Died on Saturday, 12th July – Famous Deaths

12/07/2024

Tonke Dragt, Dutch children's writer and illustrator (born 1930)

Antonia "Tonke" Johanna Dragt was a Dutch writer and illustrator of children's literature. Her book De brief voor de koning was chosen by CPNB as the best Dutch youth book of the latter half of the twentieth century.

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Bill Viola, American video and installation artist (born 1951)

William John Viola Jr. was an American video artist whose artistic expression depended upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness.

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Ruth Westheimer, German-American sex therapist (born 1928)

Karola Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, was a German and American sex therapist and talk show host.

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Evan Wright, American writer (born 1964)

Evan Alan Wright was an American writer, known for his reporting on subcultures for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. He was best known for his book on the Iraq War, Generation Kill (2004). He also wrote an exposé about a top Central Intelligence Agency officer who allegedly worked as a Mafia hitman, How to Get Away with Murder in America (2012).

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Noriko Ohara, Japanese voice actress and narrator (born 1935)

Noriko Tobe , née Ohara, better known by her stage name Noriko Ohara , was a Japanese actress and narrator.

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12/07/2020

Kelly Preston, American actress and model (born 1962)

Kelly Kamalelehua Smith, known professionally as Kelly Preston, was an American actress. She appeared in more than 60 television and film productions, including Mischief (1985), Twins (1988), Jerry Maguire (1996), and For Love of the Game (1999). She married John Travolta in 1991, and collaborated with him on the comedy film The Experts (1989) and the biographical film Gotti (2018). She also starred in the films SpaceCamp (1986), The Cat in the Hat (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Sky High (2005), and Old Dogs (2009).

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Wim Suurbier, Dutch football player (born 1945)

Wilhelmus Lourens Johannes Suurbier was a Dutch professional footballer and among others assistant coach of the Albania national team. He played as a right back and was part of the Netherlands national team and AFC Ajax teams of the 1970s.

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12/07/2019

Emily Hartridge, English YouTuber and television presenter (born 1984)

Emily Hartridge, also known as Emily Hart, was an English YouTuber and television presenter.

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12/07/2018

Annabelle Neilson, English socialite (born 1969)

Iona Annabelle Neilson was a British socialite, fashion model, author and television personality. She first gained media attention as the muse of the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. She appeared as a cast member on the Bravo reality television series Ladies of London (2014–2015).

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12/07/2016

Goran Hadžić, Serbian politician (born 1958)

Goran Hadžić was a Croatian Serb politician and President of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, during the Croatian War of Independence. He was accused of crimes against humanity and of violation of the laws and customs of war by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

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12/07/2015

D'Army Bailey, American lawyer, judge, and actor (born 1941)

D'Army Bailey was an American lawyer, circuit court judge, civil rights activist, author, and film actor. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, he served as a city councilman in Berkeley, California, from 1971 to 1973.

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Chenjerai Hove, Zimbabwean journalist, author, and poet (born 1956)

Chenjerai Hove, was a Zimbabwean poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both English and Shona. "Modernist in their formal construction, but making extensive use of oral conventions, Hove's novels offer an intense examination of the psychic and social costs - to the rural population, especially, of the war of liberation in Zimbabwe." He died on 12 July 2015 while living in exile in Norway, with his death attributed to liver failure.

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Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, Tibetan monk and activist (born 1950)

Lithang Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche or Tenzing Deleg (1950–2015) was a Tibetan Buddhist leader from Garze, Sichuan. He is also known for working to develop social, medical, educational and religious institutions for Tibetan nomads in eastern Tibet, as an advocate for environmental conservation in the face of indiscriminate logging and mining projects, and as a mediator between Tibetans and Chinese.

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Cheng Siwei, Chinese engineer, economist, and politician (born 1935)

Cheng Siwei was a Chinese economist, chemical engineer and politician. He was the chairman of China Soft Science Research Association; president of the Chinese Society for Management Modernization; director of the Research Center on Fictitious Economy and Data Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences; dean of the School of Management of the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and honorary president of East China University of Science and Technology.

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12/07/2014

Jamil Ahmad, Pakistani author (born 1931)

Jamil Ahmad was a Pakistani civil servant, novelist and story writer. He wrote in the English language. He is known for his anthology, The Wandering Falcon which was short listed for Man Asian Literary Prize, widely known as Asia's highest literary award, in 2011. The book was also a finalist for DSC prize for South Asian Literature in 2013.

