Died on Friday, 9th January – Famous Deaths

09/01/2025

Black Bart, American professional wrestler (born 1948)

Richard Harris, better known by his ring name Black Bart, was an American professional wrestler.

---

09/01/2024

Rashid Khan, Indian classical musician (born 1968)

Ustad Rashid Khan was an Indian classical musician in the Hindustani tradition. He belonged to the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana and was the great-grandson of the gharana's founder Inayat Hussain Khan.

---

09/01/2023

Séamus Begley, Irish accordion player, fiddler and Irish traditional musician (born 1949)

Séamus Begley was an Irish accordion player, and Irish traditional musician. He was regarded as one of Ireland's greatest accordion players.

---

09/01/2022

Bob Saget, American comedian, actor, and television host (born 1956)

Robert Lane Saget was an American stand-up comedian, actor, director, and television host. He portrayed Danny Tanner on the sitcom Full House (1987–1995) and its sequel Fuller House (2016–2020). Saget was the original host of America's Funniest Home Videos (1989–1997), and the voice of narrator Ted Mosby on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014). He was also known for his squeaky-clean family-sitcom image and at the same time profane comedian persona, with his 2014 album That's What I'm Talkin' About being nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

---

Maria Ewing, American opera singer (born 1950)

Maria Louise Ewing, Lady Hall was an American opera singer. In the early part of her career she performed solely as a lyric mezzo-soprano; she later assumed full soprano parts as well. Her signature roles were Blanche, Carmen, Dorabella, Rosina and Salome. Some critics regarded her as one of the most compelling singing actresses of her generation.

---

09/01/2021

John Reilly, American actor (born 1934)

John Henry Matthew Reilly was an American film and television actor who appeared on soap operas, including General Hospital, Sunset Beach, and Passions.

---

09/01/2019

Verna Bloom, American actress (born 1938)

Verna Frances Bloom was an American actress.

---

Paul Koslo, German-Canadian actor (born 1944)

Paul Koslo was a German-born Canadian actor.

---

09/01/2018

Kato Ottio, Papua New Guinean rugby league player (born 1994)

Benkato "Kato" Ottio was a Papua New Guinean rugby league footballer. Primarily playing as a centre, Ottio represented Papua New Guinea, most notably at the 2017 World Cup.

---

09/01/2017

Zygmunt Bauman, Polish sociologist (born 1925)

Zygmunt Bauman was a Polish–British sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrated to Israel; three years later, he moved to the United Kingdom. He resided in England from 1971, where he studied at the London School of Economics and became Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds, later emeritus. Bauman was a social theorist, writing on issues as diverse as modernity and the Holocaust, consumerism in postmodernity, and liquid modernity.

---

09/01/2016

John Harvard, Canadian journalist and politician, 23rd Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba (born 1938)

John Harvard was a Canadian journalist and politician. He served as a federal Member of Parliament (MP) from 1988 to 2004, and was appointed the 23rd Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba just before Canada's 2004 federal election.

---

Angus Scrimm, American actor and author (born 1926)

Angus Scrimm was an American actor, author, and journalist, known for his portrayal of the Tall Man in the 1979 horror film Phantasm and its sequels.

---

09/01/2015

Michel Jeury, French author (born 1934)

Michel Jeury was a French science fiction writer, reputed in the 1970s. He also used the pseudonym of Albert Higon.

---

Józef Oleksy, Polish economist and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Poland (born 1946)

Józef Oleksy was a Polish left-wing politician who served as Prime Minister of Poland from 7 March 1995 to 7 February 1996, when he resigned due to espionage allegations. He was chairman of the Democratic Left Alliance.

---

Abdul Rahman Ya'kub, Malaysian politician, 3rd Chief Minister of Sarawak (born 1928)

Abdul Rahman bin Ya'kub was a Malaysian politician of Melanau descent from Mukah. He was the third Chief Minister of Sarawak and the fourth Yang di-Pertua Negeri Sarawak. He is also an uncle of Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, since his (Taib's) mother Hajah Hamidah Ya'akub (1916–2006) was his (Rahman's) eldest-born sibling.

---

Roy Tarpley, American basketball player (born 1964)

Roy James Tarpley Jr. was an American professional basketball player. He played the power forward and center positions in the National Basketball Association (NBA), earning an NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1988. In 1995, Tarpley was permanently banned by the NBA due to his drug and alcohol abuse. He played in Europe for Olympiacos, Aris, and Iraklis.

---

09/01/2014

Amiri Baraka, American poet, playwright, and academic (born 1934)

Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone. Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been described by scholars as constituting defining texts for African-American culture.

