Died on Sunday, 20th July – Famous Deaths

20/07/2025

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, American actor (born 1970)

Malcolm-Jamal Warner was an American actor, musician and poet. He rose to prominence for his role as Theodore Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992), which earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 38th Primetime Emmy Awards. He was also known for his roles as Malcolm McGee on the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie (1996–2000), Dr. Alex Reed in the sitcom Reed Between the Lines, Julius Rowe in Suits (2016–2017) and Dr. AJ Austin in the medical drama The Resident (2018–2023).

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20/07/2024

Jerry Miller, American songwriter, guitarist and vocalist (born 1943)

Jerry Miller was an American songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. He performed as a solo artist and as a member of the Jerry Miller Band. He was also a founding member of the 1960s San Francisco band Moby Grape, which continues to perform occasionally. Rolling Stone included Miller at number 68 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time and Moby Grape's album Moby Grape at number 124 on their 2012 list of 500 greatest albums of all time. Miller's longtime guitar was a Gibson L-5 CES Florentine guitar which he called "Beulah".

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Jill Schary Robinson, American novelist (born 1936)

Jill Schary Robinson was an American novelist, essayist, and teacher. Based in Los Angeles, her memoirs contended with the themes of addiction, recovery, and growing up during the golden age of Hollywood.

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20/07/2020

Michael Brooks, political commentator (born 1983)

Michael Jamal Brooks was an American talk show host, writer, left-wing political commentator, and comedian. While co-hosting The Majority Report with Sam Seder, he launched The Michael Brooks Show in August 2017 and provided commentary for media outlets, making regular appearances on shows such as The Young Turks. Brooks contributed to various publications, including HuffPost, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, openDemocracy, and Jacobin. His book Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right was published by Zero Books in April 2020.

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20/07/2017

Chester Bennington, American singer (born 1976)

Chester Charles Bennington was an American singer and songwriter who was the lead vocalist of the rock band Linkin Park. He was also the lead vocalist of Grey Daze, Dead by Sunrise, and Stone Temple Pilots at various points in his career.

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20/07/2016

Radu Beligan, Romanian actor, director, and essayist (born 1918)

Radu Beligan was a Romanian actor, director, and essayist, with an activity of over 70 years in theatre, film, television, and radio. On 15 December 2013, confirmed by Guinness World Records, the actor received the title of "The oldest active theatre actor" on the planet. He was elected honorary member of the Romanian Academy in 2004.

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20/07/2015

Wayne Carson, American singer-songwriter and producer (born 1943)

Wayne Carson, sometimes credited as Wayne Carson Thompson, was an American country musician, songwriter, and record producer. He played percussion, piano, guitar, and bass. His most famous songs as a writer include "The Letter", "Neon Rainbow", "Soul Deep", and "Always on My Mind".

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Fred Else, English footballer and manager (born 1933)

Fredrick Else was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper. Else gained over 600 professional appearances in his career playing for three clubs, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers and Barrow.

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Dieter Moebius, Swiss-German keyboard player and producer (born 1944)

Dieter Moebius was a Swiss-born German electronic musician and composer, best known as a member of the influential krautrock bands Cluster and Harmonia.

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20/07/2014

Victor G. Atiyeh, American businessman and politician, 32nd Governor of Oregon (born 1923)

Victor George Atiyeh was an American politician who served as the 32nd governor of Oregon from 1979 to 1987. He was also the first elected governor of Middle Eastern descent and of Syrian and Lebanese descent in the United States.

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Constantin Lucaci, Romanian sculptor and educator (born 1923)

Constantin Lucaci was a Romanian contemporary sculptor, best known for his monumentalist sculptures and his kinetic fountains most made from stainless steel, among which those from the Romanian cities of Reșița and Constanța are best known. He was born in Bocșa Română, today a part of Bocșa, Caraș-Severin County.

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Bob McNamara, American football player (born 1931)

John Robert McNamara was an American football all-star running back in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the American Football League (AFL).

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Klaus Schmidt, German archaeologist and academic (born 1953)

Klaus Schmidt was a German archaeologist and prehistorian who led the excavations at Göbekli Tepe from 1996 to 2014.

