Died on Wednesday, 14th May – Famous Deaths

14/05/2024

Don Perlin, American comic book artist, writer, and editor (born 1929)

Donald David Perlin was an American comic book artist, writer, and editor. He is best known for Marvel Comics' Werewolf by Night, Moon Knight, The Defenders, and Ghost Rider. In the 1990s, he worked for Valiant Comics, both as artist and editor, where he co-created Bloodshot.

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Netiporn Sanesangkhom, Thai political activist (born 1995)

Netiporn Sanesangkhom, better known as Bung (บุ้ง), was a Thai political activist focused on monarchy reform. She initially participated in protests with the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), a right-wing movement in Thailand. However, after listening to other activists about the crackdown on the Red Shirt 2010 protests at Ratchaprasong, Bung became an anti-monarchy activist.

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14/05/2023

Doyle Brunson, American poker player (born 1933)

Doyle Frank Brunson was an American poker player who played professionally for over 60 years. He was a two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion, a Poker Hall of Fame inductee, and the author of several books on poker.

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14/05/2019

Tim Conway, American actor, writer, and comedian (born 1933)

Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway was an American actor, comedian, writer, and director. Conway is perhaps best known as a regular cast member (1975–1978) on the TV comedy-variety series The Carol Burnett Show where he portrayed his recurrent iconic characters Mister Tudball and the Oldest Man. Conway was known for his physical comedy. Over his career he received numerous accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999 and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2002.

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Grumpy Cat, American cat and internet meme celebrity (born 2012)

Tardar Sauce, nicknamed Grumpy Cat, was an American internet celebrity cat. She was known for her permanently "grumpy" facial appearance, which was caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism. She came to prominence when a photograph of her was posted on September 22, 2012, on social news website Reddit by Bryan Bundesen, the brother of her owner Tabatha Bundesen. "Lolcats" and parodies created from the photograph by Reddit users became popular. She was the subject of a popular Internet meme in which humorously negative, cynical images were made from photographs of her.

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14/05/2018

Tom Wolfe, American author (born 1931)

Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe's work is satirical and centers on the counterculture of the 1960s and issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.

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14/05/2017

Powers Boothe, American actor (born 1948)

Powers Allen Boothe was an American actor known for his commanding character actor roles on film and television. He received a Primetime Emmy Award and nominations for two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

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14/05/2016

Darwyn Cooke, American comic book writer and artist (born 1962)

Darwyn Cooke was a Canadian comics artist, writer, cartoonist, and animator who worked on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit and Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter. His work has been honoured with numerous Eisner, Harvey, and Joe Shuster Awards.

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14/05/2015

B.B. King, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1925)

Riley B. King, known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later electric guitar blues players. AllMusic recognized King as "the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century".

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Micheál O'Brien, Irish footballer and hurler (born 1923)

Micheál O'Brien was an Irish Gaelic footballer and hurler who played at senior level for the Meath county team.

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Stanton J. Peale, American astrophysicist and academic (born 1937)

Stanton Jerrold Peale was an American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, and Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include the geophysical and dynamical properties of planets and exoplanets.

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Franz Wright, Austrian-American poet and translator (born 1953)

Franz Wright was an American poet. He and his father James Wright are the only parent/child pair to have won the Pulitzer Prize in the same category.

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14/05/2014

Jeffrey Kruger, English-American businessman (born 1931)

Jeffrey Sonny Kruger MBE was a British entertainment business executive who owned the Flamingo Club in Soho, London, established the independent record label Ember Records, and set up the music business conglomerate TKO.

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Emanuel Raymond Lewis, American librarian and author (born 1928)

Emanuel Raymond Lewis was the longest-serving and final House Librarian for the United States House of Representatives Library in the U.S. Capitol Building. He was appointed House Librarian in 1973, and served in this position until January 1995, at which time the library, along with the House Historical Office, was reorganized and placed under the new Legislative Resource Center, a division of the Office of the Clerk. The House Library predated the Library of Congress, serving as the official repository of Congressional documents generated by the U.S. House of Representatives since 1792.

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Morvin Simon, New Zealand historian, composer, and conductor (born 1944)

Morvin Te Anatipa Simon was a New Zealand Māori composer, kapa haka leader, choirmaster and historian.

