Died on Thursday, 5th March – Famous Deaths

05/03/2017

Kurt Moll, German opera singer (born 1938)

Kurt Moll was a German operatic bass singer who enjoyed a widely renowned international career.

---

05/03/2016

Hassan Al-Turabi, Sudanese activist and politician (born 1932)

Hassan al-Turabi was a Sudanese politician and scholar. He was the alleged architect of the 1989 Sudanese military coup that overthrew Sadiq al-Mahdi and installed Omar al-Bashir as president. He has been called "one of the most influential figures in modern Sudanese politics" and a "longtime hard-line ideological leader". He was instrumental in institutionalizing Sharia in the northern part of the country and was frequently imprisoned in Sudan, but these "periods of detention" were "interspersed with periods of high political office".

---

Ray Tomlinson, American computer programmer and engineer (born 1941)

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson was an American computer programmer who invented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971; it was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to ARPANET. Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the username from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since.

---

Al Wistert, American football player and coach (born 1920)

Albert Alexander "Ox" Wistert was an American professional football player who was an offensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL) for the Philadelphia Eagles. He played his entire nine-year NFL career for the Eagles and became their team captain. He was named to play in the NFL's first Pro Bowl as an Eagle. During most of Wistert's career there were no football All-star games, although he was named to the league All-Pro team four times.

---

05/03/2015

Vlada Divljan, Serbian singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1958)

Vladimir "Vlada" Divljan, was a Serbian singer and songwriter. He was known as the frontman of the Serbian and Yugoslav rock band Idoli, one of the bands which initiated the Yugoslav new wave on the music and cultural scene of Yugoslavia in the 1980s, as well as for his solo works.

---

Edward Egan, American cardinal and former Archbishop of New York (born 1932)

Edward Michael Egan was an American Catholic prelate who served as bishop of Bridgeport in Connecticut from 1988 to 2000 and as archbishop of New York from 2000 to 2009. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2001.

---

05/03/2014

Geoff Edwards, American actor and game show host (born 1931)

Geoffrey Bruce Owen Edwards was an American television actor, game show host, and radio personality. Starting in the early 2000s, he was also a writer and broadcaster on the subject of travel.

---

Ailsa McKay, Scottish economist and academic (born 1963)

Ailsa McKay was a Scottish economist, government policy adviser, a leading feminist economist and Professor of Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University.

---

Leopoldo María Panero, Spanish poet and translator (born 1948)

Leopoldo María Panero was a Spanish poet and member of the Novísimos group. His work is included in many works of literary history, anthologies, and academic programs across Spain. Much of his work is considered autobiographical.

---

Ola L. Mize, American colonel, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1931)

Ola Lee Mize was a United States Army officer and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Korean War.

---

05/03/2013

Paul Bearer, American wrestler and manager (born 1954)

William Alvin Moody was an American professional wrestling manager. He performed in the World Wrestling Federation under the ring name and gimmick of Paul Bearer, manager of The Undertaker and his storyline son/Undertaker's storyline half-brother, Kane.

---

Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan colonel and politician, President of Venezuela (born 1954)

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was a Venezuelan politician, revolutionary, and military officer who was the president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until his death.

---

Duane Gish, American biochemist and academic (born 1921)

Duane Tolbert Gish was an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement. A young Earth creationist, Gish was a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the author of numerous publications about creation science.

---

05/03/2012

Paul Haines, New Zealand-Australian author (born 1970)

Paul Haines was a New Zealand-born horror and speculative fiction writer. He lived in Melbourne with his wife and daughter.

---

Philip Madoc, Welsh-English actor (born 1934)

Philip Madoc was a Welsh actor. He performed many stage, television, radio and film roles, and was recognised for having a "rich, sonorous voice" and often playing villains and officers.

---

William O. Wooldridge, American sergeant (born 1922)

William O. Wooldridge was a United States Army soldier and the first Sergeant Major of the Army.

---

05/03/2011

Manolis Rasoulis, Greek singer-songwriter (born 1945)

Manolis Rasoulis, best known as the lyricist of famous songs, was a Greek music composer, singer, writer, and journalist. He is often regarded as one of the Greek lyricists of exceptional talent.