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20/07/2013

Pierre Fabre, French pharmacist and businessman, founded Laboratoires Pierre Fabre (born 1926)

Pierre Jacques Louis Fabre was a French pharmaceutical and cosmetics executive and pharmacist, who founded Laboratoires Pierre Fabre in 1962. Fabre, a rugby enthusiast, was also the owner of Castres Olympique, a French rugby union club based in the city of Castres.

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Khurshed Alam Khan, Indian politician, 2nd Governor of Goa (born 1919)

Khurshed Alam Khan was an Indian politician and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress political party.

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Augustus Rowe, Canadian physician and politician (born 1920)

Augustus Taylor Rowe was a Canadian physician and politician. He served as a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly for Carbonear from 1971 to 1975. He also spent three years as the province's health minister within the cabinet of the former premier Frank Moores from January 1972 to 1975.

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Helen Thomas, American journalist and author (born 1920)

Helen Amelia Thomas was an American reporter and author, and a long-serving member of the White House press corps. She covered the White House during the administrations of ten U.S. presidents—from the beginning of the Kennedy administration to the second year of the Obama administration.

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20/07/2012

Alastair Burnet, English journalist (born 1928)

Sir James William Alexander Burnet, known as Alastair Burnet, was a British journalist and broadcaster, who had a career working in news and current affairs programmes, including a long career with Independent Television News (ITN) as chief presenter of the flagship News at Ten; Sir Robin Day described Burnet as "the booster rocket that put ITN into orbit".

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Jack Davis, American hurdler (born 1930)

Jack Wells Davis was an American track and field hurdler, silver medalist in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics over 110-meter hurdles. Davis lost to Harrison Dillard in 1952 with the same time as the winner, and lost to Lee Calhoun in 1956, again with the same time as the winner. He set a new world record 13.4 in a heat at the AAU in 1956.

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José Hermano Saraiva, Portuguese historian, jurist, and politician, Portuguese Minister of Education (born 1919)

José Hermano Saraiva GCIH • GCIP was a Portuguese professor, historian and jurist. He was most known as a television personality in Portugal, having been the author and presenter of several documentary series of historical divulgation from 1971 to 2003 on the Portuguese television.

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20/07/2011

Lucian Freud, German-English painter and illustrator (born 1922)

Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, who is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists.

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20/07/2009

Vedat Okyar, Turkish footballer (born 1945)

Vedat Okyar was a Turkish international footballer who later became a sports journalist.

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Mark Rosenzweig, American psychologist and academic (born 1922)

Mark Richard Rosenzweig was an American research psychologist whose research on neuroplasticity in animals indicated that the adult brain remains capable of anatomical remodelling and reorganization based on life experiences, overturning the conventional wisdom that the brain reached full maturity in childhood.

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20/07/2008

Artie Traum, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (born 1943)

Arthur Roy Traum was an American guitarist, songwriter, and producer. Traum's work appeared on more than 35 albums. He produced and recorded with The Band, Arlen Roth, Warren Bernhardt, Pat Alger, Tony Levin, John Sebastian, Richie Havens, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Paul Butterfield, Paul Siebel, Rory Block, James Taylor, Pete Seeger, David Grisman, Livingston Taylor, Michael Franks and Happy Traum, among others. Traum's songs were featured on PBS, BBC, ESPN, CBS, and The Weather Channel. He toured in Japan, Europe and the U.S.

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Dinko Šakić, Croatian concentration camp commander (born 1921)

Dinko Šakić was a Croatian Ustaše official, and convicted war criminal, who commanded the Jasenovac concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from April to November 1944, during World War II.

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20/07/2007

Tammy Faye Messner, American Christian evangelist and talk show host (born 1942)

Tamara Faye Messner was an American evangelist. She co-founded the televangelist program The PTL Club with her then-husband Jim Bakker in 1974. They had hosted their own puppet-show series for local programming in the early 1960s; Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.

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20/07/2006

Ted Grant, South African-English theorist and activist (born 1913)

Edward Grant was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant and later Socialist Appeal.