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14/05/2013

Wayne Brown, American accountant and politician, 14th Mayor of Mesa (born 1936)

Wayne Brown was an American politician and accountant. Brown served for two, two-year terms as the Mayor of Mesa, Arizona from 1996 to 2000. He spearheaded the movement to building the Mesa Arts Center in downtown Mesa, now the largest performing arts campus in Arizona.

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Arsen Chilingaryan, Armenian footballer and manager (born 1962)

Arsen Chilingaryan was a Soviet Armenian football defender.

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Asghar Ali Engineer, Indian author and activist (born 1939)

Asghar Ali Engineer was an academic, Indian reformist writer and social activist. Internationally known for his work on liberation theology in Islam, he led the Progressive Dawoodi Bohra movement. The focus of his work was on communalism and communal and ethnic violence in India and South Asia. He was a votary of peace and non-violence and lectured all over world on communal harmony.

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Ray Guy, Canadian journalist (born 1939)

Ray Guy was a Canadian journalist and humourist, best known for his satirical newspaper and magazine columns.

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14/05/2012

Ernst Hinterberger, Austrian author and screenwriter (born 1931)

Ernst Hinterberger was an Austrian writer of novels, particularly detective novels, plays and successful sitcoms. His first TV scripts were unusual for their use of genuine Vienna dialect.

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Mario Trejo, Argentinian poet, playwright, and journalist (born 1926)

Mario Trejo was an Argentine poet, playwright, screenwriter, and journalist.

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14/05/2010

Frank J. Dodd, American businessman and politician, president of the New Jersey Senate (born 1938)

Frank J. "Pat" Dodd was an American businessman and Democratic Party politician who served as President of the New Jersey Senate from 1974 to 1975.

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Norman Hand, American football player (born 1972)

Norman Lamont Hand was an American professional football defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected in the fifth round of the 1995 NFL draft. He last played with the New York Giants in 2004. He also played with the Seattle Seahawks, the New Orleans Saints, the San Diego Chargers and the Miami Dolphins. With the Saints, Hand was part of a defensive line nicknamed "The Heavy Lunch Bunch", along with fellow 325-pounders Martin Chase and Grady Jackson. Hand was noted for his "Big Wiggle" celebration dance, and in 2000 he was part of the team that won the Saints' first playoff game.

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Goh Keng Swee, Singaporean soldier and politician, 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore (born 1918)

Goh Keng Swee was a Singaporean statesman and economist who served as the second Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985. Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of modern Singapore.

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14/05/2007

Mary Scheier, American sculptor and educator (born 1908)

Mary Scheier was a noted American ceramicist, and the wife and artistic partner of Edwin Scheier.

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Ülo Jõgi, Estonian historian and author (born 1921)

Ülo Jõgi was an Estonian war historian who was active in the Estonian resistance against the Soviet occupation of Estonia.

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14/05/2006

Lew Anderson, American actor and saxophonist (born 1922)

Lewis Burr Anderson was an American actor and musician. He is widely known by TV fans as the third and final actor to portray Clarabell the Clown on Howdy Doody between 1954 and 1960. He famously spoke Clarabell's only line on the show's final episode in 1960, with a tear visible in his right eye, "Goodbye, kids." Anderson is also widely known by jazz music fans as a prolific jazz arranger, big band leader, and alto saxophonist. Anderson also played the clarinet.

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Stanley Kunitz, American poet and translator (born 1905)

Stanley Jasspon Kunitz was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.

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Eva Norvind, Mexican actress, director, and producer (born 1944)

Eva Norvind was a Norwegian-born Mexican actress, writer, documentary producer, director, sex therapist, and dominatrix.

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14/05/2005

Jimmy Martin, American musician (born 1927)

James Henry Martin was an American bluegrass singer and musician, known as the "King of Bluegrass".

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14/05/2004

Anna Lee, English-American actress (born 1913)

Anna Lee, MBE was an English and American actress, labelled by studios "The British Bombshell".

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14/05/2003

Dave DeBusschere, American basketball player and coach (born 1940)

David Albert DeBusschere was an American professional basketball player and coach, and professional baseball player. He played for the Chicago White Sox of MLB in 1962 and 1963 and in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons from 1962 through 1968 and for the New York Knicks from 1968 to 1974. He was also the head coach for the Pistons from 1964 through 1967.