---

05/03/2010

Charles B. Pierce, American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1938)

Charles Bryant Pierce was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, set decorator, cinematographer, and actor. Pierce directed thirteen films over the span of 26 years, but is best known for his cult hits The Legend of Boggy Creek (1973) and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).

---

Richard Stapley, British actor and writer (born 1923)

Richard Stapley, also known by the stage name Rick Wyler, was a British actor and writer.

---

05/03/2008

Joseph Weizenbaum, German computer scientist and author (born 1923)

Joseph Weizenbaum was a German-American computer scientist and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the namesake of the Weizenbaum Award and the Weizenbaum Institute.

---

05/03/2005

David Sheppard, English cricketer and bishop (born 1929)

David Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool was a Church of England bishop who played cricket for Sussex and England in his youth, before serving as Bishop of Liverpool from 1975 to 1997. Sheppard remains the only ordained minister to have played Test cricket, though others such as Tom Killick were ordained after playing Tests.

---

05/03/2000

Lolo Ferrari, French dancer, actress and singer (born 1963)

Lolo Ferrari was a French dancer, actress, and singer.

---

05/03/1999

Richard Kiley, American actor and singer (born 1922)

Richard Paul Kiley was an American stage, film, and television actor and singer. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Kiley originated the role of Don Quixote in the original 1965 production of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha and was the first to sing and record "The Impossible Dream", the hit song from the show. In the 1953 hit musical Kismet, he played the Caliph in the original Broadway cast and as such was one of the quartet who sang "And This Is My Beloved". He also won four Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards during his five-decade career and his "sonorous baritone" was also featured in the narration of a number of documentaries and other films. At the time of his death, Kiley was described as "one of theater's most distinguished and versatile actors" and as "an indispensable actor, the kind of performer who could be called on to play kings and commoners and a diversity of characters in between."

---

05/03/1997

Samm Sinclair Baker, American writer (born 1909)

Samm Sinclair Baker was the author/co-author of many how-to and self-help books, most notably The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet which he co-authored with Dr. Herman Tarnower.

---

Jean Dréville, French director and screenwriter (born 1906)

Jean Dréville was a French film director. He directed more than 40 films between 1928 and 1969.

---

05/03/1996

Whit Bissell, American character actor (born 1909)

Whitner Nutting Bissell was an American character actor.

---

05/03/1995

Vivian Stanshall, English singer-songwriter and musician (born 1943)

Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for acting as Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.

---

05/03/1990

Gary Merrill, American actor and director (born 1915)

Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television actor whose credits included more than 50 feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. He starred in All About Eve and married his costar Bette Davis.

---

05/03/1988

Alberto Olmedo, Argentine comedian and actor (born 1933)

Alberto Olmedo was an Argentine comedian and actor.

---

05/03/1984

Tito Gobbi, Italian operatic baritone (born 1913)

Tito Gobbi was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.

---

William Powell, American actor (born 1892)

William Horatio Powell was an American actor, known primarily for his film career. Under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947).

---

05/03/1982

John Belushi, American actor (born 1949)

John Adam Belushi was an American actor, comedian, and musician. He was one of seven Saturday Night Live cast members of the first season. Belushi had a partnership with Dan Aykroyd; they had first met while at Chicago's the Second City comedy club, remaining together as cast members on Saturday Night Live.

---

05/03/1981

Yip Harburg, American songwriter and composer (born 1896)

Edgar Yipsel "Yip" Harburg was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". Harburg was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his left-wing political leanings. He championed racial, sexual, and gender equality and labor unionism, and was an ardent critic of high society and religion.

---

05/03/1980

Jay Silverheels, Canadian-American actor (born 1912)

Jay Silverheels was a First Nations and Mohawk actor and athlete, descended from three Iroquois nations. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the Native American companion of the Lone Ranger in the American Western television series The Lone Ranger.

---

05/03/1977

Tom Pryce, Welsh race car driver (born 1949)

Thomas Maldwyn Pryce was a British racing driver from Wales, who competed in Formula One from 1974 to 1977.

