Died on Monday, 12th May – Famous Deaths

12/05/2024

Mark Damon, American film actor and producer (born 1933)

Mark Damon was an American film producer and actor. In 1960, he won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year for his performance in Roger Corman's House of Usher, and later moved to Italy to work in Spaghetti Westerns. He was a member of the 1960s Dolce Vita set of actors and actresses in Rome. During the early 1970's he switched to producing films, founding the production companies Producers Sales Organization, Vision International, MDP Worldwide and Foresight Unlimited.

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David Sanborn, American saxophonist (born 1945)

David William Sanborn was an American alto saxophonist. He worked in many musical genres; his solo recordings typically blended jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He began playing the saxophone at the age of 11 and released his first solo album, Taking Off, in 1975. He was active as a session musician and played on numerous albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Sting, the Eagles, Rickie Lee Jones, James Brown, George Benson, Carly Simon, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Ween, and The Rolling Stones. Sanborn released more than 20 albums and won six Grammy awards.

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A. J. Smith, American football executive (born 1949)

Albert J. Smith was an American professional football scout and executive. He served as a part-time scout for several NFL and USFL teams before joining the Buffalo Bills in 1986, serving as a scout and executive for them for 14 years. With the Bills, the team won four AFC Championships. He joined the San Diego Chargers in 2001 as a director of pro personnel, and was promoted to general manager and executive vice president for them two years later. He stayed with the Chargers until being fired following the 2012 season. Smith's son, Kyle, is the assistant general manager of the Atlanta Falcons.

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12/05/2020

Aimee Stephens, American funeral director and U.S. Supreme Court litigant (born 1960)

Aimee Stephens was an American funeral director known for her fight for civil rights for transgender people. She worked as a funeral director in Detroit and was fired for being transgender. Based on her court case, in a historic 2020 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex.

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12/05/2018

Dennis Nilsen, Scottish serial killer (born 1945)

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983. Convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years; this recommendation was later changed to a whole life tariff in December 1994. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at HM Prison Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

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12/05/2017

Mauno Koivisto, Finnish banker and politician, ninth President of Finland (born 1923)

Mauno Henrik Koivisto was a Finnish politician who served as the president of Finland from 1982 to 1994. He also served as the country's prime minister twice, from 1968 to 1970 and again from 1979 to 1982. He was also the first member of the Social Democratic Party to be elected as President of Finland.

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12/05/2016

Mike Agostini, Trinidadian sprinter (born 1935)

Michael George Raymond Agostini was a Trinidadian track and field athlete. He was the first athlete from his country to win a gold medal at what is now known as the Commonwealth Games, when he won the 100 yards final in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on 31 July 1954.

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12/05/2015

Peter Gay, German-American historian, author, and academic (born 1923)

Peter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation ; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968); and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).

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12/05/2014

Cornell Borchers, Lithuanian-German actress and singer (born 1925)

Cornell Borchers was a Lithuanian-German actress and singer, active in the late 1940s and 1950s. She is best remembered for her roles opposite Montgomery Clift in The Big Lift (1950) and Errol Flynn and Nat King Cole in Istanbul (1957). She was said to resemble Ingrid Bergman in mid-1950s reviews.

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Marco Cé, Italian cardinal (born 1925)

Marco Cé was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Patriarch of Venice from 1978 to 2002 and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979.

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H. R. Giger, Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer (born 1940)

Hans Ruedi Giger was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images that blended human physiques with machines, an art style known as "biomechanical". He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for the visual design of Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, and was responsible for creating the xenomorph alien itself. His work is on permanent display at the H. R. Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland. His style has been adapted to many forms of media, including album covers, furniture, and music videos.

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Sarat Pujari, Indian actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1934)

Sarat Pujari was an Indian actor, director and producer in Odia film industry (Ollywood). He was originally from Jhaduapada, Sambalpur.

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Lorenzo Zambrano, Mexican businessman and philanthropist (born 1944)

Lorenzo Hormisdas Zambrano Treviño was a Mexican businessman and philanthropist. He took over Cemex, a regional cement company founded by his grandfather, and transformed it into one of the largest cement producers in the world by the time of his death. Zambrano also financed several cultural initiatives across Latin America and chaired, from 1997 to 2012, the board of trustees of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM), one of the largest private universities in the region. He also co-owned Axtel, an important Mexican telecommunications company.

