Died on Saturday, 21st June – Famous Deaths

21/06/2024

Frederick Crews, American essayist and literary critic (born 1933)

Frederick Campbell Crews was an American essayist and literary critic. Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews was the author of numerous books, including The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James (1957), E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism (1962), and The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes (1966), a discussion of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He received popular attention for The Pooh Perplex (1963), a book of satirical essays parodying various schools of literary criticism. Initially a proponent of psychoanalytic literary criticism, Crews later rejected psychoanalysis, becoming a critic of Sigmund Freud and his scientific and ethical standards. Crews was a prominent participant in the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 1990s, a debate over the reputation, scholarship, and impact on the 20th century of Freud, who founded psychoanalysis. In 2017, he published Freud: The Making of an Illusion.

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21/06/2023

Winnie Ewing, Scottish politician (born 1929)

Winifred Margaret Ewing was a Scottish lawyer and politician who figured prominently in the Scottish National Party.

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21/06/2018

Charles Krauthammer, American columnist and conservative political commentator (born 1950)

Charles Krauthammer was an American political columnist. A moderate liberal who turned independent conservative as a political pundit, Krauthammer won the Pulitzer Prize for his columns in The Washington Post in 1987. His weekly column was syndicated to more than 400 publications worldwide. While in his first year studying medicine at Harvard Medical School, Krauthammer became permanently paralyzed from the waist down after a diving board accident that severed his spinal cord at cervical spinal nerve 5. After spending 14 months recovering in a hospital, he returned to medical school, graduating to become a psychiatrist involved in the creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III in 1980. He joined the Carter administration in 1978 as a director of psychiatric research, eventually becoming the speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale in 1980.

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21/06/2016

Pierre Lalonde, Canadian television host and singer (born 1941)

Pierre Lalonde was a Canadian singer and television host, who was sometimes also billed as Peter Martin in the United States.

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21/06/2015

Darryl Hamilton, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1964)

Darryl Quinn Hamilton was an American professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1988 and 2001 for the Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies, and New York Mets. Hamilton prepped at Louisiana State University Laboratory School in Baton Rouge and then attended Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

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Veijo Meri, Finnish author and poet (born 1928)

Veijo Väinö Valvo Meri was a Finnish writer. Much of his work focuses on war and its absurdity. The work is anti-war and has dark humor.

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Remo Remotti, Italian actor, playwright, and poet (born 1924)

Remo Remotti was an Italian actor, playwright, artist and poet.

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Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, German soldier and politician (born 1932)

Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski was a politician and trader in the German Democratic Republic. He was director of a main department ('Hauptverwaltungsleiter') in the Ministry for Foreign Trade and German Domestic Trade (1956–62), the Deputy Minister for External Trade (1967–75), and head of the GDR's Kommerzielle Koordinierung.

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Gunther Schuller, American horn player, composer, and conductor (born 1925)

Gunther Alexander Schuller was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician.

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21/06/2014

Yozo Ishikawa, Japanese politician, Japanese Minister of Defense (born 1925)

Yozo Ishikawa was a Japanese lawmaker and a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He served as director general of the now-defunct defense agency of Japan in 1990.

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Walter Kieber, Austrian-Liechtenstein politician, 7th Prime Minister of Liechtenstein (born 1931)

Walter Kieber was a lawyer and politician from Liechtenstein who served as Prime Minister of Liechtenstein from 1974 to 1978. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Liechtenstein from 1970 to 1974 and again from 1978 to 1980.

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Wong Ho Leng, Malaysian lawyer and politician (born 1959)

Wong Ho Leng was a Malaysian politician. He was the opposition leader of the Sarawak State Assembly from May 2006 to June 2013. He was also the state chairman of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) from 2001 until 10 June 2013. He was the Member of the State Legislative Assembly of Sarawak for the seat of Bukit Assek until his death on 21 June 2014.

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21/06/2013

James P. Gordon, American physicist and academic (born 1928)

James Power Gordon was an American physicist known for his work in the fields of optics and quantum electronics. His contributions include the design, analysis and construction of the first maser in 1954 as a doctoral student at Columbia University under the supervision of C. H. Townes, development of the quantal equivalent of Shannon's information capacity formula in 1962, development of the theory for the diffusion of atoms in an optical trap in 1980, and the discovery of what is now known as the Gordon-Haus effect in soliton transmission, together with H. A. Haus in 1986. Gordon was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.