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Nestor Basterretxea, Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1924)

Nestor Basterretxea Arzadun was a Basque artist, born in Bermeo, Biscay, Basque Country. In the 1950s and 1960s, he spearheaded along with other artists such as Jorge Oteiza, Remigio Mendiburu, or Eduardo Chillida, an avant-garde artistic movement concerned with the crisis of Basque identity, and formally a special focus on large volumes and the concept of emptiness.

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Emil Bobu, Romanian politician (born 1927)

Emil Bobu was a Romanian Communist activist and politician, who served as Interior Minister from 1973 to 1975 and as Labor Minister from 1979 to 1981. He was an influential figure in the later years of the Communist regime until his downfall during the 1989 Revolution.

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Alfred de Grazia, American political scientist and author (born 1919)

Alfred de Grazia, born in Chicago, Illinois, was a political scientist and author. He developed techniques of computer-based social network analysis in the 1950s, developed new ideas about personal digital archives in the 1970s, and defended the catastrophism thesis of Immanuel Velikovsky.

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Kenneth J. Gray, American soldier and politician (born 1924)

Kenneth James Gray was an American businessman and politician. He was a veteran of World War II, and represented Illinois in the United States House of Representatives from 1955 to 1974, and again from 1985 to 1989.

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Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Russian journalist and politician (born 1950)

Valeriya Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya was a Russian and Soviet dissident, writer and liberal politician. She was the founder and the chairwoman of the Democratic Union party and a member of the editorial board of The New Times.

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12/07/2013

Amar Bose, American businessman, founded the Bose Corporation (born 1929)

Amar Gopal Bose was an American entrepreneur and academic. An electrical engineer and sound engineer, he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over 45 years. He was also the founder and chairman of Bose Corporation.

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Takako Takahashi, Japanese author (born 1932)

Takako Takahashi was a Japanese author. Her maiden name was Takako Okamoto .

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Elaine Morgan, Welsh writer (born 1920)

Elaine Morgan OBE, FRSL, was a Welsh writer for television and the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology. She advocated the aquatic ape hypothesis, which advocated as a corrective to what she saw as theories that purveyed gendered stereotypes and failed to account for women's role in human evolution adequately. The Descent of Woman, published in 1972, became an international bestseller, translated into ten languages. In 2016, she was named one of "the 50 greatest Welsh men and women of all time" in a press survey.

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Alan Whicker, Egyptian-English journalist (born 1921)

Donald Alan Whicker was a British journalist and television presenter and broadcaster. His career spanned almost 60 years, during which time he presented the documentary television programme Whicker's World for over 30 years. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005 for services to broadcasting.

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12/07/2012

Alimuddin, Pakistani cricketer (born 1930)

Alimuddin was a Pakistani cricketer who played 25 Tests for Pakistan between 1954 and 1962. His name is sometimes rendered Alim-ud-Din. A fast-scoring, right-handed opening batsman and occasional right-arm leg break bowler, he was the youngest player ever to appear in first-class cricket, aged 12 years and 73 days. In international cricket, he scored 1,091 runs at the average of 25.37, including two centuries and seven fifties. In 1954, he was a member of the Pakistani squad which toured England and recorded Pakistan's first Test match win. Former Pakistani captain Mushtaq Mohammad said about him that he was "a thorough gentleman as well as a great cricketer for Pakistan".

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Dara Singh, Indian wrestler, actor, and politician (born 1928)

Dara Singh was an Indian professional wrestler, actor, and politician. Widely regarded as one of India's greatest wrestlers, Singh earned international recognition during the 1950s and 1960s for his victories in both Indian and world wrestling circuits. In 1968, Singh became world champion by defeating Lou Thesz.

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Eddy Brown, English footballer and manager (born 1926)

Edwin Brown was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He played professionally for a number of clubs, but the peak of his career was spent with Birmingham City during their most successful period in the 1950s. Over a professional career of nearly 400 appearances in the Football League, he scored at a rate of one goal every two games. He was a pioneer of the goal celebration.

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Else Holmelund Minarik, Danish-American author and illustrator (born 1920)

Else Holmelund Minarik was a Danish-born American author of more than 40 children's books. She was most commonly associated with her Little Bear series of children's books, which were adapted for television. Minarik was also the author of another well-known book, No Fighting, No Biting!

