Died on Tuesday, 27th January – Famous Deaths

27/01/2022

Andy Devine, British TV actor (born 1942)

Peter Devine was a British actor primarily on television, whose best known role was Shadrach Dingle on one of ITV's long-running soap operas, Emmerdale. He played Shadrach on and off starting in 2000 and made his final appearance in July 2010. His credits have occasionally been confused with those of the American actor Andy Devine (1905–1977). Devine served in the Royal Navy for eight years after joining at aged 17 in 1959. He was also a classical actor before going into the soaps.

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27/01/2021

Cloris Leachman, American actress and comedian (born 1926)

Cloris Leachman was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nine decades. She received many accolades including 22 Primetime Emmy nominations of which she won eight; with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, she is tied for the distinction of most acting Emmy Awards ever awarded to a performer. Leachman also won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award. She was known for her versatility and distinctive physicality, where she used props to accentuate and express her roles' characterizations.

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Nunuk Nuraini, Indonesian food scientist (born 1961)

Nunuk Nuraini, also known as Bu Nunuk, was an Indonesian food scientist who invented Indomie's mi goreng-flavour instant noodles.

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27/01/2020

Lina Ben Mhenni, Tunisian Internet activist and blogger (born 1983)

Lina Ben Mhenni was a Tunisian Internet activist, blogger and lecturer in linguistics at Tunis University. She was internationally recognised for her work during the 2011 Tunisian revolution and in the following years.

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27/01/2019

Countess Maya von Schönburg-Glauchau, German socialite (born 1958)

Countess Maria Felicitas von Schönburg-Glauchau, also known as Maya von Schönburg, was a German socialite.

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27/01/2018

Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA (born 1926)

Feodor Ingvar Kamprad was a Swedish billionaire businessman who founded IKEA in 1943 and grew it into a multinational retail company that became the world's largest furniture seller in 2008. He moved to Switzerland with his Swiss wife in 1976, moving back to Småland in 2014 after her death in 2011.

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Mort Walker, American cartoonist (born 1923)

Addison Morton Walker was an American comic strip writer, best known for creating the newspaper comic strips Beetle Bailey in 1950 and Hi and Lois in 1954. He signed Addison to some of his strips.

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27/01/2017

Emmanuelle Riva, French actress (born 1927)

Emmanuelle Riva was a French actress, best known for her roles in the films Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and Amour (2012).

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Arthur H. Rosenfeld, American physicist (born 1926)

Arthur Hinton Rosenfeld was a University of California, Berkeley physicist and California energy commissioner, dubbed the "Godfather of Energy Efficiency", for developing new standards which helped improve energy efficiency in California and subsequently worldwide.

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27/01/2016

Carlos Loyzaga, Filipino basketball player and coach (born 1930)

Carlos "Caloy" Loyzaga y Matute was a Filipino basketball player, coach and politician. He was the most dominant basketball player of his era in the Philippines and is considered as the greatest Filipino basketball player of all time. As a member of the Philippine national team, Loyzaga was a two-time Olympian and led the Philippines to bronze at the 1954 FIBA World Championship, where he was named to the All-Tournament second team.

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27/01/2015

Rocky Bridges, American baseball player and coach (born 1927)

Everett Lamar "Rocky" Bridges was an American middle infielder and third baseman with an 11-year career in Major League Baseball from 1951 to 1961. Bridges played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Redlegs and St. Louis Cardinals of the National League, and the Washington Senators, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Angels of the American League.

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David Landau, English-Israeli journalist (born 1947)

David Landau OBE was a British/Israeli journalist and newspaper editor. Landau was editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz from 2004 to 2008. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the paper's English edition from 1997 to 2004. Before joining Haaretz in 1997, Landau was the diplomatic correspondent of The Jerusalem Post for 12 years and its managing editor for four years. After leaving Haaretz Landau became the Israel correspondent for The Economist.

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Joseph Rotman, Canadian businessman and philanthropist (born 1935)

Joseph Louis Rotman was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. Rotman was the founder, benefactor and member of organizations such as the Clairvest Group Inc., the Rotman Research Institute, the Rotman School of Management, and the Rotman Institute of Philosophy. Throughout his life, he received three honorary degrees, as well as an induction into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. He is well-regarded for donating his time and financial assistance to numerous philanthropic causes including the arts, education and healthcare.

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Charles Hard Townes, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1915)

Charles Hard Townes was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated with both maser and laser devices. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. Townes was an adviser to the United States Government, meeting every US president from Harry S. Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999).

