Died on Wednesday, 30th July – Famous Deaths

30/07/2025

David Argue, Australian actor (born 1959)

David J. Argue was an Australian actor. He was best known for his role as Snowy in Gallipoli, as Whitey in BMX Bandits (1983), Dicko in Razorback (1984), and in the leading role of Brad McBain in Hercules Returns (1993).

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George Nigh, American politician, 17th and 22nd Governor of Oklahoma (born 1927)

George Patterson Nigh was an American politician and civic leader from the state of Oklahoma. Nigh served as the 17th and the 22nd governor of Oklahoma and as the eighth and tenth lieutenant governor of Oklahoma. He was the first Oklahoma governor to be re-elected and the first to win all 77 counties in the state. Additionally, short term vacancies in the governor's office twice resulted in Nigh assuming gubernatorial duties while serving as lieutenant governor.

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30/07/2024

Onyeka Onwenu, Nigerian singer, actress and politician (born 1952)

Onyeka Onwenu was a Nigerian singer-songwriter, actress, human rights and social activist, journalist, politician, and X Factor series judge. Dubbed the "Elegant Stallion" due to her significant impact on African culture and entertainment, Onwenu was a chairperson of the Imo State Council for Arts and Culture. In 2013, she was appointed the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the National Centre for Women Development.

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30/07/2023

Paul Reubens, American actor and comedian (born 1952)

Paul Reubens was an American actor and comedian, widely known for creating and portraying the character Pee-wee Herman.

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30/07/2022

Pat Carroll, American actress and comedian (born 1927)

Patricia Ann Carroll was an American actress and comedian. She is best known for providing the voice of Ursula in The Little Mermaid. She made guest appearances in many popular television series including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverne & Shirley, and ER; she also had a regular role on The Danny Thomas Show as Bunny Halper. Carroll was an Emmy, Drama Desk, and Grammy Award winner, as well as a Tony Award nominee.

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Nichelle Nichols, American actress, singer and dancer (born 1932)

Grace Dell "Nichelle" Nichols was an American actress, singer and dancer whose portrayal of Uhura in Star Trek and its film sequels was groundbreaking for African American actresses on American television. From 1977 to 2015, she volunteered her time to promote NASA's programs and recruit diverse astronauts, including some of the first female and ethnic minority astronauts.

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30/07/2021

Shona Ferguson, Botswana-born, South African actor and executive producer (born 1974)

Aaron Arthur Ferguson, professionally known as Shona Ferguson, was a Motswana actor based in South Africa, executive producer and co-founder of Ferguson Films, alongside his wife, Connie Ferguson.

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30/07/2020

Lee Teng-hui, Taiwanese politician, President (1988–2000), Vice President (1984–1988) and mayor of Taipei (1978–1981) (born 1923)

Lee Teng-hui was a Taiwanese statesman, economist, and agronomist who served as the fourth president of the Republic of China and chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000. He was the first president to be born in Taiwan, the last to be indirectly elected, and the first to be directly elected.

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Herman Cain, American businessman and political activist (born 1945)

Herman Cain was an American businessman and Tea Party movement activist in the Republican Party.

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30/07/2018

Michael A. Sheehan, American author, former government official and military officer (born 1955)

Michael A. Sheehan was an American author and former government official and military officer. He was a Distinguished Chair at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York and a terrorism analyst for NBC News.

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30/07/2016

Gloria DeHaven, American actress, singer, and dancer (born 1925)

Gloria Mildred DeHaven was an American actress and singer who was a contract star for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

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30/07/2015

Lynn Anderson, American singer (born 1947)

Lynn René Anderson was an American country singer and television personality. Her crossover signature recording, "Rose Garden", was a number one hit internationally. She also charted five number one and 18 top-ten singles on the Billboard country songs chart. Anderson is regarded as one of country music's most significant performers.

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Stuart Baggs, English businessman (born 1988)

Stuart Baggs, also known by his self-styled sobriquet as Stuart Baggs "The Brand", was an English businessman and entrepreneur from Plymouth, Devon. He founded and ran BlueWave Communications, a broadband company in the Isle of Man. He gained recognition for reaching the final five of Series 6 of The Apprentice. Baggs died aged 27 in Douglas, Isle of Man due to an asthma attack.