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Roger Payne, English mountaineer (born 1956)

Roger Payne was a British mountaineer. He was formerly general secretary of the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) and a qualified mountain guide from 1983, taking part in over 20 expeditions to the Karakoram and Himalayan ranges, including K2 and the north face of Changabang. He was an avalanche instructor and climbed in the Alps every year from 1977.

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Hamid Samandarian, Iranian director and playwright (born 1931)

Hamid Samandarian was an Iranian film and theater director and translator. He staged numerous dramas including No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Marriage of Mr. Mississippi by Friedrich Durrenmatt.

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George C. Stoney, American director and producer (born 1916)

George Cashel Stoney was an American documentary filmmaker, educator, and the "father of public-access television." Among his films were Palmour Street, A Study of Family Life (1949), All My Babies (1953), How the Myth Was Made (1979) and The Uprising of '34 (1995). All My Babies was entered into the National Film Registry in 2002. Stoney's life and work were the subject of a Festschrift volume of the journal Wide Angle in 1999.

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12/07/2011

Sherwood Schwartz, American screenwriter and producer (born 1916)

Sherwood Charles Schwartz was an American television screenwriter and producer. He worked on radio shows in the 1940s, but he now is best known for creating the 1960s television series Gilligan's Island on CBS and The Brady Bunch on ABC. On March 7, 2008, Schwartz, at the time still active in his 90s, was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That same year, Schwartz was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

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12/07/2010

Olga Guillot, Cuban-American singer (born 1922)

Olga Guillot was a Cuban singer who was known as the "Queen of Bolero". She was a native of Santiago de Cuba.

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James P. Hogan, English-American author (born 1941)

James Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author. His major works include the Giants series of five novels published between 1977 and 2005.

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Paulo Moura, Brazilian clarinetist and saxophonist (born 1932)

Paulo Moura was a Brazilian clarinetist and saxophonist.

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Pius Njawé, Cameroonian journalist (born 1957)

Pius Njawé was a Cameroonian journalist and director of Le Messager as well as Le Messager Populi. Arrested over 100 times for his reporting, Njawé won several awards for his work, including the 1991 CPJ International Press Freedom Award and the 1993 Golden Pen of Freedom. In 2000, he was named one of International Press Institute's fifty World Press Freedom Heroes of the previous fifty years. In Njawé's obituary, the New York Times described him as "a symbol of opposition to the autocratic regime of Paul Biya".

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Harvey Pekar, American author and critic (born 1939)

Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name.

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12/07/2008

Bobby Murcer, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (born 1946)

Bobby Ray Murcer was an American professional baseball outfielder who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1965 and 1983. He played the majority of his career for the New York Yankees, whom he later rejoined as a longtime broadcaster. A Gold Glove winner and five-time All-Star, and was voted to the Associated Press's American League 1970s All-Decade team. Murcer led the American League in on-base percentage in 1971, and in runs and total bases in 1972.

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Tony Snow, American journalist, 26th White House Press Secretary (born 1955)

Robert Anthony Snow was an American journalist, political commentator, anchor, columnist, musician, and the 25th White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, from May 2006 until his resignation in September 2007. Snow also worked for the President George H. W. Bush as chief speechwriter and Deputy Assistant of Media Affairs, from 1991 to 1993.

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12/07/2007

Robert Burås, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1975)

Robert Solli Burås was a Norwegian musician and songwriter, best known as the guitarist for the rock band Madrugada. He was also the frontman and guitarist for the rock band My Midnight Creeps. Burås appeared on five studio albums with Madrugada and two releases with My Midnight Creeps. He is the winner of six Norwegian Spellemann Awards, five with Madrugada and one with My Midnight Creeps.

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Stan Zemanek, Australian radio and television host (born 1947)

Stan Zemanek was an Australian shock jock, radio broadcaster, television presenter, radio producer and author who presented a night-time show on 2UE in Sydney and which was networked across parts of Australia via Southern Cross.

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12/07/2005

John King, Baron King of Wartnaby, English businessman (born 1917)

John Leonard King, Baron King of Wartnaby was a British businessman, who was noted for leading British Airways. He was also directly involved with the "dirty tricks" campaign waged by British Airways against Virgin Atlantic.