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Larry Winters, American wrestler and trainer (born 1956)

Larry Winters was an American professional wrestler and trainer who competed in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and East Coast independent circuit during the 1980s and 90s. He has wrestled in the American Wrestling Association, the National Wrestling Alliance, National Wrestling Federation, Pro Wrestling USA and the World Wrestling Council. It was reported on several wrestling websites that Winters died due to a heart attack January 27, 2015.

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27/01/2014

Pete Seeger, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and activist (born 1919)

Peter Seeger was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and left-wing social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, especially their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, workers' rights, counterculture, environmental causes, and ending the Vietnam War.

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Epimaco Velasco, Filipino lawyer and politician, Governor of Cavite (born 1935)

Epimaco Ardina Velasco, popularly known as Epi, was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as DILG Secretary, governor of Cavite, and NBI Director. He was the first NBI Director who rose from the ranks and rose to prominence at the NBI with the killing of Number 1 Most Wanted Man in Cavite, Leonardo Manecio aka Nardong Putik.

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Paul Zorner, German soldier and pilot (born 1920)

Paul Anton Guido Zorner, born Paul Zloch, was a German night fighter pilot, who fought in the Luftwaffe during World War II. Zorner is credited with 59 night aerial victories claimed in 272 missions, including 110 night fighter missions. Zorner was the ninth most successful fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe and in the history of aerial warfare.

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27/01/2013

Ivan Bodiul, Ukrainian-Russian politician (born 1918)

Ivan Ivanovich Bodiul was a Soviet and Moldovan politician prominent in the Moldavian SSR, particularly during the Brezhnev era.

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Stanley Karnow, American journalist and historian (born 1925)

Stanley Abram Karnow was an American journalist and historian. He is best known for his writings on East Asia and the Vietnam War.

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27/01/2012

Greg Cook, American football player and sportscaster (born 1946)

Gregory Lynn Cook was an American professional football quarterback who played two professional seasons, in the American Football League (AFL) and later the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of Cincinnati and was selected 5th overall in the 1969 NFL/AFL draft. Once considered a rising star for the Cincinnati Bengals, he had his pro career prematurely ended by recurring shoulder troubles.

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Ted Dicks, English composer and screenwriter (born 1928)

Edward Dicks was an English composer. He is best known for composing the music for the novelty songs "Right Said Fred" and "The Hole in the Ground". They were both Top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart in 1962, recorded by Bernard Cribbins with lyrics by Myles Rudge, and produced by George Martin for Parlophone. Another song by Dicks and Rudge, "A Windmill in Old Amsterdam", was a million-seller hit in 1965 for Ronnie Hilton.

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Jeannette Hamby, American nurse and politician (born 1933)

Jeannette Hamby was an American politician and nurse in Oregon. A native of Minnesota, she worked as an airline attendant, nurse, and educator before entering local politics. A Republican, she served in both chambers of the Oregon Legislature, winning re-election three times to the Oregon State Senate.

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Kevin White, American politician, 51st Mayor of Boston (born 1929)

Kevin Hagan White was an American politician best known for serving as the mayor of Boston for four terms from 1968 to 1984. He was first elected to the office at the age of 38. He presided as mayor during racially turbulent years in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the start of desegregation of schools via court-ordered busing of school children in Boston. White won the mayoral office in the 1967 general election in a hard-fought campaign opposing the anti-busing and anti-desegregation Boston School Committee member Louise Day Hicks. Earlier he had been elected Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth in 1960 at the age of 31, and he resigned from that office after his election as Mayor.

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27/01/2011

Charlie Callas, American comedian and musician (born 1927)

Charlie Callas was an American actor and comedian. He was most commonly known for his work with Mel Brooks, Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin, and his many stand-up appearances on television talk shows in the 1970s. He was also known for his role as Malcolm Argos, the restaurant owner and former con man, on the Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner television series Switch (1975–1978). Callas was also known as the voice of Elliott the Dragon in Disney's live-action/animated musical film Pete's Dragon (1977).

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27/01/2010

Zelda Rubinstein, American actress (born 1933)

Zelda May Rubinstein was an American actress and human rights activist, known as eccentric medium Tangina Barrons in the Poltergeist film series. Playing "Ginny", she was a regular on David E. Kelley's Emmy Award-winning television series Picket Fences for two seasons. She also made guest appearances in the TV show Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996), as seer Christina, and was the voice of Skittles candies in their long-running "Taste the Rainbow" ad campaign. Rubinstein was also known for her outspoken activism for little people and her early participation in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

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J. D. Salinger, American soldier and author (born 1919)

Jerome David Salinger was an American author best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger published several short stories in Story magazine in 1940, before serving in World War II. In 1948, his critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" appeared in The New Yorker, which published much of his later work.