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Elliott Reid, American actor and screenwriter (born 1920)

Edgeworth Blair "Elliott" Reid was an American actor.

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21/06/2012

Richard Adler, American composer and producer (born 1921)

Richard Adler was an American lyricist, writer, composer and producer of several Broadway shows. He is best known for his work with Jerry Ross on the musicals The Pajama Game (1954) and Damn Yankees (1955).

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Abid Hussain, Indian economist and diplomat, Indian Ambassador to the United States (born 1926)

Abid Hussain was an Indian economist, civil servant and diplomat. He was India's ambassador to the United States of America from 1990 to 1992 and a member of the Planning Commission from 1985 to 1990.

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Sunil Janah, Indian photographer and journalist (born 1918)

Sunil Janah was an Indian-American photojournalist and documentary photographer who worked in India in the 1940s. Janah documented India's independence movement, its peasant and labour movements, famines and riots, rural and tribal life, as well as the years of rapid urbanization and industrialization. He was best known for his coverage of the Bengal famine of 1943.

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Anna Schwartz, American economist and author (born 1915)

Anna Jacobson Schwartz was an American economist who worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City and a writer for The New York Times. Paul Krugman has said that Schwartz is "one of the world's greatest monetary scholars."

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21/06/2011

Robert Kroetsch, Canadian author and poet (born 1927)

Robert Paul Kroetsch was a Canadian novelist, poet and nonfiction writer. In his fiction and critical essays, as well as in the journal he co-founded, boundary 2, he was an influential figure in Canada in introducing ideas about postmodernism.

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21/06/2010

Russell Ash, English author (born 1946)

Russell Ash was the British author of the Top 10 of Everything series of books, as well as Great Wonders of the World, Incredible Comparisons and many other reference, art and humour titles, most notably his series of books on strange-but-true names, Potty, Fartwell & Knob, Busty, Slag and Nob End and Big Pants, Burpy and Bumface. Once described as 'the human Google', his obituary in The Times stated that 'In the age of the internet, it takes tenacity and idiosyncratic intelligence to make a living from purveying trivial information. Russell Ash did just that'.

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Irwin Barker, Canadian actor and screenwriter (born 1956)

Irwin Barker was a Canadian comedian and writer. He wrote for This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Rick Mercer Report, and was nominated for four Gemini Awards as a writer and one as stand-up performer for his 2005 performance at the Halifax Comedy Festival. Barker was also nominated for three Writers' Guild of Canada Screenwriter's awards, and won the award in 2008. He was a regular writer and contributor for CBC Radio's The Debaters.

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İlhan Selçuk, Turkish lawyer, journalist, and author (born 1925)

İlhan Selçuk was a Turkish lawyer, journalist, author, novelist and editor.

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21/06/2008

Scott Kalitta, American race car driver (born 1962)

Scott D. Kalitta was an American drag racer who competed in the Funny Car and Top Fuel classes in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. He had 17 career Top Fuel wins and one career Funny Car win. At the time of his death due to an accident during race qualifying, he was one of 14 drivers to win in both divisions. He was the son of veteran NHRA driver and crew chief Connie Kalitta.

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21/06/2007

Bob Evans, American businessman, founded Bob Evans Restaurants (born 1918)

Robert Lewis Evans was an American restaurateur and marketer of pork sausage products. He founded a restaurant chain bearing his name. The company also owns Owens Country Sausage.

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21/06/2006

Jared C. Monti, American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1975)

Jared Christopher Monti was a soldier in the United States Army who received the United States military's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in the War in Afghanistan.

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21/06/2005

Jaime Sin, Filipino cardinal (born 1928)

Jaime Lachica Sin was a Filipino Catholic prelate who served as the 30th archbishop of Manila from 1974 until his retirement in 2003. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1976.

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21/06/2004

Leonel Brizola, Brazilian engineer and politician, Governor of Rio de Janeiro (born 1922)

Leonel de Moura Brizola was a Brazilian politician. Launched into politics by Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas in the 1930–1950s, Brizola was the only politician to serve as elected governor of two Brazilian states. An engineer by training, Brizola organized the youth wing of the Brazilian Labour Party and served as state representative for Rio Grande do Sul and mayor of its capital, Porto Alegre.

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Ruth Leach Amonette, American businesswoman (born 1916)

Ruth Leach Amonette was an American businesswoman, author, and educator. She was appointed as the first female executive and vice president at IBM in 1943, becoming one of only a few women in high-ranking corporate positions in the US at the time. She was renowned nationally for her work in business and as an educator.