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12/07/2004

Betty Oliphant, English-Canadian ballerina, co-founded the National Ballet School of Canada (born 1918)

Nancy Elizabeth Oliphant was a co-founder of the National Ballet School of Canada.

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12/07/2003

Benny Carter, American trumpet player, saxophonist, and composer (born 1907)

Bennett Lester Carter was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. With Johnny Hodges, he was a pioneer on the alto saxophone. From the beginning of his career in the 1920s, he worked as an arranger, including writing charts for Fletcher Henderson's big band that shaped the swing style. He had an unusually long career that lasted into the 1990s. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, which included receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Mark Lovell, English race car driver (born 1960)

Mark Johnathon Lovell was a British rally driver. He won the 1986 British Rally Championship in a Ford RS200 Group B, the 1987 and 1988 Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, the 1988 International Dutch Rally Drivers' Championship and the 2001 SCCA ProRally Drivers' Championship in the United States. He also won the 2003 Pikes Peak Rally only two weeks before his death.

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12/07/2001

Fred Marcellino, American author and illustrator (born 1939)

Fred Marcellino was an American illustrator and later an author of children's books who was very influential in the book industry. Publisher Nan Talese said that Marcellino could "in one image, translate the whole feeling and style of a book." Such was the case with his evocative painting for Judith Rossner's August, published and edited by Talese.

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12/07/2000

Charles Merritt, Canadian colonel and politician, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1908)

Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt VC, ED was a Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Dieppe Raid in 1942. Later he served as Member of Parliament.

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12/07/1999

Rajendra Kumar, Indian actor (born 1921)

Rajendra Kumar was an Indian actor who starred in Bollywood films. Starting his career in 1949, he worked in more than 80 films in a career spanning over four decades. Kumar is considered as one of the greatest and most successful actors in Indian cinema. He was popularly known as the Jubilee Kumar during the 1960s, when he consecutively starred in several commercially successful films.

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12/07/1998

Jimmy Driftwood, American singer-songwriter and banjo player (born 1907)

James Corbitt Morris, known professionally as Jimmy Driftwood or Jimmie Driftwood, was an American folk-style songwriter and musician, most famous for his songs "The Battle of New Orleans" and "Tennessee Stud". Driftwood wrote more than 6,000 folk songs, of which more than 300 were recorded by various musicians.

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Arkady Ostashev, Soviet/Russian scientist and engineer (born 1925)

Arkady Ilyich Ostashev was a Soviet and Russian scientist, engineer - mechanic in the former Soviet space program, working on as a designer many of rocket propulsion and control system of Soviet satellites. He was a participant in the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth and the first cosmonaut, candidate of technical sciences, docent, laureate of the Lenin (1960) and State (1979) prizes, one of the leading managers of work in the field of experimental development of rocket technology OKB-1, personal pensioner of republican significance, student and interpersonal relationship of Sergei Korolev.

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Serge Lemoyne, Canadian painter (born 1941)

Serge Lemoyne was a Canadian artist from Quebec. He worked as a performance artist as well as creating paintings, assemblages and prints. Lemoyne explored themes such as the environment, technology, and social justice. Lemoyne's work was exhibited in Canada and internationally, and he received numerous awards throughout his career. He died in 1998 at the age of 57.

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12/07/1997

François Furet, French historian and author (born 1927)

François Furet was a French historian and president of the Saint-Simon Foundation, best known for his books on the French Revolution. From 1985 to 1997, Furet was a professor of French history at the University of Chicago.

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12/07/1996

John Chancellor, American journalist (born 1927)

John William Chancellor was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News. He is considered a pioneer in television news. Chancellor served as anchor of the NBC Nightly News from 1970 to 1982 and continued to do editorials and commentaries for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw until 1993.

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12/07/1994

Eila Campbell, English geographer and cartographer (born 1915)

Eila Muriel Joice Campbell was an English geographer and cartographer. She was best known for her work on Domesday Geography of England and her work on the international journal, Imago Mundi.

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12/07/1993

Dan Eldon, English photographer and journalist (born 1970)

Daniel Robert Eldon was a British-American photojournalist, artist and activist killed in Somalia while working as a Reuters photojournalist. His journals were published posthumously in four volumes by Chronicle Books, including The Journey Is the Destination, The Art of Life, and Safari as a Way of Life.