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Endel Lippmaa, Estonian physicist (born 1930)

Endel Lippmaa was an Estonian scientist, academician, politician, and twice government minister in 1990–1991 and 1995–1996.

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Francis Paul Prucha, American historian and academic (born 1921)

Francis Paul Prucha was an American historian, professor emeritus of history at Marquette University, and specialist in the relationship between the United States and Native Americans. His work, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians, won the Ray Allen Billington Award and was one of the two finalists for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize in History. It is regarded as a classic among professional historians.

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Alena Vrzáňová, Czech figure skater (born 1931)

Alena "Ája" Vrzáňová was a Czech figure skater who represented Czechoslovakia in competition. Vrzáňová is the 1949 & 1950 World champion and 1950 European champion.

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30/07/2014

Robert Drew, American director and producer (born 1924)

Robert Lincoln Drew was an American documentary filmmaker known as one of the pioneers—and sometimes called father—of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States. Two of his films, Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, have been named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The moving image collection of Robert Drew is housed at the Academy Film Archive. The Academy Film Archive has preserved a number of his films, including Faces of November, Herself: Indira Gandhi, and Bravo!/Kathy's Dance. His many awards include an International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award.

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Harun Farocki, German director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1944)

Harun Farocki was a German filmmaker, author, and lecturer in film.

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Julio Grondona, Argentinian businessman (born 1931)

Julio Humberto Grondona was an Argentine football executive. He served as president of the Argentine Football Association from 1979 until his death in 2014. He also served as Senior Vice-President of FIFA.

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Peter Hall, English geographer, author, and academic (born 1932)

Sir Peter Geoffrey Hall was an English town planner, urbanist and geographer. He was the Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration at The Bartlett, University College London and president of both the Town and Country Planning Association and the Regional Studies Association. Hall was one of the most prolific and influential urbanists of the twentieth century.

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Dick Smith, American make-up artist (born 1922)

Richard Emerson Smith was an American special make-up effects artist and author, known for his work on such films as Little Big Man (1970), The Godfather (1972), The Exorcist (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Scanners (1981) and Death Becomes Her (1992). He won a 1985 Academy Award for Best Makeup for his work on Amadeus and received a 2012 Academy Honorary Award for his career's work.

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Dick Wagner, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1942)

Richard Allen Wagner was an American rock guitarist, songwriter and author best known for his work with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, and Kiss. He also fronted his own Michigan-based bands, the Frost and the Bossmen.

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30/07/2013

Cecil Alexander, American architect, designed the State of Georgia Building (born 1918)

Cecil Abraham Alexander, Jr. was an American architect, principally a designer of commercial architecture, best known for his work in Atlanta, Georgia. He worked with the firm FABRAP, which, in 1985, became Rosser FABRAP International and later Rosser International. Together with other architects of the firm, he "shaped the skyline of Atlanta".

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Berthold Beitz, German businessman (born 1913)

Berthold Beitz was a German industrialist. He was the head of the Krupp steel conglomerate beginning in the 1950s. He was credited with helping to lead the re-industrialization of the Ruhr Valley and rebuilding Germany into an industrial power.

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Robert Neelly Bellah, American sociologist and author (born 1927)

Robert Neelly Bellah was an American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was internationally known for his work related to the sociology of religion.

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Harry F. Byrd Jr., American lieutenant, publisher, and politician (born 1914)

Harry Flood Byrd Jr. was an American newspaper publisher and politician. He served in the Senate of Virginia and then represented Virginia in the United States Senate, succeeding his father, Harry F. Byrd Sr. His public service spanned thirty-six years, while he was a publisher of several Virginia newspapers. After the decline of the Byrd Organization due to its massive resistance to racial integration of public schools, he abandoned the Democratic Party in 1970, citing concern about its leftward tilt. He rehabilitated his political career, becoming the first independent in the history of the U.S. Senate to be elected by a majority of the popular vote.

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Antoni Ramallets, Spanish footballer and manager (born 1924)

Antoni Ramallets Simón was a Spanish football goalkeeper and manager.

