Died on Saturday, 10th January – Famous Deaths

10/01/2026

Yeison Jiménez, Colombian singer, (born 1991)

Yeison Orlando Jiménez Galeano was a Colombian singer of música popular.

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Bob Weir, American musician, (born 1947)

Robert Hall Weir was an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, he performed with the Other Ones, later known as the Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead. Weir also founded and played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur, which he co-led with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. In 2015, Weir, along with former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, joined with singer/guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form the band Dead & Company.

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10/01/2025

José Jiménez, Puerto Rican activist (born 1948)

José Jiménez, nicknamed Cha Cha, was a Puerto Rican political activist and the founder of the Young Lords, a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil and human rights organization. Started on September 23, 1968, it was most active in the late 1960s and 1970s.

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Bill McCartney, American football player and coach (born 1940)

William Paul McCartney was an American college football coach who was the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes for 13 seasons (1982–1994). He compiled a 93–55–5 (.624) record, and won three consecutive Big Eight Conference titles (1989–1991). McCartney's 1990 team was crowned as national champions by the Associated Press, splitting the title with Georgia Tech, who was first in the final Coaches' Poll. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2013.

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Sam Moore, American soul singer-songwriter (born 1935)

Samuel David Moore was an American singer who was best known as a member of the soul and R&B duo Sam & Dave from 1961 to 1981. He was a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

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10/01/2023

Jeff Beck, English guitarist and songwriter (born 1944)

Geoffrey Arnold Beck was an English guitarist. He rose to prominence as a member of the rock band the Yardbirds, and afterwards founded and fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to an instrumental style with focus on an innovative sound, and his releases spanned genres and styles ranging from blues rock, hard rock, jazz fusion and a blend of guitar-rock and electronica.

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Constantine II of Greece, King of Greece (1964-1973) (born 1940)

Constantine II was the last King of Greece, reigning from 6 March 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy on 1 June 1973.

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10/01/2022

Joyce Eliason, American television personality (born 1934)

Joyce Eliason was an American television writer and producer. She was best known for writing TV miniseries including Titanic and The Last Don, and for the TV film The Jacksons: An American Dream. Eliason was one of the writers for the hit television series Love, American Style and wrote her first screenplay Tell Me a Riddle in 1980.

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Robert Durst, American real estate heir and convicted murderer (born 1943)

Robert Alan Durst was an American convicted murderer, suspected serial killer and real estate heir. The eldest son of New York City real estate magnate Seymour Durst, he garnered attention as a suspect in the unsolved 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen "Kathie" McCormack; the 2000 murder of his longtime friend, Susan Berman; and the 2001 killing of neighbor Morris Black.

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10/01/2020

Qaboos bin Said, ruler of Oman (born 1940)

Qaboos bin Said Al Said was Sultan of Oman from 23 July 1970 until his death in 2020. A fifteenth-generation descendant of the founder of the Al Bu Said dynasty, he was the longest-serving leader in the Middle East and Arab world at the time of his death, having ruled for almost half a century.

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10/01/2019

Ross Lowell, American inventor, photographer & author (born 1926)

Ross Kohut Lowell was an American inventor, photographer, cinematographer, lighting designer, author and entrepreneur who changed the film production industry with two inventions: a widely used quick-clamp lighting mount system, and gaffer tape. He founded Lowel-Light, a manufacturer of highly portable lighting equipment used in TV, film and stage lighting, with 20 patents filed by Lowell. Lowell was the cinematographer for the Academy Award-winning short A Year Toward Tomorrow (1966), and he won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1980 for his compact lighting system. The same year, he was nominated for Best Short Film, Live Action for his 14-minute film Oh Brother, My Brother (1979), depicting two of his young children. In 1987 Lowell was awarded the John Grierson Gold Medal by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), "in recognition of his many achievements, inventions, and innovative developments in the field of lightweight lighting and of grip equipment."

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10/01/2017

Buddy Greco, American jazz and pop singer and pianist (born 1926)

Armando Joseph "Buddy" Greco was an American jazz and pop singer and pianist who had a long career in the US and UK. His recordings have sold millions, including "Oh Look A-There Ain't She Pretty", "Up, Up and Away", and "Around the World". His most successful single was "The Lady Is a Tramp", which sold over one million copies. During his career, he recorded over sixty albums. He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and performed for Queen Elizabeth II and with the Beatles.