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12/07/1992

Caroline Pafford Miller, American journalist and author (born 1903)

Caroline Pafford Miller was an American novelist. She gathered the folktales, stories, and archaic dialects of the rural communities she visited in her home state of Georgia in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and wove them into her first novel, Lamb in His Bosom, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1934, and the French literary award, the Prix Femina Americain in 1935. Her success as the first Georgian winner of the fiction prize inspired Macmillan Publishers to seek out more southern writers, resulting in the discovery of Margaret Mitchell, whose first novel, Gone with the Wind, also won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. Miller's story about the struggles of nineteenth-century south Georgia pioneers found a new readership in 1993 when Lamb in His Bosom was reprinted, one year after her death. In 2007, Miller was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

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12/07/1990

João Saldanha, Brazilian footballer, manager, and journalist (born 1917)

João Alves Jobin Saldanha was a Brazilian journalist and football manager. He coached the Brazil national football team during the South American Qualifying to the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Nicknamed João Sem Medo by Nelson Rodrigues, Saldanha played for Botafogo. He then started a career in journalism and became one of Brazil's most prolific sports columnists. He often criticised players, managers and teams, and was a member of then-illegal Brazilian Communist Party.

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12/07/1983

Chris Wood, English saxophonist (born 1944)

Christopher Gordon Blandford Wood was a British rock musician, best known as a founding member of the rock band Traffic, along with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason.

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12/07/1982

Kenneth More, English actor (born 1914)

Kenneth Gilbert More was an English actor.

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12/07/1980

John Warren Davis, American educator, college administrator, and civil rights leader (born 1888)

John Warren Davis was an American educator, college administrator, and civil rights leader. He was the fifth and longest-serving president of West Virginia State University in Institute, West Virginia, a position he held from 1919 to 1953. Born in Milledgeville, Georgia, Davis relocated to Atlanta in 1903 to attend high school at Atlanta Baptist College. He worked his way through high school and college at Morehouse and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911. At Morehouse, Davis formed associations with John Hope, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Samuel Archer, Benjamin Griffith Brawley, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois. He completed graduate studies in chemistry and physics at the University of Chicago from 1911 to 1913 and served on the faculty of Morehouse as the registrar and as a professor in chemistry and physics. While in Atlanta, Davis helped to found one of the city's first chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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12/07/1979

Olive Morris, Jamaican-English civil rights activist (born 1952)

Olive Elaine Morris was a Jamaican-born British-based community leader and activist in the feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the 1970s. At the age of 17, she claimed she was assaulted by Metropolitan Police officers following an incident involving a Nigerian diplomat in Brixton, South London. She joined the British Black Panthers, becoming a Marxist–Leninist communist and a radical feminist. She squatted buildings on Railton Road in Brixton; one hosted Sabarr Books and later became the 121 Centre, another was used as offices by the Race Today collective. Morris became a key organiser in the Black Women's Movement in the United Kingdom, co-founding the Brixton Black Women's Group and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent in London.

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Minnie Riperton, American singer-songwriter (born 1947)

Minnie Julia Riperton was an American soul singer and songwriter best known for her 1974 single "Lovin' You", her five-octave vocal range, and her use of the whistle register.

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12/07/1975

James Ormsbee Chapin, American painter and illustrator (born 1887)

James Ormsbee Chapin was an American painter and illustrator. He was the father of jazz musician Jim Chapin and grandfather of folk singer Harry Chapin.

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12/07/1973

Lon Chaney Jr., American actor (born 1906)

Creighton Tull Chaney, known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film The Wolf Man (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard in Son of Dracula, Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), the Mummy in three pictures, and various other roles in many Universal horror films, including six films in their 1940s Inner Sanctum series, making him a horror icon. He also portrayed Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men (1939) and played supporting parts in dozens of mainstream movies, including High Noon (1952), The Defiant Ones (1958), and numerous Westerns, musicals, comedies and dramas.

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12/07/1971

Yvon Robert, Canadian wrestler (born 1914)

Yvon Robert, nicknamed "The Lion", was a Canadian professional wrestler.

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12/07/1969

Henry George Lamond, Australian farmer and author (born 1885)

Henry George Lamond was an Australian farmer and writer, notable for his novels about the land, people and animals of outback Queensland. In addition to his fiction and non-fiction books, he wrote over 900 essays and articles for magazines including Walkabout. At one point in his career he was considered to be the Australian 'Thompson Seton'.