---

Josep Maria Castellet, Spanish poet and critic (born 1926)

Josep Maria Castellet Díaz de Cossío, also known as José María Castellet, was a Spanish Catalan writer, poet, literacy critic, publisher and editor.

---

Paul du Toit, South African painter and sculptor (born 1965)

Paul Johan du Toit was a South African artist, working in painting, sculpture, paper and mixed media. His exhibits have been displayed globally. Most notably, three of his sculptures were selected for the 2001 Florence Biennale.

---

Dale T. Mortensen, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1939)

Dale Thomas Mortensen was an American economist, a professor at Northwestern University, and a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

---

09/01/2013

Brigitte Askonas, Austrian-English immunologist and academic (born 1923)

Brigitte Alice Askonas was a British immunologist and a visiting professor at Imperial College London from 1995.

---

James M. Buchanan, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1919)

James McGill Buchanan Jr. was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work, The Calculus of Consent, co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962. He continued to develop the theory, eventually receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986.

---

Robert L. Rock, American businessman and politician, 42nd Lieutenant Governor of Indiana (born 1927)

Robert Lee Rock was an American politician who served as the Lieutenant Governor of Indiana from 1965 to 1969 and as the Mayor of Anderson, Indiana, from 1972 to 1980. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Indiana in 1968, but lost to Republican Edgar Whitcomb.

---

John Wise, Canadian farmer and politician, 23rd Canadian Minister of Agriculture (born 1935)

John Wise was a Canadian politician from Ontario.

---

09/01/2012

Brian Curvis, Welsh boxer (born 1937)

Brian Nancurvis, who fought under the name Brian Curvis as a professional, was a boxer from Swansea, Wales who was active from 1959 to 1966. He fought as a Welterweight, becoming British welterweight champion in 1960. He retired as undefeated champion and is the only welterweight to have won two Lonsdale Belts outright. The four defeats in his professional career were all to foreign boxers; he was never beaten by a British boxer.

---

Augusto Gansser-Biaggi, Swiss geologist and academic (born 1910)

Augusto Gansser-Biaggi was a Swiss geologist who specialised in the geology of the Himalayas. He was born in Milan.

---

William G. Roll, German-American psychologist and parapsychologist (born 1926)

William G. Roll was an American psychologist and parapsychologist on the faculty of the Psychology Department of the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia. Roll is most notable for his belief in poltergeist activity. He coined the term "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" (RSPK) to explain poltergeist cases. However, RSPK was never accepted by mainstream science and skeptics have described Roll as a credulous investigator.

---

Malam Bacai Sanhá, Guinea-Bissau politician, President of Guinea-Bissau (born 1947)

Malam Bacai Sanhá was a Bissau-Guinean politician who was President of Guinea-Bissau from 8 September 2009 until his death on 9 January 2012. A member of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Sanhá was President of the National People's Assembly from 1994 to 1999 and then served as acting President of Guinea-Bissau from 14 May 1999, to 17 February 2000, following the ouster of President João Bernardo Vieira. Standing as the PAIGC candidate, he placed second in the 1999–2000 presidential election as well as the 2005 presidential election before winning the June–July 2009 presidential election.

---

László Szekeres, Hungarian physician and academic (born 1921)

László Szekeres. Professor Emeritus, Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Medical Faculty of the University of Szeged, Hungary. He has held a number of notable positions and received a number of awards. His research contributed to the development of cardiac drugs.

---

09/01/2011

Makinti Napanangka, Australian painter (born 1930)

Makinti Napanangka AM was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She was referred to posthumously as Kumentje. The term Kumentje was used instead of her personal name as it is customary among many indigenous communities not to refer to deceased people by their original given names for some time after their deaths. She lived in the communities of Haasts Bluff, Papunya, and later at Kintore, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north-east of the Lake MacDonald region where she was born, on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Makinti died in 2011 in Alice Springs and she was posthumously awarded an AM later that year.

---

09/01/2009

Rob Gauntlett, English mountaineer and explorer (born 1987)

Robert Douglas "Rob" Gauntlett was an English adventurer, explorer and motivational speaker. In 2006 he became the youngest British climber to reach the summit of Everest.

---

T. Llew Jones, Welsh author and poet (born 1914)

Thomas Llewelyn Jones was a Welsh language author. Over a writing career of more than 50 years, he became one of the most prolific and popular authors of children's books in Welsh. He wrote, and was generally known, as T. Llew Jones.