---

05/03/1976

Otto Tief, Estonian lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Estonia (born 1889)

Otto Tief was an Estonian politician, military commander, and a lawyer.

---

05/03/1974

John Samuel Bourque, Canadian colonel and politician (born 1894)

John Samuel Bourque was a Quebec politician, Cabinet Minister, military member and businessman. He was the Member of Legislative Assembly of Quebec for the riding of Sherbrooke for 25 years.

---

Billy De Wolfe, American actor (born 1907)

William Andrew Jones, better known as Billy De Wolfe, was an American character actor. He was active in films from the mid-1940s until his death in 1974.

---

Sol Hurok, Ukrainian-American businessman (born 1888)

Sol Hurok was a 20th-century American impresario.

---

05/03/1973

Robert C. O'Brien, American journalist and author (born 1918)

Robert Leslie Carroll Conly, better known by his pen name Robert C. O'Brien, was an American novelist and a journalist for National Geographic magazine. He is best known for his children's novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971), which won the 1972 Newbery Medal. His novel was later adapted to Don Bluth's animated film The Secret of NIMH (1982).

---

05/03/1971

Allan Nevins, American journalist and author (born 1890)

Joseph Allan Nevins was an American historian and journalist, known for his extensive work on the history of the Civil War and his biographies of such figures as Grover Cleveland, Hamilton Fish, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller, as well as his public service. He was a leading exponent of business history and oral history.

---

05/03/1967

Mischa Auer, Russian-American actor (born 1905)

Mischa Auer was a Russian-American actor who moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s. He first appeared in film in 1928. Auer had a long career playing in many of the era's best known films. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936 for his performance in the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, which led to further zany comedy roles. He later moved into television and acted in films again in France and Italy well into the 1960s.

---

Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iranian political scientist and politician, 60th Prime Minister of Iran (born 1882)

Mohammad Mosaddegh was an Iranian politician, author and lawyer who served as the prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, elected by the 16th Majlis. He was elected to the Iranian parliament in 1923 and served through a contentious 1952 election into the 17th Iranian Majlis, until his government was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état aided by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom (MI6) and the United States (CIA), led by Kermit Roosevelt Jr. Mosaddegh's National Front was accordingly suppressed in the undemocratically manipulated 1954 general election.

---

Georges Vanier, Canadian general and politician, 19th Governor General of Canada (born 1888)

Georges-Philias Vanier was a Canadian military officer, diplomat, and statesman who served as the 19th governor general of Canada from 1959 to 1967, the first Quebecker and second Canadian-born person to hold the position.

---

05/03/1966

Anna Akhmatova, Ukrainian-Russian poet, author, and translator (born 1889)

Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, known by her pen name Anna Akhmatova, was a Russian and Soviet poet. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 and 1966.

---

05/03/1965

Chen Cheng, Chinese general and politician, 27th Premier of the Republic of China (born 1897)

Chen Cheng, courtesy name Tsi-siou, was a Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese politician, military leader, revolutionary, and well as the leader of Tsotanhui Clique. He is widely regarded as the chief architect of Taiwan's post-war land reform and economic modernization programs during the 1950s.

---

Pepper Martin, American baseball player and manager (born 1904)

Johnny Leonard Roosevelt "Pepper" Martin was an American professional baseball player and minor league manager. He was known as the "Wild Horse of the Osage" because of his daring, aggressive baserunning. Martin played in Major League Baseball as a third baseman and an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1930s and early 1940s. He was best known for his heroics during the 1931 World Series, in which he was the catalyst in a Cardinals' upset victory over the Philadelphia Athletics.

---

05/03/1963

Patsy Cline, American singer-songwriter (born 1932)

Patsy Cline was an American singer. One of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century, she was known as one of the first country music artists to successfully cross over into pop music. Cline had several major hits during her eight-year recording career, including two number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart.