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12/07/1966

D. T. Suzuki, Japanese philosopher and author (born 1870)

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki , was a Japanese essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, and translator. He was an authority on Buddhism, especially Zen and Shin, and was instrumental in spreading interest in these to the West. He was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities and devoted many years to a professorship at Ōtani University, a Japanese university of the Ōtani School of Jōdo Shinshū.

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12/07/1965

Christfried Burmeister, Estonian speed skater (born 1898)

Christfried Burmeister was an Estonian speed skater and bandy player who competed in the 1928 Winter Olympics.

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12/07/1962

Roger Wolfe Kahn, American composer and bandleader (born 1907)

Roger Wolfe Kahn was an American jazz and popular musician, composer, bandleader and an aviator.

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12/07/1961

Mazo de la Roche, Canadian author and playwright (born 1879)

Mazo de la Roche was a Canadian writer who was the author of the Jalna novels, one of the most popular series of books of her time.

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12/07/1956

John Hayes, Australian politician, 25th Premier of Tasmania (born 1868)

John Blyth Hayes was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1923 to 1947. He was President of the Senate from 1938 to 1941. Before entering federal politics, he had been a member of the Parliament of Tasmania from 1913 to 1923 and served as Premier of Tasmania for almost exactly one year, from 1922 to 1923.

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12/07/1950

Elsie de Wolfe, American actress, author, and interior decorator (born 1865)

Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl was an American actress who became a prominent interior designer and author. Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to her surroundings from her earliest years and became one of the first female interior decorators, replacing dark and ornate Victorian decor with lighter, simpler styles and uncluttered room layouts.

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12/07/1949

Douglas Hyde, Irish scholar and politician, 1st President of Ireland (born 1860)

Douglas Ross Hyde, known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn, was an Irish academic, linguist, scholar of the Irish language, politician, and diplomat who served as the first president of Ireland from June 1938 to June 1945. He was a leading figure in the Gaelic revival, and the first president of the Gaelic League, one of the most influential cultural organisations in Ireland at the time.

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12/07/1947

Jimmie Lunceford, American saxophonist and bandleader (born 1902)

James Melvin Lunceford was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era.

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12/07/1946

Ray Stannard Baker, American journalist and author (born 1870)

Ray Stannard Baker was an American journalist, historian, biographer, and writer.

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12/07/1945

Boris Galerkin, Russian mathematician and engineer (born 1871)

Boris Grigoryevich Galerkin was a Soviet mathematician and an engineer.

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Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, German field marshal (born 1895)

Wolfram Karl Ludwig Moritz Hermann Freiherr von Richthofen was a German World War I flying ace who rose to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall in the Luftwaffe during World War II.

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12/07/1944

Theodore Roosevelt Jr., American general and politician, Governor of Puerto Rico (born 1887)

Theodore Roosevelt III, often known as Theodore Jr., was an American general and politician. He was the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt and First Lady Edith Roosevelt. Roosevelt is known for his World War II service, including the directing of troops at Utah Beach during the Normandy landings, for which he received the Medal of Honor.

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12/07/1935

Alfred Dreyfus, French colonel (born 1859)

Alfred Dreyfus was a French Army officer best known for his central role in the Dreyfus affair. In 1894, Dreyfus fell victim to a judicial conspiracy that eventually sparked a major political crisis in the French Third Republic when he was wrongfully accused and convicted of being a German spy due to antisemitism. Dreyfus was arrested, cashiered from the French army and imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana. Eventually, evidence emerged showing that Dreyfus was innocent and the true culprit was fellow officer Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy.

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12/07/1934

Ole Evinrude, Norwegian-American inventor and businessman, invented the outboard motor (born 1877)

Ole Evinrude, born Ole Andreassen Aaslundeie was an American entrepreneur, known for the invention of the first outboard motor with practical commercial application.

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12/07/1931

Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1866)

Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom was a Swedish bishop. He was the Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala from 1914 to 1931, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize. He is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on 12 July.

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12/07/1929

Robert Henri, American painter and educator (born 1865)

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher.