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Howard Zinn, American historian, author, and activist (born 1922)

Howard Zinn was an American historian and a veteran of World War II. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, A Young People's History of the United States.

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27/01/2009

John Updike, American novelist, short story writer, and critic (born 1932)

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.

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R. Venkataraman, Indian lawyer and politician, 8th President of India (born 1910)

Ramaswamy Venkataraman, also known as R. Venkataraman, was an Indian lawyer, independence activist and politician who served as a union minister and as the vice president of india and president of India. Venkataraman was born in Rajamadam village in Tanjore district, Madras Presidency. He studied law and practised in the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court of India. In his youth, he was an activist for the Indian independence movement, and he participated in the Quit India Movement. He was appointed as the member of the Constituent Assembly and the provisional cabinet. He was elected to the Lok Sabha four times and served as Union Finance Minister and Defence Minister. In 1984, he was elected as the vice president of India and in 1987, he became the president of India and served from 1987 to 1992. He also served as a state minister under K. Kamaraj and M. Bhaktavatsalam.

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27/01/2008

Suharto, Indonesian general and politician, 2nd President of Indonesia (born 1921)

Suharto was an Indonesian military officer and politician who served as the second and longest-serving president of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. Widely regarded as a military dictator by international observers, Suharto led Indonesia as an authoritarian regime from 1967 until his resignation in 1998 following nationwide unrest. His 31-year dictatorship is considered one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century: he was central to the perpetration of mass killings against alleged communists and subsequent persecution of ethnic Chinese, Islamists, irreligious people, and trade unionists.

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Gordon B. Hinckley, American religious leader and author, 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (born 1910)

Gordon Bitner Hinckley was an American religious leader and author who served as the 15th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from March 1995 until his death in January 2008 at age 97. Considered a prophet, seer, and revelator by church members, Hinckley was the oldest person to preside over the church in its history until Russell M. Nelson surpassed his age in 2022.

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Louie Welch, American businessman and politician, 54th Mayor of Houston (born 1918)

Louie William Welch was an American politician who served from 1964 to 1974 as the mayor of Houston, Texas.

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27/01/2007

Yang Chuan-kwang, Taiwanese decathlete, long jumper, and hurdler (born 1933)

Yang Chuan-kwang, or C.K. Yang, was a Taiwanese Olympian decathlete. Yang attended college at UCLA, where he trained and competed with teammate and Olympian Rafer Johnson and was coached by Elvin C. Drake.

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27/01/2006

Gene McFadden, American singer-songwriter and producer (born 1948)

Gene McFadden was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was one of the key members of the Philadelphia International record label, and was one-half of the successful team of McFadden & Whitehead with John Whitehead.

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Johannes Rau, German journalist and politician, 8th President of Germany (born 1931)

Johannes Rau was a German politician who served as President of Germany from 1999 to 2004. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he previously served as the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1978 to 1998. In the latter role, he also served as President of the Bundesrat in 1982–1983 and in 1994–1995.

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27/01/2004

Salvador Laurel, Filipino lawyer and politician, 10th Vice President of the Philippines (born 1928)

Salvador Roman Hidalgo Laurel, also known as Doy Laurel, was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the Vice President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992 under President Corazon Aquino and briefly served as the last Prime Minister from February 25 to March 25, 1986, when the position was abolished. He was a major leader of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO), the political party that helped topple the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos with the 1986 People Power Revolution.

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Jack Paar, American talk show host and author (born 1918)

Jack Harold Paar was an American talk show host, writer, radio and television comedian, and film actor. He was the second host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962. Time magazine's obituary of Paar reported wryly, "His fans would remember him as the fellow who split talk show history into two eras: Before Paar and Below Paar."

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27/01/2003

Henryk Jabłoński, Polish historian and politician, President of Poland (born 1909)

Henryk Jan Jabłoński was a Polish historian and politician. After 1948, he became a politician of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party, as well as a historian and professor at Warsaw University. He served as head of state of the People's Republic of Poland between 1972 and 1985.

