Died on Sunday, 8th February – Famous Deaths

08/02/2025

Dick Jauron, American football player and coach (born 1950)

Richard Manual Jauron was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played eight seasons in the NFL as a safety, five with the Detroit Lions and three with the Cincinnati Bengals. Jauron served as the head coach of the Chicago Bears from 1999 to 2003 and the Buffalo Bills from 2006 until November 2009. He was also the interim head coach for the Lions for the final five games of the 2005 season. He was named the AP Coach of the Year in 2001 after leading the Bears to a 13–3 record.

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Sam Nujoma, Namibian politician, 1st President of Namibia (born 1929)

Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma was a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first president of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first president of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960.

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Gyalo Thondup, Brother of the 14th Dalai Lama (born 1928)

Gyalo Thondup was a Tibetan political operator in exile. The second-oldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, he was his closest advisor. From 1952 onward, he was based in India. Through the 1950s and 1960s, he worked with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States during its unsuccessful campaign to use armed Tibetan rebels against China.

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08/02/2023

Arto Heiskanen, Finnish professional hockey player (born 1963)

Arto Heiskanen was a Finnish professional ice hockey left winger.

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08/02/2021

Marty Schottenheimer, American football player and coach (born 1943)

Martin Edward Schottenheimer was an American professional football linebacker and coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for 21 seasons. He was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 1984 to 1988, the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 1998, the Washington Redskins in 2001, and the San Diego Chargers from 2002 to 2006. Eighth in career wins at 205 and seventh in regular season wins at 200, Schottenheimer has the most wins among the league's head coaches to not win an NFL championship. After coaching in the NFL, he won a 2011 championship in his one season with the Virginia Destroyers of the United Football League (UFL). He was inducted to the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Honor in 2010.

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Mary Wilson, American singer (born 1944)

Mary Wilson was an American singer. She gained worldwide recognition as a founding member of the Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. chart history, as well as one of the best-selling girl groups of all-time. The trio reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 with 12 of their singles, ten of which feature Wilson on backing vocals.

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08/02/2020

Robert Conrad, American actor (born 1935)

Robert Conrad was an American actor, singer, and stuntman. He is best known for his role in the 1965–1969 television series The Wild Wild West, playing the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West. He also portrayed private investigator Tom Lopaka in Hawaiian Eye (1959–1963) and World War II ace Pappy Boyington in Baa Baa Black Sheep.

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08/02/2017

Peter Mansfield, English physicist, Nobel laureate (born 1933)

Sir Peter Mansfield was an English physicist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Paul Lauterbur, for discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Mansfield was a professor at the University of Nottingham.

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Rina Matsuno, Japanese idol singer (born 1998)

Rina Matsuno was a Japanese singer, model, actress, and tarento who was a member of the idol group Shiritsu Ebisu Chugaku.

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Alan Simpson, English scriptwriter (born 1929)

Alan Francis Simpson was an English scriptwriter. He was best known as part of the Galton and Simpson comedy writing partnership with Ray Galton. Together they devised and wrote the BBC sitcom Hancock's Half Hour (1954–1961), the first two series of Comedy Playhouse (1961–1963), and Steptoe and Son (1962–1974).

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08/02/2016

Amelia Bence, Argentine actress (born 1914)

Amelia Bence was an Argentine film actress and one of the divas of the Golden Age of Argentine cinema during the 1930s and 1950s.

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Nida Fazli, Indian poet and songwriter (born 1938)

Muqtida Hasan Nida Fazli, known as Nida Fazli, was a prominent Indian Urdu and Hindi poet, lyricist and dialogue writer. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2013 by the government of India for his contribution to literature.

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Margaret Forster, English historian, author, and critic (born 1938)

Margaret Forster was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic, best known for the 1965 novel Georgy Girl, made into a successful film of the same name, which inspired a hit song by The Seekers. Other successes were a 2003 novel, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and her memoirs Hidden Lives and Precious Lives.