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12/07/1926

Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist and spy (born 1868)

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist. She spent much of her life exploring and mapping the Middle East, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making as an Arabist due to her knowledge and contacts built up through extensive travels. During her lifetime, she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials such as High Commissioner for Mesopotamia Percy Cox, giving her great influence. She participated in both the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (briefly) and the 1921 Cairo Conference, which helped decide the territorial boundaries and governments of the post-War Middle East as part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Bell believed that the momentum of Arab nationalism was unstoppable, and that the British government should ally with nationalists rather than stand against them. Along with T. E. Lawrence, she advocated for independent Arab states in the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and supported the installation of Hashemite monarchies in what is today Jordan and Iraq.

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Charles Wood Irish composer (born 1866)

Charles Wood was an Irish composer and teacher; his students included Ralph Vaughan Williams at Cambridge and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music. He is primarily remembered and performed as an Anglican church music composer, but he also wrote songs and chamber music, particularly for string quartet.

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12/07/1910

Charles Rolls, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited (born 1877)

Charles Stewart Rolls was a British motoring and aviation pioneer. With Henry Royce, he co-founded the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident with a powered aircraft, when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a flying display in Bournemouth. He was aged 32.

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12/07/1908

William D. Coleman, 13th President of Liberia (born 1842)

William David Coleman was an Americo-Liberian politician. A True Whig Party member, he served as the 13th president of Liberia from 1896 to 1900. Born in Fayette County, Kentucky, United States, he emigrated to Liberia in 1853. In 1877, he was elected to the House of Representatives and served as Speaker of the House of Representatives until 1879. Later he served in the Senate and then as vice president before assuming the presidency when Joseph James Cheeseman died in office.

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12/07/1892

Alexander Cartwright, American firefighter, invented baseball (born 1820)

Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. was a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club in the 1840s. Although he was an inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame and he was sometimes referred to as a "father of baseball", the importance of his role in the development of the game may have been exaggerated.

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12/07/1870

John A. Dahlgren, American admiral (born 1809)

John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren was a United States Navy officer who founded his service's Ordnance Department and launched significant advances in gunnery.

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12/07/1855

Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (born 1802)

Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov was a Russian admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy known for his victory in the Battle of Sinop and his leadership in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) during the Crimean War.

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12/07/1850

Robert Stevenson, Scottish engineer (born 1772)

Robert Stevenson was a Scottish civil engineer, and designer and builder of lighthouses. His works include the Bell Rock Lighthouse.

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12/07/1845

Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian linguist, poet, and playwright (born 1808)

Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist. He is often described as a leading pioneer in the development of a distinctly Norwegian literary heritage and of modern Norwegian culture.

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12/07/1804

Alexander Hamilton, American general, economist, and politician, 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury (born 1755)

Alexander Hamilton was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 under the presidency of George Washington. He also founded America's first political party, the Federalist Party, in 1791.

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12/07/1773

Johann Joachim Quantz, German flute player and composer (born 1697)

Johann Joachim Quantz was a German composer, flautist and flute maker of the late Baroque period. Much of his professional career was spent in the court of Frederick the Great, where he served as the king's flute teacher. Quantz composed hundreds of flute sonatas and concertos, and wrote On Playing the Flute, an influential treatise on flute performance. His works were known and appreciated by Bach, Haydn and Mozart.

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12/07/1749

Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois, French navy officer and politician, Governor General of New France (born 1671)

Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois was a French Naval officer who served as Governor of New France from 1726 to 1746.

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12/07/1742

Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco, Italian violinist and composer (born 1675)

Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco was an Italian composer, violinist, and cellist.

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12/07/1712

Richard Cromwell, English academic and politician (born 1626)

Richard Cromwell was an English statesman who served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1658 to 1659. He was the son of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.

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12/07/1693

John Ashby, English admiral (born 1640)

Admiral Sir John Ashby was an officer of the Royal Navy, who rose to the rank of Admiral. Ashby was the fourth son of Robert Ashby and his wife Alice, who was a sister of Sir Thomas Allin. He grew up in Suffolk where his father was involved in business.

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12/07/1691

Marquis de St Ruth, French general

Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe was a French cavalry officer, serving in the armies of Louis XIV.

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12/07/1682

Jean Picard, French priest and astronomer (born 1620)

Jean Picard was a French priest, astronomer and pioneer in geodesy, born in La Flèche, where he studied at the Collège royal Henri le Grand. He is best known for accurately measuring the size of the Earth, through a survey of one degree of latitude along the Paris Meridian.

