Died on Saturday, 24th January – Famous Deaths

24/01/2025

Iris Cummings, American swimmer and aviator (born 1920)

Iris Cummings, also known by her married name Iris Critchell, was an American aviator and competition swimmer who represented the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. After an active athletic career in swimming, which included a reign as U.S. national 200-meter breaststroke champion from 1936 to 1939, she was accepted into the University of Southern California's first Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1939. After graduation, she worked as a flight instructor prior to being selected to serve her country during World War II as a member of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). Following the conflict, she returned to California, where she developed and taught a curriculum on civilian flight for veterans returning from the war at the University of Southern California.

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24/01/2019

Rosemary Bryant Mariner, American United States Naval Aviator (born 1953)

Captain Rosemary Bryant Mariner was an American pilot and one of the first six women to earn their wings as a United States Naval Aviator in 1974. She was the first female military pilot to fly a tactical jet and the first to achieve command of an operational aviation squadron.

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24/01/2018

Mark E. Smith, British singer-songwriter (born 1957)

Mark Edward Smith was an English singer-songwriter best known as the lead vocalist, lyricist and only constant member of the post-punk group the Fall. Smith formed the band after attending the Sex Pistols' 20 July 1976 gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and was its leader until his death. During their 42-year existence, the Fall's line-up included some sixty musicians, with whom Smith released 32 studio albums and numerous singles and EPs.

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24/01/2017

Helena Kmieć, Polish Roman Catholic missionary (born 1991)

Helena Agnieszka Kmieć was a Polish Catholic missionary who was awarded the Polish Gold Cross of Merit. In May 2024, her sainthood cause was opened and she was named a Servant of God.

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Butch Trucks, American drummer (born 1947)

Claude Hudson "Butch" Trucks was an American drummer. He was best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Trucks was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida.

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24/01/2016

Fredrik Barth, German-Norwegian anthropologist and academic (born 1928)

Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth was a Norwegian social anthropologist who published several ethnographic books with a clear formalist view. He was a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University, and previously held professorships at the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen, Emory University and Harvard University. He was appointed a government scholar in 1985.

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Marvin Minsky, American computer scientist and academic (born 1927)

Marvin Minsky was an American mathematician who was Harvard- and Princeton-trained and used his training as a foundation for research in cognitive and computer science aspects of artificial intelligence (AI). After three years as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, Minsky joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958 and spent the rest of his career at that institution. There, he co-founded MIT's AI laboratory, among other initiatives, and wrote extensively about AI and philosophy. He, computer scientist John McCarthy, and others have been considered "fathers of AI". At the time he was made emeritus, Minsky was the Toshiba Professor of Media Art & Sciences at MIT.

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Henry Worsley, English colonel and explorer (born 1960)

Lieutenant Colonel Alastair Edward Henry Worsley, was a British explorer and British Army officer. He was part of a 2009 expedition that retraced Ernest Shackleton's footsteps in the Antarctic.

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24/01/2015

Otto Carius, German lieutenant and pharmacist (born 1922)

Otto Carius was a German tank commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He fought on the Eastern Front in 1943 and 1944 and on the Western Front in 1945. Carius is considered a "panzer ace", some sources credited him with destroying more than 150 enemy tanks, although Carius, in an interview claims he had around 100 kills or less. This was also due to the fact that he did not count kills as a commander, and rather only as a gunner. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.

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24/01/2014

Shulamit Aloni, Israeli lawyer and politician, 11th Israeli Minister of Education (born 1928)

Shulamit Aloni was an Israeli politician. She founded the progressive Ratz party, was leader of the Meretz party, Leader of the Opposition from 1988 to 1990, and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993. In 2000, she won the Israel Prize. Throughout her decades-long political career, Aloni advocated for secularism, a peaceful solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, equal treatment of Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians and introduced the law that decriminalised homosexuality.

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Rafael Pineda Ponce, Honduran academic and politician (born 1930)

Rafael Pineda Ponce was a Honduran professor and politician in the Liberal Party of Honduras and President of the National Congress of Honduras from 1998 to 2002.