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Wendy Hiller, English actress (born 1912)

Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller was an English film and stage actress who enjoyed a varied acting career that spanned nearly 60 years. Writer Joel Hirschorn, in his 1984 compilation Rating the Movie Stars, described her as "a no-nonsense actress who literally took command of the screen whenever she appeared on film". Despite many notable film performances, Hiller chose to remain primarily a stage actress.

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Robert Stack, American actor and producer (born 1919)

Robert Stack was an American actor and television host. Known for his deep voice and commanding presence, he appeared in over 40 feature films. He starred in the ABC television series The Untouchables (1959–1963), for which he won the 1960 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Series, and later hosted/narrated the true-crime series Unsolved Mysteries (1987–2002). He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Written on the Wind (1956). Later in his career, Stack was known for his deadpan comedy roles that lampooned his dramatic on-screen persona, most notably as Captain Rex Kramer in Airplane! (1980).

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14/05/2001

Paul Bénichou, French writer, intellectual, critic, and literary historian (born 1908)

Paul Bénichou was a French/Algerian writer, intellectual, critic, and literary historian.

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Gil Langley, Australian cricketer, footballer, and politician (born 1919)

Gilbert Roche Andrews Langley was an Australian Test cricketer, champion Australian rules footballer and member of parliament, serving as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1977 to 1979 for the Don Dunstan Labor government.

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14/05/2000

Keizō Obuchi, Japanese politician, 84th Prime Minister of Japan (born 1937)

Keizō Obuchi was a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1998 to 2000.

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14/05/1998

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, American journalist and environmentalist (born 1890)

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, she became a freelance writer, producing over one hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring (1962). Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, enabling her to advance her causes.

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Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (born 1915)

Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the most influential entertainers of the 20th century.

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14/05/1997

Harry Blackstone Jr., American magician and author (born 1934)

Harry Bouton Blackstone Jr. was an American stage magician, author, and television performer. He is estimated to have pulled 80,000 rabbits from his sleeves and hats.

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Boris Parsadanian, Armenian-Estonian violinist and composer (born 1925)

Boris Khristoforovich Parsadanian was a Soviet Armenian and Estonian composer, violinist, and arts administrator.

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14/05/1995

Christian B. Anfinsen, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1916)

Christian Boehmer Anfinsen Jr. was an American biochemist. He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein for work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation.

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14/05/1994

Cihat Arman, Turkish footballer and manager (born 1915)

Cihat Arman was a Turkish football goalkeeper and manager. He represented Turkey at the 1936 Summer Olympics and the 1948 Summer Olympics. He was the coach of the Turkish national football team throughout 1949, and Turkey qualified for the 1950 World Cup as a result of victories in the qualifiers under his management. However, Turkish national football team could not participate in this tournament due to financial difficulties caused by the World War II. He was called "Yellow Canary" by the fans as he wore his Yellow Sweater in every match without exception, and this led to Fenerbahçe adopting the "Yellow Canaries" symbol.

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W. Graham Claytor Jr., American businessman, lieutenant, and politician, 15th United States Secretary of the Navy (born 1914)

William Graham Claytor Jr. was an American attorney, United States Navy officer, railroad executive, and administrator of railroad, transportation, and defense affairs for the United States government, working under the administrations of three US presidents.

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14/05/1993

William Randolph Hearst, Jr., American journalist and publisher (born 1908)

William Randolph Hearst Jr. was an American businessman, newspaper publisher and member of the wealthy Hearst family.

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14/05/1992

Nie Rongzhen, Chinese general and politician, Mayor of Beijing (born 1899)

Nie Rongzhen was a Marshal of the People's Republic of China. He died as the last People's Liberation Army (PLA) marshal.

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14/05/1991

Aladár Gerevich, Hungarian fencer (born 1910)

Aladár Gerevich was a Hungarian fencer, regarded as "the greatest Olympic swordsman ever". He won seven gold medals in sabre at six different Olympic Games.

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Jiang Qing, Chinese revolutionary, actress, and politician, member of the Gang of Four (born 1914)

Jiang Qing, born Li Yunhe, and briefly known by her stage name Lan Ping in the 1930s Shanghai, was a Chinese revolutionary, actress, and political figure. The fourth wife of Mao Zedong, she played a major role in the Cultural Revolution and led the Gang of Four.