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27/01/2000

Friedrich Gulda, Austrian pianist and composer (born 1930)

Friedrich Gulda was an Austrian pianist and composer who worked in both the classical and jazz fields.

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27/01/1996

Ralph Yarborough, American colonel, lawyer, and politician (born 1903)

Ralph Webster Yarborough was an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Texas in the United States Senate from 1957 to 1971 and was a leader of the progressive wing of his party. Along with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, but unlike most Southern congressmen, Yarborough refused to support the 1956 Southern Manifesto, which called for resistance to the racial integration of schools and other public places. Yarborough voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yarborough was the only senator from a state that was part of the Confederacy to vote for all five bills.

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27/01/1994

Claude Akins, American actor (born 1918)

Claude Aubrey Akins was an American character actor. He played Sonny Pruit in Movin' On, a 1974–1976 American drama series about a trucking team; Sheriff Lobo on The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a 1979–1981 American action comedy television series; and in a variety of other roles on television as well as in feature films.

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27/01/1993

André the Giant, French professional wrestler and actor (born 1946)

André René Roussimoff, better known by his ring name André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. Dubbed "the Eighth Wonder of the World", Roussimoff was known for his great size, which was a result of gigantism caused by excess human growth hormone.

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27/01/1989

Thomas Sopwith, English ice hockey player and pilot (born 1888)

Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS was a British aviation pioneer, businessman and yachtsman.

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27/01/1988

Massa Makan Diabaté, Malian historian, author, and playwright (born 1938)

Massa Makan Diabaté was a Malian historian, author, and playwright.

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27/01/1987

Norman McLaren, Scottish-Canadian animator and director (born 1914)

William Norman McLaren, was a Scottish-Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.

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27/01/1986

Lilli Palmer, German-American actress (born 1914)

Lilli Palmer was a German actress and writer. After beginning her career in British films in the 1930s, she later transitioned to major Hollywood productions, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in But Not for Me (1959).

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27/01/1983

Louis de Funès, French actor and screenwriter (born 1914)

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was a French actor and comedian. According to a series of polls conducted since the late 1960s, he is France's favourite actor, having played over 150 roles in film and over 100 on stage. His acting style is remembered for its high-energy performance and his wide range of facial expressions and tics. A considerable part of his best-known acting was directed by Jean Girault.

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27/01/1982

Trần Văn Hương, South Vietnamese politician, 3rd President of South Vietnam, 3rd Vice President of South Vietnam, and 3rd Prime Minister of South Vietnam (born 1902)

Trần Văn Hương was a South Vietnamese politician who was the penultimate president of South Vietnam for a week in April 1975 before its surrender to the communist forces of North Vietnam. Before ascending to the presidency, he served as vice president under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu since October 1971 after being elected on a joint ticket with Thiệu in the 1971 South Vietnamese presidential election. Prior to that, he was prime minister for three months from November 1964 to January 1965 under the supervision of a military junta led by General Nguyen Khanh; during this time, there was widespread civil unrest from the Buddhist majority and power struggles with the military. He also served as prime minister again from May 1968 to August 1969.

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27/01/1979

Victoria Ocampo. Argentine writer (born 1890)

Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo was an Argentine writer and intellectual. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine Sur, she was also a writer and critic in her own right and one of the most prominent South American women of her time. Her sister was Silvina Ocampo, also a writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 and 1974.

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27/01/1975

Bill Walsh, American screenwriter and producer (born 1913)

William Crozier Walsh was a film producer, screenwriter and comics writer who primarily worked on live-action films for Walt Disney Productions. He was born in New York City. For his work on Mary Poppins, he shared Academy Award nominations for Best Picture with Walt Disney, and for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium with Don DaGradi. He also wrote the Mickey Mouse comic strip for more than two decades.

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27/01/1974

Georgios Grivas, Cypriot general (born 1898)

Georgios Grivas, also known by his nickname Digenis, was a Greek Cypriot officer of the Hellenic Army and founder and leader of the Greek and Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisations Organization X (1942–1949), EOKA (1955–1959) and EOKA B (1971–1974). He was also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Cyprus, then-known as the Supreme Military Defence Command of Cyprus (ASDAK), which in the event of war would lead the Cyprus National Guard and the Hellenic Force in Cyprus (ELDYK).