---

Tan Chor Jin, Singaporean murderer and triad leader of Ang Soon Tong (born 1966)

Tan Chor Jin, also known by his alias Tony Kia, was a Singaporean gang leader known for fatally shooting 41-year-old Lim Hock Soon, his former friend and nightclub owner, using a semi-automatic Beretta .22 calibre pistol on 15 February 2006. Tan, who had underworld affiliations and was a member of Ang Soon Tong since his early years, had also robbed the Lim family of their valuables before he escaped Singapore to Malaysia, where he was arrested ten days later. The media gave him the name "One-eyed Dragon" given that he was blind in the right eye.

---

09/01/2008

Johnny Grant, American radio host and producer (born 1923)

Johnny Grant was an American radio personality and television producer who also served as the honorary mayor of Hollywood, in which capacity he was often present at Hollywood community functions, including the unveiling of new stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. An intersection just north of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue is designated "Johnny Grant Way".

---

John Harvey-Jones, English businessman and television host (born 1924)

Sir John Harvey-Jones MBE was an English businessman. He was the chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries from 1982 to 1987. He was best known by the public for his BBC television show, Troubleshooter, in which he advised struggling businesses.

---

09/01/2007

Elmer Symons, South African motorcycle racer (born 1977)

Elmer Symons was a motorcycle enduro racer.

---

Jean-Pierre Vernant, French anthropologist and historian (born 1914)

Jean-Pierre Vernant was a French resistant, historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and society which would itself be influential among classical scholars. He was an honorary professor at the Collège de France.

---

09/01/2006

Andy Caldecott, Australian motorcycle racer (born 1964)

Andrew David Caldecott was an off-road motorcycle racer born in Keith, South Australia. He won the motorcycle division of the Australian Safari Rally four times consecutively (2000–2003) and was a competitor in the Dakar Rally in 2004 (DNF), 2005 (6th), and 2006.

---

W. Cleon Skousen, American author and academic (born 1913)

Willard Cleon Skousen was an American law enforcement officer and conservative and nationalist author associated with the John Birch Society.

---

09/01/2004

Norberto Bobbio, Italian philosopher and academic (born 1909)

Norberto Bobbio was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa. Bobbio was a social liberal in the tradition of Piero Gobetti, Carlo Rosselli, Guido Calogero, and Aldo Capitini. He was also strongly influenced by Hans Kelsen and Vilfredo Pareto. He was considered one of the greatest Italian intellectuals of the 20th century.

---

09/01/2003

Will McDonough, American journalist (born 1935)

William McDonough was an American sportswriter for The Boston Globe who also worked as an on-air football reporter for CBS and NBC.

---

09/01/2001

Maurice Prather, American photographer and director (born 1926)

Maurice William Prather was an American motion picture and still photographer and film director. He was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Maurice J. Prather, a mechanic, cabinet maker, and woodworker, and Zora M. Prather, both of them born in Missouri. Young Maurice Jr. also had a younger sister, Laura Jo, some two years his junior.

---

09/01/2000

Arnold Alexander Hall, English engineer and academic (born 1915)

Sir Arnold Alexander Hall was an English aeronautical engineer, scientist and industrialist.

---

Nigel Tranter, Scottish historian and author (born 1909)

Nigel Tranter OBE was a Scottish writer of a wide range of books on history and architecture, both fiction and non-fiction. He was best-known for his popular and well-researched historical novels, covering centuries of Scottish history.

---

09/01/1998

Kenichi Fukui, Japanese chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918)

Kenichi Fukui was a Japanese chemist. He became the first person of East Asian ancestry to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry when he won the 1981 prize with Roald Hoffmann, for their independent investigations into the mechanisms of chemical reactions. Fukui's prize-winning work focused on the role of frontier orbitals in chemical reactions: specifically that molecules share loosely bonded electrons which occupy the frontier orbitals, that is, the Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital (HOMO) and the Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbital (LUMO).

---

Imi Lichtenfeld, Hungarian-Israeli martial artist, founded Krav Maga (born 1910)

Imre "Imi" Lichtenfeld, also known as Imi Sde-Or, was a Hungarian-born Israeli martial artist. He is widely recognized for developing Krav Maga, an Israeli martial art.

---

09/01/1997

Edward Osóbka-Morawski, Polish politician, Prime Minister of Poland (born 1909)

Edward Bolesław Osóbka-Morawski was a Polish activist and politician in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) before World War II, and after the Soviet takeover of Poland, Chairman of the Communist-dominated interim government, the Polish Committee of National Liberation formed in Lublin with Stalin's approval.

---

Jesse White, American actor (born 1917)

Jesse White was an American actor who was best known for his portrayal as "Ol' Lonely" the repairman in Maytag television commercials from 1967 to 1988.