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Violette Verdy, French ballerina (born 1933)

Violette Verdy was a French ballerina, choreographer, teacher, and writer who worked as a dance company director with the Paris Opera Ballet in France and the Boston Ballet in the United States. From 1958 to 1977 she was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet where she performed in the world premieres of several works created specifically for her by choreographers George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She was Distinguished Professor of Music (Ballet) at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, in Bloomington, and the recipient of two medals from the French government.

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08/02/2015

Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, Finnish physician and parapsychologist (born 1939)

Rauni-Leena Tellervo Luukanen-Kilde was a Finnish physician who wrote and lectured on parapsychology, ufology, and mind control.

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08/02/2014

Els Borst, Dutch physician and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands (born 1932)

Else "Els" Borst-Eilers was a Dutch politician of the Democrats 66 (D66) party and physician. She was granted the honorary title of Minister of State on 21 December 2012.

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Maicon Pereira de Oliveira, Brazilian footballer (born 1988)

Maicon Pereira de Oliveira commonly known as Maicon, was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward in the Ukrainian Premier League for most of his professional career.

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Nancy Holt, American sculptor and painter (born 1938)

Nancy Holt was an American artist most known for her public sculpture, installation art, concrete poetry, and land art. Throughout her career, Holt also produced works in other media, including film and photography. Since 2018, her legacy has been cared for by Holt/Smithson Foundation.

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08/02/2013

Giovanni Cheli, Italian cardinal (born 1918)

Giovanni Cheli was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church, who had a career in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and then in the senior ranks of the Roman Curia. He was made a cardinal in 1998.

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James DePreist, American conductor and educator (born 1936)

James Anderson DePreist was an American conductor. DePreist was one of the first African-American conductors on the world stage. He was the director emeritus of conducting and orchestral studies at The Juilliard School and laureate music director of the Oregon Symphony at the time of his death.

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Maureen Dragone, American journalist and author (born 1920)

Maureen Dragone was an American journalist and author. She was one of the longest-standing members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which presents the annual Golden Globe Awards. In 1978 she founded the Young Artist Association, which presents the annual Young Artist Awards.

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Nevin Scrimshaw, American scientist (born 1918)

Nevin Stewart Scrimshaw was an American food scientist and Institute Professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scrimshaw was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During the course of his long career he developed nutritional supplements for alleviating protein, iodine, and iron deficiencies in the developing world. His pioneering and extensive publications in the area of human nutrition and food science include over 20 books and monographs and hundreds of scholarly articles. Scrimshaw also founded the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, and the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation. He was awarded the Bolton L. Corson Medal in 1976 and the World Food Prize in 1991. Scrimshaw spent the last years of his life on a farm in Thornton, New Hampshire, where he died at 95.

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08/02/2012

Wando, Brazilian singer-songwriter (born 1945)

Wanderley Alves dos Reis, better known as Wando, was a Brazilian singer-songwriter.

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Luis Alberto Spinetta, Argentinian singer-songwriter (born 1950)

Luis Alberto Spinetta, nicknamed "El Flaco", was an Argentine singer, guitarist, composer, writer and poet. One of the most influential rock musicians of Argentina, he is widely regarded as one of the founders of Argentine rock, which is considered one of the first incarnations of Spanish-language rock. Born in Buenos Aires, he was the founder of several iconic rock bands including Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, Invisible, Spinetta Jade, and Spinetta y Los Socios del Desierto. In Argentina, January 23rd is celebrated as "Día Nacional del Músico" in honor of Spinetta's birth.

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08/02/2011

Tony Malinosky, American baseball player and soldier (born 1909)

Anthony Francis Malinosky was an American professional baseball player. He played third baseman and shortstop in Major League baseball in 35 games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1937 season. Listed at 5' 10", Weight: 165 lb., he batted and threw right-handed.

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08/02/2010

John Murtha, American colonel and politician (born 1932)

John Patrick Murtha Jr. was an American politician from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Murtha, a Democrat, represented Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1974 until his death in 2010. He is the longest-serving member of the United States House of Representatives ever elected from Pennsylvania.