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27/01/1973

William Nolde, American colonel (born 1929)

Colonel William Benedict Nolde was an officer in the United States Army. Born in Menominee, Michigan, Nolde was a professor of military science at Central Michigan University before joining the army. He is known for being the last official American combat casualty of the Vietnam War: the 45,914th confirmed death and 57,597th in the total list of Americans killed during the conflict. Nolde was killed by artillery fire eleven hours before the cessation of all hostilities in accordance with the Paris Peace Accords.

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27/01/1972

Mahalia Jackson, American singer (born 1911)

Mahalia Jackson was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to the development and spread of gospel blues in black churches throughout the U.S. During a time when racial segregation was pervasive in American society, she met considerable and unexpected success in a recording career, selling an estimated 22 million records and performing in front of integrated and secular audiences in concert halls around the world, making her one of the best-selling gospel music artists.

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27/01/1971

Jacobo Árbenz, Guatemalan captain and politician, President of Guatemala (born 1913)

Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th president of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, before he became the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954. He was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history. The landmark program of agrarian reform Árbenz enacted as president was very influential across Latin America.

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27/01/1970

Rocco D'Assunta, Italian actor, comedian and playwright (born 1904)

Rocco D'Assunta was an Italian actor, comedian and playwright.

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Marietta Blau, Austrian physicist and academic (born 1894)

Marietta Blau was an Austrian physicist of the 20th century who pioneered developments of photographic nuclear emulsions to image and accurately measure high-energy nuclear particles and events, significantly advancing the field of particle physics in her time. For this, she was awarded the Lieben Prize in 1937 by the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW). As a Jew, she became an émigré from Austria because of the 1938 Nazi Anschluss (annexe), her research continuing from Oslo, on to Mexico and the United States of America before eventually returning to Austria in 1960 where she was awarded the ÖAW Erwin Schrödinger Prize.

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27/01/1967

crew of Apollo 1

Roger Bruce Chaffee was an American naval officer, aviator and aeronautical engineer who was a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program.

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crew of Apollo 1

Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom was an American engineer and pilot in the United States Air Force, as well as one of the original Mercury Seven selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Project Mercury, a program to train and launch astronauts into outer space. Grissom went on to be a Project Gemini and Apollo program astronaut for NASA. As a member of the NASA Astronaut Corps, Grissom was the second American to fly in space in 1961. He was also the second American to fly in space twice, preceded only by Joe Walker with his sub-orbital X-15 flights.

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crew of Apollo 1

Edward Higgins White II was an American aeronautical engineer, United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He was a member of the crews of Gemini 4 and Apollo 1.

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Alphonse Juin, Algerian-French general (born 1888)

Army-General Alphonse Pierre Juin was a French Army officer who served in both world wars. A graduate of the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr class of 1912, he served in Morocco in 1914 in command of native troops. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Juin was sent to the Western Front in France, where he was gravely wounded in 1915. As a result of this wound, he lost the use of his right arm.

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27/01/1965

Abraham Walkowitz, American painter (born 1878)

Abraham Walkowitz was a Russian–American painter who was among the first generation of American modernists. While not having attained the same level of fame as his contemporaries, Walkowitz' close relationship with the 291 Gallery and Alfred Stieglitz placed him at the center of the modernist movement. His early abstract cityscapes and collection of over 5,000 drawings of Isadora Duncan also remain significant art historical records.

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27/01/1963

John Farrow, Australian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1904)

John Villiers Farrow, KGCHS was an Australian film director, producer, and screenwriter. Spending a considerable amount of his career in the United States, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director in 1942 for Wake Island, and in 1957, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days. He had seven children by his wife, actress Maureen O'Sullivan, including actress Mia Farrow.

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27/01/1961

Bernard Friedberg, Austrian scholar and author (born 1876)

Bernard Friedberg was an Austrian Hebraist, scholar and bibliographer.

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27/01/1956

Erich Kleiber, Austrian conductor and director (born 1890)

Erich Kleiber was an Austrian, later Argentine, conductor, known for his interpretations of the Western classics and as an advocate of Neue Musik.

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27/01/1951

Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Finnish field marshal and politician, 6th President of Finland (born 1867)

Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a Finnish military commander and statesman. He served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War (1918), as regent of Finland (1918–1919), as commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defence Forces during World War II (1939–1945), and as the president of Finland (1944–1946). He became Finland's only field marshal in 1933 and was appointed honorary Marshal of Finland in 1942.

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27/01/1942

Kaarel Eenpalu, Estonian journalist and politician, Prime Minister of Estonia (born 1888)

Kaarel Eenpalu was an Estonian journalist, politician and head of state, who served as 7th Prime Minister of Estonia.