---

Cowboy Copas, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1913)

Lloyd Estel Copas, known by his stage name Cowboy Copas, was an American country music singer. He was popular from the 1940s until his death in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. Copas was a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

---

Hawkshaw Hawkins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1921)

Harold Franklin "Hawkshaw" Hawkins was an American country music singer popular from the 1950s into the early 1960s. He was known for his rich, smooth vocals and music drawn from blues, boogie and honky tonk. At 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) tall, Hawkins had an imposing stage presence, and he dressed more conservatively than some other male country singers. Hawkins died in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry and was married to country star Jean Shepard.

---

05/03/1955

Antanas Merkys, Lithuanian lawyer and politician, 14th Prime Minister of Lithuania (born 1888)

Antanas Merkys was the last Prime Minister of independent Lithuania, serving from November 1939 to June 1940. When the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum to Lithuania demanding that it accept a Soviet garrison, President Antanas Smetona fled the country, leaving Merkys as acting president. Merkys ostensibly cooperated with the Soviets, and illegally took over the presidency in his own right. After three days, Merkys handed power to Justas Paleckis, who formed the People's Government of Lithuania. When Merkys attempted to flee the country, he was captured and deported to the interior of Russia, where he died in 1955.

---

05/03/1953

Herman J. Mankiewicz, American screenwriter and producer (born 1897)

Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Both Mankiewicz and Welles went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film. Mankiewicz was previously a Berlin correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily, assistant theater editor at The New York Times, and the first regular drama critic at The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York".

---

Sergei Prokofiev, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1891)

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.

---

Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator and politician of Georgian descent, 2nd leader of the Soviet Union (born 1878)

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held office as general secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as premier from 1941 until his death. Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he eventually consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, and his version of it is referred to as Stalinism.

---

05/03/1950

Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, author, and playwright (born 1868)

Edgar Lee Masters was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology (1915), The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness, An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.

---

Roman Shukhevych, Ukrainian general and politician (born 1907)

Roman-Taras Osypovych Shukhevych was a Ukrainian nationalist and a military leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which during the Second World War fought against the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent against Nazi Germany for Ukrainian independence. He collaborated with the Nazis from February 1941 to December 1942 as commanding officer of the Nachtigall Battalion in early 1941, and as a Hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion in late 1941 and 1942.

---

05/03/1947

Alfredo Casella, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1883)

Alfredo Casella was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.

---

05/03/1945

Lena Baker, African American held captive post slavery-era (born 1900)

Lena Baker was an African American maid in Cuthbert, Georgia, United States, who was convicted of capital murder of a white man, Ernest Knight. She was executed by the state of Georgia in 1945. Baker was the only woman in Georgia to be executed by electrocution.

---

05/03/1944

Max Jacob, French poet and author (born 1876)

Max Jacob was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic.

---

05/03/1942

George Plant, executed Irish Republican (born 1904)

George Plant was a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who was executed by the Irish Government in 1942.

---

05/03/1940

Cai Yuanpei, Chinese philosopher and academic (born 1868)

Cai Yuanpei, spelt Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei during his lifetime, was a Chinese philosopher and politician who was an influential figure in the history of Chinese modern education. He made contributions to education reform with his own education ideology. He was the president of Peking University, and founder of the Academia Sinica. He was known for his critical evaluation of Chinese culture and synthesis of Chinese and Western thinking, including anarchism. He got involved in the New Culture, May Fourth Movements, and the feminist movement. His works involve aesthetic education, politics, and education reform.

---

05/03/1935

Roque Ruaño, Spanish priest and engineer (born 1877)

Roque Ruaño Garrido, O.P. was a Spanish priest and civil engineer. He was known after he drew up plans for University of Santo Tomas (UST) Main Building, the first earthquake-shock resistant building in Asia, which was constructed at the Sulucan property of the Dominican order in city of Manila.

---

05/03/1934

Reşit Galip, Turkish academic and politician, 6th Turkish Minister of National Education (born 1893)

Mustafa Reşit Galip was a Turkish politician in the early years of the Turkish Republic. By profession, he was a medical doctor.