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Clare Hollingworth, English journalist (born 1911)

Clare Hollingworth was an English journalist and author. She was the first war correspondent to report the outbreak of World War II, described as "the scoop of the century". As a rookie reporter for The Daily Telegraph in 1939, while travelling from Poland to Germany, she spotted and reported German forces massed on the Polish border; The Daily Telegraph headline read: "1,000 tanks massed on Polish border"; three days later she was the first to report the German invasion of Poland.

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10/01/2016

David Bowie, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (born 1947)

David Robert Jones, known as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as among the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie received particular acclaim for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft have had a significant impact on popular music.

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Bård Breivik, Norwegian sculptor and art instructor (born 1948)

Bård Breivik was a Norwegian sculptor and art instructor.

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George Jonas, Hungarian-Canadian journalist, author, and poet (born 1935)

George Jonas, CM was a Hungarian-born Canadian writer, poet, and journalist. A self-described classical liberal, he authored 16 books, including the bestseller Vengeance (1984), the story of an Israeli operation to kill the terrorists responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre. The book has been adapted for film twice, first as Sword of Gideon (1986) and as Munich (2005).

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10/01/2015

Junior Malanda, Belgian footballer (born 1994)

Bernard Malanda-Adje known as his nickname Junior Malanda, was a Belgian professional footballer who played for German club VfL Wolfsburg as a defensive midfielder.

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Taylor Negron, American actor, playwright, and painter (born 1957)

Brad Stephen "Taylor" Negron was an American actor, comedian, writer and artist. He is known for his roles as Albert in Punchline (1988) and as Milo in the 1991 action comedy The Last Boy Scout.

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Francesco Rosi, Italian director and screenwriter (born 1922)

Francesco Rosi was an Italian film director and screenwriter. His film The Mattei Affair won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to have political messages, while the topics of his later films became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature. He made his debut with his first self-directed film in 1958 and continued to direct until 1997, his last film being the adaptation of Primo Levi's book, The Truce.

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Robert Stone, American novelist and short story writer (born 1937)

Robert Anthony Stone was an American novelist, journalist, and college professor.

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10/01/2014

Sam Berns, American activist (born 1996)

Sampson Gordon Berns was an American activist with progeria, an extremely rare and fatal disease that causes the body to age rapidly. Berns helped raise awareness about the disease, and he was the subject of the HBO documentary Life According to Sam, which was first screened in January 2013.

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Petr Hlaváček, Czech shoemaker and academic (born 1950)

Petr Hlaváček was a Czech shoe expert, university lecturer and researcher. His professional focus was to study the preparation and production of shoe materials, footwear, footwear ergonomics and historical footwear.

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Zbigniew Messner, Polish economist and politician, 9th Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland (born 1929)

Zbigniew Stefan Messner was a Polish communist politician and economist. His ancestors were of German Polish descent who had assimilated into Polish society. In 1972, he became Professor of Karol Adamiecki University of Economics in Katowice. In the 1980s, Messner held numerous high ranking posts within communist party apparatus. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) from 1981 to 1990, when PZPR was dissolved, member of the PZPR Politburo from 1981 to 1988, Deputy Prime Minister from 1983 to 1985, member of Sejm from 1985 to 1989, Prime Minister of Polish People's Republic from 1985 to 1988 and member of the State Council of the Polish People's Republic from 1988 to 1989. Additionally in the 1960s Messner was the chairman of Piast Gliwice football club.

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Larry Speakes, American journalist, 16th White House Press Secretary (born 1939)

Larry Melvin Speakes was an American journalist and spokesperson who acted as White House Press Secretary under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987. He assumed the role after Press Secretary James Brady was shot on March 30, 1981.

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Dajikaka Gadgil, Indian jeweller (born 1915)

Anant "Dajikaka" Gadgil was an Indian jeweller, industrialist and writer. He is best known for founding the P. N. Gadgil Jewellers & Company in Pune in 1958.

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10/01/2013

George Gruntz, Swiss pianist and composer (born 1932)

George Gruntz was a Swiss jazz pianist, organist, harpsichordist, keyboardist, and composer known for the George Gruntz Concert Big Band and his work with Phil Woods, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Don Cherry, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and Mel Lewis.

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Claude Nobs, Swiss businessman, founded the Montreux Jazz Festival (born 1936)

Claude Nobs was the founder and general manager of the Montreux Jazz Festival.