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27/01/1940

Isaac Babel, Russian short story writer, journalist, and playwright (born 1894)

Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was a Soviet writer, journalist, playwright, and literary translator. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories, and has been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry". Babel was arrested by the NKVD on 15 May 1939 on fabricated charges of terrorism and espionage, and executed on 27 January 1940.

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27/01/1931

Nishinoumi Kajirō II, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 25th Yokozuna (born 1880)

Nishinoumi Kajirō II was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler. He was the sport's 25th yokozuna.

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27/01/1927

Jurgis Matulaitis-Matulevičius, Lithuanian bishop (born 1871)

Jurgis Matulaitis-Matulevičius was a Latin Church Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Vilnius from late 1918 until his resignation in 1925. Matulaitis was also the founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and the Handmaids of Jesus in the Eucharist; he served as the Superior-General of the Marian Fathers from 1911 until his death. He worked in secret to revive the Marian Fathers after the Russian authorities suppressed all religious orders and he even relinquished his teaching position to better dedicate himself to that secret revival. He was a noted teacher and spiritual director who set up other branches of the order in places such as Switzerland and the United States far from Russian authorities.

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27/01/1922

Nellie Bly, American journalist and author (born 1864)

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and for an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. She ushered in the era of stunt girl reporting and helped advance a new kind of immersion journalism.

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27/01/1921

Maurice Buckley, Australian sergeant (born 1891)

Maurice Vincent Buckley, was an Australian soldier serving under the pseudonym Gerald Sexton who was awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War. This is the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

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27/01/1919

Endre Ady, Hungarian poet and journalist (born 1877)

Endre Ady was a turn-of-the-century Hungarian poet and journalist. Regarded by many as the greatest Hungarian poet of the 20th century, he was noted for his steadfast belief in social progress and development and for his poetry's exploration of fundamental questions of the modern European experience: love, temporality, faith, individuality, and patriotism.

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27/01/1917

Ernst Sars, Norwegian historian (born 1835)

Johan Ernst Welhaven Sars was a Norwegian professor, historian, author and editor. Assuming perspectives from the positivism philosophical school, his main work was Udsigt over den norske Historie, four volumes issued from 1873 to 1891. He co-edited the magazines Nyt norsk Tidskrift from 1877 to 1878, and Nyt Tidsskrift from 1882 to 1887. He was politically active for the Liberal Party of Norway and among the party's most central theoreticians.

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27/01/1910

Thomas Crapper, English plumber and businessman (born 1836)

Thomas Crapper was an English plumber and businessman. He founded Thomas Crapper & Co in London, a plumbing equipment company. His notability with regard to toilets has often been overstated, mostly due to the publication in 1969 of a tongue-in-cheek biography by New Zealand satirist Wallace Reyburn.

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27/01/1901

Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (born 1813)

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the modern province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron named Antonio Barezzi.

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27/01/1880

Edward Middleton Barry, English architect and academic, co-designed the Halifax Town Hall and the Royal Opera House (born 1830)

Edward Middleton Barry RA was an English architect of the 19th century.

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27/01/1873

Adam Sedgwick, British geologist, Anglican priest and doctoral advisor to Charles Darwin (born 1785)

Adam Sedgwick FRS was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata, he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in a joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Later in 1840, to resolve what later became known as the Great Devonian Controversy about rocks near the boundary between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, he and Murchison proposed the Devonian period.

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27/01/1860

János Bolyai, Romanian-Hungarian mathematician and academic (born 1802)

János Bolyai or Johann Bolyai, was a Hungarian mathematician who developed absolute geometry—a geometry that includes both Euclidean geometry and hyperbolic geometry. The discovery of a consistent alternative geometry that might correspond to the structure of the universe helped to free mathematicians to study abstract concepts irrespective of any possible connection with the physical world.

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27/01/1852

Paavo Ruotsalainen, Finnish farmer and lay preacher (born 1777)

Paavo Heikki Ruotsalainen was a Finnish farmer and lay preacher who became the leader of the revivalist Awakening religious movement in Finland.

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27/01/1851

John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist and painter (born 1789)

John James Audubon was a French-American artist, entrepreneur, naturalist, explorer, and ornithologist. His combined interests in painting and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America. He was notable for his extensive studies of American birds and for his detailed illustrations, which were engraved in Scotland and England for a large-format color-plate (intaglio) book titled The Birds of America (1827–1838), and five volumes of accompanying text entitled Ornithological Biography (1831–1839).