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Gérard Oury, French actor, director, and producer (born 1919)

Gérard Oury was a French film director, actor and writer. He is best known for a number of comedies he directed and co-wrote between the 1960s and 1980s, most notably The Sucker (1965), Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966), The Brain (1969), The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973), and Ace of Aces (1982).

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20/07/2005

James Doohan, Canadian-American actor (born 1920)

James Montgomery Doohan was a Canadian actor, best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series Star Trek. Doohan's characterization of the Scottish chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise has become one of the most recognizable elements in the Star Trek franchise, and inspired many fans to pursue careers in engineering and other technical fields. He also made contributions behind the scenes, such as the initial development of the Klingon and Vulcan languages.

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Finn Gustavsen, Norwegian journalist and politician (born 1926)

Finn Gustavsen was a Norwegian socialist politician active from 1945 to the late 1970s. He was noted for his uncompromising style and willingness to take contrarian stands.

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Kayo Hatta, American director and cinematographer (born 1958)

Kayo Hatta was an American filmmaker, writer, and community activist. She directed and co-wrote the independent dramatic feature-length film Picture Bride, which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award in 1995 for Best Dramatic Film.

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20/07/2004

Lala Mara, Fijian politician (born 1931)

Ro Lala, Lady Mara, maiden name Litia Cakobau Lalabalavu Katoafutoga Tuisawau was a Fijian chief, who was better known as the widow of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, modern Fiji's founding father who served for many years as Prime Minister and President of his country. As Fiji's First Lady, Adi Lala took on a diplomatic role, frequently representing her country abroad. She was regarded as a formidable and astute woman, whose influence on her husband was said to be considerable.

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Valdemaras Martinkėnas, Lithuanian footballer and coach (born 1965)

Valdemaras Martinkėnas was a Soviet and Lithuanian professional footballer and coach.

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20/07/2003

Nicolas Freeling, English author (born 1927)

Nicolas Freeling, was a British crime novelist, best known as the author of the "Van der Valk" series of detective novels. A television series based on the character, Van der Valk, was produced for the British ITV network by Thames Television during the 1970s and was revived in 1991–92; a remake with new cast, characters, and storylines was launched in 2020 as Van der Valk.

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20/07/2002

Michalis Kritikopoulos, Greek footballer (born 1946)

Michalis Kritikopoulos was a Greek professional footballer who played as a striker.

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20/07/1999

Sandra Gould, American actress (born 1916)

Sandra Gould was an American actress, known for her role as Gladys Kravitz on the sitcom Bewitched. Gould was the second actress to portray the role, debuting at the start of the third season.

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20/07/1998

June Byers, American wrestler (born 1922)

DeAlva Eyvonnie Sibley, better known by her ring name June Byers, was an American women's professional wrestler famous in the 1950s and early 1960s. She held the Women's World Championship for ten years and is a member of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. She is overall a three-time women's world champion.

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20/07/1997

M. E. H. Maharoof, Sri Lankan politician (born 1939)

Mohamed Ehuttar Hadjiar Maharoof was a Sri Lankan politician and Member of Parliament.

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20/07/1994

Paul Delvaux, Belgian painter (born 1897)

Paul Delvaux was a Belgian painter noted for his dream-like scenes of women, classical architecture, trains and train stations, and skeletons, often in combination. He is often considered a surrealist, although he only briefly identified with the surrealist movement. He was influenced by the works of Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, but developed his own fantastical subjects and hyper-realistic styling, combining the detailed classical beauty of academic painting with the bizarre juxtapositions of surrealism.

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20/07/1993

Vince Foster, American lawyer and political figure (born 1945)

Vincent Walker Foster Jr. was an American attorney who served as deputy White House counsel during the first six months of the Clinton administration.

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20/07/1992

Bruce Conde, American US army officer, stamp collector, and royalist mercenary general in the North Yemen civil war.

Bruce Conde was a US Army officer, stamp collector, royal imposter, and a general for Royalist forces during the North Yemen Civil War.

