Died on Friday, 16th January – Famous Deaths

16/01/2025

David Lynch, American filmmaker and actor (born 1946)

David Keith Lynch was an American filmmaker, actor, painter, and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, with his films often characterized by a distinctive surrealist sensibility that gave rise to the adjective "Lynchian". In a career spanning more than five decades, he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Honorary Award, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival, a Palme d'Or and Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and a (posthumous) Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and nine Primetime Emmy Awards.

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Dame Joan Plowright, English actress (born 1929)

Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, commonly known as Dame Joan Plowright, was an English actress whose career spanned over six decades. She received several accolades including two Golden Globe Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.

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Bob Uecker, American professional baseball catcher and sportscaster (born 1934)

Robert George Uecker was an American professional baseball catcher and sportscaster who served as the play-by-play announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers of Major League Baseball (MLB) for 54 seasons. He was also an occasional television and film actor.

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16/01/2022

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Former Malian President (born 1945)

Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, often known by his initials IBK, was a Malian politician who served as the president of Mali from September 2013 to August 2020, when he was forced to resign in the 2020 Malian coup d'état. He served as Mali's prime minister from February 1994 to February 2000 and as president of the National Assembly of Mali from September 2002 to September 2007.

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16/01/2021

Pedro Trebbau, German-born Venezuelan zoologist (born 1929)

Pedro Trebbau was a German-born Venezuelan zoologist. His career was characterized by the promotion and preservation of Venezuelan wildlife and nature. His research and collaboration with the herpetologist Peter Pritchard produced the still-extant reference book on The Turtles of Venezuela, the 2018 re-edition of which, alongside the biography done on him entitled Trebbau: Maestro por naturaleza by Albor Rodríguez, sparked the series Colección La Fauna, which aimed to collect Trebbau's work on the fauna of Venezuela.

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Chris Cramer, British journalist (born 1948)

Christopher Ranville Cramer was a British news journalist and executive. During his career, he was head of news gathering for the BBC, an executive at CNN International, and a consultant for The Wall Street Journal. Cramer was perhaps best known in his field for raising training standards for journalists who are given dangerous assignments, as well as suggesting safety equipment while away and necessary counselling upon their return. Such methods arose from his being taken hostage in the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980.

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Phil Spector, American record producer, songwriter (born 1939)

Harvey Phillip Spector was an American record producer and songwriter primarily known for his Wall of Sound production style in the 1960s, followed by his trials and imprisonment for murder after the 2000s. Considered the first music producer auteur, he is the most successful American producer of the 1960s and widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop music history.

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16/01/2020

Christopher Tolkien, British academic and editor (born 1924)

Christopher John Reuel Tolkien was an English academic editor and writer. The son of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, he edited 24 volumes based on his father's posthumously published work, including The Silmarillion and the 12-volume series The History of Middle-Earth, a task that took 45 years. He drew the original maps for his father's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. He spent the second half of his life in France, becoming a French citizen.

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16/01/2019

John C. Bogle, American businessman, investor, and philanthropist (born 1929)

John Clifton "Jack" Bogle was an American investor, business magnate and philanthropist and founder. He was the founder and chief executive of The Vanguard Group and is credited with popularizing the index fund. An avid investor and money manager himself, he preached investment over speculation, long-term patience over short-term action, and reducing broker fees as much as possible.

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Lorna Doom, American musician (born 1958)

Lorna Doom was an American musician best known as the bass guitarist for the punk rock band the Germs from 1976 to 1980, and again after they got back together from 2005 to 2009.

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Chris Wilson, Australian musician (born 1956)

Christopher John Wilson was an Australian blues musician who sang and played harmonica, saxophone and guitar. He performed as part of the Sole Twisters, Harem Scarem and Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls, and fronted his band Crown of Thorns. Wilson's solo albums are Landlocked, The Long Weekend, Spiderman (2000), King for a Day, Flying Fish (2012) and the self titled Chris Wilson (2018).

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16/01/2018

Ed Doolan, British radio presenter (born 1941)

Edwin Myer Doolan MBE was an Australian born naturalised British radio presenter who was a veteran of Birmingham's first commercial radio station BRMB, and subsequently the BBC. At the BBC he presented a weekly show trawling through his broadcast archives from noon until 1 pm on BBC Radio WM on Sunday lunchtime. He was honoured by the British Radio Academy, earning a place in the Radio Hall of Fame. He was presented with Honorary Doctorates from Birmingham's three universities and was the first person to have ever achieved that honour.

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Oliver Ivanović, Kosovo Serb politician (born 1953)

Oliver Ivanović was a Kosovo Serb politician.

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16/01/2017

Eugene Cernan, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (born 1934)

Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot.