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08/02/2008

Ruby Garrard Woodson, American educator and cultural historian (born 1931)

Ruby Garrard Woodson was an educator and chemistry teacher who founded Cromwell Academy in Washington, D. C. and Florida Academy of African American Culture in Sarasota, Florida.

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08/02/2007

Anna Nicole Smith, American model and actress (born 1967)

Vickie Lynn Marshall, known professionally as Anna Nicole Smith, was an American model, actress and television personality. Smith started her career as a Playboy magazine centerfold in May 1992 and won the title of 1993 Playmate of the Year. She later modeled for clothing companies, including Guess, H&M and Heatherette.

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Ian Stevenson, Canadian-American psychiatrist and academic (born 1918)

Ian Pretyman Stevenson was a Canadian-born American psychiatrist, the founder and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years. He was chair of their department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death in 2007. He helped to found the Society for Scientific Exploration in 1982.

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08/02/2006

Elton Dean, English saxophonist, songwriter, and producer (born 1945)

Elton Dean was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello and occasionally keyboards. Part of the Canterbury scene, he featured in Soft Machine, among others.

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Thierry Fortineau, French actor (born 1953)

Thierry Fortineau was a French actor.

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Akira Ifukube, Japanese composer (born 1914)

Akira Ifukube was a Japanese composer. He is best known for composing several entries in the Godzilla franchise as well as developing the titular monster's roar.

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08/02/2005

A. Chandranehru, Sri Lankan sailor and politician (born 1944)

Ariyanayagam Chandranehru was a Sri Lankan merchant seaman, politician and Member of Parliament.

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08/02/2004

Julius Schwartz, American journalist and author (born 1915)

Julius "Julie" Schwartz was an American comic book editor, and a science fiction agent. He was born in The Bronx, New York. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various times he was primary editor over the company's flagship superheroes, Superman and Batman.

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08/02/2002

Ong Teng Cheong, Singaporean architect and politician, 5th President of Singapore (born 1936)

Ong Teng Cheong was a Singaporean architect and politician who served as the fifth president of Singapore between 1993 and 1999 after winning the 1993 presidential election.

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08/02/2001

Ivo Caprino, Norwegian director and screenwriter (born 1920)

Ivo Caprino was a Norwegian film director and writer, best known for his puppet films. His most noted film, Flåklypa Grand Prix, was made in 1975.

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08/02/2000

Sid Abel, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and sportscaster (born 1918)

Sidney Gerald Abel was a Canadian Hall of Fame hockey player, coach and general manager in the National Hockey League, most notably for the Detroit Red Wings, and was a member of Stanley Cup-winning teams in 1943, 1950, and 1952. In 2017, Abel was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players" in history.

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Derrick Thomas, American football player (born 1967)

Derrick Vincent Thomas was an American professional football linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). Nicknamed "D. T.", he played 11 seasons with the Chiefs until his death in 2000. He is considered one of the greatest pass rushers of all time.

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08/02/1999

Iris Murdoch, Irish-born British novelist and philosopher (born 1919)

Dame Jean Iris Murdoch was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net (1954), was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, The Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

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08/02/1998

Halldór Laxness, Icelandic author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1902)

Halldór Kiljan Laxness was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and short stories. Writers who influenced Laxness include August Strindberg, Sigmund Freud, Knut Hamsun, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Bertolt Brecht, and Ernest Hemingway.

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Enoch Powell, English soldier and politician, Secretary of State for Health (born 1912)

John Enoch Powell was a British politician, scholar and writer. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South West for the Conservative Party from 1950 to February 1974 and the MP for South Down for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from October 1974 to 1987. He was Minister of Health from 1960 to 1963 in the second Macmillan ministry and was Shadow Secretary of State for Defence from 1965 to 1968 in the Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath.

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Julian Simon, American economist and author (born 1932)

Julian Lincoln Simon was an American economist. He was a professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois from 1963 to 1983 before later moving to the University of Maryland, where he taught for the remainder of his academic career.