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21/06/2003

Roger Neilson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1934)

Roger Paul Neilson was a Canadian professional ice hockey coach, most notably in the NHL, where he served with eight teams. Known as "Captain Video" because of his technological contributions to the game, he is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builder category. Alongside his decorated coaching abilities, Neilson is commonly remembered today for his many antics which resulted in the creation of several NHL rules.

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Leon Uris, American soldier and author (born 1924)

Leon Marcus Uris was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books, including Exodus and Trinity.

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21/06/2002

Timothy Findley, Canadian author and playwright (born 1930)

Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.

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21/06/2001

John Lee Hooker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1917)

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues that he developed in Detroit. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists, and has been cited as one of the greatest male blues vocalists of all time.

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Soad Hosny, Egyptian actress and singer (born 1942)

Soad Mohammad Kamal Hosny was an Egyptian actress. She was known as the "Cinderella of the Screen" and one of the most influential actresses in the Middle East and the Arab world. She is generally regarded as one of Egypt's most iconic female performers of the 20th-century, who played leading roles for many of the country's top directors, in a career spanning 83 films between 1959 and 1991, garnering several national and international accolades.

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Carroll O'Connor, American actor and producer (born 1924)

John Carroll O'Connor was an American actor whose television career spanned over four decades. He found widespread fame as Archie Bunker, the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1979) and its continuation, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983). He later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995), where he played the role of police chief William "Bill" Gillespie. In the late 1990s, he played Gus Stemple, the father of Jamie Buchman on Mad About You. In 1996, O'Connor was ranked number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. He won five Emmys and one Golden Globe Award.

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21/06/2000

Alan Hovhaness, Armenian-American pianist and composer (born 1911)

Alan Hovhaness was an American composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies and 434 opus numbers. The true tally is well over 500 surviving works, since many opus numbers comprise two or more distinct works.

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21/06/1999

Kami, Japanese drummer (born 1973)

Ukyou Kamimura , better known by his stage name Kami, was a Japanese musician best known as visual kei rock band Malice Mizer’s drummer. He died on June 21, 1999, in his sleep of a subarachnoid hemorrhage at the age of 27. Dir En Grey drummer Shinya cited Kami as one of the three greatest Japanese drummers.

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21/06/1998

Harry Cranbrook Allen, English historian (born 1917)

Harry Cranbrook Allen was a British historian of the United States.

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Anastasio Ballestrero, Italian cardinal (born 1913)

Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, religious name Anastasio del Santissimo Rosario, was an Italian cardinal and member of the Discalced Carmelites who served as the Archbishop of Turin from 1977 until his resignation in 1989. Ballestrero was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979 and became a leading progressive voice in the Italian episcopate during his time as the head of the Italian Episcopal Conference in the pontificate of the conservative Pope John Paul II. Ballestrero likewise was known for being reserved when it came to the Shroud of Turin as opposed to the enthusiasm of John Paul II for the relic. The cardinal allowed for testing of the shroud and announced that the relic itself was a product of the Middle Ages as opposed to the genuine burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

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Al Campanis, American baseball player and manager (born 1916)

Alexander Sebastian Campanis was an American executive in Major League Baseball (MLB). He had a brief major league playing career, as a second baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943; he was the first Greek player in MLB history. Campanis is most famous for his position as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1968 to 1987, from which he was fired on April 8, 1987, as a result of controversial remarks regarding black people in baseball made during an interview on Nightline two days earlier.

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21/06/1997

Shintaro Katsu, Japanese actor, singer, director, and producer (born 1931)

Shintaro Katsu was a Japanese actor, singer, and filmmaker. He is known for starring in the Akumyo series, the Hoodlum Soldier series, the Hanzo the Razor series, and the Zatoichi series.

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Fidel Velázquez Sánchez, Mexican trade union leader (born 1900)

Fidel Velázquez Sánchez was the preeminent Mexican union leader of the 20th century. In 1936 he was one of the original founders, along with Vicente Lombardo Toledano, of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He replaced Lombardo as the leader of the CTM in 1941, then expelled him from it in 1948. He led the CTM, which grew increasingly corrupt and conservative, until his death in 1997.