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16/01/2016

Joannis Avramidis, Greek sculptor (born 1922)

Joannis Avramidis was a contemporary Greek-Austrian painter and sculptor. He was born in Batumi, on the Black Sea, in the Adjarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an Autonomous Republic of the former Soviet Union, to a family of Pontic Greeks, who had fled the repression of ethnic minorities in the Ottoman Empire in the turmoil leading up to the Greco-Turkish War.

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Ted Marchibroda, American football player and coach (born 1931)

Theodore Joseph Marchibroda was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played four years in the NFL as a quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cardinals (1957). Marchibroda was later head coach of the Colts in two different cities and decades, first in Baltimore from 1975 to 1979 and then Indianapolis from 1992 to 1995. Upon joining the Baltimore Ravens in 1996, he became the only individual to serve as head coach with both of Baltimore's NFL teams and gained the unusual distinction of having three stints as an NFL head coach for two franchises in two cities, but with no two of those tenures being for the same franchise in the same city. His career NFL head coaching record was 87–98–1 (.470) and 2–4 in the playoffs.

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16/01/2015

Miriam Akavia, Polish-Israeli author and translator (born 1927)

Miriam Akavia also Matylda Weinfeld was a Polish-born Israeli writer and translator, a Holocaust survivor, and the president of the Platform for Jewish-Polish Dialogue.

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Yao Beina, Chinese singer (born 1981)

Yao Beina, also known as Bella Yao, was a Chinese singer and songwriter. She debuted as a professional singer with her portrayal of the diva of the musical Jin Sha (金沙) in 2005. After graduating from China Conservatory of Music in the same year, she started her singing career in the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Political Department of the People's Liberation Army Navy.

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16/01/2014

Gary Arlington, American author and illustrator (born 1938)

Gary Edson Arlington was an American retailer, artist, editor, and publisher, who became a key figure in the underground comix movement of the 1960s and 1970s. As owner of one of America's first comic book stores, the San Francisco Comic Book Company, located in San Francisco's Mission District, Arlington's establishment became a focal point for the Bay Area's underground artists. He published comics under the name San Francisco Comic Book Company, as well as publishing and distributing comics under the name Eric Fromm. Cartoonist Robert Crumb has noted, "Gary made a cultural contribution in San Francisco in the late 1960s, through the '70s, '80s & '90s that was more significant than he realizes."

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Ruth Duccini, American actress (born 1918)

Ruth Leone Duccini was an American actress.

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Dave Madden, Canadian-American actor (born 1931)

David Joseph Madden was a Canadian-born American actor. His most famous role came on the 1970s sitcom The Partridge Family, in which he played the group's manager, Reuben Kincaid, opposite Shirley Jones's character. Madden later had a recurring role as diner customer Earl Hicks on the mid-1970s to mid-1980s sitcom Alice.

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Hiroo Onoda, Japanese lieutenant (born 1922)

Hiroo Onoda 19 March 1922 – 16 January 2014) was a Japanese soldier who served as a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. One of the last Japanese holdouts, Onoda continued fighting for nearly 29 years after the war's end in 1945, carrying out guerrilla warfare on Lubang Island in the Philippines until 1974.

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16/01/2013

Wayne D. Anderson, American baseball player and coach (born 1930)

Wayne Delbert Anderson was an American college basketball coach, the head coach for eight seasons at the University of Idaho, his alma mater. He was also the head baseball coach at Idaho for nine seasons, and the assistant athletic director for fifteen years.

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André Cassagnes, French technician and toy maker, created the Etch A Sketch (born 1926)

André Cassagnes was a French inventor, electrical technician, toymaker, and kite designer. Cassagnes is best known as the inventor of the Etch A Sketch, a popular mechanical drawing toy manufactured since 2016 by Spin Master, formerly by the Ohio Art Company.

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Gussie Moran, American tennis player and sportscaster (born 1923)

Gertrude Augusta "Gussie" Moran was an American tennis player who was active in the late 1940s and 1950s. Her highest US national tennis ranking was 4th. She was born in Santa Monica, California and died in Los Angeles, California, aged 89.

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Pauline Phillips, American journalist and radio host, created Dear Abby (born 1918)

Pauline Esther Phillips, also known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice columnist and radio show host who began the well-known Dear Abby newspaper column in 1956. It became the most widely syndicated newspaper column in the world, syndicated in 1,400 newspapers with 110 million readers.

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Glen P. Robinson, American businessman, founded Scientific Atlanta (born 1923)

Glen Parmelee Robinson, Jr., called the "father of high-tech industry in Georgia", was an American businessman and founder of Scientific Atlanta, formerly a subsidiary of Cisco Systems. Robinson was the first employee of Scientific Atlanta, where he remained CEO then Chairman of the company until he retired.