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08/02/1997

Corey Scott, American motorcycle stunt rider (born 1968)

Corey L. Scott was an American stunt performer and professional motorcycle stunt rider. Scott died during a live stunt in front of a crowd of around 30,000 spectators at the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami, Florida, while attempting to perform a dangerous step-up jump on a motorcycle. The fatal accident was captured on camera.

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08/02/1996

Del Ennis, American baseball player (born 1925)

Delmer Ennis was an American professional baseball outfielder, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1946 to 1959 for the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, and Chicago White Sox. From 1949 to 1957, he accumulated more runs batted in (RBI) than anyone besides Stan Musial and was eighth in the National League (NL) in home runs. In 1950, Ennis led the NL with 126 RBI as the Phillies won their first pennant in 35 years. He held the Phillies career record of 259 home runs from 1956 to 1980, and ranked 10th in National League history with 1,824 games in the outfield, when his career ended.

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08/02/1994

Raymond Scott, American pianist and composer (born 1908)

Raymond Scott was an American composer, band leader, pianist and record producer. Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early pioneer of electronica.

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08/02/1992

Stanley Armour Dunham, American sergeant (born 1918)

Stanley Armour Dunham was an American furniture salesman and the maternal grandfather of Barack Obama, a former President of the United States. He and his wife Madelyn Payne Dunham raised Obama from the age of 10 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

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08/02/1990

Del Shannon, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1934)

Charles Weedon Westover, known professionally as Del Shannon, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter, best known for his 1961 number-one Billboard hit "Runaway", which was covered later by various major artists, including Elvis Presley and the Traveling Wilburys. In 1999, he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to his music career, he had minor acting roles.

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Ernest Titterton, British Australian nuclear physicist (born 1916)

Sir Ernest William Titterton was a British nuclear physicist.

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08/02/1987

Harriet E. MacGibbon, American actress (born 1905)

Harriet Elizabeth MacGibbon was an American film, stage and television actress best known for her role as the insufferably snobbish, "blue-blooded Bostonian" Mrs. Margaret Drysdale in the sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies.

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08/02/1985

William Lyons, English businessman, co-founded Swallow Sidecar Company (born 1901)

Sir William Lyons, known as "Mr. Jaguar", was with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co-founder in 1922 of the Swallow Sidecar Company, which became Jaguar Cars Limited after the Second World War.

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08/02/1982

John Hay Whitney, American financier and diplomat, United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (born 1904)

John Hay Whitney was an American venture capitalist, sportsman, philanthropist, newspaper publisher, film producer and diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and president of the Museum of Modern Art.

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08/02/1980

Nikos Xilouris, Greek singer-songwriter (born 1936)

Nikos Xylouris, also known as Psaronikos (Ψαρονίκος), was a Greek singer, Cretan lyra player, and songwriter who performed both Cretan rural traditional and urban orchestral music arrangements.

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08/02/1979

Dennis Gabor, Hungarian-English physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1900)

Dennis Gabor was a Hungarian-British physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for his invention of holography. He obtained British citizenship in 1946 and spent most of his life in England.

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08/02/1977

Eivind Groven, Norwegian composer and theorist (born 1901)

Eivind Groven was a Norwegian composer and music-theorist. He was from the traditional region of Vest-Telemark and had a background in the folk music of the area.

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08/02/1975

Robert Robinson, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born1886)

Sir Robert Robinson was a British organic chemist and Nobel laureate recognised in 1947 for his research on plant dyestuffs (anthocyanins) and alkaloids. In 1947, he also received the Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm.

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08/02/1972

Markos Vamvakaris, Greek singer-songwriter and bouzouki player (born 1905)

Markos Vamvakaris, was a Greek musician of rebetiko, universally referred to by rebetiko writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos. The great significance of Vamvakaris for the rebetiko is also reflected by his nickname: the "patriarch of the rebetiko".

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08/02/1971

Kanaiyalal Munshi, Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer and educationist (born 1887)

Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, popularly known by his pen name Ghanshyam Vyas, was an Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer from Gujarat state. A lawyer by profession, he later turned to author and politician. He is a well-known name in Gujarati literature. He founded Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an educational trust, in 1938.