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Ossie Schectman, American basketball player (born 1919)

Oscar Benjamin "Ossie" Schectman was an American professional basketball player. He is credited with having scored the first basket in the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which would later become the National Basketball Association (NBA).

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Benjamin Walker, Indian-English author, poet, and playwright (born 1913)

Benjamin Walker was the truncated pen name of George Benjamin Walker, who also wrote under the pseudonym Jivan Bhakar. He was a British citizen, an Indian-born author on religion and philosophy, and an authority on esoterica.

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30/07/2012

Maeve Binchy, Irish author, playwright, and journalist (born 1939)

Anne Maeve Binchy Snell was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker. Her novels were characterised by a sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, and surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. Her death at age 73, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the death of one of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writers.

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Bill Doss, American singer and guitarist (born 1968)

Bill Doss was an American rock musician. He co-founded The Elephant 6 Recording Company in Athens, Georgia, and was a key member of the Olivia Tremor Control. Following the band's breakup, he led the Sunshine Fix and later became a member of the Apples in Stereo. Doss was married to freelance photographer Amy Hairston Doss, whom he met while both were attending Louisiana Tech University.

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Stig Ossian Ericson, Swedish actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1923)

Stig Ossian Ericson was a Swedish actor, director, and screenwriter.

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Les Green, English footballer and manager (born 1941)

Leslie Green was an English footballer and manager.

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Jonathan Hardy, New Zealand-Australian actor and screenwriter (born 1940)

Jonathan Hardy was a New Zealand-Australian film and television actor, writer and director.

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Bill Kitchen, Canadian ice hockey player (born 1960)

William Percy Kitchen was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He played 41 games in the National Hockey League with the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs between 1982 and 1985. He was born in Schomberg, Ontario and was the younger brother of Mike Kitchen.

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Mary Louise Rasmuson, American colonel (born 1911)

Mary Louise Milligan Rasmuson was an American army officer, and fifth director of the Women's Army Corps (WAC).

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30/07/2011

Bob Peterson, American basketball player (born 1932)

Robert Peterson was an American basketball player. He played three seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), from 1953 to 1956.

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30/07/2009

Mohammed Yusuf, Nigerian militant leader, founded Boko Haram (born 1970)

Mohammed Yusuf, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Yusuf al-Barnawi, was a Nigerian militant who founded the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in 2002. He was its leader until he was killed during the 2009 Boko Haram uprising.

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Peter Zadek, German director and screenwriter (born 1926)

Peter Zadek was a German director of theatre, opera and film, a translator and a screenwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater.

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30/07/2008

Anne Armstrong, American businesswoman and diplomat, United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (born 1927)

Anne Legendre Armstrong was a United States diplomat and politician. She was the first woman to serve as Counselor to the President and as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, serving in those capacities under the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987.

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30/07/2007

Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian director and screenwriter (born 1912)

Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and editor. He is best known for a trio of films often dubbed the "alienation trilogy": L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962); the English-language film Blowup (1966); and the multilingual The Passenger (1975). His films have been described as "enigmatic and intricate mood pieces" that feature striking visual composition, subdued narratives, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes. His work substantially influenced subsequent world art cinema, including the slow cinema movement.

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Teoctist Arăpașu, Romanian patriarch (born 1915)

Teoctist was the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1986 to 2007.

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Ingmar Bergman, Swedish director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1918)

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest and most important filmmakers in the history of cinema, most notably as a prominent figure of both European film industry and Swedish cinema. His films have been described as "profoundly personal meditations into the myriad struggles facing the psyche and the soul."

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Bill Walsh, American football player and coach (born 1931)

William Ernest Walsh was an American professional and college football coach. He served as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and the Stanford Cardinal, during which time he popularized the West Coast offense. After retiring from the 49ers, Walsh worked as a sports broadcaster for several years and then returned as head coach at Stanford for three seasons.

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30/07/2006

Duygu Asena, Turkish journalist and author(born 1946)

Duygu Asena was a Turkish journalist, best-selling author and activist for women's rights.

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Al Balding, Canadian golfer (born 1924)

Allan George Balding was a Canadian professional golfer, who won four events on the PGA Tour. In 1955, he became the first Canadian to win a PGA Tour event in the United States; Canadians Ken Black, Jules Huot and Pat Fletcher had won PGA Tour events in Canada.