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12/05/2013

Gerd Langguth, German political scientist, author, and academic (born 1946)

Gerd Langguth was a professor of political science at the University of Bonn and the author of biographies of Angela Merkel, Horst Köhler and of Rudi Dutschke

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12/05/2012

Jan Bens, Dutch footballer and coach (born 1921)

Jan Bens was a Dutch professional football player and coach; he was also an amateur boxer and trainer.

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Eddy Paape, Belgian illustrator (born 1920)

Edouard Paape, commonly known as Eddy Paape, was a Belgian comics artist best known for illustrating the science fiction comic series Luc Orient.

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12/05/2009

Antonio Vega, Spanish singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1957)

Antonio Vega Tallés was a Spanish pop singer-songwriter.

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12/05/2008

Robert Rauschenberg, American painter and illustrator (born 1925)

Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg was an American painter and multi-media artist, whose work has been associated with numerous mid-20th century art movements including the New York School, Conceptual Art, Pop art, and Neo-Dada. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artworks which incorporated everyday objects as art materials and which blurred the distinctions between painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg was primarily a painter and a sculptor, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance.

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Irena Sendler, Polish nurse and humanitarian (born 1910)

Irena Stanisława Sendler, operating under the nom de guerre Jolanta, was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. From October 1943 she was head of the children's section of Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews.

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12/05/2006

Hussein Maziq, Libyan politician, Prime Minister of Libya (born 1918)

Hussein Yousef Maziq was a Libyan politician who was Prime Minister of Libya from 20 March 1965 to 2 July 1967. He was one of the most important men in the Kingdom era of Libya.

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12/05/2005

Ömer Kavur, Turkish director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1944)

Ömer Kavur was a Turkish film director, producer and screenwriter.

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Martin Lings, English author and scholar (born 1909)

Martin Lings, also known as Abū Bakr Sirāj ad-Dīn, was an English writer, Islamic scholar, and philosopher. A student of the Swiss metaphysician Frithjof Schuon and an authority on the work of William Shakespeare, he is best known as the author of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources.

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Kai Setälä, Finnish physician and professor (born 1913)

Kai Martin Edvard Setälä was a Finnish physician and professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Helsinki. Through his daughter Christel, he was the maternal grandfather of Alexander Stubb, the 13th president of Finland. Setälä himself was the great-nephew of professor E. N. Setälä (1864–1935), the Counsellor of State, the Chairman of the Senate of Finland and co-author of the Finnish Declaration of Independence.

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Monica Zetterlund, Swedish actress (born 1937)

Monica Zetterlund was a Swedish jazz singer and actress. She represented Sweden in the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest with the jazz ballad "En gång i Stockholm". Through her lifetime, she starred in over 10 Swedish film productions and recorded over 20 studio albums. She gained international fame through her collaborative album with Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby.

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12/05/2003

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, French-American diplomat (born 1933)

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan was a French-born statesman and activist who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1966 to 1977. During his tenure, the agency expanded its operational focus to include refugee situations outside Europe.

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12/05/2001

Perry Como, American singer and television host (born 1912)

Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer, actor, and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, from 1943 until 1987.

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Didi, Brazilian footballer (born 1928)

Waldyr Pereira, also known as Didi, was a Brazilian footballer who played as a midfielder or as a forward. He played in three FIFA World Cups, winning the latter two.

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Alexei Tupolev, Russian engineer, designed the Tupolev Tu-144 (born 1925)

Aleksey Andreevich Tupolev was a Soviet and Russian aircraft designer who led the development of the first supersonic passenger jet, the Tupolev Tu-144. He also helped design the Buran space shuttle and the long-range heavy bomber Tu-2000, both of which were suspended for lack of funding.

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12/05/2000

Adam Petty, American race car driver (born 1980)

Adam Kyler Petty was an American professional stock car racing driver. A member of the Petty racing family, he was the fourth generation from the Petty family to drive in races in the highest division of NASCAR racing, mostly in what was then known as the NASCAR Busch Series. He was believed to be the first fourth-generation athlete in all of modern American professional sports.