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16/01/2012

Joe Bygraves, Jamaican-English boxer (born 1931)

Joe Bygraves was a British heavyweight boxer. Bygraves turned professional in 1953, and after an impressive early career he successfully challenged Kitione Lave for the vacant Commonwealth Heavyweight belt in 1956. Bygraves defended the title on three occasions, knocking-out Henry Cooper and holding Dick Richardson to a draw before losing the championship to Joe Erskine. Bygraves immigrated to Britain as a youth but did not take British citizenship until the end of his fighting career in 1967.

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Jimmy Castor, American singer-songwriter and saxophonist (born 1940)

James Walter Castor was an American funk, R&B and soul musician. He is credited with vocals, saxophone and composition. He is best known for songs such as "It's Just Begun", "The Bertha Butt Boogie", and his biggest hit single, the million-seller "Troglodyte ." Castor has been described as "one of the most sampled artists in music history" by the BBC.

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Sigursteinn Gíslason, Icelandic footballer and manager (born 1968)

Sigursteinn Davíð Gíslason was an Icelandic football player and manager. A left-sided defender who could also play in midfield, he spent the majority of his playing career in his home country; he started his career with KR and later had spells with ÍA and Víkingur Reykjavík. During the 1999–2000 season, Sigursteinn joined English club Stoke City and played eight matches in the Football League. Following his retirement from playing, he became a coach at his former club KR and went on to spend three years as the club's assistant manager. In 2008, Sigursteinn was appointed as manager of Leiknir Reykjavík, a position he held for more than two seasons before being forced to retire through illness.

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Lorna Kesterson, American journalist and politician (born 1925)

Lorna J. Kesterson was an American journalist, newspaper editor and politician. She served as the first female mayor of the city of Henderson, Nevada, for two consecutive four-year terms from 1985 to 1993. She was the first and only woman to be Henderson's mayor until Debra March was sworn in to office in 2017. Kesterson was also a longtime reporter and managing editor for the Henderson Home News, a local community newspaper.

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Gustav Leonhardt, Dutch pianist, conductor, and musicologist (born 1928)

Gustav Maria Leonhardt was a Dutch keyboardist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement to perform music on period instruments.

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16/01/2010

Glen Bell, American businessman, founded Taco Bell (born 1923)

Glen William Bell Jr. was an American restaurateur who was the founder and namesake of Taco Bell.

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Takumi Shibano, Japanese author and translator (born 1926)

Takumi Shibano was a Japanese science-fiction translator and author. He was a major figure in fandom in Japan and contributed to establishing the Japanese science fiction genre.

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16/01/2009

Joe Erskine, American boxer and runner (born 1930)

Joseph Harold "Joey" Erskine was an American athlete who was active as a welterweight boxer in 1953 and 1954, and as a long distance runner from 1975 to 1980.

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John Mortimer, English lawyer and author (born 1923)

Sir John Clifford Mortimer was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He is best known for short stories about a barrister named Horace Rumpole, adapted from episodes of the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey also written by Mortimer.

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Andrew Wyeth, American painter (born 1917)

Andrew Newell Wyeth was an American visual artist and one of the best-known American artists of the middle 20th century. Though he considered himself to be an "abstractionist," Wyeth was primarily a realist painter who worked in a regionalist style, often painting the land and people of his hometown in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and his summer home in Cushing, Maine.

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16/01/2006

Stanley Biber, American soldier and physician (born 1923)

Stanley H. Biber was an American physician who was a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery, performing thousands of procedures during his long career.

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16/01/2005

Marjorie Williams, American journalist and author (born 1958)

Marjorie Williams was an American writer, reporter, and columnist for Vanity Fair and The Washington Post, writing about American society and profiling the American "political elite."

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16/01/2004

Kalevi Sorsa, Finnish politician 34th Prime Minister of Finland (born 1930)

Taisto Kalevi Sorsa was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland three times: 1972–1975, 1977–1979 and 1982–1987. At the time of his death he still held the record for most days of incumbency as Finnish prime minister. He was also a long-time leader of the Social Democratic Party of Finland.

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16/01/2003

Richard Wainwright, English politician (born 1918)

Richard Scurrah Wainwright was a British politician of the Liberal Party. He was the MP for Colne Valley from 1966 to 1970, and again from 1974 to 1987.

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16/01/2002

Robert Hanbury Brown, English astronomer and physicist (born 1916)

Robert Hanbury Brown, AC FRS was a British astronomer and physicist born in Aruvankadu, India. He made notable contributions to the development of radar and later conducted pioneering work in the field of radio astronomy.

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16/01/2001

Auberon Waugh, English author and journalist (born 1939)

Auberon Alexander Waugh was a British journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron".

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16/01/2000

Robert R. Wilson, American physicist and academic (born 1914)

Robert Rathbun Wilson was an American physicist known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, as a sculptor, and as an architect of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), where he was the first director from 1967 to 1978.