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14/05/1988

Willem Drees, Dutch politician and historian, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1948–1958) (born 1886)

Willem Drees Sr. was a Dutch politician of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) and later co-founder of the Labour Party (PvdA) and historian who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 7 August 1948 to 22 December 1958.

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14/05/1987

Rita Hayworth, American actress and dancer (born 1918)

Rita Hayworth was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and appeared in 61 films over 38 years. The press coined the term "The Love Goddess" to describe Hayworth after she became the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s. She was the second top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II, after Betty Grable.

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Vitomil Zupan, Slovenian poet and playwright (born 1914)

Vitomil Zupan was a post-World War II modernist Slovene writer and Gonars concentration camp survivor. Because of his detailed descriptions of sex and violence, he was dubbed the Slovene Hemingway and was compared to Henry Miller. He is best known for Menuet za kitaro, describing the years he spent with the Slovene Partisans. In Titoist Yugoslavia he was sentenced to 18 years in a show trial, and upon his release in 1955 his works could only be published under his pseudonym Langus. He is considered one of the most important Slovene writers.

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14/05/1984

Ted Hicks, Australian public servant and diplomat, Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand (born 1910)

Sir Edwin William "Ted" Hicks was a senior Australian public servant and diplomat. He was Secretary of the Department of Defence from 1956 to 1968.

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Walter Rauff, German SS officer (born 1906)

Hermann Julius Walther Rauff, also Walther Rauff was a mid-ranking SS commander in Nazi Germany. From January 1938, he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Security Service, later in the Reich Security Main Office.

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14/05/1983

Roger J. Traynor, American academic and jurist, 23rd Chief Justice of California (born 1900)

Roger John Traynor was an American lawyer who served as Chief Justice of California from 1964 to 1970 and was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from 1940 to 1964. Traynor had served as a deputy attorney general of California under Earl Warren, and an acting dean and professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

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Miguel Alemán Valdés, Mexican politician, 46th President of Mexico (born 1900)

Miguel Alemán Valdés was a Mexican politician who served a full term as the President of Mexico from 1946 to 1952. He was the first civilian president after a string of revolutionary generals.

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14/05/1982

Hugh Beaumont, American actor (born 1909)

Eugene Hugh Beaumont was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Ward Cleaver on the television series Leave It to Beaver, originally broadcast from 1957 to 1963, and as private detective Michael Shayne in a series of low-budget crime films in 1946 and 1947.

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14/05/1980

Hugh Griffith, Welsh actor (born 1912)

Hugh Emrys Griffith was a Welsh actor. Described by BFI Screenonline as a "wild-eyed, formidable character player", Griffith appeared in more than 100 theatre, film, and television productions in a career that spanned over 40 years. He was the second Welsh-born actor to win an Academy Award, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Ben-Hur (1959), with an additional nomination for Tom Jones (1963).

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14/05/1979

Jean Rhys, Dominican-English novelist (born 1890)

Jean Rhys was a British Creole novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her final novel, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

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14/05/1976

Keith Relf, English singer-songwriter, harmonica player, and producer (born 1943)

William Keith Relf was an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist and harmonica player for rock band the Yardbirds. He then formed the band Renaissance with his sister Jane Relf, the Yardbirds ex-drummer Jim McCarty and ex–The Nashville Teens keyboardist John Hawken.

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14/05/1973

Jean Gebser, German linguist, philosopher, and poet (born 1905)

Jean Gebser was a Swiss philosopher, linguist, and poet who described the structures of human consciousness.

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14/05/1970

Billie Burke, American actress and singer (born 1884)

Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke was an American actress who was famous on Broadway and radio, and in silent and sound films. She is best known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film musical The Wizard of Oz (1939).

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14/05/1969

Enid Bennett, Australian-American actress (born 1893)

Enid Eulalie Bennett was an Australian silent film actress, mostly active in American film.

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Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer (born 1888)

Frederick Claude Vivian Lane was an Australian swimmer who competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics.