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12/05/1999

Saul Steinberg, Romanian-American illustrator (born 1914)

Saul Steinberg was a Romanian-born American artist, best known for his work for The New Yorker, most notably View of the World from 9th Avenue. He described himself as "a writer who draws".

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12/05/1995

Adolfo Pedernera, Argentine footballer and manager (born 1918)

Adolfo Alfredo Pedernera was an Argentine football player and coach. Nicknamed "El Maestro", he was widely considered to be one of the best world football players in the 1940s and one of the greatest Argentine players of all time. Pedernera was the natural conductor of both the famous River Plate team known as La Máquina, with whom he won several Argentine and South American titles, and the Millonarios team called Ballet Azul that won the Small Club World Cup in 1953 among many others Colombian titles.

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12/05/1994

Erik Erikson, German-American psychologist and psychoanalyst (born 1902)

Erik Homburger Erikson was a German-American child psychoanalyst and visual artist known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity crisis.

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John Smith, Scottish-English lawyer and politician, Labour Party leader, Leader of the Opposition (born 1938)

John Smith was a British politician who was Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death in May 1994. He was also Member of Parliament (MP) for Monklands East.

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12/05/1993

Zeno Colò, Italian Olympic alpine skier (born1920)

Zeno Colò was a champion alpine ski racer from Italy. Born in La Consuma (Abetone), Tuscany, he was among the top ski racers of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

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12/05/1992

Nikos Gatsos, Greek poet and songwriter (born 1911)

Nikos Gatsos was a Greek poet, translator and lyricist.

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Robert Reed, American actor (born 1932)

Robert Reed was an American actor. He played Kenneth Preston on the legal drama The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 alongside E. G. Marshall, and is best known for his role as patriarch Mike Brady, opposite Florence Henderson's role as Carol Brady, on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, which aired from 1969 to 1974. He later reprised his role of Mike Brady on several of the reunion programs. In 1976, he earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his guest-starring role in a two-part episode of Medical Center and for his work on the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. The following year, Reed earned a third Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries Roots.

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12/05/1986

Elisabeth Bergner, German actress (born 1897)

Elisabeth Bergner was an Austrian-British actress. Primarily a stage actress, her career flourished in Berlin and Paris before she moved to London to work in films. She played the title role in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934). Her signature role was Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never, a 1934 play written for her by Margaret Kennedy. She played Gemma, first in London and then in the Broadway debut, and in a 1935 film version for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also starred in the American film Paris Calling (1941). In 1943, Bergner returned to Broadway in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won the Distinguished Performance Medal from the Drama League.

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12/05/1985

Jean Dubuffet, French painter and sculptor (born 1901)

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor of the École de Paris. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art brut movement, and for the collection of works—Collection de l'art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime.

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12/05/1981

Francis Hughes, Provisional IRA hunger striker (born 1956)

Francis Joseph Sean Hughes was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Hughes was the most wanted man in Northern Ireland until his arrest following a shoot-out with the British Army in which a British soldier was killed. At his trial, he was sentenced to a total of 83 years' imprisonment; he died during the 1981 Irish hunger strike in HM Prison Maze. Hughes was one of 22 Irish republicans who died on hunger-strike between 1917 and 1981.

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Benjamin Sheares, Singaporean professor and politician, second President of Singapore (born 1907)

Benjamin Henry Sheares was a Singaporean obstetrician, gynaecologist, and academic who served as the second president of Singapore between 1971 until his death in 1981.

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12/05/1973

Frances Marion, American screenwriter, novelist and journalist (born 1888)

Frances Marion was an American screenwriter, director, journalist and author often cited as one of the most renowned female screenwriters of the 20th century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos. During the course of her career, she wrote over 325 scripts. She was the first writer to win two Academy Awards. Marion began her film career working for filmmaker Lois Weber. She wrote numerous silent film scenarios for actress Mary Pickford, before transitioning to writing sound films.

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Art Pollard, American race car driver (born 1927)

Artle Lee Pollard Jr., was an American racecar driver.