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16/01/1999

Jim McClelland, Australian lawyer, jurist, and politician, 12th Minister for Industry and Science (born 1915)

James Robert McClelland was an Australian lawyer, politician, and judge. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and served as a Senator for New South Wales from 1971 to 1978. He briefly held ministerial office in the Whitlam government in 1975 as Minister for Manufacturing Industry and Minister for Labor and Immigration. He later served as the inaugural Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales from 1980 to 1985, as well as presiding over the 1984 McClelland Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia.

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16/01/1996

Marcia Davenport, American author and critic (born 1903)

Marcia Davenport was an American writer and music critic. She is best known for her 1932 biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the first American published biography of Mozart. Davenport also is known for her novels The Valley of Decision and East Side, West Side, both of which were adapted to film in 1945 and 1949, respectively.

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Kaye Webb, English journalist and publisher (born 1914)

Kathleen ("Kaye") Webb, was a British editor and publisher. She has been called an "enormously influential children's editor" and "brilliant as an innovator of highly successful marketing strategies". She was awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award in 1970.

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16/01/1995

Eric Mottram, English poet and critic (born 1924)

Eric Mottram was a British teacher, critic, editor and poet who was one of the central figures in the British Poetry Revival.

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16/01/1990

Lady Eve Balfour, British farmer, educator, and founding figure in the organic movement (born 1898)

Lady Evelyn Barbara Balfour, was a British farmer, educator, organic farming pioneer, and a founding figure in the organic movement. She was one of the first women to study agriculture at an English university, graduating from the institution now known as the University of Reading.

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16/01/1988

Andrija Artuković, Croatian politician, war criminal, and Porajmos perpetrator, first Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia (born 1899)

Andrija Artuković was a Croatian lawyer, politician, and senior member of the fascist Ustaše movement, who served as the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice in the Government of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II in Yugoslavia. He signed into law several racial laws against Serbs, Jews, and Roma, and was responsible for a string of concentration camps where civilians were tortured and murdered. He escaped to the United States after the war, where he lived until he was extradited to Yugoslavia in 1986. He was tried and found guilty of several mass killings in the NDH and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out due to his age and health. He died in custody in 1988.

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16/01/1987

Bertram Wainer, Australian physician and activist (born 1928)

Bertram Barney Wainer was an Australian doctor who successfully campaigned for legal access to abortion for women in the state of Victoria. In the process he received multiple death threats from Victoria Police and survived at least three attempts on his life, including shootings and arson. He was also to uncover political and police corruption.

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16/01/1986

Herbert W. Armstrong, American evangelist, author, and publisher (born 1892)

Herbert W. Armstrong was an American evangelist who founded the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). An early pioneer of radio and television evangelism, Armstrong preached what he claimed was the comprehensive combination of doctrines in the entire Bible, in the light of the New Covenant scriptures, which he maintained to be the restored true Gospel. These doctrines and teachings have been referred to as Armstrongism by non-adherents.

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16/01/1983

Virginia Mauret, American musician and dancer

Virginia Mauret, sometimes seen as Virginie Mauret, was an American musician and dancer. In 1962 she became the founder and director of the Young Artists Opera of New York City.

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16/01/1981

Bernard Lee, English actor (born 1908)

John Bernard Lee was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the first eleven Eon-produced James Bond films. Lee's film career spanned the years 1934 to 1979, though he had appeared on stage from the age of six. He was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Lee appeared in over one hundred films, as well as on stage and in television dramatisations. He was known for his roles as authority figures, often playing military characters or policemen in films such as The Third Man, The Blue Lamp, The Battle of the River Plate, and Whistle Down the Wind.

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16/01/1978

A. V. Kulasingham, Sri Lankan journalist, lawyer, and politician (born 1890)

Aiyathurai Varnakulasingham Kulasingham was a Ceylon Tamil lawyer, politician, journalist and editor of the Ceylon Daily News and Hindu Organ.

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16/01/1975

Israel Abramofsky, Russian-American painter (born 1888)

Israel Abramofsky, was a Russian-born artist, who trained in Paris and settled in the United States, known for his landscape works, and works depicting Jewish life in Eastern Europe.

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16/01/1973

Edgar Sampson, American musician and composer (born 1907)

Edgar Melvin Sampson, nicknamed "The Lamb", was an American jazz composer, arranger, saxophonist, and violinist. Born in New York City, he began playing violin aged six and picked up the saxophone in high school. He worked as an arranger and composer for many jazz bands in the 1930s and 1940s. He composed several well-known jazz standards, including "Stompin' at the Savoy", and "Don't Be That Way".

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16/01/1972

Teller Ammons, American soldier and politician, 28th Governor of Colorado (born 1895)

Teller Ammons was an American attorney and politician who served as the 28th Governor of Colorado from 1937 to 1939. He was the first Colorado governor to be born in the state.