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10/01/2012

Jean Pigott, Canadian businesswoman and politician (born 1924)

Jean Elizabeth Morrison Pigott was a Canadian politician and businesswoman. She served as the member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Ottawa—Carleton from 1976 to 1979 as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. She later served as chair of the National Capital Commission (NCC) from 1985 to 1992.

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Gevork Vartanian, Russian intelligence agent (born 1924)

Gevork Andreevich Vartanian was a Soviet intelligence officer.

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10/01/2011

María Elena Walsh, Argentine author and composer (born 1930)

María Elena Walsh was an Argentine poet, novelist, musician, playwright, writer and composer, mainly known for her songs and books for children. Her work includes many of the most popular children's books and songs of all time in her home country.

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Margaret Whiting, American singer (born 1924)

Margaret Eleanor Whiting was an American singer of popular music who gained popularity in the 1940s and 1950s.

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10/01/2010

Patcha Ramachandra Rao, Indian metallurgist, educator and administrator (born 1942)

Patcha Ramachandra Rao was a metallurgist and administrator. He has the unique distinction of being the only vice-chancellor (2002–05) of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) who was also a student (1963–68) and faculty (1964–92) at that institution. From 1992 to 2002, Rao was the director of the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur. After his tenure as vice-chancellor of B.H.U., in 2005, he took the reins of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) as its first vice-chancellor. He was to serve DIAT until his superannuation in 2007. From 2007 till the end, Rao was a Raja Ramanna Fellow at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

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10/01/2008

Christopher Bowman, American figure skater and actor (born 1967)

Christopher Nicol Bowman was an American figure skater. He was a two-time World medalist, the 1983 World Junior champion, and a two-time U.S. national champion. He competed in two Olympic Winter Games, placing 7th in 1988 and 4th in 1992.

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Maila Nurmi, Finnish-American actress, producer, and screenwriter (born 1922)

Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi, known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was an American actress best known for creating the camp 1950s character Vampira.

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10/01/2007

Carlo Ponti, Italian film producer (born 1912)

Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II, producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s.

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Bradford Washburn, American explorer, photographer, and cartographer (born 1910)

Henry Bradford Washburn Jr. was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his death served as its Honorary Director. Bradford married Barbara Polk in 1940 and honeymooned in Alaska, making the first ascent of Mount Bertha together.

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10/01/2005

Wasyly, Ukrainian-Canadian bishop (born 1909)

Metropolitan Wasyly or Basil, was the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada (UOCC) from 1985 until his death in 2005.

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Jack Horner, American journalist (born 1912)

Gordon John Horner was a noted sports journalist who worked in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market of Minnesota. He participated in the first modern television broadcasts of KSTP-TV channel 5, appearing on the first fully electronic telecast in the state on December 7, 1947. When the station began regular broadcasts in April 1948, he provided play-by-play for a televised baseball game between the Minneapolis Millers and a team from Louisville. Jack Horner also broadcast the first live televised game of the Harlem Globetrotters and provided one of the last interviews of Babe Ruth.

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Princess Joséphine Charlotte of Belgium (born 1927)

Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium was Grand Duchess of Luxembourg as the wife of Grand Duke Jean. She was the first child of King Leopold III of Belgium, and sister of the late King Baudouin and former King Albert II and aunt of King Philippe. She was also the maternal first cousin of King Harald V of Norway, maternal second cousin of former Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and a paternal third cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

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10/01/2004

Spalding Gray, American actor and screenwriter (born 1941)

Spalding Rockwell Gray was an American actor and writer. He is best known for driving autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for theater in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as for his film adaptations of these works, beginning in 1987. He wrote and starred in several films, working with different directors.

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10/01/2000

Sam Jaffe, American screenwriter and producer (born 1901)

Sam Jaffe was, at different points in his career in the motion picture industry, an agent, a producer, and a studio executive.

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10/01/1999

Edward Williams, Australian lieutenant, pilot, and judge (born 1921)

Sir Edward Stratten Williams was a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland.

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10/01/1997

Elspeth Huxley, Kenyan-English journalist and author (born 1907)

Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE was an English writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser. She wrote over 40 books, including her best-known lyrical books, The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard, based on her youth in a coffee farm in British Kenya. Her husband, Gervas Huxley, was a grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley and a cousin of Aldous Huxley.