---

09/01/1996

Walter M. Miller, Jr., American soldier and author (born 1923)

Walter Michael Miller Jr. was an American science fiction writer. He wrote short stories that became a celebrated fix-up novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959). His only novel published in his lifetime, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

---

Abdullah al-Qasemi, Saudi atheist, writer, and intellectual (born 1907)

Abdullah al-Qasemi was a Saudi Arabian 20th-century writer and intellectual. He was one of the most controversial intellectuals in the Arab world because of his radical change from defending Salafism to defending atheism and rejecting organized religion. He questioned the existence of God and criticized religions, which resulted in the allegations of him becoming an atheist, therefore his books were banned all over the Arab world.

---

09/01/1995

Souphanouvong, Laotian politician, 1st President of Laos (born 1909)

Prince Souphanouvong, nicknamed the Red Prince, was along with his half-brother Prince Souvanna Phouma and Prince Boun Oum of Champasak, one of the "Three Princes" who represented respectively the communist (pro-Vietnam), neutralist and royalist political factions in Laos. He was the President of Laos from December 1975 to October 1986.

---

Peter Cook, English actor and screenwriter (born 1937)

Peter Edward Cook was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.

---

09/01/1993

Paul Hasluck, Australian historian and politician, Governor-General of Australia (born 1905)

Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck was an Australian statesman who served as the 17th governor-general of Australia, in office from 1969 to 1974. Prior to that, he was a Liberal Party politician, holding ministerial office continuously from 1951 to 1969.

---

09/01/1992

Steve Brodie, American actor (born 1919)

Steve Brodie was an American stage, film, and television actor from El Dorado in Butler County in south central Kansas. He reportedly adopted his screen name in memory of Steve Brodie, a daredevil who claimed to have jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886 and survived.

---

Bill Naughton, English playwright and screenwriter (born 1910)

William John Francis Naughton was an Irish-born British playwright and author, best known for his play Alfie.

---

09/01/1990

Spud Chandler, American baseball player, coach, and manager (born 1907)

Spurgeon Ferdinand "Spud" Chandler was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a right-handed starting pitcher and played his entire career for the New York Yankees from 1937 through 1947.

---

Cemal Süreya, Turkish poet and journalist (born 1931)

Cemal Süreya, known by his given name as Cemalettin Seber, was a Kurdish-Zaza, Alevi poet, writer, and translator. He was one of the pioneering poets of the İkinci Yeni movement, a modernist movement in Turkish poetry. Although he made his first attempts at poetry with sketches in middle school and aruz in high school, his true poetic work began during his university years. In addition to his poetry collections; Üvercinka (1958), Göçebe (1965), Beni Öp Sonra Doğur Beni (1973), Uçurumda Açan (1984), Sıcak Nal (1988), Güz Bitigi (1988), and Sevda Sözleri (1990); he also wrote essays, critiques, diaries, and anthologies.

---

09/01/1988

Peter L. Rypdal, Norwegian fiddler and composer (born 1909)

Peter Larsson Rypdal was a Norwegian fiddler and famous traditional folk music composer.

---

09/01/1987

Arthur Lake, American actor (born 1905)

Arthur William Lake was an American actor known best for bringing Dagwood Bumstead, the bumbling husband of Blondie, to life in film, radio, and television.

---

09/01/1985

Robert Mayer, German-English businessman and philanthropist (born 1879)

Sir Robert Mayer was a German-born British philanthropist, businessman, and a major supporter of music and young musicians.

---

09/01/1984

Bob Dyer, American-Australian radio and television host (born 1909)

Robert Neal Dyer OBE was a Gold Logie-award-winning American-born vaudeville entertainer and singer, radio and television personality, and radio and television quiz show host who made his name in Australia. Dyer is best known for the long-running radio and then television quiz show, Pick a Box.

---

09/01/1981

Kazimierz Serocki, Polish pianist and composer (born 1922)

Kazimierz Serocki was a Polish composer and one of the founders of the Warsaw Autumn contemporary music festival.

---

09/01/1979

Pier Luigi Nervi, Italian engineer and architect, designed the Tour de la Bourse and Pirelli Tower (born 1891)

Pier Luigi Nervi was an Italian engineer and architect. He studied at the University of Bologna graduating in 1913. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and was known as a structural engineer and architect and for his innovative use of reinforced concrete, especially with numerous notable thin shell structures worldwide.

---

09/01/1975

Pierre Fresnay, French actor and screenwriter (born 1897)

Pierre Fresnay was a French stage and film actor.

---

Pyotr Novikov, Russian mathematician and theorist (born 1901)

Pyotr Sergeyevich Novikov was a Soviet mathematician known for his work in group theory. His son, Sergei Novikov, was also a mathematician.