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20/07/1990

Herbert Turner Jenkins, American police officer (born 1907)

Herbert Turner Jenkins was an American law enforcement official and the longest-serving police chief of Atlanta.

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20/07/1989

Forrest H. Anderson, American judge and politician, 17th Governor of Montana (born 1913)

Forrest Howard Anderson was an American politician, attorney, and judge who served as the 17th Governor of Montana from 1969 to 1973. Prior to this, he served as the Attorney General of Montana from 1957 to 1969 and as a member of the Montana Supreme Court.

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20/07/1987

Richard Egan, American soldier and actor (born 1921)

Richard Egan was an American actor. After beginning his career in 1949, he subsequently won a Golden Globe Award for his performances in the films The Glory Brigade (1953) and The Kid from Left Field (1953). He went on to star in many films such as Underwater! (1955), Seven Cities of Gold (1955), The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), Love Me Tender (1956), Tension at Table Rock (1956), A Summer Place (1959), Esther and the King (1960) and The 300 Spartans (1962).

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20/07/1983

Frank Reynolds, American soldier and journalist (born 1923)

Frank James Reynolds was an American television journalist for CBS and ABC News.

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20/07/1981

Kostas Choumis, Greek-Romanian footballer (born 1913)

Kostas Choumis was a Greek-Romanian football player who played as a striker. He is often regarded in Greece and Romania as one of the greatest strikers from the 1930s.

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20/07/1980

Maria Martinez, San Ildefonso Pueblo (Native American) potter (born 1887)

Maria Poveka Montoya Martinez was a Pueblo artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez, her husband Julian, and other family members, including her son Popovi Da, examined traditional Pueblo pottery styles and techniques to create pieces which reflect the Pueblo people's legacy of fine artwork and crafts. The works of Maria Martinez, and especially her black ware pottery, are in the collections of many museums, including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and more. The Penn Museum in Philadelphia holds eight vessels – three plates and five jars – signed either "Marie" or "Marie & Julian".

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20/07/1977

Gary Kellgren, American record producer, co-founded Record Plant (born 1939)

Gary Kellgren was an American audio engineer and co-founder of The Record Plant recording studios, along with businessman Chris Stone.

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20/07/1976

Joseph Rochefort, American captain and cryptanalyst (born 1900)

Joseph John Rochefort was an American naval officer and cryptanalyst. He was a major figure in the United States Navy's cryptographic and intelligence operations from 1925 to 1946, particularly in the Battle of Midway. His contributions and those of his team were pivotal to victory in the Pacific War.

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20/07/1974

Allen Jenkins, American actor and singer (born 1900)

Allen Curtis Jenkins was an American character actor, voice actor and singer who worked on stage, film, and television. He may be best known to some audiences as the voice of Officer Charlie Dibble in the Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon series Top Cat (1961–62).

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Kamal Dasgupta, Bengali music director, composer and folk artist. (born 1912)

Kamal Dasgupta (later Kamal Uddin Ahmed) (28 July 1911 – 20 July 1974), was a Bengali (later Bangladeshi) music director, lyricist, composer and folk artist active in Hindi and Bengali cinema especially in pre-partition British India. Rāga and thumri were the main elements of his music. An ardent lover of Nazrulgeeti (the music of Kazi Nazrul Islam, National Poet of Bangladesh), he was immensely successful professionally, and in the early forties, was anecdotally reputed to have paid 35,000 to 40,000 rupees as income tax. On the other hand, a true humanitarian, during the Great Bengal Famine, when ten lakh starving and dispossessed people descended upon Calcutta, he opened langarkhanas (mass kitchens) and nearly spent the vast majority of his fortune to feed the needy and destitute. While in Calcutta, he lived near Hedua (the anecdotal evidence states that he lived near Scottish Church College).

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20/07/1973

Bruce Lee, American actor and martial artist (born 1940)

Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong and American martial artist, actor, and filmmaker. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy, which was formed from his experiences in unarmed fighting and self-defense—as well as eclectic, Zen Buddhist, and Taoist philosophies—as a new school of martial arts thought. With a career spanning Hong Kong and the United States, Lee is regarded as the first global Chinese film star and one of the most influential martial artists in the history of cinema. Known for his roles in five feature-length martial arts films, he is credited with helping to popularize martial arts films in the 1970s and promoting Hong Kong action cinema.