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08/02/1970

Cahir Healy, Northern Irish republican and anti partition politician (born 1877)

Charles Everard Healy was an Irish politician. He was a leader of northern nationalists and a self-educated man who made major contributions to Ireland's political, cultural and literary heritage.

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08/02/1964

Ernst Kretschmer, German psychiatrist and author (born 1888)

Ernst Kretschmer was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology.

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08/02/1963

George Dolenz, Italian-American actor (born 1908)

George Dolenz was an American film actor born in Trieste, in the city's Slovene community.

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08/02/1960

J. L. Austin, English philosopher and academic (born 1911)

John Langshaw Austin was an English philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, best known for developing the theory of speech acts.

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Giles Gilbert Scott, English architect and engineer, designed the Red telephone box and Liverpool Cathedral (born 1880)

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was a British architect known for his work on the New Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral, and designing the iconic red telephone box.

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08/02/1959

William J. Donovan, American head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (born 1883)

William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat. He is best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during World War II. He is regarded as the founding father of the CIA, and a statue of him stands in the lobby of the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia.

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08/02/1957

Walther Bothe, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891)

Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe was a German experimental physicist who shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Max Born "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith."

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John von Neumann, Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist (born 1903)

John von Neumann was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, integrating pure and applied sciences and making major contributions to many fields, including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. He was a pioneer in building the mathematical framework of quantum physics, in the development of functional analysis, and in game theory, introducing or codifying concepts including cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer. His analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA.

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08/02/1956

Connie Mack, American baseball player and manager (born 1862)

Cornelius McGillicuddy, better known as Connie Mack, was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, and team owner. Mack holds records for the most wins (3,731), losses (3,948), ties (76), and games managed (7,755) in Major League Baseball (MLB) history. His victory total is 847 more than the second-highest: Tony La Russa's 2,884 wins. Mack's lead in career losses is even greater, with 1,449 more than La Russa's 2,499. Mack also has 17 more ties than the next-closest manager, Clark Griffith, who has 59.

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08/02/1945

Italo Santelli, Italian fencer and coach (born 1866)

Italo Santelli was an Italian fencer who is considered to be the "father of modern sabre fencing".

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08/02/1938

Olga Taratuta, Ukrainian Jewish anarchist (born 1876)

Olha Illivna Taratuta was a Ukrainian Jewish anarchist and a founder of the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC).

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08/02/1936

Charles Curtis, American lawyer and politician, 31st Vice President of the United States (born 1860)

Charles Curtis was the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 under President Herbert Hoover. He was the Senate Majority Leader from 1924 to 1929. An enrolled citizen of the Kaw Nation born in the Kansas Territory, Curtis was the first Native American to serve in the United States Congress, where he served in the United States House of Representatives and Senate before becoming Senate Majority Leader. Curtis also was the first and only Native American and first multiracial person to serve as vice president.

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08/02/1935

Eemil Nestor Setälä, Finnish linguist and politician, Minister for Foreign Affairs (born 1864)

Eemil Nestor Setälä was a Finnish politician who served as Chairman of the Senate of Finland from September 1917 to November 1917, when he was author of the Finnish Declaration of Independence.

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08/02/1932

Yordan Milanov, Bulgarian architect, designed the Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church (born 1867)

Yordan Milanov was a Bulgarian architect.

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08/02/1928

Theodor Curtius, German chemist (born 1857)

Geheimrat Julius Wilhelm Theodor Curtius was professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg University. He published the Curtius rearrangement in 1890/1894 and also discovered diazoacetic acid, hydrazine and hydrazoic acid. In 1882 he carried out the first ever peptide synthesis, creating the N-protected dipeptide, benzoylglycylglycine.

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08/02/1921

George Formby Sr, English actor and singer (born 1876)

George Formby was an English comedian and singer in musical theatre, known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the early 20th century. His comedy played upon Lancashire stereotypes, and he was popular around Britain. His nickname, "The Wigan Nightingale", was coined because of the way he would use his bronchial cough as a comedic device in his act.