---

09/01/1972

Ted Shawn, American dancer and choreographer (born 1891)

Ted Shawn was an American dancer and choreographer. Considered a pioneer of American modern dance, he created the Denishawn School together with his wife Ruth St. Denis. After their separation he created the all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers. With his innovative ideas of masculine movement, he was one of the most influential choreographers and dancers of his day. He was also the founder and creator of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts.

---

09/01/1971

Elmer Flick, American baseball player and scout (born 1876)

Elmer Harrison Flick was an American professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball from 1898 to 1910 for the Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Athletics, and Cleveland Bronchos/Naps. In 1,483 career games, Flick recorded a .313 batting average while accumulating 164 triples, 1,752 hits, 330 stolen bases, and 756 runs batted in (RBIs). He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1963.

---

09/01/1964

Halide Edib Adıvar, Turkish author and academic (born 1884)

Halide Edip Adıvar was a Turkish novelist, teacher, and a nationalist and feminist intellectual. She was best known for her novels criticizing the low social status of Turkish women and what she saw from her observation as the lack of interest of most women in changing their situation. She was a Pan-Turkist and several of her novels advocated for the Turanism movement.

---

09/01/1961

Emily Greene Balch, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1867)

Emily Greene Balch was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues such as poverty, child labor, and immigration, as well as settlement work to uplift poor immigrants and reduce juvenile delinquency.

---

09/01/1960

Elsie J. Oxenham, English author and educator (born 1880)

Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley, was an English girls' story writer, who took the name Oxenham as her pseudonym when her first book, Goblin Island, was published in 1907. Her Abbey Series of 38 titles are her best-known and best-loved books. In her lifetime she had 87 titles published and another two have since been published by her niece, who discovered the manuscripts in the early 1990s. She is considered a major figure among girls' story writers of the first half of the twentieth century, being one of the 'Big Three' with Elinor Brent-Dyer and Dorita Fairlie Bruce. Angela Brazil is as well-known - perhaps more so - but did not write her books in series about the same group of characters or set in the same place or school, as did the Big Three.

---

09/01/1947

Karl Mannheim, Hungarian-English sociologist and academic (born 1893)

Karl Mannheim was a Hungarian sociologist and a key figure in classical sociology as well as one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge. Mannheim is best known for his book Ideology and Utopia (1929/1936), in which he distinguishes between partial and total ideologies, the latter representing comprehensive worldviews distinctive to particular social groups, and also between ideologies that provide support for existing social arrangements, and utopias, which look to the future and propose a transformation of society.

---

09/01/1946

Countee Cullen, American poet and playwright (born 1903)

Countee Cullen was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance.

---

09/01/1945

Shigekazu Shimazaki, Japanese admiral and pilot (born 1908)

Shigekazu Shimazaki was a Japanese career officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during World War II.

---

Jüri Uluots, Estonian journalist and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Estonia (born 1890)

Jüri Uluots was an Estonian prime minister, journalist, prominent attorney and distinguished Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tartu.

---

Osman Cemal Kaygılı, Turkish journalist, author, and playwright (born 1890)

Osman Cemal Kaygılı was a Turkish writer and journalist.

---

09/01/1941

Dimitrios Golemis, Greek runner (born 1874)

Dimitrios P. Golemis was a Greek athlete. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

---

09/01/1939

Johann Strauss III, Austrian violinist, composer, and conductor (born 1866)

Johann Maria Eduard Strauss III was an Austrian composer whose father was Eduard Strauss, whose uncles were Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss, and whose grandfather was Johann Strauss I. Born in Vienna, he was unofficially entrusted with the task of upholding his family's tradition after the dissolution of the Strauss Orchestra by his father in 1901. His talents were not fully realized during his lifetime as musical tastes had changed in the Silver Age with more popular composers such as Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus dominating the Viennese musical scene with their operettas, although his uncle, Johann Strauss II, supervised his development as a musician, a fact disputed by Eduard Strauss.

---

09/01/1936

John Gilbert, American actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1899)

John Gilbert was an American actor, screenwriter and director. He rose to fame during the silent era and became a popular leading man known as "The Great Lover". His breakthrough came in 1925 with his starring roles in The Merry Widow and The Big Parade. At the height of his career, Gilbert rivaled Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw.

---

09/01/1931

Wayne Munn, American football player and wrestler (born 1896)

Wayne Munn was an American professional wrestler and collegiate football player from the University of Nebraska. As a wrestler, Munn was a World Heavyweight Champion. His world title win is historic as it was the first time that a pure performer had won a world championship in professional wrestling.

