuel, English businesswoman and founder of the jewellery retailer H. Samuel (born 1836)

Harriet Samuel was an English businesswoman and the founder of H. Samuel, one of the United Kingdom's best-known high street jewellery retailers.

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06/02/1902

John Colton, English-Australian politician, 13th Premier of South Australia (born 1823)

Sir John Blackler Colton, was an Australian politician, Premier of South Australia and philanthropist. His middle name, Blackler, was used only rarely, as on the birth certificate of his first son.

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06/02/1899

Leo von Caprivi, German general and politician, chancellor of Germany (born 1831)

Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi de Caprara de Montecuccoli was a German general and statesman. He served as the imperial chancellor of the German Empire from March 1890 to October 1894, succeeding longtime chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

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06/02/1865

Isabella Beeton, English author of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (born 1836)

Isabella Mary Beeton, known as Mrs Beeton, was an English journalist, editor and writer. Her name is particularly associated with her first book, the 1861 work Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. She was born in London and, after schooling in Islington, north London, and Heidelberg, Germany, she married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor.

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06/02/1834

Richard Lemon Lander, English explorer (born 1804)

Richard Lemon Lander was a British explorer of western Africa. He and his brother John were the first Europeans to follow the course of the River Niger, and discover that it led to the Atlantic.

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06/02/1833

Pierre André Latreille, French zoologist and entomologist (born 1762)

Pierre André Latreille was a French zoologist, specialising in arthropods. Having trained as a Roman Catholic priest before the French Revolution, Latreille was imprisoned, and only regained his freedom after recognising a rare beetle species he found in the prison, Necrobia ruficollis.

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06/02/1804

Joseph Priestley, English chemist and theologian (born 1733)

Joseph Priestley was an English chemist, Unitarian, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator and classical liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in several areas of science.

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06/02/1793

Carlo Goldoni, Italian-French playwright (born 1707)

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes. Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade, which he claimed in his memoirs the "Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him.

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06/02/1783

Capability Brown, English gardener and architect (born 1716)

Lancelot "Capability" Brown was an English gardener and landscape architect, a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style.

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06/02/1775

William Dowdeswell, English politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (born 1721)

William Dowdeswell PC was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and later leader of the Rockinghamite faction in the House of Commons.

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06/02/1740

Pope Clement XII (born 1652)

Pope Clement XII, born Lorenzo Corsini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 July 1730 to his death in February 1740.

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06/02/1695

Ahmed II, Ottoman sultan (born 1642)

Ahmed II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1691 to 1695.

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06/02/1685

Charles II of England (born 1630)

Charles II was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

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06/02/1617

Prospero Alpini, Italian physician and botanist (born 1553)

Prospero Alpini was a Venetian physician and botanist. He travelled around Egypt and served as the fourth prefect in charge of the botanical garden of Padua. He wrote several botanical treatises which covered exotic plants of economic and medicinal value. His description of coffee and banana plants are considered the oldest in European literature. The ginger-family genus Alpinia was named in his honour by Carolus Linnaeus.

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06/02/1612

Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer (born 1538)

Christopher Clavius, was a Jesuit German mathematician and physicist, head of mathematicians at the Collegio Romano, and astronomer who was a member of the Vatican commission that accepted the proposed calendar invented by Aloysius Lilius, that is known as the Gregorian calendar. Clavius would later write defences and an explanation of the reformed calendar, including an emphatic acknowledgement of Lilius' work. In his last years, he was probably the most respected astronomer in Europe and his textbooks were used for astronomical education for over fifty years in and even out of Europe.

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06/02/1597

Franciscus Patricius, Italian philosopher and scientist (born 1529)

Franciscus Patricius was a philosopher and scientist from the Republic of Venice. A native of Cres, he was a defender of Platonism and an opponent of Aristotelianism.

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06/02/1593

Jacques Amyot, French author and translator (born 1513)

Jacques Amyot, French Renaissance bishop, scholar, writer and translator, was born of poor parents, at Melun.

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Emperor Ōgimachi of Japan (born 1517)

Emperor Ōgimachi was the 106th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He reigned from November 17, 1557, to his abdication on December 17, 1586, corresponding to the transition between the Sengoku period of the Muromachi bakufu and the dawn of the new Azuchi–Momoyama period. His personal name was Michihito (方仁).