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Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor, created Alvin and the Chipmunks (born 1919)

Ross S. Bagdasarian, also known by his stage name David Seville, was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor best known for creating the cartoon band Alvin and the Chipmunks. Initially a stage and film actor, he rose to prominence in 1958 with the songs "Witch Doctor" and "The Chipmunk Song ", which both became Billboard number-one singles. He produced and directed The Alvin Show, which aired on CBS in 1961–62.

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16/01/1971

Philippe Thys, Belgian cyclist (born 1890)

Philippe Thys was a Belgian cyclist and three times winner of the Tour de France.

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16/01/1969

Vernon Duke, Russian-American composer and songwriter (born 1903)

Vernon Duke was a Russian-born American composer and songwriter who also wrote under his birth name, Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love," with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche (1940); "I Can't Get Started," with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1936); "April in Paris," with lyrics by E. Y. ("Yip") Harburg (1932), and "What Is There To Say," for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, also with Harburg.

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16/01/1968

Bob Jones Sr., American evangelist, founded Bob Jones University (born 1883)

Robert Reynolds Jones Sr. was an American evangelist, pioneer religious broadcaster, and the founder and first president of Bob Jones University.

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Panagiotis Poulitsas, Greek archaeologist and judge (born 1881)

Panagiotis Poulitsas was a Greek judge and archeologist who briefly served as interim Prime Minister of Greece from 4 April 1946 to 18 April 1946. He was born in Geraki, Laconia on 9 September 1881.

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16/01/1967

Robert J. Van de Graaff, American physicist and academic (born 1901)

Robert Jemison Van de Graaff was an American applied physicist and inventor. He is best known for developing the Van de Graaff generator, a high-voltage electrostatic machine that became a fundamental tool in nuclear physics research.

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16/01/1962

Frank Hurley, Australian photographer, director, producer, and cinematographer (born 1885)

James Francis "Frank" Hurley was an Australian photographer, cinematographer of documentary films, and director of drama feature films. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official war photographer with Australian forces during both world wars. He was the official photographer for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14) led by Douglas Mawson, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–16 led by Ernest Shackleton, and BANZARE (1929–31), again led by Mawson.

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Ivan Meštrović, Croatian sculptor and architect, designed the Monument to the Unknown Hero (born 1883)

Ivan Meštrović was a Croatian sculptor, architect, and writer. He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pavao Bilinić's Stone Workshop in Split and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he was formed under the influence of the Secession. He traveled throughout Europe and studied the works of ancient and Renaissance masters, especially Michelangelo, and French sculptors Auguste Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol. He was the initiator of the national-romantic group Medulić. During the First World War, he lived in emigration. After the war, he returned to Croatia and began a long and fruitful period of sculpture and pedagogical work. In 1942 he emigrated to Italy, in 1943 to Switzerland and in 1947 to the United States. He was a professor of sculpture at the Syracuse University and from 1955 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

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16/01/1961

Max Schöne, German swimmer (born 1880)

Max Schöne was a German swimmer who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics. He was born in Berlin. As a member of the German swimming team he won the gold medal at the Paris 1900 edition.

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16/01/1959

Phan Khôi, Vietnamese journalist and author (born 1887)

Phan Khôi was an intellectual leader who inspired a North Vietnamese variety of the Chinese Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which scholars were permitted to criticize the government, but for which he himself was ultimately persecuted by the Communist Party of Vietnam.

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16/01/1957

Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, English general and politician, 16th Governor General of Canada (born 1874)

Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone was a member of the extended British royal family, as a great-grandson of King George III, the youngest brother of Queen Mary, an uncle of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and the husband of Princess Alice of Albany. He was a British Army officer and served as Governor-General of the Union of South Africa and Governor General of Canada.

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Arturo Toscanini, Italian cellist and conductor (born 1867)

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career, he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–1954), and this led to his becoming a household name, especially in the United States, through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.

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16/01/1942

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (born 1850)

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He served as Governor General of Canada, the tenth since Canadian Confederation and the only British prince to do so.

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Villem Grünthal-Ridala, Estonian poet and linguist (born 1885)

Villem Grünthal-Ridala, born Wilhelm Grünthal was an Estonian poet, translator, linguist and folklorist.

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Carole Lombard, American actress and comedian (born 1908)

Carole Lombard was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 23rd on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

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Ernst Scheller, German lawyer and politician, Mayor of Marburg (born 1899)

Ernst Scheller was a German Nazi Hauptmann and politician.

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16/01/1938

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Indian author and playwright (born 1876)

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. He generally wrote about the lives of Bengali family and society in cities and villages. However, his keen powers of observation, great sympathy for fellow human beings, a deep understanding of human psychology, an easy and natural writing style, and freedom from political biases and social prejudices enable his writing to transcend barriers and appeal to all Indians. He remains the most popular, translated, and adapted Indian author of all time.