---

09/01/1930

Edward Bok, Dutch-American journalist and author (born 1863)

Edward William Bok was a Dutch-born American editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was editor of the Ladies' Home Journal for 30 years (1889–1919). He also distributed popular homebuilding plans and created Bok Tower Gardens in central Florida.

---

09/01/1927

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, English-German philosopher and author (born 1855)

Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a British-German-French philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, scientific racism, and Nordicism; he has been described as a "racialist writer". His best-known book, the two-volume Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, published in 1899, became highly influential in the pan-Germanic Völkisch movements of the early 20th century, and later influenced the antisemitism of Nazi racial policy. In the early 1920s, Chamberlain met and encouraged Adolf Hitler: he has been referred to as "Hitler's John the Baptist".

---

09/01/1924

Ponnambalam Arunachalam, Sri Lankan civil servant and politician (born 1853)

Ponnambalam Arunachalam was a Ceylonese civil servant and a member of the Executive Council of Ceylon and Legislative Council of Ceylon.

---

09/01/1923

Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand novelist, short story writer, and essayist (born 1888)

Kathleen Mansfield Murry was a New Zealand writer and critic who was an important figure in the modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world and have been published in 25 languages.

---

09/01/1918

Charles-Émile Reynaud, French scientist and educator, invented the Praxinoscope (born 1844)

Charles-Émile Reynaud was a French inventor, responsible for the praxinoscope and was responsible for the first projected animated films. His Pantomimes Lumineuses premiered on 28 October 1892 in Paris. His Théâtre Optique film system, patented in 1888, is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. The performances predated Auguste and Louis Lumière's first paid public screening of the cinematographe on 26 December 1895, often seen as the birth of cinema.

---

09/01/1917

Luther D. Bradley, American cartoonist (born 1853)

Luther Daniels Bradley was an American illustrator and political cartoonist associated with the Chicago Daily News. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, he graduated from Yale University in 1875. After some years at his father's business, he traveled abroad, and spent over a decade in Melbourne, Australia, drawing for such publications as Melbourne Punch. He returned to Chicago in 1893, working for the Daily Journal and Inter Ocean, before joining the Daily News in 1899, where he spent the remainder of his life and career. He was known for strong anti-war sentiments, opposing U.S. involvement in World War I.

---

09/01/1911

Edwin Arthur Jones, American violinist and composer (born 1853)

Edwin Arthur Jones was an American composer. His works include a cantata and a large oratorio in three parts, modeled after Handel's Messiah.

---

Edvard Rusjan, Italian-Slovene pilot and engineer (born 1886)

Edvard Rusjan was a Slovenian–Friulian flight pioneer and airplane constructor from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He died in an airplane crash in Belgrade.

---

09/01/1908

Wilhelm Busch, German poet, illustrator, and painter (born 1832)

Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter. He published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day.

---

Abraham Goldfaden, Russian actor, playwright, and author (born 1840)

Abraham Goldfaden, also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in Yiddish and Hebrew languages and author of some 40 plays. Goldfaden is considered the father of modern Jewish theatre.

---

09/01/1901

Richard Copley Christie, English lawyer and academic (born 1830)

Richard Copley Christie was an English lawyer, university teacher, philanthropist and bibliophile.

---

09/01/1895

Aaron Lufkin Dennison, American-English businessman (born 1812)

Aaron Lufkin Dennison was an American watchmaker and businessman. He is mainly known for his eponymous line of timepieces Dennison and for the invention of the mainspring gauge. Dennison was also the founder of Waltham Watch Company and responsible for the creation of many watch parts for Rolex and Omega in their early stages of mass production.

---

09/01/1878

Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (born 1820)

Victor Emmanuel II was King of Sardinia from 23 March 1849 until 17 March 1861, when he assumed the title of King of Italy and became the first king of an independent, united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878. Borrowing from the old Latin title Pater Patriae of the Roman emperors, the Italians gave him the epithet of "Father of the Fatherland".

---

09/01/1876

Samuel Gridley Howe, American physician and activist (born 1801)

Samuel Gridley Howe was an American physician, abolitionist, and advocate of education for the blind. He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution. In 1824, he went to Greece to serve as a surgeon in the Greek War of Independence. He arranged for support for refugees and brought many Greek children back to Boston with him for their education.

---

09/01/1873

Napoleon III, French politician, 1st President of France (born 1808)

Napoleon III was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last monarch of France. He created the Second French Empire in 1852, and this period saw rapid industrialization in France, rapid expansion of infrastructure and rise of French influence in world politics after several decades of instability. He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland and the nephew of Napoleon, Emperor of the French. As head of state of France for 22 years, he was the longest-reigning French head of state since the end of the ancien régime.