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21/06/1994

William Wilson Morgan, American astronomer and astrophysicist (born 1906)

William Wilson Morgan was an American astronomer and astrophysicist. The principal theme in Morgan's work was stellar and galaxy classification. He is also known for helping prove the existence of spiral arms in our galaxy. In addition to his scientific achievements he served as professor and astronomy director for the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin and was the managing editor for George Hale's Astrophysical Journal.

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21/06/1992

Ben Alexander, Australian rugby league player (born 1971)

Ben Alexander, also known by the nickname "Boods", was an Australian rugby league footballer who played as a halfback or hooker for the Penrith Panthers in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership. He was the younger brother of his Penrith teammate Greg Alexander.

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Arthur Gorrie, Australian hobby shop proprietor (born 1922)

Arthur Dingwall Gorrie was an Australian hobbyist. He ran a small hobby shop in Woolloongabba and was involved with model aeronautical clubs including the Model Aeronautical Association of Australia and the Queensland Model Aeronautical Association from the early 1950s. He was involved with Toastmasters International and was honored by them on many occasions. He became a Distinguished Toastmaster in 1979 and Toastmaster of the Year on eight occasions.

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Rudra Mohammad Shahidullah, Bangladeshi poet, author, and playwright (born 1956)

Rudra Mohammad Shahidullah was a Bangladeshi poet noted for his revolutionary and romantic poetry. He is considered one of the leading Bengali poets of the 1970s. He received Munir Chaudhury Memorial Award in 1980 and Ekushey Padak in 2024

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Li Xiannian, Chinese captain and politician, 3rd President of the People's Republic of China (born 1909)

Li Xiannian was a Chinese Communist military and political leader, president of China from 1983 to 1988 under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and then chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1988 until his death. He was a full member of the Politburo from 1956 to 1987, and of its Standing Committee from 1977 to 1987.

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21/06/1990

Cedric Belfrage, English journalist and author, co-founded the National Guardian (born 1904)

Cedric Henning Belfrage was an English film critic, journalist, writer and political activist. He is best remembered as a co-founder of the radical US weekly National Guardian. Later Belfrage was referenced as a Soviet agent in the US intelligence Venona project, although it appears he had been working for British Security Co-ordination as a double agent.

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June Christy, American singer (born 1925)

June Christy was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time."

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21/06/1988

Bobby Dodd, American football coach (born 1908)

Robert Lee Dodd was an American college football player and coach, college baseball coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Georgia Tech from 1945 to 1966, compiling a record of 165–64–8. His teams won consecutive Southeastern Conference (SEC) title in 1951 and 1952, and his 1952 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team won the 1953 Sugar Bowl and was recognized as a national champion by a number of selectors though they finished second behind Michigan State in both major polls. Dodd was also Georgia Tech's head baseball coach from 1932 to 1939, tallying a mark of 43–64–2, and the school's athletic director from 1950 until 1976. All together, Dodd served Georgia Tech 57 years in various capacities.

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21/06/1987

Madman Muntz, American engineer and businessman, founded the Muntz Car Company (born 1914)

Earl William "Madman" Muntz was an American businessman and engineer who sold and promoted cars and consumer electronics in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1987. He was a pioneer in television commercials with his oddball "Madman" persona; an alter ego who generated publicity with his unusual costumes, stunts, and outrageous claims. Muntz also pioneered car stereos by creating the Muntz Stereo-Pak, better known as the 4-track cartridge, a predecessor to the 8-track cartridge developed by Lear Industries.

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21/06/1986

Assi Rahbani, Lebanese singer-songwriter and producer (born 1923)

Assi Rahbani was a Lebanese composer, musician, conductor and producer. He was part of the Rahbani Brothers, with his brother Mansour Rahbani. He married Lebanese singer Nouhad Haddad, more famous by her stage name, Fairuz. Their son Ziad Rahbani was also an artist in music, theatre, and a political activist.

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21/06/1985

Hector Boyardee, Italian-American chef and businessman, founded Chef Boyardee (born 1897)

Ettore Boiardi, also known as Hector Boyardee, was an Italian-American chef and entrepreneur, famous for his brand of food products, named Chef Boyardee.

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Tage Erlander, Swedish lieutenant and politician, 25th Prime Minister of Sweden (born 1901)

Tage Fritjof Erlander was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1946 to 1969. During his record-long premiership, Erlander was an architect of the "Swedish Model" and oversaw a major expansion of the welfare state (Folkhemmet), marked by social equality, economic growth, and the development of extensive public services. Referred to as "Sweden’s longest prime minister" for both his towering height and his unprecedented 23-year tenure as head of government, he was known for his moderation, pragmatism, self-ironic humour, and modesty.