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Sheldon Leonard, American actor, director, and producer (born 1907)

Sheldon Leonard Bershad was an American film and television actor, producer, director, and screenwriter.

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Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd, Scottish biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1907)

Alexander Robertus Todd, Baron Todd was a British biochemist whose research on the structure and synthesis of nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes gained him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1957.

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10/01/1995

Kathleen Tynan, Canadian-English journalist, author, and screenwriter (born 1937)

Kathleen Jeannette Halton Tynan was a Canadian-British journalist, author, and screenwriter.

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10/01/1992

Roberto Bonomi, Argentinian racing driver (born 1919)

Roberto Wenceslao Bonomi Oliva was a racing driver who took part in one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix driving a Cooper for the Scuderia Centro Sud team. Before he participated in Formula One he was a sports car champion in 1952 and 1953, as well as a member of the Argentine team to race in Europe. Bonomi worked as a local politician and landowner.

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10/01/1990

Tochinishiki Kiyotaka, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 44th Yokozuna (born 1925)

Tochinishiki Kiyotaka was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Tokyo. He was the sport's 44th yokozuna. He won ten top division yūshō or tournament championships and was a rival of fellow yokozuna Wakanohana I. He became the head coach of Kasugano stable in 1959 and was head of the Japan Sumo Association from 1974 until 1988.

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10/01/1989

Herbert Morrison, American journalist and producer (born 1905)

Herbert Morrison was an American journalist whose charged radio report on the Hindenburg disaster is recognized as a landmark in broadcasting. Decades on from his 1937 report, he became the first news director at Pennsylvania's television station WTAE-TV. The writer Craig M. Allen describes him as "an early pioneer of both radio and television news".

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10/01/1987

Marion Hutton, American singer (born 1919)

Marion Hutton was an American singer and actress. She is best remembered for her singing with the Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1938 to 1942. She was the sister of actress and singer Betty Hutton.

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David Robinson, English businessman and philanthropist (born 1904)

Sir David Robinson was a British entrepreneur and philanthropist.

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10/01/1986

Jaroslav Seifert, Czech journalist and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1901)

Jaroslav Seifert was a Czech writer, poet and journalist. Seifert was awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit and versatility of man".

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10/01/1984

Souvanna Phouma, Laotian politician, 8th Prime Minister of Laos (born 1901)

Prince Souvanna Phouma was the leader of the neutralist faction and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Laos several times.

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10/01/1981

Fawn M. Brodie, American historian and author (born 1915)

Fawn McKay Brodie was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974), a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History (1945), an early biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.

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10/01/1978

Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, Nicaraguan journalist and author (born 1924)

Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal was a Nicaraguan journalist and publisher. He was the editor of La Prensa, the only significant opposition newspaper to the long rule of the Somoza family. He was a 1977 laureate of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize of Columbia University in New York. He married Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who later went on to become President of Nicaragua (1990–1997). In 1978, he was shot to death, one of the precipitating events of the overthrow of the Somoza regime the following year.

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Don Gillis, American composer and conductor (born 1912)

Donald Eugene Gillis was an American composer, conductor, teacher, and radio producer. The composition that has gained him most recognition is his orchestral Symphony No. 5½, A Symphony for Fun.

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Hannah Gluckstein, British painter (born 1895)

Gluck was a British painter. Gluck joined the Lamorna artists' colony near Penzance, and was noted for creating portraits and floral paintings, as well as a new design of picture-frame. Gluck's relationships with a number of women included one with Nesta Obermer: the artist's joint self-portrait with Obermer (Medallion) is viewed as an iconic lesbian statement. Gluck rejected any forename or honorific, and also used the names Peter and Hig.

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10/01/1976

Howlin' Wolf, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1910)

Chester Arthur Burnett, better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians ever.

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10/01/1972

Aksel Larsen, Danish lawyer and politician (born 1897)

Aksel Larsen was a Danish politician who was chairman of the Communist Party of Denmark (DKP), and chairman and founder of the Socialist People's Party. He is remembered today for his long service in the Communist Party of Denmark, for his time as a concentration camp inmate at Sachsenhausen, and for being the founder of the Socialist People's Party.

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10/01/1971

Coco Chanel, French fashion designer, founded Chanel (born 1883)

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post–World War I era with popularising a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing into jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.