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27/01/1816

Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, English admiral and politician (born 1724)

Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood was a Royal Navy officer and politician. As a junior officer he saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession. While in temporary command of Antelope, Hood drove a French ship ashore in Audierne Bay, and captured two privateers in 1757 during the Seven Years' War. He held senior command as Commander-in-Chief, North American Station and then as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands Station.

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27/01/1814

Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher and academic (born 1762)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant.

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27/01/1812

John Perkins, Anglo-Jamaican captain

John Perkins, nicknamed Jack Punch, was a British Royal Navy officer. Perkins was perhaps the first mixed race commissioned officer in the Royal Navy. He rose from obscurity to be a successful ship's captain in the Georgian Royal Navy. He captained a 10-gun schooner during the American War of Independence and in a two-year period captured at least 315 enemy ships.

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27/01/1794

Antoine Philippe de La Trémoille, French general (born 1765)

Antoine Philippe de La Trémoïlle, Prince of Talmont was a French noble and royalist notable for his military involvement against the French Revolution.

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27/01/1770

Philippe Macquer, French historian (born 1720)

Philippe Macquer was a French historian and lawyer. His brother was the chemist Pierre Joseph Macquer.

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27/01/1740

Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (born 1692)

Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, was a French nobleman and politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1723 to 1726. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a prince du sang.

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27/01/1733

Thomas Woolston, English theologian and author (born 1669)

Thomas Woolston was an English theologian. Although he was often classed as a deist, his biographer William H. Trapnell regards him as an Anglican who held unorthodox theological views.

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27/01/1731

Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano (born 1655)

Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano.

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27/01/1689

Robert Aske, English merchant and philanthropist (born 1619)

Robert Aske was a 17th-century English philanthropist, merchant and haberdasher, who served as an Alderman of London.

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27/01/1688

Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang of China (born 1613)

Bumbutai, of the Khorchin Mongol Borjigit clan, was the consort of Hong Taiji. She was 21 years his junior. She was honoured as Empress Dowager Zhaosheng during the reign of her son, Fulin, the Shunzhi Emperor, and as Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng during the reign of her grandson, Xuanye, the Kangxi Emperor.

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27/01/1651

Abraham Bloemaert, Dutch painter and illustrator (born 1566)

Abraham Bloemaert was a Dutch painter and printmaker who used etching and engraving. He initially worked in the style of the "Haarlem Mannerists", but by the beginning of the 17th-century altered his style in line with the new Baroque style that was then developing. He mostly painted history subjects and some landscapes. He was an important teacher, training most of the Utrecht Caravaggisti.

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27/01/1638

Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, Spanish author and poet (born 1585)

Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses was a Spanish novelist.

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27/01/1629

Hieronymus Praetorius, German organist and composer (born 1560)

Hieronymus Praetorius the Elder was a Northern German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque whose polychoral motets in 8 to 20 voices are intricate and vividly expressive. Some of his organ music survives in the Visby Orgel-Tabulatur, which dates from 1611.

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27/01/1596

Francis Drake, English captain and explorer (born 1540)

Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer and privateer best known for making the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580. He is also known for participating in the early English slaving voyages of his cousin, John Hawkins, and John Lovell. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice admiral.

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27/01/1592

Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Italian painter (born 1538)

Gian Paolo Lomazzo was an Italian artist and writer on art. Praised as a painter, Lomazzo wrote about artistic practice and art theory after blindness compelled him to pursue a different professional path by 1571. Lomazzo's written works were especially influential to second generation Mannerism in Italian art and architecture.

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27/01/1540

Angela Merici, Italian educator and saint, founded the Company of St. Ursula (born 1474)

Angela Merici was an Italian Catholic religious educator who founded the Company of St. Ursula in 1535 in Brescia, in which women dedicated their lives to the service of the church through the education of girls.

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27/01/1504

Ludovico II, Marquess of Saluzzo (born 1438)

Ludovico II del Vasto was marquess of Saluzzo from 1475 until his death. Before his accession as marquis he held the title of Count of Carmagnola.

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27/01/1490

Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Japanese shōgun (born 1435)

Ashikaga Yoshimasa was a Japanese samurai, daimyo and the eighth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1443 to 1473 during the Muromachi period of Japan. His actions led to the Ōnin War (1467–1477), which triggered the Sengoku period. His reign saw a cultural flourishing in the arts, the development of tea ceremony, Zen Buddhism and wabi-sabi aesthetics.