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21/06/1981

Don Figlozzi, American illustrator and animator (born 1909)

Don Figlozzi was an American animator and cartoonist. A veteran of Fleischer Studios and member of the National Cartoonists Society, he spent the first half of his career in animation and the second half at the New York Daily News, where his cartoons, signed "Fig," became a fixture. Historian Harvey Deneroff of the Savannah College of Art and Design suggests that Figlozzi may have created the first animations to be used on television.

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21/06/1980

Bert Kaempfert, German conductor and composer (born 1923)

Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer. He made easy listening and jazz-orientated records and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, including "Strangers in the Night", "Danke Schoen", "Moon Over Naples" and "A Swingin' Safari". In 1961, Kaempfert was the first to produce professional music recordings by the Beatles.

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21/06/1976

Margaret Herrick, American librarian (born 1902)

Margaret Florence Herrick, also known professionally as Margaret Gledhill, was an American librarian and the executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1971, the academy's library was named the Margaret Herrick Library in her honor.

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21/06/1970

Sukarno, Indonesian engineer and politician, 1st President of Indonesia (born 1901)

Sukarno was an Indonesian statesman, activist, and revolutionary who served as the first president of Indonesia from 1945 to 1967.

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Piers Courage, English race car driver (born 1942)

Piers Raymond Courage was a British racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1967 to 1970.

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21/06/1969

Maureen Connolly, American tennis player (born 1934)

Maureen Catherine Connolly-Brinker, known as "Little Mo", was an American tennis player, the winner of nine major singles titles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she became the first woman to win a Grand Slam. She is also the only player in history to win a title without losing a set at all four major championships. The following year, in July 1954, a horseback riding accident seriously injured her right leg and ended her competitive tennis career at age 19. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 34.

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21/06/1968

Constance Georgina Tardrew, South African botanist (born 1883)

Constance Georgina Adams, also known as Constance Georgina Tardrew, was a South African housewife and collector of botanical specimens. Known by the nicknames Connie and Daisy, Adams was born in Cape Town and spent her early childhood on a farm in Tulbagh before moving to Warrenton. She subsequently lived in Kimberley before getting married, settling in Johannesburg where she became active in the Housewives League of South Africa. Inspired by her parents' interest in botany, she became a successful collector for both the Albany Museum in Grahamstown and McGregor Museum in Kimberley. She also cultivated a friendship with the Director of the latter, Maria Wilman. She collected over 240 specimens, which were presented to the Albany Museum, McGregor Museum and the National Herbarium in Pretoria.

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21/06/1967

Theodore Sizer, American professor of the history of art (born 1892)

Theodore Sizer was an American professor of the history of art at Yale University and a director of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. He was named the first Pursuivant of Arms for Yale University in 1963.

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21/06/1964

James Chaney, American civil rights activist (born 1943)

James Earl Chaney was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three civil rights workers murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1964. The others were Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City.

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Andrew Goodman, American civil rights activist (born 1943)

Andrew Goodman was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three civil rights workers murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Goodman was a volunteer for the Freedom Summer campaign that sought to register African Americans to vote in Mississippi and to set up Freedom Schools for black Southerners. His two fellow activists, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

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Michael Schwerner, American civil rights activist (born 1939)

Michael Henry "Mickey" Schwerner was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three civil rights workers murdered in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Schwerner and two co-workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were killed in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among African Americans, most of whom had been disenfranchised in the state since 1890.

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21/06/1957

Claude Farrère, French captain and author (born 1876)

Claude Farrère, pseudonym of Frédéric-Charles Bargone, was a French Navy officer and writer. Many of his novels are based in exotic locations such as Istanbul, Saigon, or Nagasaki.

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Johannes Stark, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1874)

Johannes Stark was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919 for his discovery of the Stark effect.

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21/06/1954

Gideon Sundback, Swedish-American engineer, developed the zipper (born 1880)

Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundbäck was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who is most commonly associated with his work in the development of the zipper.