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24/01/2011

Bernd Eichinger, German director and producer (born 1949)

Bernd Eichinger was a German film producer, screenwriter, and director.

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24/01/2010

Pernell Roberts, American actor (born 1928)

Pernell Elven Roberts Jr. was an American stage, film, and television actor, activist, and singer. In addition to guest-starring in over 60 television series, he was best known for his roles as Ben Cartwright's eldest son Adam Cartwright on the Western television series Bonanza (1959–1965), and as chief surgeon John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979–1986).

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24/01/2008

Usha Narayanan, Burmese-born First Lady of India (born 1922)

Usha Narayanan, born Tint Tint, was the First Lady of India from 1997 to 2002. She was married to K. R. Narayanan, the tenth President of India. Usha Narayanan was India's second foreign-born first lady after Janaki Venkataraman. She played a key role in women social welfare activities initiated by the presidency.

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24/01/2007

Krystyna Feldman, Polish actress (born 1916)

Krystyna Zofia Feldman was a Polish actress.

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İsmail Cem İpekçi, Turkish journalist and politician, 45th Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1940)

İsmail Cem was a Turkish centre-leftist politician, intellectual, writer, author and journalist who served as the Minister of Culture of Turkey from July 7 to October 26, 1995, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey from June 30, 1997 to July 11, 2002.

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Guadalupe Larriva, Ecuadorian academic and politician (born 1956)

Guadalupe Larriva was an Ecuadorian politician.

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Emiliano Mercado del Toro, Puerto Rican-American soldier (born 1891)

Emiliano Mercado del Toro was a Puerto Rican supercentenarian and military veteran who was, at age 115, the world's oldest person following the death of 116-year-old Elizabeth Bolden on December 11, 2006, until his own death on January 24, 2007. He had already been the world's oldest man from November 19, 2004, upon the death of Fred Harold Hale. At the time of his death in January 2007, aged 115 years and 156 days, Mercado was the second oldest fully validated male ever, behind Danish-American Christian Mortensen's record of 115 years 252 days. Japanese man, Shigechiyo Izumi, was still believed to be older at the time of Mercado's death, but his record was withdrawn by Guinness World Records in 2010.

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24/01/2006

Schafik Handal, Salvadoran politician (born 1930)

Schafik Jorge Hándal Hándal was a Salvadoran politician.

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24/01/2004

Leônidas, Brazilian footballer and manager (born 1913)

Leônidas da Silva was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward. He is regarded as one of the most important players of the first half of the 20th century. At the height of his career, Leônidas was very popular amongst the people of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. Leônidas played for Brazil national team in the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, and was the top scorer of the latter tournament. He was known as the "Black Diamond" and the "Rubber Man" due to his agility.

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24/01/2003

Gianni Agnelli, Italian businessman (born 1921)

Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli, nicknamed L'Avvocato, was an Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat. As the head of Fiat, he controlled 4.4% of Italy's GDP, 3.1% of its industrial workforce, and 16.5% of its industrial investment in research. He was the richest man in modern Italian history.

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24/01/2002

Elie Hobeika, Lebanese commander and politician (born 1956)

Elie Hobeika was a Lebanese militia commander in the Lebanese Forces militia during the Lebanese Civil War and one of Bachir Gemayel's close confidants. He became infamous for his overseeing of the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacre. Hobeika initially supported the IDF during their invasion, but later switched sides and supported the Syrians. He became head of the Lebanese Forces until he was ousted in 1986. He then founded the Promise Party and was elected to serve two terms in the Parliament of Lebanon. In January 2002, he was assassinated in a car bombing at his house in Beirut, shortly before he was to testify about the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Belgian court.

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24/01/2001

Gaffar Okkan, Turkish police chief (born 1952)

Ali Gaffar Okkan was a Turkish police chief who was assassinated in an ambush in Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey.

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24/01/1993

Gustav Ernesaks, Estonian composer and conductor (born 1908)

Gustav Ernesaks was an Estonian composer and a choir conductor.

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Thurgood Marshall, American lawyer and jurist, 32nd United States Solicitor General (born 1908)

Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-American justice. Before his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights, leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall was a prominent figure in the movement to end racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which rejected the separate but equal doctrine and held segregation in public education to be unconstitutional. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967. A staunch liberal, he frequently dissented as the Court became increasingly conservative.