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Ignazio Giunti, Italian racing driver (born 1941)

Ignazio Francesco Giunti was an Italian racing driver. He competed in Formula One as well as in saloon and Sports Car Racing.

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10/01/1970

Pavel Belyayev, Russian pilot and astronaut (born 1925)

Pavel Ivanovich Belyayev was a Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the historic 1965 Voskhod 2 space mission which saw the first space walk. He had been a fighter pilot with extensive experience in piloting different types of aircraft, and was the first commander of the cosmonaut corps.

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10/01/1969

Sampurnanand, Indian educator and politician, 2nd Governor of Rajasthan (born 1891)

Sampurnanand was an Indian teacher and politician who served as the second Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1954 until 1960, and later as Governor of Rajasthan. Serving for five years and 344 days, he had the longest single tenure of any Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister until surpassed by Yogi Adityanath in 2023.

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10/01/1968

Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Turkish general and politician, 6th Speaker of the Parliament of Turkey (born 1882)

Ali Fuat Cebesoy was a Turkish military officer who served in the Ottoman Army and then in the Turkish army and politician.

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10/01/1967

Charles E. Burchfield, American painter (born 1893)

Charles Ephraim Burchfield was an American painter and visionary artist, known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. The largest collection of Burchfield's paintings, archives and journals are in the collection of the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. His paintings are in the collections of more than 109 museums in the USA and have been the subject of exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as other prominent institutions.

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10/01/1961

Dashiell Hammett, American detective novelist and screenwriter (born 1894)

Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, The Continental Op and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.

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10/01/1960

Jack Laviolette, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and manager (born 1879)

Jean-Baptiste "Jack" Laviolette was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. Laviolette played nine seasons for the Montreal Canadiens hockey club and was their first captain, coach, and general manager.

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10/01/1959

Şükrü Kaya, Turkish jurist and politician, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1883)

Şükrü Kaya was a Turkish civil servant and politician, who served as government minister, Minister of Interior and Minister of Foreign affairs in several governments. He is one of the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide.

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10/01/1957

Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1889)

Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral, was a Chilean poet-diplomat, journalist and educator. She read widely in theosophy, became a member of the Secular Franciscan Order or Third Franciscan order in 1925, but rarely attended mass. She was the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945, "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world". Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences. She also wrote an immense body of prose, about 800 articles that circulated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, on a range of topics: geography, education, profiles of her fellow writers, politics, and more. Her image is featured on the 5,000 Chilean peso banknote.

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10/01/1956

Zonia Baber, American geographer and geologist (born 1862)

Mary Arizona "Zonia" Baber was an American geographer and geologist best known for developing methods for teaching geography. Her teachings emphasized experiential learning through field work and experimentation.

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10/01/1954

Chester Wilmot, American journalist and historian (born 1911)

Reginald William Winchester Wilmot was an Australian war correspondent who reported for the BBC and the ABC during the Second World War. After the war he continued to work as a broadcast reporter, and wrote a well-appreciated book about the liberation of Europe. He was killed in the crash of a BOAC Comet over the Elba island.

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10/01/1951

Sinclair Lewis, American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1885)

Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first author from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." Lewis wrote six popular novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935).

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Yoshio Nishina, Japanese physicist and academic (born 1890)

Yoshio Nishina was a Japanese physicist who was called "the founding father of modern physics research in Japan". He led the efforts of Japan to develop an atomic bomb during World War II.

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10/01/1949

Erich von Drygalski, German geographer and geophysicist (born 1865)

Erich Dagobert von Drygalski was a German geographer, geophysicist and polar scientist, born in Königsberg, East Prussia.

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10/01/1946

Matti Turkia, Finnish politician (born 1871)

Matti Turkia was a Finnish newspaper editor, politician and member of the Parliament of Finland, the national legislature of Finland. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), he represented Uusimaa Province between October 1930 and April 1945. He had previously represented Viipuri Province West from May 1907 to May 1909 and from February 1914 to April 1917. He was secretary of the SDP from 1906 to 1918.

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10/01/1941

Frank Bridge, English viola player and composer (born 1879)

Frank Bridge was an English composer, violist and conductor.

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John Lavery, Irish painter and academic (born 1856)

Sir John Lavery was an Irish painter best known for his portraits and wartime depictions.