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21/06/1952

Wop May, Canadian captain and pilot (born 1896)

Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May, was a Canadian flying ace in the First World War and a leading post-war aviator. He was the final Allied pilot to be pursued by Manfred von Richthofen before the German ace was shot down on the Western Front in 1918. After the war, May returned to Canada, pioneering the role of a bush pilot while working for Canadian Airways in Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

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21/06/1951

Charles Dillon Perrine, American astronomer (born 1867)

Charles Dillon Perrine was an American astronomer at the Lick Observatory in California (1893-1909) who moved to Cordoba, Argentina to accept the position of Director of the Argentine National Observatory (1909-1936). The Cordoba Observatory under Perrine's direction made the first attempts to prove Einstein's theory of relativity by astronomical observation of the deflection of starlight near the Sun during the solar eclipse of October 10, 1912 in Cristina (Brazil), and the solar eclipse of August 21, 1914 at Feodosia, Crimea, Russian Empire. Rain in 1912 and clouds in 1914 prevented results.

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Gustave Sandras, French gymnast (born 1872)

Silvaine Gustave Sandras was a French gymnast who competed in the early 20th century. He participated in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, and won the equivalent of a gold medal in the only gymnastic event to take place at the games, the combined exercises.

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Ville Kiviniemi, Finnish politician (born 1877)

Vilhelm Kiviniemi was a Finnish farmer, politician and member of the Parliament of Finland, the national legislature. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he represented Lapland between November 1917 and September 1918. He was amongst dozens of social democrat MPs who were persecuted for political reasons by the victorious Whites following end of the Finnish Civil War in 1918. Kiviniemi was sentenced to death for treason but this was later commuted to life imprisonment. He received a presidential pardon in 1922.

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21/06/1940

Smedley Butler, American general, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1881)

Smedley Darlington Butler was an American major general in the United States Marine Corps. During his 34-year military career, he fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the Banana Wars. At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. military history. By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he was awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

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Édouard Vuillard, French painter (born 1868)

Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas of pure color. His interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, explored the spatial effects of flattened planes of color, pattern, and form. As a decorative artist, Vuillard painted theater sets, panels for interior decoration, and designed plates and stained glass. After 1900, when the Nabis broke up, Vuillard adopted a more realistic style, approaching landscapes and interiors with greater detail and vivid colors. In the 1920s and 1930s, he painted portraits of figures in French industry and the arts in their familiar settings.

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21/06/1934

Thorne Smith, American author (born 1892)

James Thorne Smith, Jr. was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, frequent drinking and ghosts. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s.

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21/06/1929

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, English sociologist, journalist, and academic (born 1864)

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, FBA was an English liberal political theorist and sociologist, who has been considered one of the leading and earliest proponents of social liberalism. His works, culminating in his famous book Liberalism (1911), occupy a seminal position within the canon of New Liberalism.

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21/06/1914

Bertha von Suttner, Austrian journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1843)

Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicitas von Suttner was a Bohemian noblewoman, pacifist and novelist. In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate, the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian and Czech laureate.

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21/06/1908

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer and educator (born 1844)

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his fifteen operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects.

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21/06/1893

Leland Stanford, American businessman and politician, 8th Governor of California (born 1824)

Amasa Leland Stanford was an American attorney, industrialist, philanthropist, and Republican Party politician from Watervliet, New York. He served as the eighth governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented the state in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893. Stanford and his wife Jane founded Stanford University, named after their late son.

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21/06/1880

Theophilus H. Holmes, American general (born 1804)

Lieutenant-General Theophilus Hunter Holmes was an American soldier who served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army and commanded infantry in the Eastern and Trans-Mississippi theaters of the American Civil War. He had previously served with distinction as an officer of the United States Army in the Seminole and Mexican–American wars. A friend and protégé of Confederate States President Jefferson Davis, he was appointed commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department but failed in his key task, which was to defend the Confederacy's hold on the Mississippi.

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21/06/1876

Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican general and politician 8th President of Mexico (born 1794)

Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, often known as Santa Anna, was a Mexican general, politician, and caudillo who served as the eighth president of Mexico on multiple occasions between 1833 and 1855. He also served as vice president of Mexico from 1837 to 1839. He was a controversial and pivotal figure in Mexican politics during the 19th century, to the point that he has been called an "uncrowned monarch", and historians often refer to the three decades after Mexican independence as the "Age of Santa Anna".

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21/06/1874

Anders Jonas Ångström, Swedish physicist and astronomer (born 1814)

Anders Jonas Ångström was a Swedish physicist and one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy.

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21/06/1865

Frances Adeline Seward, American wife of William H. Seward (born 1824)

Frances Adeline Seward was the First Lady of New York and the wife of William Henry Seward, a senator in the New York legislature, Governor of New York, a senator from New York and United States Secretary of State under President Abraham Lincoln.