---

09/01/1858

Anson Jones, American physician and politician; 4th President of the Republic of Texas (born 1798)

Anson Jones was an American medical doctor, businessman, member of Congress for the Republic of Texas, and the fourth and last president of the Republic of Texas.

---

09/01/1856

Neophytos Vamvas, Greek cleric and educator (born 1770)

Neophytos Vamvas was a priest, philosopher, philologist, author, professor, and dean. He was the first dean of the philosophical school at the University of Athens. He is known for being part of the Neophytos incident. The incident was similar to the Methodios Affair an incident that occurred one hundred years prior. He was one of the most influential figures of modern Greek education. He was considered the teacher of the nation.

---

09/01/1848

Caroline Herschel, German-English astronomer (born 1750)

Caroline Lucretia Herschel was a German astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigollet, which bears her name. She was the younger sister of astronomer William Herschel, with whom she worked for most of her career.

---

09/01/1843

William Hedley, English engineer (born 1773)

William Hedley was born in Newburn, near Newcastle upon Tyne. He was one of the leading industrial engineers of the early 19th century, and was instrumental in several major innovations in early railway development. While working as a 'viewer' or manager at Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne, he built the first practical steam locomotive which relied simply on the adhesion of iron wheels on iron rails.

---

09/01/1833

Adrien-Marie Legendre, French mathematician and theorist (born 1752)

Adrien-Marie Legendre was a French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named after him. He is also known for his contributions to the method of least squares, and was the first to officially publish on it, though Carl Friedrich Gauss had discovered it before him.

---

09/01/1805

Noble Wimberly Jones, American physician and politician (born 1723)

Noble Wimberly Jones was an American physician and statesman from Savannah, Georgia. A leading Georgia patriot in the American Revolution, he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1781 and 1782.

---

09/01/1800

Jean Étienne Championnet, French general (born 1762)

Jean-Étienne Vachier Championnet was a French Army officer who led a Republican French division in several important battles of the French Revolutionary Wars. He became commander-in-chief of the Army of Rome in 1798 and of the Army of Italy in 1799. He died in early 1800 of typhus. His name is one of the names inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 3.

---

09/01/1799

Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician and philosopher (born 1718)

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was an Italian mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and humanitarian. She was the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, the first woman appointed as a mathematics professor at a university and the second woman appointed as a professor overall.

---

09/01/1766

Thomas Birch, English historian and author (born 1705)

Thomas Birch was an English antiquarian, historian, and writer.

---

09/01/1762

Antonio de Benavides, colonial governor of Florida (born 1678)

Antonio Benavides Bazán y Molina was a Lieutenant General in the Spanish Army who held administrative positions in the Americas as Royal Governor of Spanish Florida (1718–1734), Governor of Veracruz (1734–1745), Governor and Captain General of Yucatán province, as well as Governor of Manila in the Philippines. Before his successive appointments to these various positions, he served with distinction in several campaigns of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1710, and perhaps saved the life of Philip V, the first Bourbon King of Spain, at Guadalajara.

---

09/01/1757

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, French author, poet, and playwright (born 1657)

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French writer and a member of three of the academies of the Institut de France, noted especially for his accessible treatment of scientific topics during the unfolding of the Age of Enlightenment.

---

09/01/1622

Alix Le Clerc, French Canoness Regular and foundress (born 1576)

Alix Le Clerc, known as Mother Alix, was a French religious leader and founder of the Canonesses of Saint-Augustin of the Notre-Dame Congregation, a religious order created to provide education to girls, especially those living in poverty. They opened Schools of Our Lady throughout Europe. Offshoots of this order brought its mission and spirit around the globe. Le Clerc was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1947.

---

09/01/1612

Leonard Holliday, Lord Mayor of London (born 1550)

Sir Leonard Holliday was a founder of the East India Company, and a Lord Mayor of London.

---

09/01/1598

Jasper Heywood, English poet and scholar (born 1553)

Jasper Heywood was an English Jesuit priest. He is known as the English translator of three Latin plays of Seneca, the Troas (1559), the Thyestes (1560) and Hercules Furens (1561).

---

09/01/1571

Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, French admiral (born 1510)

Nicolas Durand, sieur de Villegagnon, also Villegaignon was a commander of the Knights of Malta, and later a French naval officer who attempted to help the Huguenots in France escape persecution, before turning against them due to Eucharistic disputes.

---

09/01/1561

Amago Haruhisa, Japanese warlord (born 1514)

Amago Haruhisa was a daimyō warlord in the Izumo Province, Chūgoku region of western Japan. He was the second son of Amago Masahisa. Initially named Akihisa (詮久), he changed his name to Haruhisa in 1541 after Ashikaga Yoshiharu offered to let him use a kanji character from his name.