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Murray Bookchin, American philosopher and author (born 1921)

Murray Bookchin was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. Influenced by the works of G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Peter Kropotkin, he was a pioneer in the environmental movement. Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and social ecology. Among the most important were Our Synthetic Environment (1962), Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), The Ecology of Freedom (1982), and Urbanization Without Cities (1987). In the late 1990s, he became disenchanted with what he saw as an increasingly apolitical "lifestylism" of the contemporary anarchist movement, stopped referring to himself as an anarchist, and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called "communalism", which seeks to reconcile and expand Marxist, syndicalist, and anarchist thought.

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Anthony Galla-Rini, American accordion player and composer (born 1904)

Anthony Galla-Rini was an American accordionist, arranger, composer, conductor, author, and teacher, and is considered by many to be the first American accordionist to promote the accordion as a legitimate concert instrument.

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Akbar Mohammadi, Iranian activist (born 1972)

Akbar Mohammadi was an Iranian student at Tehran University involved in the 18th of Tir crisis, also known as the July 1999 Iran student protests, Iran's biggest pro-democracy demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He later died at Evin prison, causing an international outcry.

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30/07/2005

Ray Cunningham, American baseball player (born 1905)

Raymond Lee Cunningham was an American professional baseball third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1931 and 1932. He batted and threw right-handed. A native of Mesquite, Texas, Cunningham played briefly for the Cardinals at third base before an injury cut short his career. He injured himself, whipping a sidearm throw to first base on a swinging bunt.

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John Garang, Sudanese colonel and politician, 6th President of South Sudan (born 1945)

John Garang De Mabior was a Sudanese politician and revolutionary leader. From 1983 to 2005, he led the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement as a commander in chief during the Second Sudanese Civil War. He served as First Vice President of Sudan for three weeks, from the comprehensive peace agreement of 2005 until his death in a helicopter crash on July 30, 2005.

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30/07/2003

Steve Hislop, Scottish motorcycle racer (born 1962)

Robert Steven Hislop was a Scottish motorcycle racer. Hislop won at the Isle of Man TT eleven times, was the British 250cc Champion (1990) and lifted the British Superbike championship on two occasions.

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Sam Phillips, American record producer, founded Sun Records (born 1923)

Samuel Cornelius Phillips was an American disc jockey, songwriter and record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin' Wolf. Phillips played a major role in the development of rock and roll during the 1950s, launching the career of Presley. In 1969, he sold Sun to Shelby Singleton.

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30/07/2001

Anton Schwarzkopf, German engineer (born 1924)

Anton Schwarzkopf was a German engineer who founded Schwarzkopf Industries GmbH, a German manufacturer of roller coasters and other amusement rides that were sold to amusement parks and travelling funfairs around the world.

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30/07/1998

Buffalo Bob Smith, American television host (born 1917)

Robert Emil Schmidt, nicknamed Buffalo Bob, was an American radio and television personality and presenter; he was well known as the host of the children's show Howdy Doody.

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30/07/1996

Claudette Colbert, French-American actress (born 1903)

Claudette Colbert was an French-born actress naturalized American. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictures. Initially contracted to Paramount Pictures, Colbert became one of the few major actresses of the period who worked freelance; that is to say, independently of the studio system. In 1999, Colbert was named the 12th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute.

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30/07/1994

Konstantin Kalser, German-American film producer and advertising executive (born 1920)

Konstantin Kalser was a German-American film producer and advertising executive. He won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1957 with Crashing the Water Barrier.

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30/07/1992

Brenda Marshall, Filipino-American actress and singer (born 1915)

Brenda Marshall was an American film actress.

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Joe Shuster, Canadian-American illustrator, co-created Superman (born 1914)

Joseph Shuster was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with Jerry Siegel, in Action Comics #1.

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30/07/1990

Ian Gow, British Member of Parliament who was assassinated by the IRA (born 1937)

Ian Reginald Edward Gow was a British politician and solicitor. As a member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Eastbourne from 1974, until his assassination in 1990 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) outside his home in East Sussex.