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Uğur Mumcu, Turkish investigative journalist (born 1942)

Uğur Mumcu was a Turkish investigative journalist for the daily Cumhuriyet. He was assassinated by a bomb placed in his car outside his home.

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24/01/1992

Ken Darby, American composer and conductor (born 1909)

Kenneth Lorin Darby was an American composer, vocal arranger, lyricist, and conductor. His film scores were recognized by the awarding of three Academy Awards and one Grammy Award. Darby is also notable as the author of The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe (1983), a biography of the home of Rex Stout's fictional detective.

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24/01/1991

Jack Schaefer, American journalist and author (born 1907)

Jack Warner Schaefer was an American writer known for his Westerns. His best-known works are the 1949 novel Shane, considered the greatest western novel by the Western Writers of America, and the 1964 children's book Stubby Pringle's Christmas.

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24/01/1990

Madge Bellamy, American actress (born 1899)

Madge Bellamy was an American stage and film actress. She was a popular leading lady in the 1920s and early 1930s. Bellamy's career declined in the sound era and ended following a romantic scandal in the 1940s.

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24/01/1989

Ted Bundy, American serial killer (born 1946)

Theodore Robert Bundy was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered dozens of young women and girls between 1974 and 1978. His modus operandi typically consisted of convincing his target that he was in need of assistance or duping them into believing he was an authority figure. He would then lure his victim to his vehicle, at which point he would bludgeon them unconscious, then restrain them with handcuffs before driving them to a remote location to be sexually assaulted and killed.

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24/01/1988

Werner Fenchel, German-Danish mathematician and academic (born 1905)

Moritz Werner Fenchel was a German-Danish mathematician known for his contributions to geometry and to optimization theory. Fenchel established the basic results of convex analysis and nonlinear optimization theory which would, in time, serve as the foundation for nonlinear programming. A German-born Jew and early refugee from Nazi suppression of intellectuals, Fenchel lived most of his life in Denmark. Fenchel's monographs and lecture notes are considered influential.

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24/01/1986

L. Ron Hubbard, American religious leader and author, founded the Church of Scientology (born 1911)

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was an American author and the founder of Scientology. A prolific writer of pulp science fiction and fantasy novels in his early career, in 1950 he authored the pseudoscientific book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and established organizations to promote and practice Dianetics techniques. Hubbard created Scientology in 1952 after losing the intellectual rights to his literature on Dianetics in bankruptcy. He would lead the Church of Scientology – variously described as a cult, a new religious movement, or a business – until his death in 1986.

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Gordon MacRae, American actor and singer (born 1921)

Albert Gordon MacRae was an American actor, singer, and television and radio host. He appeared in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), and played the leading man opposite Doris Day in On Moonlight Bay (1951) and its sequel, By The Light of the Silvery Moon (1953).

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24/01/1983

George Cukor, American director and producer (born 1899)

George Dewey Cukor was an American film director and producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's head of production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKO's major films, including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Our Betters (1933), and Little Women (1933). When Selznick moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight (1933) and David Copperfield (1935) for Selznick, and Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Camille (1936) for Irving Thalberg.

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24/01/1982

Alfredo Ovando Candía, Bolivian general and politician, 56th President of Bolivia (born 1918)

Alfredo Ovando Candia was a Bolivian military officer and political leader who served as the 48th president of Bolivia from 1965 to 1966 and 1969 to 1970. During his first term, he shared power with René Barrientos as co-president of a military junta.

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24/01/1975

Larry Fine, American comedian (born 1902)

Larry Fine was an American actor, comedian and musician. He is best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges and was often called "The Middle Stooge".

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24/01/1973

J. Carrol Naish, American actor (born 1896)

Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American actor. He appeared in over 200 films during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

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24/01/1971

Bill W., American activist, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (born 1895)

William Griffith Wilson, also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was an American businessman who co-conceived and co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), with fellow co-founder Bob Smith.