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21/06/1824

Étienne Aignan, French playwright and translator (born 1773)

Étienne Aignan was a French translator, political writer, librettist and playwright. In 1814 he was made a member of the Académie française, succeeding Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in Seat 27. He died on 21 June 1824 aged 51 years old.

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21/06/1796

Richard Gridley, American soldier and engineer (born 1710)

Richard Gridley was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a soldier and engineer who served for the British Army during the French and Indian Wars and for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

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21/06/1765

Nachman of Horodenka, Hasidic rabbi

Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka was a Hasidic leader.

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21/06/1738

Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (born 1674)

Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, was a British Whig statesman. From 1714 to 1717, and again from 1721 to 1730, he served as Secretary of State for the Northern Department. He directed British foreign policy in close collaboration with his brother-in-law, prime minister Robert Walpole. He was often known as Turnip Townshend because of his strong interest in farming field turnips and his role in the British Agricultural Revolution.

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21/06/1737

Matthieu Marais, French author, critic, and jurist (born 1664)

Mathieu Marais was a French jurist and lawyer at the Parlement of Paris. He is later known by the edition of his Journal and Memoirs by Mathurin de Lescures.

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21/06/1661

Andrea Sacchi, Italian painter (born 1599)

Andrea Sacchi was an Italian painter of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi and François Duquesnoy, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni Bellori.

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21/06/1652

Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen's House and Wilton House (born 1573)

Inigo Jones was an English architect who was the first significant architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to England. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.

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21/06/1631

John Smith, English admiral and explorer (born 1580)

John Smith was an English soldier, explorer, admiral of New England, and author. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, and his friend Mózes Székely. Following his return to England from a life as a soldier of fortune and as a slave, he played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in the early 17th century. He was a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, and he led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, during which he became the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area. Later, he explored and mapped the coast of New England.

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21/06/1622

Salomon Schweigger, German theologian (born 1551)

Salomon Schweigger was a German Lutheran theologian, minister, anthropologist and orientalist of the 16th century. He provided insights during his travels in the Balkans, Constantinople and the Middle East, and published a travel book of his exploits. He also published the first German language translation of the Qur'an.

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21/06/1621

Louis III, Cardinal of Guise (born 1575)

Louis de Lorraine known as the Cardinal de Guise was the third son of Henry I, Duke of Guise and Catherine of Cleves.

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Kryštof Harant, Czech soldier and composer (born 1564)

Kryštof Harant of Polžice and Bezdružice was a nobleman, traveler, humanist, soldier, writer and composer from Bohemia. He joined the Protestant Bohemian Revolt in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown against the House of Habsburg that led to Thirty Years' War. Following the victory of Catholic forces in the Battle of White Mountain, Harant was executed in the mass Old Town Square execution by the Habsburgs.

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21/06/1596

Jean Liebault, French agronomist and physician (born 1535)

Jean Liébault was a doctor and agronomist, born in Dijon.

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21/06/1591

Aloysius Gonzaga, Italian saint (born 1568)

Aloysius de Gonzaga, SJ was an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. While still a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the victims of a serious epidemic. He was beatified in 1605 and canonized in 1726.

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21/06/1585

Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (born 1532)

Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland, 2nd Baron Percy was an English nobleman and conspirator.

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21/06/1582

Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (born 1534)

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese samurai and daimyō and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the Tenka-bito and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven".

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21/06/1558

Piero Strozzi, Italian general (born 1510)

Piero Strozzi was an Italian military leader. He was a member of the rich Florentine family of the Strozzi.

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21/06/1547

Sebastiano del Piombo, Italian painter and educator (born 1485)

Sebastiano del Piombo was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods, famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the colouring of the Venetian school in which he was trained with the monumental forms of the Roman school. He belongs both to the painting school of his native city, Venice, where he made significant contributions before he left for Rome in 1511, and that of Rome, where he stayed for the rest of his life, and whose style he thoroughly adopted.

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21/06/1529

John Skelton, English poet and educator (born 1460)

John Skelton, also known as John Shelton was an English poet, playwright, priest, and tutor to King Henry VIII of England. Writing in a period of linguistic transition between Middle English and Early Modern English, Skelton is one of the most important poets of the early Tudor period. As a poet, Skelton is mostly remembered for his invectives and satires, often written in a highly irregular metre now called Skeltonics. However, Skelton's poetic oeuvre encompasses a wide range of genres, including dream vision, parody, ballad, panegyric, and Latin elegiac. He also wrote the first secular morality play in English, Magnyfycence, an important landmark in the development of English Renaissance theatre.