---

09/01/1543

Guillaume du Bellay, French general and diplomat (born 1491)

Guillaume du Bellay, seigneur de Langey, was a French diplomat and general from a notable Angevin family under King Francis I.

---

09/01/1534

Johannes Aventinus, Bavarian historian and philologist (born 1477)

Johann Georg Turmair, known by the pen name Johannes Aventinus or Aventin, was a Bavarian Renaissance humanist historian and philologist. He authored the 1523 Annals of Bavaria, a valuable record of the early history of Germany.

---

09/01/1529

Wang Yangming, Chinese Neo-Confucian scholar (born 1472)

Wang Shouren, courtesy name Bo'an, art name Yangmingzi, usually referred to as Wang Yangming, was a Chinese statesman, general, and Neo-Confucian philosopher during the Ming dynasty. After Zhu Xi, he is commonly regarded as the most important Neo-Confucian thinker, for his interpretations of Confucianism that denied the rationalist dualism of the orthodox philosophy of Zhu Xi. Wang and Lu Xiangshan are regarded as the founders as the Lu–Wang school, or the School of the Mind.

---

09/01/1514

Anne of Brittany, queen of Charles VIII of France and Louis XII of France (born 1477)

Anne of Brittany was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She was the only woman to have been queen consort of France twice. During the Italian Wars, Anne also became Queen of Naples, from 1501 to 1504, and Duchess of Milan, in 1499–1500 and from 1500 to 1512.

---

09/01/1511

Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Greek scholar and academic (born 1423)

Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles, was one of the most eminent Greek scholars in the West. He taught in Italy for over forty years; his colleagues included Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano, and Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world, and Chalkokondyles was the last of the Greek humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance. One of his pupils at Florence was the famous Johann Reuchlin. Chalkokondyles published the first printed publications of Homer, of Isocrates, and of the Suda lexicon.

---

09/01/1499

John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg (born 1455)

John II was Elector of Brandenburg from 1486 until his death, the fourth of the House of Hohenzollern. After his death he received the cognomen Cicero, after the Roman orator of the same name, but the elector's eloquence and interest in the arts is debatable.

---

09/01/1463

William Neville, 1st Earl of Kent, English soldier (born 1405)

William Neville, Earl of Kent, KG, jure uxoris 6th Baron Fauconberg, was an English nobleman and soldier.

---

09/01/1450

Adam Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester

Adam Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, was an English bishop, lawyer, royal administrator and diplomat. During the minority of Henry VI of England, he was clerk of the ruling council of the Regent.

---

09/01/1367

Giulia della Rena, Italian saint (born 1319)

Giulia della Rena was an Italian Roman Catholic professed member of the Order of Saint Augustine in its third order branch. Della Rena was orphaned sometime in her late childhood and sought work as a maid in Florence where she soon became a member of the Augustinian tertiaries. The religious then returned to Certaldo due to the negative Florentine economic and political climate where she became best known for rescuing a child from a burning building.

---

09/01/1283

Wen Tianxiang, Chinese general and scholar (born 1236)

Wen Tianxiang, noble title Duke of Xin (信國公), was a Chinese statesman, poet and politician in the last years of the Southern Song dynasty. For his resistance to Kublai Khan's invasion of the Southern Song dynasty, and for his refusal to yield to the Yuan dynasty despite being captured and tortured, he is a popular culture hero symbol of patriotism, righteousness, and resistance against tyranny in China. He is known as one of the 'Three Loyal Princes of the Song' (大宋三忠王), alongside Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie. Wen Tianxiang is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu by Jin Guliang.

---

09/01/1282

Abû 'Uthmân Sa'îd ibn Hakam al Qurashi, Minorcan ruler (born 1204)

Abû ‘Uthman Sa’îd ibn Hakam al-Qurashi was the first Ra’îs of Manûrqa from 1234 to 1282.

---

09/01/1150

Emperor Xizong of Jin (born 1119)

Emperor Xizong of Jin, personal name Hela, sinicised name Wanyan Dan, was the third emperor of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty of China. He reigned for about 15 years from 1135 to 1150. During his reign, the Jin dynasty launched several military campaigns against the Han-led Southern Song dynasty in southern China.

---

09/01/0710

Adrian of Canterbury, abbot and scholar

Adrian, also spelled Hadrian, was a North African scholar in Anglo-Saxon England and the abbot of Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's in Canterbury. He was a noted teacher and commentator of the Bible. Adrian was born between 630 and 637. According to Bede, he was "by nation an African", and thus a Berber native of North Africa, and was abbot of a monastery near Naples, called Monasterium Niridanum.

---