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12/05/1971

Heinie Manush, American baseball player and coach (born 1901)

Henry Emmett Manush, nicknamed "Heinie", was an American baseball outfielder. He played professional baseball for 20 years from 1920 to 1939, including 17 years in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers (1923–1927), St. Louis Browns (1928–1930), Washington Senators (1930–1935), Boston Red Sox (1936), Brooklyn Dodgers (1937–1938), and Pittsburgh Pirates (1938–1939). After retiring as a player, Manush was a minor league manager from 1940 to 1945, a scout for the Boston Braves in the late 1940s and a coach for the Senators from 1953 to 1954. He also scouted for the expansion Senators in the early 1960s. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964.

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12/05/1970

Nelly Sachs, German poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891)

Nelly Sachs was a German–Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1950) ; other works include the poems "Zeichen im Sand" (1962), "Verzauberung" (1970), and the collections of poetry In den Wohnungen des Todes (1947), Flucht und Verwandlung (1959), Fahrt ins Staublose (1961), and Suche nach Lebenden (1971). She was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature.

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12/05/1967

John Masefield, English poet and author (born 1878)

John Edward Masefield was an English poet and writer. He was Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967, during which time he lived at Burcot, Oxfordshire, near Abingdon-on-Thames. Among his best known works are the children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, and the poems "The Everlasting Mercy" and "Sea-Fever". Shortly after his death his house burned down and was later replaced by a Cheshire Home named after him.

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12/05/1966

Felix Steiner, Russian-German SS officer (born 1896)

Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served in the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the SS, and commanded several SS divisions and corps. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Together with Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands.

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12/05/1964

Agnes Forbes Blackadder, Scottish medical doctor (born 1875)

Agnes Forbes Blackadder Savill was a Scottish medical expert and doctor, sometimes regarded as a polymath. Blackadder became the first female graduate of the University of St Andrews when she gained her M.A. degree on 29 March 1895.

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12/05/1963

Richard Girulatis, German footballer and manager (born 1878)

Richard Girulatis was a German football manager.

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Robert Kerr, Irish-Canadian sprinter and coach (born 1882)

Robert Kerr was an Irish Canadian sprinter. He won the gold medal in the 200 metres and the bronze medal in the 100 metres at the 1908 Summer Olympics.

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12/05/1957

Alfonso de Portago, Spanish bobsledder and racing driver (born 1928)

Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Ángel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, 11th Marquess of Portago, GE, best known as Alfonso de Portago, was a Spanish aristocrat, racing and bobsleigh driver, jockey and pilot.

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Erich von Stroheim, Austrian-American actor, director, and producer (born 1885)

Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim was an Austrian-American director, screenwriter, actor and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. His 1924 film Greed is considered one of the finest and most important films ever made. After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights problems, Stroheim found it difficult to find work as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Sunset Boulevard (1950).

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12/05/1956

Louis Calhern, American actor and singer (born 1895)

Carl Henry Vogt, known by his stage name Louis Calhern, was an American actor. Described as a “star leading man of the theater and a star character actor of the screen,” he appeared in over 100 roles on the Broadway stage and in films and television, between 1923 and 1956. He was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for portraying U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1950 film The Magnificent Yankee.

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12/05/1948

Hans Waldemar Wessolowski, German-American illustrator (born 1894)

Hans Waldemar Wessolowski was a German-American artist best known under the pseudonym "Wesso" for his many cover illustrations for pulp magazines in the 1930s and early 1940s.

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12/05/1944

Max Brand, American journalist and author (born 1892)

Frederick Schiller Faust was an American writer known primarily for his Western stories using the pseudonym Max Brand. As Max Brand, he also created the popular fictional character of young medical intern Dr. James Kildare for a series of pulp fiction stories. His Kildare character was subsequently featured over several decades in other media, including a series of American theatrical movies by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), a radio series, two television series, and comics. Faust's other pseudonyms include George Owen Baxter, Evan Evans, Peter Dawson, David Manning, John Frederick, Peter Henry Morland, George Challis, and Frederick Frost. He also wrote under his real name. As George Challis, Faust wrote the "Tizzo the Firebrand" series for Argosy magazine. The Tizzo saga was a series of historical swashbuckler stories, featuring the titular warrior, set in Renaissance Italy.