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30/07/1989

Lane Frost, American professional bull rider (born 1963)

Lane Clyde Frost was an American professional rodeo cowboy who specialized in bull riding, and competed in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). He was the 1987 PRCA World Champion bull rider. He was also the only rider ever to score a qualified ride on Red Rock, the 1987 PRCA Bucking Bull of the Year.

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30/07/1985

Julia Robinson, American mathematician and theorist (born 1919)

Julia Hall Bowman Robinson was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilbert's tenth problem played a crucial role in its ultimate resolution. Robinson was a 1983 MacArthur Fellow.

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30/07/1983

Howard Dietz, American songwriter and publicist (born 1896)

Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist, best remembered for his songwriting collaboration with Arthur Schwartz. According to historian Stanley Green, Dietz and Schwartz were "most closely identified with the revue form of musical theatre."

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Lynn Fontanne, English actress (born 1887)

Lynn Fontanne was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End and United States, she married the American actor Alfred Lunt in 1922, with whom she co-starred in Broadway and West End productions over the next four decades. They became known as "The Lunts", and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.

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30/07/1977

Emory Holloway, American scholar, author, and educator (born 1885)

Rufus Emory Holloway was an American literary scholar-educator most known for his books and studies of Walt Whitman. His Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative (1926) was the first biography of a literary figure to win the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1927.

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30/07/1975

James Blish, American author and critic (born 1921)

James Benjamin "Jimmy" Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel A Case of Conscience won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies.

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30/07/1971

Thomas Hollway, Australian politician, 36th Premier of Victoria (born 1906)

Thomas Tuke Hollway was the 36th Premier of Victoria, and the first to be born in the 20th century. He held office from 1947 to 1950, and again for a short period in 1952. He was originally a member and the leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) in Victoria, and was the inaugural leader of the UAP's successor, the Victorian division of the Liberal Party, but split from the Liberals after a dispute over electoral reform issues.

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30/07/1970

Walter Murdoch, Scottish-Australian academic (born 1874)

Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, was a prominent Australian academic and essayist famous for his intelligence and wit. He was a founding professor of English and former Chancellor of the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth, Western Australia.

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George Szell, Hungarian-American conductor and composer (born 1897)

George Szell, originally György Széll, György Endre Széll, or Georg Szell, was an Austro-Hungarian-born American conductor, composer and pianist. Considered one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors, he was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and recorded much of the standard classical repertoire in Cleveland and with other orchestras.

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30/07/1965

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Japanese author and playwright (born 1886)

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work range from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle portrayals of the dynamics of family life within the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently, his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which the West and Japanese tradition are juxtaposed.

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30/07/1947

Joseph Cook, English-Australian miner and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Australia (born 1860)

Sir Joseph Cook was an Australian politician and trade unionist who served as the sixth prime minister of Australia from 1913 to 1914. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party, having previously been leader of the Anti-Socialist Party from 1908 to 1909. His victory at the 1913 election marked the first time that a centre-right party had won a majority at an Australian federal election.

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30/07/1941

Hugo Celmiņš, Latvian politician, former Prime Minister of Latvia (born 1877)

Hugo Celmiņš was a Latvian politician, a public employee, agronomist, twice the Prime Minister of Latvia. Arrested and deported to the USSR after the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, imprisoned in Moscow's Lefortovo Prison. On 30 July 1941 shot and buried in the mass graves of Kommunarka shooting ground. Hugo Celmiņš was one of those who developed agrarian reform in Latvia.

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30/07/1938

John Derbyshire, English swimmer and water polo player (born 1878)

John Henry "Rob" Derbyshire was an English freestyle swimmer and water polo player from Chorlton, Lancashire, who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics (maybe), 1906 Intercalated Games, 1908 Summer Olympics and 1912 Summer Olympics. He and Alice Derbyshire founded swimming clubs in Hammersmith.

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30/07/1930

Joan Gamper, Swiss-Spanish footballer and businessman, founded FC Barcelona (born 1877)

Hans Max Gamper-Haessig, commonly known as Joan Gamper, was a Swiss-born football executive and versatile athlete. He founded football clubs in Switzerland and Spain, most notably Barcelona.