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Robert Smithson, American photographer and sculptor (born 1938)

Robert Smithson was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums and is held in public collections. He was one of the founders of the land art movement whose best known work is the Spiral Jetty (1970).

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20/07/1972

Geeta Dutt, Indian singer and actress (born 1930)

Geeta Dutt was an Indian classical and playback singer. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema and Bengali cinema and is considered as one of the best playback singers of all time in Hindi films. She also sang many modern Bengali songs in the non-film genre.

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20/07/1970

Iain Macleod, English journalist and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (born 1913)

Iain Norman Macleod was a British Conservative Party politician.

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20/07/1968

Bray Hammond, American historian and author (born 1886)

Bray Hammond was an American financial historian and assistant secretary to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 1944–1950. He won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for History for Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (1957). He was educated at Stanford University.

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20/07/1965

Batukeshwar Dutt, Indian activist (born 1910)

Batukeshwar Dutta was an Indian socialist and independence fighter in the early 1900s. He is best known for having exploded two bombs, along with Bhagat Singh, in the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi on 8 April 1929. After they were arrested, tried and imprisoned for life, he and Singh initiated a historic hunger strike protesting against the abusive treatment of Indian political prisoners, and eventually secured some rights for them. He was also a member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.

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20/07/1959

William D. Leahy, American admiral and diplomat, United States Ambassador to France (born 1875)

William Daniel Leahy was an American naval officer and was the most senior United States military officer on active duty during World War II; he held several titles and exercised considerable influence over foreign and military policy. As a fleet admiral, he was the first flag officer ever to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces.

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20/07/1956

James Alexander Calder, Canadian educator and politician, Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence (born 1868)

James Alexander Calder was a Canadian politician.

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20/07/1955

Calouste Gulbenkian, Armenian businessman and philanthropist (born 1869)

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was an Armenian businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development and is credited with being the first person to exploit Iraqi oil. Following the "Red Line Agreement", a fixed 5% of the shares of the Turkish Petroleum Company were to be consistently owned by him, for which he earned the nickname "Mr. Five Per Cent". Gulbenkian travelled extensively and lived in a number of cities including his birth city of Constantinople and later London, Paris, and finally Lisbon.

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20/07/1953

Dumarsais Estimé, Haitian lawyer and politician, 33rd President of Haiti (born 1900)

Léon Dumarsais Estimé was a Haitian politician and President of the Haitian Republic from August 16, 1946, to May 10, 1950.

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Jan Struther, English author and hymn-writer (born 1901)

Jan Struther was the pen name of Joyce Anstruther, later Joyce Maxtone Graham and finally Joyce Placzek, an English writer remembered for her character Mrs. Miniver and a number of hymns, such as "Lord of All Hopefulness".

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20/07/1951

Abdullah I, king of Jordan (born 1882)

Abdullah I was the ruler of Jordan from 11 April 1921 until his assassination in 1951. He was the Emir of Transjordan, a British protectorate, until 25 May 1946, after which he was king of an independent Jordan. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Abdullah was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad.

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20/07/1945

Paul Valéry, French author and poet (born 1871)

Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction, his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.

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20/07/1944

Ludwig Beck, German general (born 1880)

Ludwig August Theodor Beck was a German general who served as Chief of the German General Staff from 1933 to 1938. Beck was one of the main conspirators of the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

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Mildred Harris, American actress (born 1901)

Mildred Harris was an American stage, film, and vaudeville actress during the early part of the 20th century. She began her career in the film industry as a child actress at age 10. She was also the first wife of Charlie Chaplin.

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20/07/1941

Lew Fields, American actor and producer (born 1867)

Lew Fields was an American actor, comedian, vaudeville star, theatre manager, and producer. Partnering with Joe Weber, they formed the comedy double-act of Weber and Fields. He also produced shows on his own and starred in comedy films.