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24/01/1970

Caresse Crosby, American fashion designer and publisher, co-founded the Black Sun Press (born 1891)

Caresse Crosby was an American publisher and writer. Time called her the "literary godmother to the Lost Generation of expatriate writers in Paris." As an American patron of the arts, she and her second husband, Harry Crosby, founded the Black Sun Press, which was instrumental in publishing some of the early works of many authors who would later become famous, among them Anaïs Nin, Kay Boyle, Ernest Hemingway, Archibald MacLeish, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Hart Crane, and Robert Duncan. She was also the recipient of a patent for the first successful modern bra.

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24/01/1966

Homi J. Bhabha, Indian physicist and academic (born 1909)

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FNI, FASc, FRS was an Indian nuclear theoretical physicist who is widely credited as the "father of the Indian nuclear programme". He was the founding director and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), as well as the founding director of the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) which was renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. TIFR and AEET served as the cornerstone to the Indian nuclear energy and weapons programme. He was the first chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). By supporting space science projects which initially derived their funding from the AEC, he played an important role in the birth of the Indian space programme.

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24/01/1965

Winston Churchill, English statesman, soldier, and writer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1874)

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) and represented a total of five constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

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24/01/1962

André Lhote, French sculptor and painter (born 1885)

André Lhote was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes, and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art.

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Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Turkish author, poet, and scholar (born 1901)

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar was a Turkish poet, novelist, literary scholar and essayist, widely regarded as one of the most important representatives of modernism in Turkish literature. In addition to his literary and academic career, Tanpınar was also a member of the Turkish Parliament between 1944 and 1946.

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24/01/1961

Alfred Carlton Gilbert, American pole vaulter and businessman, founded the A. C. Gilbert Company (born 1884)

Alfred Carlton Gilbert was an American inventor, athlete, magician, toy maker and businessman. As the founder of A. C. Gilbert Company, Gilbert was known for inventing the Erector Set and American Flyer Trains.

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24/01/1960

Edwin Fischer, Swiss pianist and conductor (born 1886)

Edwin Fischer was a Swiss classical pianist and conductor. He is regarded as one of the great interpreters of J.S. Bach and Mozart in the twentieth century.

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24/01/1946

Morris Alexander, South African politician (born 1877)

Morris Alexander was a South African lawyer and politician who was a leading figure of Cape Town's Jewish community. He is best known for his successful campaign to have Yiddish recognized as a European language by colonial authorities, allowing thousands of Jews to immigrate to South Africa. A prominent liberal, Alexander served in the South African House of Assembly from 1910 until his death in 1946.

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24/01/1939

Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Swiss physician, created Muesli (born 1867)

Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, M.D. was a Swiss physician and a pioneer nutritionist credited for popularizing muesli and raw food vegetarianism.

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24/01/1920

Percy French, Irish songwriter, entertainer and artist (born 1854)

William Percy French was an Irish songwriter, author, poet, entertainer and painter.

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Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter and sculptor (born 1884)

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterised by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures — works that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought after. Modigliani was born and spent his youth in Italy, where he studied the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. In 1906, he moved to Paris, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. By 1912, Modigliani was exhibiting highly stylised sculptures with Cubists of the Section d'Or group at the Salon d'Automne.

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24/01/1895

Lord Randolph Churchill, English lawyer and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (born 1849)

Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill was a British aristocrat and politician. He was a Tory radical who coined the term "Tory democracy" and participated in the creation of the "National Union of the Conservative Party".

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24/01/1883

Friedrich von Flotow, German composer (born 1812)

Friedrich Adolf Ferdinand, Freiherr von Flotow was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera Martha, which was popular in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th.

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24/01/1881

James Collinson, English painter (born 1825)

James Collinson was a Victorian painter who was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850. Collinson was known for the paintings,The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary, To Let and For Sale. Engaged at one time to the poet Christina Rossetti, their broken engagement also influenced many of her poems.

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24/01/1877

Johann Christian Poggendorff, German physicist and journalist (born 1796)

Johann Christian Poggendorff was a German physicist born in Hamburg. Poggendorff is best known for his work related to electricity and magnetism, most notably the electrostatic motor which is analogous to Wilhelm Holtz's electrostatic machine. In 1841 he described the use of the potentiometer for measurement of electrical potentials without current draw.