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30/07/1920

Albert Gustaf Dahlman, Swedish executioner (born 1848)

Albert Gustaf Dahlman was a Swedish executioner. He was the last executioner in Sweden, as well as the last to carry out capital punishment in Sweden, the last by means of beheading by hand, and the last to execute a woman.

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30/07/1918

Joyce Kilmer, American soldier, journalist, and poet (born 1886)

Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled "Trees" (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his Catholic faith, Kilmer was also a journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. At the time of his deployment to Europe during World War I, Kilmer was considered the leading American Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation, whom critics often compared to British contemporaries G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). He enlisted in the New York National Guard and was deployed to France with the 69th Infantry Regiment in 1917. He was killed by a sniper's bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31. He was married to Aline Murray, also an accomplished poet and author, with whom he had five children.

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30/07/1912

Emperor Meiji of Japan (born 1852)

Emperor Meiji was Emperor of Japan from 30 January 1867 until his death in 1912. The Meiji Restoration proclaimed the Empire of Japan in 1868, beginning the Meiji era. During his reign, Japan transformed from a feudal state under the Tokugawa shogunate into a major imperial power.

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30/07/1900

Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (born 1844)

Alfred was sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 22 August 1893 until his death in 1900. He was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He was known as the Duke of Edinburgh from 1866 until he succeeded his paternal uncle Ernest II as the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the German Empire.

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30/07/1898

Otto von Bismarck, German lawyer and politician, 1st Chancellor of Germany (born 1815)

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as its first chancellor from 1871 to 1890. Bismarck's Realpolitik and firm governance earned him the nickname Iron Chancellor.

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30/07/1889

Charlie Absolom, England cricketer (born 1846)

Charles Alfred Absolom was an English amateur cricketer who played for Cambridge University, Kent County Cricket Club and England in the period from 1866 to 1879.

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30/07/1875

George Pickett, American general (born 1825)

George Edward Pickett was an American military officer who became a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for being one of the commanders at Pickett's Charge, the futile and bloody Confederate offensive on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name.

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30/07/1870

Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian poet and journalist (born 1818)

Aasmund Olavsson Vinje was a Norwegian poet and journalist who is remembered for poetry, travel writing, and his pioneering use of Landsmål.

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30/07/1832

Lê Văn Duyệt, Vietnamese general, mandarin (born 1763–4)

Lê Văn Duyệt was a Vietnamese general who helped Nguyễn Ánh—the future Emperor Gia Long—put down the Tây Sơn wars, unify Vietnam and establish the Nguyễn dynasty. After the Nguyễn came to power in 1802, Duyệt became a high-ranking mandarin, serving under the first two Nguyễn emperors Gia Long and Minh Mạng.

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30/07/1811

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Mexican priest and soldier (born 1753)

Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mandarte y Villaseñor, commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or simply Miguel Hidalgo, was a Mexican Catholic priest and prominent leader of the Mexican War of Independence, who is recognized as the Father of the Nation.

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30/07/1771

Thomas Gray, English poet (born 1716)

Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, and classical scholar at Cambridge University, being a fellow first of Peterhouse then of Pembroke College. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751. Gray was a self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber, though he declined.

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30/07/1718

William Penn, English businessman and philosopher, founded the Province of Pennsylvania (born 1644)

William Penn was an English writer, theologian, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania. An advocate of democracy and religious freedom, Penn was known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape native peoples who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania before European colonisation there.

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30/07/1700

Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, English royal (born 1689)

Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, was the son of Princess Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark. He was their only child to survive infancy. Styled Duke of Gloucester, he was viewed by contemporaries as a Protestant champion because his birth seemed to cement the Protestant succession established in the "Glorious Revolution" that had deposed his Catholic grandfather James II & VII the previous year.

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30/07/1691

Daniel Georg Morhof, German scholar and academic (born 1639)

Daniel Georg Morhof was a German writer and scholar.

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30/07/1683

Maria Theresa of Spain (born 1638)

Maria Theresa of Spain was Queen of France from 1660 to 1683 as the wife of King Louis XIV. She was born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal as the daughter of King Philip IV and Elisabeth of France, and was also an Archduchess of Austria as a member of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg.