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14/05/1968

Husband E. Kimmel, American admiral (born 1882)

Husband Edward Kimmel was a United States Navy four-star admiral who was the commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT) during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was removed from that command after the attack, in December 1941, and was reverted to his permanent two-star rank of rear admiral due to no longer holding a four-star assignment. He retired from the Navy in early 1942. The U.S. Senate voted to change Kimmel's permanent rank to four stars in 1999, but President Clinton did not act on the resolution, and neither have any of his successors.

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14/05/1965

Frances Perkins, American workers-rights advocate, U.S. Secretary of Labor (born 1880)

Frances Perkins was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the fourth United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of the Democratic Party, Perkins was the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her longtime friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped make labor issues important in the emerging New Deal coalition. She advocated for immigrants’ rights as well. She was one of two Roosevelt cabinet members to remain in office for his entire presidency.

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14/05/1962

Florence Auer, American actress and screenwriter (born 1880)

Florence Auer was an American theater and motion picture actress whose career spanned more than five decades.

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14/05/1960

Lucrezia Bori, Spanish soprano and actress (born 1887)

Lucrezia Bori was a Spanish operatic singer, a lyric soprano and a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Opera.

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14/05/1959

Sidney Bechet, American saxophonist, clarinet player, and composer (born 1897)

Sidney Joseph Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France.

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Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal (born 1862)

Infanta Maria Antónia of Portugal was the seventh and last child of Miguel I of Portugal and Adelaide of Löwenstein.

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14/05/1957

Marie Vassilieff, Russian-French painter (born 1884)

Mariya Ivanovna Vassilieva, gallicised and known in Western sources as Marie Vassilieff, was a Russian-born painter and set designer active in Paris.

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14/05/1956

Joan Malleson, English physician (born 1889)

Joan Graeme Malleson was an English physician, specialist in contraception and prominent advocate of the legalisation of abortion.

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14/05/1954

Heinz Guderian, Prussian-German general (born 1888)

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general in the Heer Army controlled by Nazi Germany’s Wehrmacht and chief of staff in the OKH during World War II who later became a successful memoirist. A pioneer and advocate of the "blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in the development of the panzer division concept.

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14/05/1953

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, American painter and photographer (born 1893)

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker.

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14/05/1945

Heber J. Grant, American religious leader, 7th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (born 1856)

Heber Jeddy Grant was an American religious leader who served as the seventh president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Grant worked as a bookkeeper and a cashier, but was called to be an LDS apostle on October 16, 1882, at age 25. After the death of Joseph F. Smith in late 1918, Grant served as the LDS Church president until his death.

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Wolfgang Lüth, Latvian-German captain (born 1913)

Wolfgang Lüth was a German U-boat captain of World War II who was credited with the sinking of 46 merchant ships plus the French submarine Doris sunk during 15 war patrols, for a total tonnage of 225,204 gross register tons (GRT).

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Isis Pogson, English astronomer and meteorologist (born 1852)

Elizabeth Isis Pogson, was a British astronomer and meteorologist who was one of the first women to be elected as a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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14/05/1943

Henri La Fontaine, Belgian lawyer and author, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1854)

Henri La Fontaine, was a Belgian international lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913 because "he was the effective leader of the peace movement in Europe."

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14/05/1940

Emma Goldman, Lithuanian author and activist (born 1869)

Emma Goldman was a Russian-born anarchist revolutionary, political activist, and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

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Menno ter Braak, Dutch author (born 1902)

Menno ter Braak was a Dutch modernist writer, critic, essayist, and journalist.

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14/05/1936

Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, English field marshal and diplomat, British High Commissioner in Egypt (born 1861)

Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, was a senior British Army officer and imperial governor. He fought in the Second Boer War and in the First World War, in which he led the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the conquest of Palestine.

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14/05/1935

Magnus Hirschfeld, German physician and sexologist (born 1868)

Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician, sexologist, and LGBTQ advocate whose German citizenship was revoked in 1933 by the Nazi government.

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14/05/1934

Lou Criger, American baseball player and manager (born 1872)

Louis Criger was an American professional baseball catcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1896 to 1912 for the Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Perfectos / Cardinals, Boston Americans / Red Sox, St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders. Listed at 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) and 165 pounds (75 kg), he batted and threw right-handed.