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20/07/1937

Olga Hahn-Neurath, Austrian mathematician and philosopher from the Vienna Circle (born 1882)

Olga Hahn-Neurath was an Austrian mathematician and philosopher. She is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle. She was sister of the mathematician Hans Hahn.

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Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1874)

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess, was an Italian radio-frequency engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to his being largely credited as the inventor of radio and sharing the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy." His work laid the foundation for the development of radio, television, and all modern wireless communication systems.

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20/07/1932

René Bazin, French author and academic (born 1853)

René François Nicolas Marie Bazin was a French novelist.

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20/07/1928

Kostas Karyotakis, Greek poet and author (born 1896)

Kostas Karyotakis is considered one of the most representative Greek poets of the 1920s and one of the first poets to use iconoclastic themes in Greece.

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20/07/1927

Ferdinand I, king of Romania (born 1865)

Ferdinand I, nicknamed the Unifier, was King of Romania from 10 October 1914 until his death in 1927. Ferdinand was the second son of Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, and Infanta Antónia of Portugal,. His family was part of the Swabian Catholic branch of the Prussian royal House of Hohenzollern.

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20/07/1926

Felix Dzerzhinsky, Soviet educator and politician of Belarusian origin (born 1877)

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, nicknamed Iron Felix, was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first three Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka, the GPU and the OGPU, establishing state security organs for the Bolshevik government. He was a key architect of the Red Terror and de-Cossackization.

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20/07/1923

Pancho Villa, Mexican general and politician, Governor of Chihuahua (born 1878)

Francisco "Pancho" Villa was a Mexican revolutionary, guerrilla leader, and politician. He was a key figure in the Mexican Revolution, which forced out President and dictator Porfirio Díaz, subsequently ending the Porfiriato, and brought Francisco I. Madero to power in 1911. When Madero was ousted by a coup led by General Victoriano Huerta in February 1913, Villa joined the anti-Huerta forces in the Constitutionalist Army led by Venustiano Carranza. After the defeat and exile of Huerta in July 1914, Villa broke with Carranza. Villa dominated the meeting of revolutionary generals that excluded Carranza and helped create a coalition government. Emiliano Zapata and Villa became formal allies in this period. Like Zapata, Villa was strongly in favor of land reform, but did not implement it when he had power. Villa served as provisional governor of Chihuahua from 1913 to 1914.

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20/07/1922

Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician and theorist (born 1856)

Andrey Andreyevich Markov was a Russian mathematician celebrated for his pioneering work in stochastic processes. He extended foundational results—such as the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem—to sequences of dependent random variables, laying the groundwork for what would become known as Markov chains. To illustrate his methods, he analyzed the distribution of vowels and consonants in Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, treating letters purely as abstract categories and stripping away any poetic or semantic content.

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20/07/1917

Ignaz Sowinski, Galician architect (born 1858)

Ignaz Stanislaus Sowinski was a Polish architect and journalist who was active in Galicia from the middle of the 1880s and until the outbreak of World War I.

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20/07/1910

Anderson Dawson, Australian politician, 14th Premier of Queensland (born 1863)

Andrew Dawson, usually known as Anderson Dawson, was an Australian politician and unionist who served as the 14th premier of Queensland for one week from 1 to 7 December 1899. This short-lived premiership was the first Australian Labor Party (ALP) government in Australia and the first parliamentary labour party government anywhere in the world.

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20/07/1908

Demetrius Vikelas, Greek businessman and author, first IOC president (born 1835)

Demetrios Vikelas was a Greek businessman and writer; he was the co-founder and first president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), from 1894 to 1896.

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Karl Bernhard Zoeppritz, German geophysicist and seismologist (born 1881)

Karl Bernhard Zoeppritz was a German geophysicist who made important contributions to seismology, in particular the formulation of the Zoeppritz equations.

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20/07/1903

Leo XIII, pope of the Catholic Church (born 1810)

Pope Leo XIII was head of the Catholic Church from 1878 until his death in 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of St. Peter, Pius IX, and John Paul II.