---

05/03/1929

David Dunbar Buick, Scottish-American businessman, founded Buick (born 1854)

David Dunbar Buick was a Scottish-born American inventor, widely known for founding the Buick Motor Company. He headed this company and its predecessor from 1899–1906, thereby helping to create one of the most successful nameplates in United States motor vehicle history.

---

05/03/1927

Franz Mertens, Polish-Austrian mathematician and academic (born 1840)

Franz Mertens was a German-Polish mathematician. He was born in Schroda in the Grand Duchy of Posen, Kingdom of Prussia and died in Vienna, Austria.

---

05/03/1925

Johan Jensen, Danish mathematician and engineer (born 1859)

Johan Ludwig William Valdemar Jensen, mostly known as Johan Jensen, was a Danish mathematician and engineer. He was the president of the Danish Mathematical Society from 1892 to 1903.

---

05/03/1907

Friedrich Blass, German philologist, scholar, and academic (born 1843)

Friedrich Blass was a German classical scholar.

---

05/03/1895

Nikolai Leskov, Russian author, playwright, and journalist (born 1831)

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, and held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is credited with creating a comprehensive picture of contemporary Russian society using mostly short literary forms. His major works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), which was later made into an opera by Shostakovich); The Cathedral Folk (1872); The Enchanted Wanderer (1873); and "The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea" (1881).

---

Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, English general and scholar (born 1810)

Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, KLS was a British East India Company army officer, politician, and Orientalist, sometimes described as the Father of Assyriology. His son, also Henry, was to become a senior commander in the British Army during the First World War.

---

05/03/1893

Hippolyte Taine, French historian and critic (born 1828)

Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him. Taine is also remembered for his attempts to provide a scientific account of literature.

---

05/03/1889

Mary Louise Booth, American writer, editor and translator (born 1831)

Mary Louise Booth was an American editor, translator, and writer. She was the first editor-in-chief of the women's fashion magazine, Harper's Bazaar.

---

05/03/1876

Marie d'Agoult, German-French historian and author (born 1805)

Marie Catherine Sophie, Comtesse d'Agoult, was a French romantic author and historian, known also by her pen name, Daniel Stern.

---

05/03/1849

David Scott, Scottish historical painter (born 1806)

David Scott was a Scottish historical painter.

---

05/03/1829

John Adams, English sailor and mutineer (born 1766)

John Adams, known as Jack Adams, was the last survivor of the Bounty mutineers who settled on Pitcairn Island in January 1790, the year after the mutiny. His real name was John Adams, but he used the name Alexander Smith until he was discovered in 1808 by Captain Mayhew Folger of the American whaling ship Topaz. His children used the surname "Adams".

---

05/03/1827

Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer (born 1749)

Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique céleste (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. Laplace also popularized and further confirmed Sir Isaac Newton's work. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace.

---

Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist and academic (born 1745)

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and power, and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society, which was published in 1800. With this invention, Volta proved that electricity could be generated chemically and debunked the prevalent theory that electricity was generated solely by living beings. Volta's invention sparked a great amount of scientific excitement and led others to conduct similar experiments, which eventually led to the development of the field of electrochemistry.

---

05/03/1815

Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologist (born 1734)

Franz Anton Mesmer was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorized the existence of a process of natural energy transference occurring between all animate and inanimate objects; this he called "animal magnetism", later referred to as mesmerism. Mesmer's theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850, and continued to have some influence until the end of the 19th century. In 1843, the Scottish doctor James Braid proposed the term "hypnotism" for a technique derived from animal magnetism; today the word "mesmerism" generally functions as a synonym of "hypnosis". Mesmer also supported the arts, specifically music; he was on friendly terms with Haydn and Mozart.

---

05/03/1778

Thomas Arne, English composer and educator (born 1710)

Thomas Augustine Arne was an English composer of the late Baroque and early Classical periods. He is known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of The Beggar's Opera, which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme. Arne was a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at the West End's Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens, as well as concertos, sinfonias and sonatas.

---

05/03/1770

Crispus Attucks, American slave, sailor, and stevedore, generally regarded as the first victim of the Boston Massacre (born 1723)

Crispus Attucks was an American whaler, sailor, and stevedore of African and Native American descent who is traditionally regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre, and as a result the first American killed in the American Revolution.