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16/01/1936

Albert Fish, American serial killer, rapist and cannibal (born 1870)

Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish was an American serial killer, rapist, child molester and cannibal who committed at least three child murders between July 1924 and June 1928. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and the Boogey Man. Fish was a suspect in at least ten murders during his lifetime, although he only confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide. He also confessed to stabbing at least two other people.

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16/01/1933

Bekir Sami Kunduh, Turkish politician (born 1867)

Bekir Sami Bey was a Turkish politician of Ossetian origin. He served as the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey during 1920–1921.

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16/01/1919

Rodrigues Alves, Brazilian lawyer and politician, fifth President of Brazil (born 1848)

Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves was a Brazilian politician and statesman who served as the fifth president of Brazil, from 1902 to 1906. Alves was elected in 1902, becoming the third consecutive São Paulo native to hold the presidency. Before his presidency, he served as president of the province of São Paulo during the Empire of Brazil (1887) and as finance minister under Floriano Peixoto and Prudente de Morais in the 1890s.

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16/01/1917

George Dewey, American admiral (born 1837)

George Dewey was Admiral of the Navy, the only person in United States history to have attained that rank. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War, with the loss of only a single crewman on the American side.

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16/01/1906

Marshall Field, American businessman and philanthropist, founded Marshall Field's (born 1834)

Marshall Field was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.

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16/01/1901

Jules Barbier, French poet and playwright (born 1825)

Paul Jules Barbier was a French poet, writer and opera librettist who often wrote in collaboration with Michel Carré.

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Arnold Böcklin, Swiss painter and academic (born 1827)

Arnold Böcklin was a Swiss Symbolist painter. His five versions of the Isle of the Dead inspired works by several late Romantic composers.

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Hiram Rhodes Revels, American soldier, minister, and politician (born 1822)

Hiram Rhodes Revels was an American politician, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and college administrator. Born free in North Carolina, he later lived and worked in Ohio, where he voted before the Civil War. Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era, he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.

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Mahadev Govind Ranade, Indian scholar, social reformer, judge and author (born 1842)

Rao Bahadur Mahadev Govind Ranade, popularly referred to as Nyayamurti Ranade, was an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge and author. He was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress party and held several designations such as Member of the Bombay Legislative Council and Member of the Finance Committee at the Centre. He was also a judge of the Bombay High Court.

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16/01/1898

Charles Pelham Villiers, English lawyer and politician (born 1802)

Charles Pelham Villiers was a British lawyer and politician from the aristocratic Villiers family. He sat in the House of Commons for 63 years, from 1835 to 1898, making him the longest-serving Member of Parliament (MP). He also holds the distinction of the oldest candidate to win a parliamentary seat, at 93. He was a radical and reformer who often collaborated with John Bright and had a noteworthy effect in the leadership of the Anti-Corn Law League, until its repeal in 1846. Lord Palmerston appointed him to the cabinet as president of the Poor-Law Board in 1859. His Public Works Act 1863 opened job-creating schemes in public health projects. He progressed numerous other reforms, most notably the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867. Florence Nightingale helped him formulate the reform, in particular, ensure professionalisation of nursing as part of the poor law regime, the workhouses of which erected public infirmaries under an Act of the same year. His political importance was overshadowed by his brother, the Earl of Clarendon, and undercut by the hostility of Gladstone.

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16/01/1891

Léo Delibes, French pianist and composer (born 1836)

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French Romantic composer, best known for his ballets and operas. His works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and the opera Lakmé (1883), which includes the well-known "Flower Duet".

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16/01/1886

Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer and academic (born 1834)

Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian opera composer, best known for his opera La Gioconda. He was married to the soprano Teresina Brambilla.

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16/01/1879

Octave Crémazie, Canadian-French poet and bookseller (born 1827)

Octave Crémazie was a French Canadian poet and bookseller born in Quebec City. Recognized both during and after his lifetime for his patriotic verse and his significant role in the cultural development of Quebec, Crémazie has been called "the father of French Canadian poetry."

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16/01/1865

Edmond François Valentin About, French journalist and author (born 1828)

Edmond François Valentin About was a French novelist, publicist and journalist.

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16/01/1864

Anton Schindler, Austrian secretary and author (born 1795)

Anton Felix Schindler was an Austrian law clerk and associate, secretary, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven.

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16/01/1856

Thaddeus William Harris, American entomologist and botanist (born 1795)

Thaddeus William Harris was an American entomologist and librarian. His focus on insect life cycles and interactions with plants was influential in broadening American entomological studies beyond a narrow taxonomic approach. He was an early agricultural entomologist and served as a mentor and role model for others in this new field. For 25 years Harris served as the librarian of Harvard University where oversaw the rapid growth of the library and introduced one of the earliest American library card catalogs.