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Arthur Quiller-Couch, English author, poet, and critic (born 1863)

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was an English writer who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900 and for his literary criticism. He influenced many who never met him, including American writer Helene Hanff, author of 84, Charing Cross Road and its sequel, Q's Legacy. His The Oxford Book of English Verse was a favourite of John Mortimer's fictional character Horace Rumpole.

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12/05/1935

Józef Piłsudski, Polish field marshal and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Poland (born 1867)

Józef Klemens Piłsudski[a] was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland. In the aftermath of World War I, he became an increasingly dominant figure in Polish politics and exerted significant influence on shaping the country's foreign policy. Piłsudski is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic, which was re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final partition of Poland in 1795, and was considered de facto leader (1926–1935) of the Second Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs.

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12/05/1931

Eugène Ysaÿe, Belgian violinist, composer, and conductor (born 1858)

Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, composer, and conductor. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as his former student Nathan Milstein put it, the "tsar".

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12/05/1925

Amy Lowell, American poet and critic (born 1874)

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.

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12/05/1916

James Connolly, Scottish-born Irish socialist and rebel leader (born 1868)

James Connolly was a Scottish-born Irish republican, socialist, and trade union leader, executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. He remains an important figure both for the Irish labour movement and for Irish republicanism.

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12/05/1907

Joris-Karl Huysmans, French author and critic (born 1848)

Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans. He is most famous for the novel À rebours. He supported himself by way of a 30-year career in the French civil service.

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12/05/1900

Göran Fredrik Göransson, Swedish merchant, ironmaster and industrialist (born 1819)

Göran Fredrik Göransson was a Swedish merchant, ironmaster and industrialist. He was the founder of the company Sandvikens Jernverks AB and was the first person to implement the Bessemer process successfully on an industrial scale and pioneered ingot steel in the Swedish iron and steel industry.

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12/05/1897

Minna Canth, Finnish journalist, playwright, and activist (born 1844)

Minna Canth was a Finnish writer and social activist. Canth began to write while managing her family draper's shop and living as a widow raising seven children. Her work addresses issues of women's rights, particularly in the context of a prevailing culture she considered antithetical to permitting expression and realization of women's aspirations. The Worker's Wife and The Pastor's Family are her best known plays, but the play Anna Liisa is the most adapted to films and operas. In her time, she became a controversial figure, due to the asynchrony between her ideas and those of her time, and in part due to her strong advocacy for her point of view.

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12/05/1884

Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer and educator (born 1824)

Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast, which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau".

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12/05/1878

Anselme Payen, French chemist and academic (born 1795)

Anselme Payen was a French chemist known for discovering the enzyme diastase, and the carbohydrate cellulose.

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12/05/1876

Georgi Benkovski, Bulgarian activist (born 1843)

Georgi Benkovski was the pseudonym of Gavril Gruev Hlatev, a Bulgarian revolutionary and leading figure in the organization and direction of the Bulgarian anti-Ottoman April Uprising of 1876 and apostle of its 4th Revolutionary District.

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12/05/1867

Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Gerhard, German archaeologist and academic (born 1795)

Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Gerhard was a German archaeologist. He was co-founder and secretary of the first international archaeological society.

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12/05/1864

J. E. B. Stuart, American general (born 1833)

James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart was a Confederate cavalry general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb", from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in support of offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image, his serious work made him the trusted eyes and ears of Robert E. Lee's army and inspired Southern morale.

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12/05/1860

Charles Barry, English architect, designed Upper Brook Street Chapel and the Palace of Westminster (born 1795)

Sir Charles Barry FRS RA was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.

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12/05/1859

Sergey Aksakov, Russian author and academic (born 1791)

Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov was a 19th-century Russian literary figure remembered for his semi-autobiographical tales of family life, as well as his books on hunting and fishing.

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12/05/1856

Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (born 1786)

Jacques Philippe Marie Binet was a French mathematician, physicist and astronomer born in Rennes; he died in Paris, France, in 1856. He made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra which would later lead to important contributions by Cayley and others. In his memoir on the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as Binet's theorem. He is also recognized as the first to describe the rule for multiplying matrices in 1812, and Binet's formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour, although the same result was known to Abraham de Moivre a century earlier.