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27/01/1377

Frederick the Simple, King of Sicily

Frederick IV, called the Simple, was King of Sicily from 1355 to 1377. He was the second son of Peter II of Sicily and Elisabeth of Carinthia. He succeeded his brother Louis. The documents of his era call him the "infante Frederick, ruler of the kingdom of Sicily", without any regnal number.

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27/01/1311

Külüg Khan, Emperor Wuzong of Yuan

Külüg Khan, born Khayishan, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Wuzong of Yuan, was an emperor of the Yuan dynasty of China. Apart from being the Emperor of China, he is regarded as the seventh Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, although it was only nominal due to the division of the empire. His regnal name "Külüg Khan" means "warrior Khan" or "fine horse Khan" in the Mongolian language.

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27/01/1062

Adelaide of Hungary, (born c. 1040)

Adelaide of Hungary was the only daughter of King Andrew I of Hungary. It has generally been assumed that her mother was Anastasia of Kiev, but it has been hypothesised that Adelaide could be the result of Andrew I and a different wife, due to the idea that Yaroslav the Wise would t marry his daughter to an exiled dynast, who did not appear to have a strong claim to the throne, for which he would not gain serious support for until 1045, five years after Adelaide is thought to have been born.

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27/01/0947

Zhang Yanze, Chinese general and governor

Zhang Yanze was an ethnic Göktürk general of the Later Tang, Later Jin, and Liao dynasties of China. He was reviled in traditional sources for his cruelty, avarice, and lack of faithfulness to the Later Jin.

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27/01/0931

Ruotger, archbishop of Trier

Ruotger, also spelled Rutger, Rudger or Rudgar, was the archbishop of Trier from 915. His archdiocese at first lay within the kingdom of West Francia, but after 925 it was annexed to East Francia, an event in which Ruotger played a major role.

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27/01/0906

Liu Can, chancellor of the Tang Dynasty

Liu Can, courtesy name Zhaozhi, formally the Baron of Hedong (河東男), nicknamed Liu Qiezi, was an official of the Chinese Tang dynasty, serving as a chancellor during the reigns of Emperor Zhaozong and Emperor Zhaozong's son Emperor Ai, near the end of the dynasty.

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27/01/0847

Pope Sergius II (born 790)

Pope Sergius II was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from January 844 to his death in 847. Sergius II's pontificate saw the Arab raid against Rome as well as the city's redevelopment.

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27/01/0672

Pope Vitalian

Pope Vitalian was the bishop of Rome from 30 July 657 to his death in 672. His pontificate was marked by the dispute between the papacy and the imperial government in Constantinople over Monothelitism, which Rome condemned. Vitalian tried to resolve the dispute and had a conciliatory relationship with Emperor Constans II, who visited him in Rome and gave him gifts. Vitalian's pontificate also saw the secession of the Archbishopric of Ravenna from the papal authority.

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27/01/0555

Yuan Di, emperor of the Liang Dynasty (born 508)

Emperor Yuan of Liang, personal name Xiao Yi (蕭繹), courtesy name Shicheng (世誠), childhood name Qifu (七符), was an emperor of the Chinese Liang dynasty. After his father Emperor Wu and brother Emperor Jianwen were successively taken hostage and controlled by the rebel general Hou Jing, Xiao Yi was largely viewed as the de facto leader of Liang, and after defeating Hou in 552 declared himself emperor. In 554, after offending Yuwen Tai, the paramount general of rival Western Wei, Western Wei forces descended on and captured his capital Jiangling, executing him and instead declaring his nephew Xiao Cha the Emperor of Liang.

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27/01/0457

Marcian, Byzantine emperor (born 392)

Marcian was Roman emperor of the East from 450 to 457. Very little is known of his life before becoming emperor, other than that he was a domesticus who served under the commanders Ardabur and his son Aspar for fifteen years. After the death of Emperor Theodosius II on 28 July 450, Marcian was made a candidate for the throne by Aspar, who held much influence because of his military power. After a month of negotiations Pulcheria, Theodosius' sister, agreed to marry Marcian. Zeno, a military leader whose influence was similar to Aspar's, may have been involved in these negotiations, as he was given the high-ranking court title of patrician upon Marcian's accession. Marcian was elected and inaugurated on 25 August 450.

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27/01/0098

Nerva, Roman emperor (born 35)

AD 98 (XCVIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Traianus. The denomination AD 98 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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