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16/01/1834

Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician and academic (born 1769)

Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician, was born at Mézières, where his father was a bookseller.

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16/01/1817

Alexander J. Dallas, Jamaican-American lawyer and politician, sixth United States Secretary of the Treasury (born 1759)

Alexander James Dallas was an American statesman who served as the 6th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1814 to 1816 under President James Madison. He was also a lawyer who worked as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (1801–1814) and the 1st Reporter of Decisions of the United States Supreme Court (1790–1800).

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16/01/1809

John Moore, Scottish general and politician (born 1761)

Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, was a British Army officer and Whig politician who represented Lanark Burghs in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1784 to 1790. He is known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which he fought a French army under Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult during the Peninsular War.

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16/01/1794

Edward Gibbon, English historian and politician (born 1737)

Edward Gibbon was a British essayist, historian and minor politician. His most important and influential work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, to critical and commercial success. It is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organized religion.

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16/01/1752

Francis Blomefield, English historian and author (born 1705)

Rev. Francis Blomefield, FSA, Rector of Fersfield in Norfolk, was an English antiquarian who wrote a county history of Norfolk: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk. It includes detailed accounts of the City of Norwich, the Borough of Thetford and all parishes in the southernmost Hundreds of Norfolk, but he died before completing it. This was done by a friend, Rev. Charles Parkin. The Norfolk historian Walter Rye related that although no portrait of him was known to exist, Blomefield closely resembled the astronomer John Flamsteed, whose portrait was used to depict Blomefield on the frontispiece of one of his volumes. His history of Norfolk was reissued in London in 11 volumes by William Miller in 1805–1810, the last seven being by Parkin.

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16/01/1750

Ivan Trubetskoy, Russian field marshal and politician (born 1667)

Prince Ivan Yurievich Trubetskoy was a Russian field marshal, promoted in 1728. The son of Yuriy Trubetskoy, as a member of the House of Trubetskoy, he was a member of the inner circle of Tsar Peter I of Russia of the House of Romanov. Made a boyar in 1692, Trubetskoy commanded part of the Russian fleet during the Azov campaigns in 1696. In 1699, he was named governor of Novgorod. Trubetskoy ordered surrender during the Battle of Narva in 1700. He was captured and held prisoner in Sweden until exchanged in 1718. At the moment of death he was the last living boyar in Russia. Elisabeth made him a member of the renewed Senate.

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16/01/1748

Arnold Drakenborch, Dutch lawyer and scholar (born 1684)

Arnold Drakenborch was a Dutch classical scholar.

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16/01/1747

Barthold Heinrich Brockes, German poet and playwright (born 1680)

Barthold Heinrich Brockes was a German poet.

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16/01/1711

Joseph Vaz, Indian-Sri Lankan priest and saint (born 1651)

Joseph Vaz CO was a Oratorian priest and missionary in Dutch Ceylon. Originally from Sancoale in Goa, Portuguese India, Vaz arrived in Ceylon during the Dutch occupation, a time when the Dutch had banned Catholicism in Ceylon and imposed Calvinism as the official religion after taking control from the Portuguese Empire.

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16/01/1710

Higashiyama, Japanese emperor (born 1675)

Asahito , posthumously honored as Emperor Higashiyama , was the 113th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Higashiyama's reign spanned the years from 1687 through to his abdication in 1709 corresponding to the Genroku era of the Edo period. The previous hundred years of peace and seclusion in Japan had created relative economic stability. The arts flourished, including theater and architecture.

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16/01/1659

Charles Annibal Fabrot, French lawyer (born 1580)

Charles Annibal Fabrot was a French jurisconsult.

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16/01/1635

Mariana de Jesús Torres, Spanish nun and mystic (born 1563)

Mariana Francisca de Jesús Torres y Berriochoa OIC,, was an abbess of the Conceptionist Monastery of Quito from 1594 to 1635.

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16/01/1595

Murad III, Ottoman sultan (born 1546)

Murad III was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1574 until his death in 1595.

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16/01/1585

Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln, English admiral and politician (born 1512)

Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln, KG was an English landowner, peer, and Lord High Admiral. He rendered valuable service to four of the Tudor monarchs.

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16/01/1554

Christiern Pedersen, Danish publisher and scholar (born 1480)

Christiern Pedersen was a Danish canon, humanist scholar, writer, printer and publisher.