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Issai Schur, Belarusian-German mathematician and academic (born 1875)

Issai Schur was a Russian mathematician who worked in Germany for most of his life. He studied at the University of Berlin. He obtained his doctorate in 1901, became lecturer in 1903 and, after a stay at the University of Bonn, professor in 1919.

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10/01/1935

Edwin Flack, Australian tennis player and runner (born 1873)

Edwin Harold Flack was an Australian athlete and tennis player. Also known as "Teddy", he was Australia's first Olympian, being its only representative in 1896, and the first Olympic champion in the 800 metres and the 1500 metres running events.

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Charlie McGahey, English cricketer and footballer (born 1871)

Charles Percy McGahey was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Essex between 1894 and 1921. McGahey also played for London County between 1901 and 1904 and was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1902. McGahey played two Test matches for England during Archie MacLaren's tour of Australia in 1901-02.

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10/01/1926

Eino Leino, Finnish poet and journalist (born 1878)

Eino Leino was a Finnish poet and journalist who is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry and a national poet of Finland. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. Much of his work is in the style of the Kalevala and folk songs in general. Nature, love, and despair are frequent themes in Leino's work. He is beloved and widely read in Finland today.

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10/01/1922

Frank Tudor, Australian politician, 6th Australian Minister for Trade and Investment (born 1866)

Francis Gwynne Tudor was an Australian politician who served as the leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1916 until his death. He had previously been a government minister under Andrew Fisher and Billy Hughes.

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10/01/1920

Sali Nivica, Albanian journalist and politician (born 1890)

Sali Nivica or Sali Nivitza was a politician, a patriot, an Albanian journalist and a teacher. For his patriotic activity he received the highest Albanian award, 'Honor of the Nation' as well as that of 'Teacher of the People'. He was assassinated in 1920 at aged 29.

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10/01/1917

Buffalo Bill, American soldier and hunter (born 1846)

William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. One of the most famous figures of the American Old West, Cody began performing at the age of 23. He performed in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Europe.

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Feliks Leparsky, Russian fencer and captain (born 1875)

Feliks Leparsky was a Russian fencer. He competed in the individual foil event at the 1912 Summer Olympics. He served as a captain in the Russian army and was killed during World War I.

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10/01/1905

Kārlis Baumanis, Latvian composer (born 1835)

Kārlis Baumanis, better known as Baumaņu Kārlis, was an ethnic Latvian composer in the Russian Empire. He is the author of the lyrics and music of Dievs, svētī Latviju! , the national anthem of Latvia.

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10/01/1904

Jean-Léon Gérôme, French painter and sculptor (born 1824)

Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The range of his works includes historical paintings, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects. Gérôme is considered among the most important painters from the academic period and was, with Meissonier and Cabanel, one of "the three most successful artists of the Second Empire".

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10/01/1901

James Dickson, English-Australian businessman and politician, 1st Australian Minister for Defence (born 1832)

Sir James Robert Dickson, was an Australian politician and businessman, the 13th Premier of Queensland and a member of the first federal ministry.

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10/01/1895

Benjamin Godard, French violinist and composer (born 1849)

Benjamin Louis Paul Godard was a French violinist and Romantic-era composer of Jewish extraction, best known for his opera Jocelyn. Godard composed eight operas, five symphonies, two piano and two violin concertos, string quartets, sonatas for violin and piano, piano pieces and etudes, and more than a hundred songs. He died at the age of 45 in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes) of tuberculosis and was buried in the family tomb in Taverny in the French department of Val-d'Oise.

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10/01/1863

Lyman Beecher, American minister and activist, co-founded the American Temperance Society (born 1775)

Lyman Beecher was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist. He fathered 13 children, over half of whom became writers or ministers, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Catharine Beecher, and Thomas K. Beecher.

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10/01/1862

Samuel Colt, American engineer and businessman, founded Colt's Manufacturing Company (born 1814)

Samuel Colt was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.

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10/01/1855

Mary Russell Mitford, English author and playwright (born 1787)

Mary Russell Mitford was an English essayist, novelist, poet and dramatist. She was born in New Alresford in Hampshire, England. She is best known for Our Village, a series of sketches of village scenes and vividly drawn characters based upon her life in Three Mile Cross near Reading in Berkshire.