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20/07/1901

William Cosmo Monkhouse, English poet and critic (born 1840)

William Cosmo Monkhouse was a British poet and critic.

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20/07/1897

Jean Ingelow, English poet and author (born 1820)

Jean Ingelow was an English poet and novelist, who gained sudden fame in 1863. She also wrote several stories for children.

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20/07/1866

Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician and academic (born 1826)

Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was a German mathematician who made profound contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the first rigorous formulation of the integral, the Riemann integral, and his work on Fourier series. His contributions to complex analysis include most notably the introduction of Riemann surfaces, breaking new ground in a natural, geometric treatment of complex analysis. His 1859 paper on the prime-counting function, containing the original statement of the Riemann hypothesis, is regarded as a foundational paper of analytic number theory. Through his pioneering contributions to differential geometry, Riemann laid the foundations of the mathematics of general relativity. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.

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20/07/1816

Gavrila Derzhavin, Russian poet and politician (born 1743)

Gavriil (Gavrila) Romanovich Derzhavin was one of the most highly esteemed Russian poets before Alexander Pushkin, as well as a statesman. Although his works are traditionally considered literary classicism, his best verse is rich with antitheses and conflicting sounds in a way reminiscent of John Donne and other metaphysical poets.

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20/07/1752

Johann Christoph Pepusch, German-English composer and theorist (born 1667)

Johann Christoph Pepusch, also known as John Christopher Pepusch and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born Baroque composer who spent most of his working life in England.

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20/07/1704

Peregrine White, English-American farmer and soldier (born 1620)

Peregrine White was the first boy born on the Pilgrim ship the Mayflower in the harbour of Massachusetts, the second baby born on the Mayflower's historic voyage, and the first known English child born to the Pilgrims in America. His parents, William White and his pregnant wife Susanna, with their son Resolved White and two servants, came on the Mayflower in 1620. Peregrine White was born while the Mayflower lay at anchor in the harbor at Cape Cod. In later life, he became a person of note in Plymouth Colony, active in both military and government affairs.

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20/07/1616

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, Irish nobleman and rebel soldier (born 1550)

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone was an Irish lord and key figure of the Nine Years' War. Known as the "Great Earl", he led the confederacy of Irish lords against the English Crown's conquest of Ireland during the Elizabethan era.

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20/07/1600

William More, English courtier (born 1520)

Sir William More, of Loseley, Surrey, was the son of Sir Christopher More. The great house at Loseley Park was built for him, which is still the residence of the More Molyneux family. Of Protestant sympathies, as Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Surrey he was actively involved in local administration of the county of Surrey and in the enforcement of the Elizabethan religious settlement, and was a member of every Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the owner of property in the Blackfriars in which the first and second Blackfriars theatres were erected. He has been described as "the perfect Elizabethan country gentleman" on account of his impeccable character and his assiduity and efficiency of service.

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20/07/1526

García Jofre de Loaísa, Spanish explorer (born 1490)

The Loaísa expedition was an early 16th-century Spanish voyage of discovery to the Pacific Ocean, commanded by García Jofre de Loaísa and ordered by King Charles I of Spain to colonize the Spice Islands in the East Indies. The seven-ship fleet sailed from La Coruña, Spain in July 1525 and became the second naval expedition in history to cross the Pacific Ocean, after the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation. The expedition resulted in the discovery of the Sea of Hoces south of Cape Horn, and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. One ship ultimately arrived in the Spice Islands in September 1526.

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20/07/1524

Claude, queen consort of France (born 1499)

Claude of France was Queen of France from 1 January 1515 as the wife of King Francis I and Duchess of Brittany in her own right from 9 January 1514 until her death in 1524. She was the eldest daughter of King Louis XII of France and Duchess Anne of Brittany.

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20/07/1514

György Dózsa, Transylvanian peasant revolt leader (born 1470)

György Dózsa was a Székely man-at-arms from Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, who led a peasants' revolt against the kingdom's landed nobility during the reign of King Vladislaus II of Hungary. The rebellion was suppressed, and Dózsa captured, tortured, and executed by being seated on a throne, crowned with red-hot iron, devoured alive by his followers under duress, and then quartered.