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12/07/1664

Stefano della Bella, Italian illustrator and engraver (born 1610)

Stefano della Bella was an Italian draughtsman and printmaker known for etchings of a great variety of subjects, including military and court scenes, landscapes, and lively genre scenes. He left 1052 prints, and several thousand drawings, but only one known painting. He was born and later died in Florence, Italy.

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12/07/1623

William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath (born 1557)

William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath was Lord Lieutenant of Devon. His seat was at Tawstock Court, three miles south of Barnstaple in North Devon, which he rebuilt in the Elizabethan style in 1574, the date being sculpted on the surviving gatehouse.

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12/07/1584

Steven Borough, English navigator and explorer (born 1525)

Steven Borough was an English navigator and an early Arctic explorer. He was master of the first English ship to reach the White Sea in 1553 and open trade with Russia on behalf of the Muscovy Company. He became an expert on piloting in Arctic waters and was one of the earliest English practitioners of the new scientific methods of navigation. He was widely sought out for his knowledge by English and Spanish mariners.

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12/07/1536

Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch priest and philosopher (born 1466)

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch humanist, Christian theologian, and pioneering philologist and educationalist. He was, through his writings and translations, one of the most influential scholars of the Northern Renaissance and a major figure of Western culture.

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12/07/1489

Bahlul Lodi, sultan of Delhi

Bahlul Khan Lodi was the chief of the Afghan Lodi tribe. He was the founder of the Lodi dynasty from the Delhi Sultanate, upon the abdication of the last claimant from the previous Sayyid rule. Bahlul became Sultan of the dynasty on 19 April 1451.

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12/07/1441

Ashikaga Yoshinori, Japanese shōgun (born 1394)

Ashikaga Yoshinori was the sixth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1429 to 1441 during the Muromachi period of medieval Japan. Yoshinori was the son of the third shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. His childhood name was Harutora (春寅). In 1433, he initiated the compilation of the last imperial waka anthology, Shinshoku Kokinwakashū, but was not satisfied with its compilation agenda which undermined his authority.

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Kyōgoku Takakazu, Japanese nobleman

Kyōgoku Takakazu was a Japanese noble member of the Kyōgoku Clan of Japan who served the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshinori.

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12/07/1067

John Komnenos, Byzantine general

John Komnenos was a Byzantine aristocrat and military leader. The younger brother of Emperor Isaac I Komnenos, he served as Domestic of the Schools during Isaac's brief reign (1057–59). When Isaac I abdicated, Constantine X Doukas became emperor and John withdrew from public life until his death in 1067. Through his son Alexios I Komnenos, who became emperor in 1081, he was the progenitor of the Komnenian dynasty that ruled the Byzantine Empire from 1081 until 1185, and the Empire of Trebizond from 1204 until 1461.

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12/07/0981

Xue Juzheng, Chinese scholar-official and historian

Xue Juzheng was a scholar-official who successively served the Later Jin, Later Han, Later Zhou and Song dynasties. He was one of the chief ministers of the Song dynasty from 973 until his death.

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12/07/0965

Meng Chang, emperor of Later Shu (born 919)

Meng Chang (孟昶) (919–965), originally Meng Renzan (孟仁贊), courtesy name Baoyuan (保元), posthumously honored as Prince Gongxiao of Chu (楚恭孝王) by the Emperor Taizu of Song, was the second and last emperor of the Later Shu dynasty of China during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. He ruled from 934 until 965, when his state was conquered by the Northern Song dynasty. He died soon afterwards.

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12/07/0783

Bertrada of Laon, Frankish queen (born 720)

Bertrada of Laon, also known as Bertrada the Younger or Bertha Broadfoot, was the first Carolingian Frankish queen. An enduring influence in Frankish politics, she was the wife of Pepin the Short and the mother of Charlemagne, Carloman and Gisela, plus five other children. Her marriage with Pepin was influential in trend setting for future marriages blessed by the pope. She also held considerable influence over Charlemagne and Carloman after Pepin had died, enduring even past her death and through Charlemagne’s eventual rule as the sole King of the Franks.

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12/07/0524

Viventiolus, archbishop of Lyon (born 460)

Saint Viventiolus was the Archbishop of Lyon 514–523. Later canonized and venerated as a saint within the Catholic Church, Archdiocese of Lyon, France his feast Day is July 12. He is recognised in the Orthodox Church and the True Orthodox Church, including amongst the Tikhonites, as a pre-Great Schism Western Saint.

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