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30/07/1680

Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory, Irish admiral and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (born 1634)

Vice-Admiral Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory was an Irish soldier and politician. He was the eldest son of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond but predeceased his father and therefore never succeeded as duke.

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30/07/1652

Charles Amadeus, Duke of Nemours (born 1624)

Charles Amadeus of Savoy, Duke of Nemours was a French military leader and magnate. He was the father of the penultimate Duchess of Savoy and of a Queen of Portugal.

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30/07/1624

Esmé Stewart, 3rd Duke of Lennox, British nobleman (born 1579)

Esmé Stewart, 3rd Duke of Lennox, KG, 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny, lord of the Manor of Cobham, Kent, was a Scottish nobleman and through his paternal lines was a second cousin of King James VI of Scotland and I of England. He was a patron of the playwright Ben Jonson who lived in his household for five years.

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30/07/1608

Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, last King of Tyrconnell (born 1575)

Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, was an Irish earl and soldier.

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30/07/1566

Guillaume Rondelet, French doctor (born 1507)

Guillaume Rondelet, also known as Rondeletus/Rondeletius, was Regius professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier in southern France and Chancellor of the University between 1556 and his death in 1566. He achieved renown as an anatomist and a naturalist with a particular interest in botany and ichthyology. His major work was a lengthy treatise on marine animals, which took two years to write and became a standard reference work for about a century afterwards, but his lasting impact lay in his education of a roster of star pupils who became leading figures in the world of late-16th century science.

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30/07/1550

Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, English politician, Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom (born 1505)

Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, was an English peer, secretary of state, Lord Chancellor and Lord High Admiral. A naturally skilled but unscrupulous and devious politician who changed with the times, Wriothesley served as a loyal instrument of King Henry VIII in the latter's break with the Catholic Church. Richly rewarded with royal gains from the Dissolution of the Monasteries, he nevertheless prosecuted Calvinists and other Protestants when political winds changed.

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30/07/1540

Thomas Abel, English priest and martyr (born 1497)

Thomas Abel was an English priest who was martyred during the reign of Henry VIII. The place and date of his birth are unknown.

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Robert Barnes, English martyr and reformer (born 1495)

Robert Barnes was an English reformer and martyr.

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30/07/1516

John V, Count of Nassau-Siegen (born 1455)

Count John V of Nassau-Siegen, German: Johann V. Graf von Nassau-Siegen, official titles: Graf zu Nassau, Vianden und Diez, Herr zu Breda, was since 1475 Count of Nassau-Siegen and of half Diez. He descended from the Ottonian Line of the House of Nassau.

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30/07/1393

Alberto d'Este, Lord of Ferrara and Modena (born 1347)

Albert (V) d'Este was Lord of Ferrara and Modena from 1388 until his death.

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30/07/1286

Bar Hebraeus, Syrian scholar and historian (born 1226)

Gregory Barhebraeus or Bar Hebraeus, also known as Abu al-Faraj and in Latin, Abulpharagius, was the maphrian Catholicos of the East of the Catholicate of the East under the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1264 until his death in 1286. He is recognised as one of the most accomplished and multifaceted academics of the medieval Syriac Christian world, with important contributions to the fields of theology, philosophy, history, linguistics, medicine, and the natural sciences.

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30/07/0829

Shi Xiancheng, general of the Tang Dynasty

Shi Xiancheng was a general of the Chinese Tang dynasty, who ruled Weibo Circuit semi-independently from the imperial government.

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30/07/0734

Tatwine, English archbishop (born 670)

Tatwine was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he composed survive. Another work he composed was on the grammar of the Latin language, which was aimed at advanced students of that language. He was subsequently considered a saint.

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30/07/0579

Pope Benedict I

Pope Benedict I was the bishop of Rome from 2 June 575 to his death on 30 July 579.

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30/07/0578

Jacob Baradaeus, Greek bishop

Jacob Baradaeus, also known as Jacob bar Addai or Jacob bar Theophilus, was the Bishop of Edessa from 543/544 until his death in 578. He is venerated as a saint in the Oriental Orthodox Churches and his feast day is 31 July. Jacob's missionary efforts helped the non-Chalcedonian Syriac Orthodox Church survive despite persecution, for which it came to bear the name of "Jacobite" Church after its eponymous leader.

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