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20/07/1454

John II, king of Castile and León (born 1405)

John II of Castile was King of Castile and León from 1406 to 1454. He succeeded his older sister, Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, as Prince of Asturias in 1405.

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20/07/1453

Enguerrand de Monstrelet, French historian and author (born 1400)

Enguerrand de Monstrelet was a French chronicler. He was born in Picardy, most likely into a family of the minor nobility.

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20/07/1405

Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, fourth son of King Robert II of Scotland (approximate, b. 1343)

Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, called the Wolf of Badenoch, was a Scottish royal prince, the third son of King Robert II of Scotland by his first wife Elizabeth Mure. He was Justiciar of Scotia and held large territories in the north of Scotland.

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20/07/1398

Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, Welsh nobleman (born 1374)

Roger de Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, 6th Earl of Ulster was a great-grandson of King Edward III, descended from his second surviving son Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, and was considered the heir presumptive to the childless King Richard II, his mother's first cousin. However, he predeceased Richard II by two years, albeit leaving issue, in whose line the claim to the crown continued. Although two years after Mortimer's death the crown was seized from King Richard II by the House of Lancaster, descended from the third son of King Edward III, the Mortimer claim to the throne was realised eventually by the House of York, descended in the male line from the fourth and most junior son of King Edward III, on the basis that they had married Anne Mortimer, the daughter and eventual sole heiress of Roger de Mortimer, 4th Earl of March. This claim to the crown by the House of York on the basis of their descent via a female line from the second son of King Edward III was the substance of the Wars of the Roses, as the ruling House of Lancaster was descended only from the third son of King Edward III, albeit in a direct male line.

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20/07/1387

Robert IV, French nobleman (born 1356)

Robert IV of Artois, son of John of Artois, Count of Eu and Isabeau of Melun, was Count of Eu from April to July 1387 and Duke of Durazzo from 1376 to 1383.

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20/07/1332

Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray, regent of Scotland

Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray was a soldier and diplomat in the Wars of Scottish Independence, who later served as regent of Scotland. He was a nephew of Robert the Bruce, who created him as the first earl of Moray. He was known for successfully capturing Edinburgh Castle from the English, and he was one of the signatories of the Declaration of Arbroath.

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20/07/1320

Oshin, king of Armenia (born 1282)

Oshin was king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, ruling from 1307 to 1320. He was a member of the House of Lampron, the son of Leo II, King of Armenia and Queen Keran.

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20/07/1156

Toba, emperor of Japan (born 1103)

Emperor Toba was the 74th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.

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20/07/1128

Al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi, Fatimid vizier (born c. 1086)

Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Fatak, better known as al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi, was a senior official of the Fatimid Caliphate in the early 12th century, during the reign of al-Amir.

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20/07/1031

Robert II, king of France (born 972)

Robert II, called the Pious or the Wise, was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second from the Capetian dynasty. Crowned Junior King in 987, he assisted his father on military matters. His solid education, provided by Gerbert of Aurillac in Reims, allowed him to deal with religious questions of which he quickly became the guarantor. Continuing the political work of his father, after becoming sole ruler in 996, he managed to maintain the alliance with the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou and thus was able to contain the ambitions of Count Odo II of Blois.

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20/07/0985

Boniface VII, antipope of Rome

Antipope Boniface VII, otherwise known as Franco Ferrucci, was a Catholic prelate who claimed the Holy See in 974 and from 984 until 985. A popular tumult compelled him to flee to Constantinople in 974; he carried off a vast treasure, and returned in 984 and removed Pope John XIV (983–984) from office. He is supposed to have put Pope Benedict VI to death. After a brief second rule, he died under suspicious circumstances. He is today considered an antipope.

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20/07/0833

Ansegisus, Frankish abbot and saint

Saint Ansegisus was a monastic reformer of the Franks.

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20/07/0518

Amantius, Byzantine grand chamberlain and Monophysite martyr

Amantius was the head chamberlain of the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I. Defeated by Justin I in the intrigues and power struggles after Anastasius' death, he was executed.

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