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12/05/1845

János Batsányi, Hungarian poet and academic (born 1763)

János Batsányi was a Hungarian poet.

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12/05/1842

Walenty Wańkowicz, Belarusian-Polish painter (born 1799)

Walenty Wilhelm Wańkowicz was a Polish painter. He studied at the Jesuit College in Polotsk, the University of Wilno and the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He produced, among other things, a well-known portrait of Adam Mickiewicz (1827–28).

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12/05/1801

Nicholas Repnin, Russian general and politician, Governor-General of Baltic provinces (born 1734)

Prince Nikolai or Nicholas Vasilyevich Repnin was a Russian statesman and general from the Repnin princely family who played a key role in the dissolution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; the leading figure in the Repnin Sejm, the victor at Măcin.

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12/05/1796

Johann Uz, German poet and author (born 1720)

Johann Peter Uz was a German poet.

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12/05/1792

Charles Simon Favart, French playwright and composer (born 1710)

Charles Simon Favart was a French playwright and theatre director. The Salle Favart in Paris is named after him.

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12/05/1784

Abraham Trembley, Swiss zoologist and academic (born 1710)

Abraham Trembley was a Genevan naturalist. He is best known for being the first to study freshwater polyps or hydra and for being among the first to develop experimental zoology. His mastery of experimental method has led some historians of science to credit him as the "father of biology".

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12/05/1759

Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French sculptor (born 1700)

Lambert-Sigisbert Adam was a French sculptor, born in 1700 in Nancy. The eldest son of sculptor Jacob-Sigisbert Adam, he was known as Adam l’aîné to distinguish him from his two sculptor brothers Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, known as "Adam le jeune", and François Gaspard Balthazar Adam. His sister Anne Adam married Thomas Michel, an undistinguished sculptor, and became the mother of famous sculptor Claude Michel, known as Clodion, who received his early training in the studio of his uncle Lambert-Sigisbert.

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12/05/1748

Thomas Lowndes, English astronomer and academic (born 1692)

Thomas Lowndes was the founder of the Lowndean professorship of astronomy at Cambridge University, England.

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12/05/1708

Adolphus Frederick II, duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (born 1658)

Adolphus Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg, was the first Duke of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz, reigning from 1701 until his death. Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

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12/05/1700

John Dryden, English poet, playwright, and critic (born 1631)

John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.

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12/05/1699

Lucas Achtschellinck, Flemish painter (born 1626)

Lucas Achtschellinck was a Flemish landscape painter. He is counted among the landscape painters active in Brussels referred to as the School of Painters of the Sonian Forest who all shared an interest in depicting scenes set in the Sonian Forest, which is located near Brussels.

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12/05/1684

Edme Mariotte, French physicist and priest (born 1620)

Edme Mariotte was a French physicist and priest (abbé). He is particularly well known for formulating Boyle's law independently of Robert Boyle. Mariotte is also credited with designing the first Newton's cradle.

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12/05/1641

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (born 1593)

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1640 he was Lord Deputy of Ireland, where he established a strong authoritarian rule. Recalled to England, he became a leading advisor to the King, attempting to strengthen the royal position against Parliament. When Parliament condemned Lord Strafford to death, Charles reluctantly signed the death warrant and Strafford was executed. He had been advanced several times in the Peerage of England during his career, being created 1st Baron Wentworth in 1628, 1st Viscount Wentworth in late 1628 or early 1629, and, finally, 1st Earl of Strafford in January 1640. He was known as Sir Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baronet, between 1614 and 1628.

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12/05/1634

George Chapman, English poet and playwright (born 1559)

George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the Homeric Batrachomyomachia.

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12/05/1599

Murad Mirza, Mughal prince (born 1570)

Murad Mirza was a Mughal prince and the second surviving son of Mughal Emperor Akbar. He was raised by Salima Sultan Begum until the age of 5. He was the maternal grandfather of Nadira Banu Begum, wife of Prince Dara Shikoh.

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12/05/1529

Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, English noblewoman (born 1460)

Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, 2nd Baroness Bonville was an English peer, who was also Marchioness of Dorset by her first marriage to Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, and Countess of Wiltshire by her second marriage to Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire.