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06/02/1585

Edmund Plowden, English lawyer and scholar (born 1518)

Edmund Plowden was an English lawyer, legal scholar and theorist during the late Tudor period.

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06/02/1539

John III, Duke of Cleves (born 1491)

John III, Duke of Cleves and Count of Mark, known as John the Peaceful, was the Lord of Ravensberg, Count of Mark, and founder of the United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg.

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06/02/1519

Lorenz von Bibra, Prince-Bishop of the Bishopric of Würzburg (born 1459)

Lorenz von Bibra, Duke in Franconia was Prince-Bishop of the Bishopric of Würzburg from 1495 to 1519. His life paralleled that of Maximilian I (1459–1519), who ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1493 to 1519, whom Lorenz served as an advisor.

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06/02/1515

Aldus Manutius, Italian publisher, founded the Aldine Press (born 1449)

Aldus Pius Manutius was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preservation of Greek manuscripts mark him as an innovative publisher of his age dedicated to the editions he produced. Aldus Manutius introduced the small portable book format with his enchiridia, which revolutionized personal reading and are the predecessor of the modern paperback book. He also helped to standardize use of punctuation including the comma and the semicolon.

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06/02/1497

Johannes Ockeghem, Flemish composer and educator (born 1410)

Johannes Ockeghem was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was a significant European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—a prominent European composer in the second half of the 15th century. He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School.

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06/02/1411

Esau de' Buondelmonti, ruler of Epirus

Esau de' Buondelmonti was the ruler of Ioannina and its surrounding area from 1385 until his death in 1411, with the Byzantine title of despot.

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06/02/1378

Joanna of Bourbon (born 1338)

Joanna of Bourbon was Queen of France by marriage to King Charles V. She acted as his political adviser and was appointed potential regent in case of a minor regency.

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06/02/1215

Hōjō Tokimasa, Japanese shikken of the Kamakura bakufu (born 1138)

Hōjō Tokimasa was a Japanese samurai lord who was the first shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate and head of the Hōjō clan. He was shikken from 1203 until his abdication in 1205, and Protector of Kyoto from 1185 to 1186.

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06/02/1140

Thurstan, Archbishop of York

Thurstan or Turstin of Bayeux was a medieval Archbishop of York, the son of a priest. He served kings William II and Henry I of England before his election to the see of York in 1114. Once elected, his consecration was delayed for five years while he fought attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury to assert primacy over York. Eventually, he was consecrated by the pope instead and allowed to return to England. While archbishop, he secured two new suffragan bishops for his province. When Henry I died, Thurstan supported Henry's nephew Stephen of Blois as king. Thurstan also defended the northern part of England from invasion by the Scots, taking a leading part in organising the English forces at the Battle of the Standard (1138). Shortly before his death, Thurstan resigned from his see and took the habit of a Cluniac monk.

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06/02/1135

Elvira of Castile, Queen of Sicily

Elvira of Castile was a member of the House of Jiménez and the first Queen of Sicily as the wife of Roger II of Sicily.

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06/02/0891

Photios I of Constantinople (born 810)

Photios I of Constantinople was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 858 to 867 and from 877 to 886. He is recognized in the Eastern Orthodox Church as 'Saint Photius the Great'.

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06/02/0797

Donnchad Midi, Irish king (born 733)

Donnchad mac Domnaill, called Donnchad Midi, was High King of Ireland. His father, Domnall Midi, had been the first Uí Néill High King from the south-central Clann Cholmáin based in modern County Westmeath and western County Meath, Ireland. The reigns of Domnall and his successor, Niall Frossach of the Cenél nEógain, had been relatively peaceful, but Donnchad's rule saw a return to a more expansionist policy directed against Leinster, traditional target of the Uí Néill, and also, for the first time, the great southern kingdom of Munster.

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06/02/0743

Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Umayyad caliph (born 691)

Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan was the tenth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 724 until his death in 743. His grandson Abd al-Rahman I was the founder and first emir of the Emirate of Córdoba.

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06/02/0685

Hlothhere, king of Kent

Hlothhere was a King of Kent who ruled from 673 to 685.

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