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14/05/1931

David Belasco, American director, producer, and playwright (born 1853)

David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director, and playwright. He was the first writer to adapt the short story Madame Butterfly for the stage. He launched the theatrical career of many actors, including James O'Neill, Mary Pickford, Lenore Ulric, and Barbara Stanwyck. Belasco pioneered many innovative new forms of stage lighting and special effects in order to create realism and naturalism.

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14/05/1923

N. G. Chandavarkar, Indian jurist and politician (born 1855)

Sir Narayan Ganesh Chandavarkar was an early Indian National Congress politician and Hindu reformer. He was true " serve western colonial empire".

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Charles de Freycinet, French engineer and politician, 43rd Prime Minister of France (born 1828)

Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet was a French statesman who served four times as Prime Minister during the Third Republic. He also served an important term as Minister of War (1888–1893). He belonged to the Moderate Republican faction.

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14/05/1919

Henry J. Heinz, American businessman, founded the H. J. Heinz Company (born 1844)

Henry John Heinz was an American entrepreneur who co-founded the H. J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was involved in the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Many of his descendants are known for philanthropy and involvement in politics and public affairs. His fortune became the basis for the Heinz Foundations.

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14/05/1918

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., American journalist and publisher (born 1841)

James Gordon Bennett Jr. was an American publisher. He was the publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1795–1872), who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father. Among his many sports-related accomplishments he organized both the first polo match and the first tennis match in the United States, and he won the first trans-oceanic yacht race. He sponsored explorers including Henry Morton Stanley's trip to Africa to find David Livingstone, and the ill-fated USS Jeannette attempt on the North Pole.

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14/05/1912

Frederik VIII of Denmark (born 1843)

Frederik VIII was King of Denmark from 29 January 1906 until his death in 1912.

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August Strindberg, Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist (born 1849)

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout his life, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and historical plays to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially novelist and playwright, but in other countries he is known mostly as a playwright.

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14/05/1906

Carl Schurz, German-American general, journalist, and politician, 13th United States Secretary of the Interior (born 1829)

Carl Christian Schurz was a German-American revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent member of the newly-forming Republican Party. After serving as a Union general in the American Civil War, he helped found the short-lived Liberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate of civil-service reform. Schurz represented Missouri in the United States Senate and served as the 13th United States Secretary of the Interior.

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14/05/1893

Ernst Kummer, German mathematician and academic (born 1810)

Ernst Eduard Kummer was a German mathematician. Skilled in applied mathematics, Kummer trained German army officers in ballistics; afterwards, he taught for 10 years in a gymnasium, the German equivalent of high school, where he inspired the mathematical career of Leopold Kronecker.

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14/05/1889

Volney Howard, American lawyer, jurist, and politician (born 1809)

Volney Erskine Howard was an American lawyer, statesman, and jurist.

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14/05/1881

Mary Seacole, Jamaican-English nurse and author (born 1805)

Mary Jane Seacole was a Jamaican nurse and businesswoman. She was famous for her nursing work during the Crimean War and for publishing the first autobiography written by a woman of African descent in Britain.

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14/05/1878

Ōkubo Toshimichi, Japanese samurai and politician (born 1830)

Ōkubo Toshimichi was a Japanese statesman and samurai of the Satsuma Domain. Regarded as one of the main founders of modern Japan, he was one of the "Three Great Nobles" who led the Meiji Restoration in 1868, alongside Kido Takayoshi and Saigō Takamori. His policies, often characterized by realism and a focus on national strength, has led some historians to compare his role in Japan to that of Otto von Bismarck in Prussia.

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14/05/1873

Gideon Brecher, Austrian physician and author (born 1797)

Gideon Brecher, also known by the pen name Gedaliah ben Eliezer (Hebrew: גדליה בן אליעזר, was an Austrian writer and physician. He was a central figure in the Moravian Haskalah.

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14/05/1860

Ludwig Bechstein, German author (born 1801)

Ludwig Bechstein was a German writer and collector of folk fairy tales.

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14/05/1847

Fanny Hensel, German pianist and composer (born 1805)

Fanny Cäcilie Hensel née Mendelssohn was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era, also known as Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Her compositions number over 450, and include a string quartet, a piano trio, a piano quartet, an orchestral overture, four cantatas, more than 125 pieces for solo piano, and over 250 lieder. Most of these were unpublished in her lifetime. Although lauded for her piano technique, she rarely gave public performances outside her family circle.