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12/05/1490

Joanna, Portuguese princess and regent (born 1452)

Joanna of Portugal OP was a Portuguese regent princess of the House of Aviz, daughter of King Afonso V of Portugal and his first wife, Queen Isabel of Coimbra. She served as regent during the absence of her father in 1471. In 1475 she became a cloistered nun of the Dominican Order. She is venerated in the Catholic Church with the title 'Blessed', is commemorated by a feast on May 12, and is commonly known in Portugal as Holy Princess Joan.

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12/05/1465

Thomas Palaiologos, Despot of Morea (born 1409)

Thomas Palaiologos was Despot of the Morea from 1428 until the fall of the despotate in 1460, although he continued to claim the title until his death five years later. He was the younger brother of Constantine XI Palaiologos, the final Byzantine emperor. Thomas was appointed as Despot of the Morea by his oldest brother, Emperor John VIII Palaiologos, in 1428, joining his two brothers and other despots Theodore and Constantine, already governing the Morea. Though Theodore proved reluctant to cooperate with his brothers, Thomas and Constantine successfully worked to strengthen the despotate and expand its borders. In 1432, Thomas brought the remaining territories of the Latin Principality of Achaea, established during the Fourth Crusade more than two hundred years earlier, into Byzantine hands by marrying Catherine Zaccaria, heiress to the principality.

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12/05/1331

Engelbert of Admont, Benedictine abbot and scholar

Engelbert was Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Admont in Styria.

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12/05/1182

Valdemar I, king of Denmark (born 1131)

Valdemar I Knudsen, also known as Valdemar the Great, was King of Denmark from 1154 until his death in 1182. The reign of King Valdemar I saw the rise of Denmark, which reached its medieval zenith under his son King Valdemar II.

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12/05/1161

Fergus of Galloway, Scottish nobleman

Fergus of Galloway was a twelfth-century Lord of Galloway. Although his familial origins are unknown, it is possible that he was of Norse-Gaelic ancestry. Fergus first appears on record in 1136, when he witnessed a charter of David I, King of Scotland. There is considerable evidence indicating that Fergus was married to an illegitimate daughter of Henry I, King of England. It is possible that Elizabeth Fitzroy was the mother of Fergus's three children.

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12/05/1090

Liutold of Eppenstein, duke of Carinthia

Liutold of Eppenstein was Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Verona from 1077 until his death.

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12/05/1012

Sergius IV, pope of the Catholic Church (born 970)

Pope Sergius IV was the bishop of Rome and nominal ruler of the Papal States from 31 July 1009 to his death. His temporal power was eclipsed by the patrician John Crescentius. Sergius IV may have called for the expulsion of Muslims from the Holy Land, but this is disputed. Since his time, the practice that the person who has been elected to the office of pope takes on a new name became a tradition.

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12/05/1003

Sylvester II, pope of the Catholic Church (born 946)

Pope Sylvester II, originally known as Gerbert of Aurillac, was a scholar and teacher who served as the bishop of Rome and ruled the Papal States from 999 to his death. He endorsed and promoted study of Moorish and Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics and astronomy, reintroducing to Western Christendom the abacus, armillary sphere, and water organ, which had been lost to Latin Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He is said to be the first in Christian Europe to introduce the decimal numeral system using the Hindu–Arabic numeral system.

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12/05/0940

Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria (born 877)

Eutychius of Alexandria was the Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria. He is known for being one of the first Christian Egyptian writers to use the Arabic language. His writings include the chronicle Nazm al-Jawhar, also known by its Latin title Eutychii Annales.

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12/05/0805

Æthelhard, archbishop of Canterbury

Æthelhard was a Bishop of Winchester then an Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Appointed by King Offa of Mercia, Æthelhard had difficulties with both the Kentish monarchs and with a rival archiepiscopate in southern England, and was deposed around 796 by King Eadberht III Præn of Kent. By 803, Æthelhard, along with the Mercian King Coenwulf, had secured the demotion of the rival archbishopric, once more making Canterbury the only archbishopric south of the Humber in Britain. Æthelhard died in 805, and was considered a saint until his cult was suppressed after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

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