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24/01/1709

George Rooke, English admiral and politician (born 1650)

Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Rooke was an Royal Navy officer and politician. As a junior officer he saw action at the Battle of Solebay and again at the Battle of Schooneveld during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. As a captain, he conveyed Prince William of Orange to England and took part in the Battle of Bantry Bay during the Williamite War in Ireland.

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24/01/1666

Johann Andreas Herbst, German composer and theorist (born 1588)

Johann Andreas Herbst was a German composer and music theorist of the early Baroque era. He was a contemporary of Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz, and like them, assisted in importing the grand Venetian style and the other features of the early Baroque into Protestant Germany.

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24/01/1639

Jörg Jenatsch, Swiss pastor and politician (born 1596)

Jörg Jenatsch, also called Jürg or Georg Jenatsch, was a Swiss political leader during the Thirty Years' War, one of the most striking figures in the troubled history of the Grisons in the 17th century.

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24/01/1626

Samuel Argall, English captain and politician, Colonial Governor of Virginia (born 1572)

Sir Samuel Argall was an English sea captain, navigator, and Deputy-Governour of Virginia, an English colony.

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24/01/1595

Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria (born 1529)

Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria was ruler of Further Austria and Imperial Count of Tyrol since 1564. The son of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, he first married Philippine Welser, and later Anna Caterina Gonzaga. Through his second marriage he was the father of Anna of Tyrol, the future Holy Roman Empress.

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24/01/1525

Franciabigio, Florentine painter (born 1482)

Franciabigio was an Italian painter of the Florentine Renaissance. His true name may have been Francesco di Cristofano; he is also referred to as either Marcantonio Franciabigio or Francia Bigio.

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24/01/1473

Conrad Paumann, German organist and composer (born 1410)

Conrad Paumann was a German organist, lutenist and composer of the early Renaissance. Born blind, he became one of the most talented musicians of the 15th century, and his performances created a sensation wherever he went. He is grouped among the composers known as the Colorists.

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24/01/1376

Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, English commander (born 1306)

Richard Fitzalan, 3rd Earl of Arundel, 8th Earl of Surrey was an English nobleman and medieval military leader and distinguished admiral. Arundel was one of the wealthiest nobles, and most loyal noble retainer of the chivalric code that governed the reign of Edward III of England.

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24/01/1336

Alfonso IV of Aragon (born 1299)

Alfonso IV, called the Kind, was King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona from 1327 to his death. His reign saw the incorporation of the County of Urgell, Duchy of Athens, and Duchy of Neopatria into the Crown of Aragon.

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24/01/1125

David IV of Georgia (born 1073)

David IV, also known as David IV the Builder, of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king (mepe) of the Kingdom of Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125.

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24/01/1046

Eckard II, Margrave of Meissen (born c. 985)

Eckard II was Margrave of Lusatia from 1034 and Margrave of Meissen from 1038 until his death. He was the last of his dynasty, with his death the line of Ekkeharding margraves descending from Eckard I of Meissen became extinct.

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24/01/0901

Liu Jishu, general of the Tang Dynasty

Liu Jishu (劉季述) was a eunuch late in the Chinese Tang dynasty who, as a powerful commander of the Shence Armies, briefly deposed Emperor Zhaozong in 900 and replaced Emperor Zhaozong with Emperor Zhaozong's son Li Yu, Prince of De, but was soon killed in a countercoup, allowing Emperor Zhaozong to return to the throne.

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24/01/0817

Pope Stephen IV (born 770)

Pope Stephen IV was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from June 816 to his death on 24 January 817. Stephen belonged to a noble Roman family. In October 816, he crowned Louis the Pious as emperor at Reims, and persuaded him to release some Roman political prisoners he held in custody. He returned to Rome, by way of Ravenna, sometime in November and died the following January.

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24/01/0041

Caligula, Roman emperor (born 12)

AD 41 (XLI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of C. Caesar Augustus Germanicus and Cn. Sentius Saturninus. The denomination AD 41 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

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