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Peter Kropotkin, Russian zoologist, geographer, and philologist (born 1842)

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist political philosopher and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism.

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08/02/1915

François Langelier, Canadian journalist, lawyer, and politician, 10th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (born 1838)

Sir François Langelier, was a Canadian lawyer, professor, journalist, politician, the tenth Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, and author. He was born in Sainte-Rosalie, Lower Canada and died in Spencer Wood, Sillery, Quebec.

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08/02/1910

Hans Jæger, Norwegian philosopher and activist (born 1854)

Hans Henrik Jæger was a Norwegian writer, philosopher and anarchist activist who was part of the bohemian group known as the Kristiania Bohemians.

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08/02/1907

Hendrik Willem Bakhuis Roozeboom, Dutch chemist and academic (born 1854)

Hendrik Willem Bakhuis Roozeboom was a Dutch chemist who studied phase behaviour in physical chemistry.

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08/02/1856

Agostino Bassi, Italian entomologist and academic (born 1773)

Agostino Bassi, sometimes called de Lodi, was an Italian entomologist. He preceded Louis Pasteur in the discovery that microorganisms can be the cause of disease. He discovered that the muscardine disease of silkworms was caused by a living, very small, parasitic organism, a fungus that would be named eventually Beauveria bassiana in his honor. In 1844, he stated the idea that not only animal (insect), but also human diseases are caused by other living microorganisms; for example, measles, syphilis, and the plague.

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08/02/1849

François Habeneck, French violinist and conductor (born 1781)

François Antoine Habeneck was a French classical violinist and conductor.

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France Prešeren, Slovenian poet and lawyer (born 1800)

France Prešeren was a Slovene poet whose works are widely considered some of the most important in Slovene literature. His poems have been translated into many languages.

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08/02/1772

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (born 1719)

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg was Princess of Wales by marriage to Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son and heir apparent of King George II. She never became queen consort, as Frederick predeceased his father in 1751. Augusta's eldest son succeeded her father-in-law as George III in 1760. After her spouse died, Augusta was the presumptive regent of Great Britain in the event of a regency, until her son reached majority in 1756.

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08/02/1750

Aaron Hill, English playwright and poet (born 1685)

Aaron Hill was an English dramatist and miscellany writer.

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08/02/1749

Jan van Huysum, Dutch painter (born 1682)

Jan van Huysum is the most notable member of the Van Huysum family of artists working in Dutch Golden Age of the 17th and 18th centuries; "by common consent, Jan van Huysum has been held to be the best painter of flowers." Trained in decoration from a young age, he "gradually developed an execution of details of the utmost beauty and finish" creating "wonderful flower pieces whereon drops of water and crawling ants could be seen without a magnifying glass."

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08/02/1725

Peter the Great, Russian emperor (born 1672)

Peter I was the Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until 1696. Peter, as an autocrat, organized a well-ordered police state.

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08/02/1709

Giuseppe Torelli, Italian violinist and composer (born 1658)

Giuseppe Torelli was an Italian violinist, teacher and composer of the middle Baroque era.

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08/02/1696

Ivan V of Russia (born 1666)

Ivan V Alekseyevich was Tsar of all Russia between 1682 and 1696, jointly ruling with his younger half-brother Peter I. Ivan was the youngest son of Alexis I of Russia by his first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya, while Peter was the only son of Alexis by his second wife, Natalya Naryshkina. Ivan's reign was solely titular because he had serious physical and mental challenges.

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08/02/1676

Alexis of Russia (born 1629)

Alexei Mikhailovich, also known as Alexis, was Tsar of all Russia from 1645 until his death in 1676. He was the second Russian tsar from the House of Romanov.

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08/02/1599

Robert Rollock, Scottish theologian and academic (born 1555)

Robert Rollock was a Scottish theologian and minister in the Church of Scotland, and the first regent and first principal of the University of Edinburgh. Born into a landowning family, he distinguished himself during his education at the University of St Andrews, which led to him being appointed regent of the newly created college in Edinburgh in 1583, and its first principal in 1586.