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21/06/1527

Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and author (born 1469)

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince, written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science.

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21/06/1421

Jean Le Maingre, French general (born 1366)

Jean II Le Maingre, also known as Boucicaut, was a French knight and military leader. Renowned for his military skill and embodiment of chivalry, he was made a marshal of France.

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21/06/1377

Edward III of England (born 1312)

Edward III, also known as Edward of Windsor before accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after the disastrous and unorthodox reign of his father, Edward II. Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. His fifty-year reign is one of the longest in English history, and saw vital developments in legislation and government, in particular the evolution of the English Parliament, as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He outlived his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II.

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21/06/1359

Erik Magnusson, king of Sweden (born 1339)

Erik Magnusson, sometimes known as Erik XII, was a Swedish prince who was formally elected King of Sweden in 1344. He held no real power before 1356, when he led a rebellion against his father, King Magnus Eriksson, forcing Magnus to divide the kingdom with him. Erik then ruled large parts of Sweden and Scania alongside his father until his sudden death in 1359, possibly from the Black Death.

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21/06/1305

Wenceslaus II of Bohemia (born 1271)

Wenceslaus II Přemyslid was King of Bohemia (1278–1305), Duke of Cracow (1291–1305), and King of Poland (1296–1305).

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21/06/1208

Philip of Swabia (born 1177)

Philip of Swabia, styled Philip II in his charters, was a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 until his assassination.

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21/06/1171

Walter de Luci, French-English monk (born 1103)

Walter de Luci, Abbot of Battle Abbey, was the brother of Richard de Luci, who was Chief Justiciar of England.

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21/06/1040

Fulk III, Count of Anjou (born 972)

Fulk III, known as Fulk the Black or Fulk Nerra, was an early count of Anjou, celebrated as one of the first great builders of medieval castles. It is estimated Fulk constructed approximately 100 castles as well as abbeys throughout the Loire Valley. He fought successive wars with neighbors in Brittany, Blois, Poitou and Aquitaine and made four pilgrimages to Jerusalem during the course of his life. He had two wives and three children.

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21/06/0947

Zhang Li, official of the Liao Dynasty

Zhang Li, courtesy name Mengchen (夢臣), was an official of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period state Later Tang, as well as the Khitan state Liao.

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21/06/0870

Al-Muhtadi, Muslim caliph

Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muhtadī bi-ʾLlāh, better known by his regnal name al-Muhtadī bi-ʾLlāh, was the Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from July 869 to June 870, during the "Anarchy at Samarra".

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21/06/0868

Ali al-Hadi, the tenth Imam of Shia Islam (born 829)

Ali ibn Muhammad al-Hadi was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the tenth Imam in Twelver Shia, succeeding his father, Muhammad al-Jawad. Born in Medina in 828, Ali is known with the titles al-Hādī and al-Naqī. After the death of his father in 835, most followers of al-Jawad readily accepted the imamate of Ali, who was still a child at the time. Drawing parallels with the story of young Jesus in the Quran, Twelver sources attribute an exceptional innate knowledge to Ali which qualified him for the imamate despite his young age.

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21/06/0866

Rodulf, Frankish archbishop

Rodulf was the archbishop of Bourges from 840 until his death. He is remembered as a skillful diplomat and a proponent of ecclesiastical reform. As a saint, his feast has been celebrated on 21 June.

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21/06/0532

Emperor Jiemin of Northern Wei, former Northern Wei emperor

Emperor Jiemin of Northern Wei ( 魏節閔帝), also known as Emperor Qianfei (前廢帝), at times referred to by pre-ascension title Prince of Guangling (廣陵王), personal name Yuan Gong (元恭), courtesy name Xiuye (脩業), was an emperor of the Xianbei-led Northern Wei dynasty of China. He became emperor after the clan members of the paramount general Erzhu Rong, after Erzhu Rong was killed by Emperor Xiaozhuang, overthrew Emperor Xiaozhuang. Emperor Jiemin tried to revive order of the Northern Wei state, but with his power curbed by the Erzhus, was not able to accomplish much. After the general Gao Huan defeated the Erzhus in 532, Emperor Jiemin was imprisoned by Gao and subsequently poisoned to death by Emperor Xiaowu, whom Gao made emperor.

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