---

05/03/1726

Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, English politician, Lord President of the Council (born 1655)

Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, was an English aristocrat.

---

05/03/1695

Henry Wharton, English writer and librarian (born 1664)

Henry Wharton was an English writer and librarian.

---

05/03/1622

Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma (born 1569)

Ranuccio I Farnese reigned as Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1592. A firm believer in absolute monarchy, Ranuccio, in 1594, centralised the administration of Parma and Piacenza, thus rescinding the nobles' hitherto vast prerogative.

---

05/03/1611

Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese daimyō (born 1533)

Shimazu Yoshihisa was a powerful daimyō and the 16th Chief of Shimazu clan of Satsuma Province, the eldest son of Shimazu Takahisa. He was renowned as a great general, who managed to subjugate Kyushu through the deft maneuvering of his three brothers. Eventually, in 1585, Yoshihisa seceded control of the entire Kyushu region.

---

05/03/1599

Guido Panciroli, Italian historian and jurist (born 1523)

Guido Panciroli or Pancirolli was a sixteenth-century Italian antiquarian, historian, jurist and law professor at Ferrara, Padua and Turin. In his time he was renowned as a legal scholar, teaching students who came from all around Europe. Posthumously, he was well known for his innovative comparative survey, Rerum memorabilium, iam olim deperditarum, that brought attention to the loss of knowledge since the ancient world.

---

05/03/1539

Nuno da Cunha, Portuguese admiral and politician, Governor of Portuguese India (born 1487)

Nuno da Cunha was a Portuguese admiral who was governor of Portuguese possessions in India from 1529 to 1538. He was the governor of Portuguese Asia that ruled for more time in the sixteenth century in a total of nine years. He was the son of Antónia Pais and Tristão da Cunha, the famous Portuguese navigator, admiral and ambassador to Pope Leo X. Nuno da Cunha proved his mettle in battles at Oja and Brava, and at the capture of Panane, under the viceroy Francisco de Almeida. Named by João III ninth governor of Portuguese possessions in India, he served from April 1529 to 1538. He was named to end the government of governor Lopo Vaz de Sampaio (1526–1529) and brought orders, by King John III of Portugal, to send Sampaio in chains for Portugal. This delicate mission by the King was justified by their close connection ever since the king was still a prince.

---

Kaspar Ursinus Velius, German humanist scholar, poet and historian (1493).

Kaspar Ursinus Velius was a German humanist scholar, poet and historian.

---

05/03/1534

Antonio da Correggio, Italian painter and educator (born 1489)

Antonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known as just Correggio, was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the sixteenth century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Baroque art of the seventeenth century and the Rococo art of the eighteenth century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro.

---

05/03/1417

Manuel III Megas Komnenos, Emperor of Trebizond (born 1364)

Manuel III Megas Komnenos was Emperor of Trebizond from 20 March, 1390 to his death in 1417.

---

05/03/1410

Matthew of Kraków, Polish reformer (born 1335)

Matthew of Kraków was a German-Polish scholar and priest of the fourteenth century.

---

05/03/1239

Hermann Balk, German knight

Hermann Balk, also known as Hermann von Balk or Hermann Balke, was a Knight-Brother of the Teutonic Order and its first Landmeister, or Provincial Master, in both Prussia and Livonia. From 1219 to 1227, he served as the Deutschmeister in the Order's Province of Alemannia. Balk led the crusaders during the Prussian Crusade and became Master of Prussia in 1230. From 1237 to 1238, he also served in the additional role as Master of Livonia.

---

05/03/0824

Suppo I, Frankish nobleman

Suppo I was a Frankish nobleman who held lands in the Kingdom of Italy in the early ninth century.

---

05/03/0254

Pope Lucius I

Pope Lucius I was the bishop of Rome from 25 June 253 to his death on 5 March 254. He was banished soon after his consecration, but gained permission to return. He was mistakenly classified as a martyr in the persecution by Emperor Valerian, which did not begin until after Lucius' death.

---