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10/01/1851

Karl Freiherr von Müffling, Prussian field marshal (born 1775)

Friedrich Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Müffling, nicknamed Weiss, was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall and military theorist. He served as Blücher's liaison officer in Wellington's headquarters during the Battle of Waterloo and was one of the organizers of the final victory over Napoleon. After the wars he served a diplomatic role at the Congress of Aix-la-Chappelle and was a major contributor to the development of the Prussian General Staff as Chief. Müffling also specialized in military topography and cartography.

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10/01/1843

Dimitrie Macedonski, Greek-Romanian captain and politician (born 1780)

Dimitrie Macedonski was a Wallachian Pandur captain and revolutionary leader.

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10/01/1829

Gregorio Funes, Argentinian clergyman, historian, and educator (born 1749)

Gregorio Funes, also known as Deán Funes, was an Argentine clergyman, educator, historian, journalist and lawmaker who played a significant role in his nation's early, post-independence history.

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10/01/1828

François de Neufchâteau, French poet, academic, and politician, French Minister of the Interior (born 1750)

Nicolas François de Neufchâteau was a French statesman, poet, and agricultural scientist.

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10/01/1824

Victor Emmanuel I, duke of Savoy and king of Sardinia (born 1759)

Victor Emmanuel I was the Duke of Savoy, King of Sardinia and ruler of the Savoyard states from 4 June 1802 until his reign ended in 1821 upon abdication due to a liberal revolution. Shortly thereafter, his brother Charles Felix ascended the throne as the new king of Sardinia. Victor Emmanuel was the son of King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain. In 1789, he married Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, with whom he had seven children, including the future Empress of Austria. He was the King of Sardinia during the Napoleonic Wars, where he regained Piedmont after Napoleon's defeat in 1814.

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10/01/1811

Joseph Chénier, French poet, playwright, and politician (born 1764)

Marie-Joseph Blaise de Chénier was a French poet, dramatist and politician of French and Greek origin. Active in the years leading up to and during the French Revolution, he was a fierce critic of the French monarchy and his plays were widely performed during the First Republic era.

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10/01/1794

Georg Forster, German-Polish ethnologist and journalist (born 1754)

Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster, was a German-Polish geographer, naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold Forster, on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. His report of that journey, A Voyage Round the World, contributed significantly to the ethnology of the people of Polynesia and remains a respected work. As a result of the report, Forster, who was admitted to the Royal Society at the early age of twenty-two, came to be considered one of the founders of modern scientific travel literature.

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10/01/1778

Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist and physician (born 1707)

Carl Linnaeus, also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as Carolus a Linné.

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10/01/1761

Edward Boscawen, English admiral and politician (born 1711)

Admiral of the Blue Edward Boscawen, was a Royal Navy officer and politician. He is known principally for his various naval commands during the 18th century and the engagements that he won, including the siege of Louisburg in 1758 and Battle of Lagos in 1759. He is also remembered as the officer who signed the warrant authorising the execution of Admiral John Byng in 1757, for failing to engage the enemy at the Battle of Minorca (1756). In his political role, he served as a Member of Parliament for Truro from 1742 until his death in 1761 although, due to almost constant naval employment, he seems not to have been particularly active. He also served as one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on the Board of Admiralty from 1751 and as a member of the Privy Council from 1758 until his death.

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10/01/1754

Edward Cave, English publisher, founded The Gentleman's Magazine (born 1691)

Edward Cave was an English printer, editor and publisher. He coined the term "magazine" for a periodical, founding The Gentleman's Magazine in 1731, and was the first publisher to successfully fashion a wide-ranging publication.

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10/01/1698

Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, French priest and historian (born 1637)

Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont was a French ecclesiastical historian.

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10/01/1654

Nicholas Culpeper, English botanist, physician, and astrologer (born 1616)

Nicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer. His book The English Physitian is a source of pharmaceutical and herbal lore of the time, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655) one of the most detailed works on medical astrology in Early Modern Europe. Culpeper catalogued hundreds of outdoor medicinal herbs. He scolded contemporaries for some of the methods they used in herbal medicine: "This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it."

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10/01/1645

William Laud, English archbishop and academic (born 1573)

William Laud was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms; he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645.

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10/01/1552

Johann Cochlaeus, German humanist and controversialist (born 1479)

Johann Cochlaeus (Cochläus) was a German humanist, music theorist, and controversialist.