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16/01/1547

Johannes Schöner, German astronomer and cartographer (born 1477)

Johannes Schöner was a German polymath. It is best to refer to him using the usual 16th-century Latin term "mathematicus", as the areas of study to which he devoted his life were very different from those now considered to be the domain of the mathematician. He was a priest, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, cosmographer, cartographer, mathematician, globe and scientific instrument maker and editor and publisher of scientific texts. In his own time he enjoyed a Europe-wide reputation as an innovative and influential globe maker and cosmographer and as one of the continent's leading and most authoritative astrologers. Today he is remembered as an influential pioneer in the history of globe making, and as a man who played a significant role in the events that led up to the publishing of Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres' in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg in 1543.

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16/01/1545

George Spalatin, German priest and reformer (born 1484)

Georg(e) Spalatin was the pseudonym taken by Georg Burkhardt, a German humanist, theologian, reformer, secretary of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise, as well as an important figure in the history of the Reformation.

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16/01/1443

Erasmo of Narni, Italian mercenary (born 1370)

Erasmo Stefano of Narni, better known by his nickname of Gattamelata, was an Italian condottiero of the Renaissance. He was born in Narni, and served a number of Italian city-states: he began with Braccio da Montone, served the Papal States and Florence, as well as the Republic of Venice in 1434 in the battles with the Visconti of Milan.

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16/01/1400

John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, English politician, Lord Great Chamberlain (born 1352)

John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, 1st Earl of Huntingdon of Dartington Hall in Devon, was a half-brother of King Richard II (1377–1399), to whom he remained strongly loyal. He is primarily remembered for being suspected of assisting in the downfall of King Richard's uncle Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355–1397) and then for conspiring against King Richard's first cousin and eventual deposer, Henry Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV (1399–1413).

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16/01/1391

Muhammed V of Granada, Nasrid emir (born 1338)

Abu Abdallah Muhammad V, known by the regnal name al-Ghani bi'llah, was the eighth Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula.

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16/01/1373

Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford (born 1342)

Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, 6th Earl of Essex, 2nd Earl of Northampton, KG was the son of William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton, and Elizabeth de Badlesmere, and grandson of Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford, by Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, daughter of King Edward I. He inherited the Earldom of Hereford after the death of his childless uncle Humphrey de Bohun, 6th Earl of Hereford.

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16/01/1354

Joanna of Châtillon, duchess of Athens (born c.1285)

Joanna of Châtillon or Joan, French: Jeanne; was the wife of Walter V of Brienne (1305). She was Duchess of Athens by marriage (1308–1311). She was the daughter of Gaucher V de Châtillon, Constable of France and Isabelle de Dreux. Her paternal grandparents were Gaucher IV de Châtillon and Isabelle de Villehardouin. Her maternal grandparents were Robert de Dreux, Viscount of Chateaudun and Isabelle de Villebéon.

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16/01/1327

Nikephoros Choumnos, Byzantine monk, scholar, and politician (born 1250)

Nikephoros Choumnos was a Byzantine scholar and official of the early Palaiologan period, one of the most important figures in the flowering of arts and letters of the so-called "Palaiologan Renaissance". He is notable for his eleven-year tenure as chief minister of emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, his intense intellectual rivalry with fellow scholar and official Theodore Metochites, and for building the monastery of the Theotokos Gorgoepēkoos in Constantinople.

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16/01/1289

Buqa, Mongol minister

Buqa was a Mongol lord and chancellor who was instrumental in sweeping Arghun to power as the fourth Il-Khan of Iran in 1284 and became his chief minister (vizier) and advisor, succeeding Shams ad-Din Juvayni whom Arghun had executed in October 1284. Buqa too was executed on Arghun's order in January 1289.

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16/01/1263

Shinran Shonin, Japanese founder of the Jodo Shinshu branch of Pure Land Buddhism (born 1173)

Shinran was a key Japanese Buddhist figure of the Kamakura Period who is regarded as the founder of the Jōdo Shinshū school of Japanese Buddhism. A pupil of Hōnen, the founder of the Japanese Pure Land movement, Shinran articulated a distinctive Pure Land vision that emphasized faith and absolute reliance on Amida Buddha’s other-power.

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16/01/0970

Polyeuctus of Constantinople, Byzantine patriarch (born 956)

Polyeuctus of Constantinople was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (956–970). His orthodox feast is on 5 February.

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16/01/0957

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali al-Madhara'i, Tulunid vizier (born 871)

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali al-Madhara'i (871–957) was the last important representative of the bureaucratic al-Madhara'i dynasty of fiscal officials. He served as director of finances of Egypt and Syria under the Tulunid dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate, as well as becoming vizier for the Tulunid ruler Harun ibn Khumarawayh, and later occupying high office under the Ikhshidids.

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16/01/0654

Gao Jifu, Chinese politician and chancellor (born 596)

Gao Feng, better known by his courtesy name Gao Jifu and also posthumously known as Duke Xian of Tiao, was a Chinese official who served as a chancellor during the reigns of the emperors Taizong and Gaozong in the Tang dynasty.

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