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08/02/1537

Saint Gerolamo Emiliani, Italian humanitarian (born 1481)

Gerolamo Emiliani, CRS was an Italian humanitarian, founder of the Somaschi Fathers, and is considered a saint by the Catholic Church.

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08/02/1382

Blanche of France, Duchess of Orléans (born 1328)

Blanche of France was the posthumous daughter of King Charles IV of France and his third wife, Joan of Évreux. She was the last direct Capetian and the last-surviving member of her family, and her marriage to her second cousin, Philip, Duke of Orléans, proved childless. With Blanche's death in 1393, the House of Capet continued to exist only via its numerous cadet branches.

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08/02/1314

Helen of Anjou, Queen of Serbia (born 1236)

Saint Helen of Serbia was the queen consort of the Serbian Kingdom, as the spouse of King Stefan Uroš I, who ruled from 1243 to 1276. Their sons were later Serbian kings Stefan Dragutin and Stefan Milutin. As a dowager-queen, she held the provincial governorship in the regions of Zeta and Travunija. She built Gradac Monastery and was known for her religious tolerance. She is venerated as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Her relics, however, are now lost.

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08/02/1296

Przemysł II of Poland (born 1257)

Przemysł II was the Duke of Poznań from 1257–1279, of Greater Poland from 1279 to 1296, of Kraków from 1290 to 1291, and Gdańsk Pomerania (Pomerelia) from 1294 to 1296, and then King of Poland from 1295 until his death. After a long period of Polish high dukes and two nominal kings, he was the first to obtain the hereditary title of king, and thus to return Poland to the rank of kingdom. A member of the Greater Poland branch of the House of Piast as the only son of Duke Przemysł I and the Silesian Princess Elisabeth, he was born posthumously; for this reason he was brought up at the court of his uncle Bolesław the Pious and received his own district to rule, the Duchy of Poznań in 1273. Six years later, after the death of his uncle, he also obtained the Duchy of Kalisz.

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08/02/1285

Theodoric of Landsberg (born 1242)

Theodoric of Landsberg, a member of the House of Wettin was Margrave of Landsberg from 1265 until his death.

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08/02/1265

Hulagu Khan, Mongol ruler (born 1217)

Hulegu Khan, also known as Hülegü or Hulagu, was a Mongol ruler who conquered much of Western Asia. As a son of Tolui and the Keraite princess Sorghaghtani Beki, he was a grandson of Genghis Khan and brother of Ariq Böke, Möngke Khan, and Kublai Khan.

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08/02/1250

Robert I, Count of Artois (born 1216)

Robert I, called the Good, was the first Count of Artois. He was the fifth son of King Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile.

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William II Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, English martyr (born 1212)

Sir William Longespée was an English knight and crusader, the son of William Longespée and Ela, Countess of Salisbury. His death became of significant importance to the English psyche, having died at the Battle of Mansurah, near Al-Mansurah in Egypt.

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08/02/1229

Ali ibn Hanzala, sixth Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq of Tayyibi Isma'ilism

Ali ibn Hanzala ibn Abi Salim al-Mahfuzi al-Wadi'i al-Hamdani was the sixth Tayyibi Isma'ili Da'i al-Mutlaq in Yemen, from 1215 to his death in 1229.

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08/02/1204

Alexios IV Angelos, Byzantine emperor (born 1182)

Alexios IV Angelos, Latinized as Alexius IV Angelus, was Byzantine Emperor from August 1203 to January 1204.

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08/02/0538

Severus of Antioch, patriarch of Antioch (born 465)

Severus of Antioch also known as Severus of Gaza, or the Crown of Syrians, was the Patriarch of Antioch and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 512 until his death in 538. He is venerated as a saint in the Oriental Orthodox Church, and his feast day is celebrated on 29 September by the Syriac Orthodox Church and 8 February by the Coptic Orthodox Church

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