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10/01/1358

Abu Inan Faris, Marinid ruler of Morocco (born 1329)

Abu Inan Faris was a Marinid ruler. He succeeded his father Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman in 1348. He extended his rule over Tlemcen and Ifriqiya, which covered the north of what is now Algeria and Tunisia, but was forced to retreat due to a revolt of Arab tribes there. He died, strangled by his vizier, in 1358.

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10/01/1322

Petrus Aureolus, scholastic philosopher

Petrus Aureoli, often anglicized Peter Auriol, was a scholastic philosopher and theologian.

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10/01/1276

Gregory X, pope of the Catholic Church (born c.1210)

Pope Gregory X was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1 September 1271 to his death and was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis. He was elected at the conclusion of a papal election that ran from 1268 to 1271, the longest papal election in the history of the Catholic Church.

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10/01/1218

Hugh I, king of Cyprus

Hugh I was the king of Cyprus from 1205 until his death. He was nine when he succeeded his father, King Aimery, and his brother-in-law Walter of Montbéliard ruled the kingdom as regent. Sometime between 1208 and 1211, Hugh married Alice of Champagne, with whom he had three children. After reaching the age of majority and assuming personal rule in 1210, he fell out with Walter, who fled to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Hugh reversed Walter's policies, making peace with the Seljuqs of Rum and siding with the Armenians in the War of the Antiochene Succession. Pope Innocent III rebuked him for his hostility to the king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, and for interfering in church appointments. Hugh embarked on the Fifth Crusade in late 1217, but died of an illness in Tripoli soon after. His infant son, Henry I, succeeded him under Queen Alice's tutelage.

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10/01/1094

Al-Mustansir Billah, Egyptian caliph (born 1029)

Abū Tamīm Maʿad al-Mustanṣir biʾllāh was the eighth Fatimid Caliph from 1036 until 1094. He was one of the longest reigning Muslim rulers. His reign was the twilight of the Fatimid state. The start of his reign saw the continuation of competent administrators running the Fatimid state, overseeing the state's prosperity in the first two decades of al-Mustansir's reign. However, the break out of court infighting between the Turkish and Berber/Sudanese court factions following al-Yazuri's assassination, coinciding with natural disasters in Egypt and the gradual loss of administrative control over Fatimid possessions outside of Egypt, almost resulted in the total collapse of the Fatimid state in the 1060s, before the appointment of the Armenian general Badr al-Jamali, who assumed power as vizier in 1073, and became the de facto dictator of the country under the nominal rule of al-Mustansir.

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10/01/1055

Bretislav I, duke of Bohemia

Bretislav I, known as the "Bohemian Achilles", of the Přemyslid dynasty, was Duke of Bohemia from 1034 until his death in 1055.

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10/01/0987

Pietro I Orseolo, doge of Venice (born 928)

Pietro I Orseolo OSBCam, also known as Peter Urseulus, (928–987) was the Doge of Venice from 976 until 978. He abdicated his office and left in the middle of the night to become a monk. He later entered the order of the Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church.

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10/01/0976

John I Tzimiskes, Byzantine emperor (born 925)

John I Tzimiskes was the senior Byzantine emperor from 969 to 976. An intuitive and successful general who married into the influential Skleros family, he strengthened and expanded the Byzantine Empire to include Thrace and Syria by warring with the Rus' under Sviatoslav I and the Fatimids respectively.

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10/01/0681

Agatho, pope of the Catholic Church

Pope Agatho served as the bishop of Rome from 27 June 678 until his death on 10 January 681. He heard the appeal of Wilfrid of York, who had been displaced from his see by the division of the archdiocese ordered by Theodore of Canterbury. During Agatho's tenure, the Sixth Ecumenical Council was convened to deal with monothelitism. He is venerated as a saint by both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. He is said to have been the longest lived pope ever.

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10/01/0314

Miltiades, pope of the Catholic Church

Pope Miltiades, also known as Melchiades the African, was the bishop of Rome from 311 to his death on 10 or 11 January 314. It was during his pontificate that Emperor Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan (313), giving Christianity legal status within the Roman Empire. The pope also received the palace of Empress Fausta where the Lateran Palace, the papal seat and residence of the papal administration, would be built. At the Lateran Council, during the schism with the Church of Carthage, Miltiades condemned the rebaptism of apostatised bishops and priests, a teaching of Donatus Magnus.

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10/01/0259

Polyeuctus, Roman saint

Saint Polyeuctus of Melitene is a Christian saint from the Roman era.

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