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14/05/1761

Thomas Simpson, English mathematician and academic (born 1710)

Thomas Simpson FRS was a British mathematician and inventor known for the eponymous Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals. The attribution, as often in mathematics, can be debated: this rule had been found 100 years earlier by Johannes Kepler, and in German it is called Keplersche Fassregel, or roughly "Kepler's Barrel Rule".

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14/05/1754

Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French playwright and producer (born 1692)

Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée was a French dramatist who blurred the lines between comedy and tragedy with his comédie larmoyante.

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14/05/1688

Antoine Furetière, French scholar, lexicographer, and author (born 1619)

Antoine Furetière was a French scholar, writer, and lexicographer, known best for his satirical novel Le Roman bourgeois, and also his famous Dictionnaire universel. The Académie Française charged him with lexicographic plagiarism and ousted him for seeking to publish his own French language dictionary.

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14/05/1667

Georges de Scudéry, French author, poet, and playwright (born 1601)

Georges de Scudéry, the elder brother of Madeleine de Scudéry, was a French novelist, dramatist and poet.

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14/05/1649

Friedrich Spanheim, Swiss theologian and academic (born 1600)

Friedrich Spanheim the Elder was a Calvinistic theology professor at the University of Leiden.

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14/05/1643

Louis XIII of France (born 1601)

Louis XIII was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown.

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14/05/1610

Henry IV of France (born 1553)

Henry IV, also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. He pragmatically balanced the interests of the Catholic and Protestant parties in France, as well as among the European states. He was assassinated in Paris in 1610 by a Catholic zealot, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII.

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14/05/1608

Charles III, Duke of Lorraine (born 1543)

Charles III, known as the Great, was Duke of Lorraine from 1545 until his death.

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14/05/1603

Magnus II, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg (born 1543)

Magnus II of Saxe-Lauenburg was the eldest surviving son of Duke Francis I of Saxe-Lauenburg and Sybille of Saxe-Freiberg, daughter of Duke Henry IV the Pious. In 1571 Magnus II ascended the throne after his father Francis I resigned due to indebtedness. Two years later Francis I, helped by his other son Francis (II), deposed Magnus II and re-ascended. Magnus' violent and judicial attempts to regain the duchy failed. In 1588 he was imprisoned for the remainder of his life.

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14/05/1576

Tahmasp I, Shah of Persia (born 1514)

Tahmasp I was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 until his death in 1576. He was the eldest son of Shah Ismail I and his principal consort, the Mawsillu princess Tajlu Khanum.

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14/05/1219

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, English soldier and politician (born 1147)

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, also called William the Marshal, was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman during High Medieval England who served five English kings—Henry II and his son and co-ruler Young Henry, Richard I, John, and Henry III—as a royal adviser and agent and as a warrior of outstanding prowess.

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14/05/1080

Walcher, Bishop of Durham

Walcher was the bishop of Durham from 1071, a Lotharingian and the first Prince-bishop. He was the first non-Englishman to hold that see and an appointee of William the Conqueror following the Harrying of the North. He was murdered in 1080, which led William to send an army into Northumbria to harry the region again.

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14/05/0964

Pope John XII (born 927)

Pope John XII, born Octavian, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 16 December 955 to his death in 964. He was related to the counts of Tusculum, a powerful Roman family which had dominated papal politics for over half a century. He became Pope somewhere between the ages of 17 and 25. If he was 17 then he may have been the youngest Pope in history; if not, that title may belong to Benedict IX, who was between the ages of 11 and 20 when elected.

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14/05/0934

Zhu Hongzhao, Chinese general and governor

Zhu Hongzhao was a general of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period Later Tang state. He was a close associate of its second emperor. Li Siyuan and became particularly powerful during the short reign of Li Siyuan's son and successor Li Conghou while serving as chief of staff (Shumishi). Traditionally, he and fellow chief of staff Feng Yun were blamed for making inappropriate sensitive personnel movements that caused Li Conghou's adoptive brother Li Congke to be fearful and rebel, eventually leading to Li Conghou's being overthrown and Zhu's own death.

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14/05/0649

Pope Theodore I

Pope Theodore I was the bishop of Rome from 24 November 642 to his death on 14 May 649. His pontificate was dominated by the struggle with Monothelitism.

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