Died on Sunday, 18th May – Famous Deaths

18/05/2024

Bruce Nordstrom, American businessman (born 1933)

Bruce Allen Nordstrom was an American billionaire businessman, and the chairman of the retailer Nordstrom, a company founded by his grandfather John W. Nordstrom. He ran the company from 1968 until 1995 and resumed his position as chairman in 2000 until 2006. He was a philanthropist in the Seattle community and appeared on the Forbes list of wealthiest people in 2012.

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Tony O'Reilly, Irish rugby player and businessman (born 1936)

Sir Anthony John Francis O'Reilly was an Irish businessman and international rugby union player. He was known for his try scoring in rugby, his involvement in the Independent News & Media Group, which he led from 1973 to 2009, and as CEO and chairman of the H.J. Heinz Company. He was the leading shareholder of Waterford Wedgwood and a founder and major supporter of The Ireland Funds. A citizen of both Ireland and the United Kingdom, he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor for his services to Northern Ireland.

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Alice Stewart, American political commentator (born 1966)

Alice Elizabeth Stewart was an American communications director who worked on five Republican presidential campaigns before joining CNN as a commentator.

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18/05/2023

Jim Brown, American football player, civil rights activist, and actor (born 1936)

James Nathaniel Brown was an American professional football player, civil rights activist, and actor. He played as a fullback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 to 1965. Widely considered one of the greatest running backs of all time, as well as one of the greatest players in NFL history, Brown was selected to a Pro Bowl and All-Pro team every season he was in the league, and was recognized as the AP NFL Most Valuable Player three times. Brown won an NFL championship with the Browns in 1964. He led the league in rushing yards in eight out of his nine seasons, and by the time he retired, he held most major rushing records. In 1999, he was named the greatest professional football player ever by The Sporting News and the Associated Press.

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18/05/2021

Charles Grodin, American actor and talk show host (born 1935)

Charles Sidney Grodin was an American actor, comedian, author, and television talk show host. Known for his deadpan delivery and often cast as a put-upon straight man, Grodin became familiar as a supporting actor in many Hollywood comedies. After a small part in Rosemary's Baby in 1968, he played the lead in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972) where he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Grodin also starred in 11 Harrowhouse (1974), for which he also wrote the adaptation.

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Yolanda Tortolero, Venezuelan politician

Yolanda Tortolero Martínez was a Venezuelan physician and politician, alternate deputy of the National Assembly for the Carabobo state and the A New Era party.

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18/05/2020

Ken Osmond, American actor and police officer (born 1943)

Kenneth Charles Osmond was an American actor and police officer. Beginning a career as a child actor at the age of four, Osmond played the role of Eddie Haskell on the late 1950s to early 1960s television situation comedy Leave It to Beaver and reprised it on the 1980s revival series The New Leave It to Beaver. Typecast by the role, he found it hard to get other acting work and became a Los Angeles police officer. After retiring from police work, he resumed his acting career.

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18/05/2019

Austin Eubanks, American addiction recovery advocate, survivor of the Columbine shooting (born 1981)

Stephen Austin Eubanks was an American motivational speaker on addiction and recovery. He was one of the best known survivors of the Columbine High School massacre, both in its immediate aftermath and in post-event commentary.

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18/05/2017

Roger Ailes, American businessman (born 1940)

Roger Eugene Ailes was an American television executive and media consultant. He was the chairman and CEO of Fox News, Fox Television Stations and 20th Television. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, and for Rudy Giuliani's 1989 New York City mayoral election. In July 2016, he left Fox News after allegations of sexually harassing female Fox employees, including on-air hosts Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Andrea Tantaros.

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Chris Cornell, American singer (born 1964)

Christopher John Cornell was an American musician, best known as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and the primary lyricist for the rock bands Soundgarden and Audioslave. He also had a solo career and contributed to numerous movie soundtracks. Cornell was the founder and frontman of Temple of the Dog, a one-off tribute band dedicated to his late friend, musician Andrew Wood. Several music journalists, fan polls, and fellow musicians have regarded Cornell as one of the greatest rock singers of all time.

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Jacque Fresco, American engineer and academic (born 1916)

Jacque Fresco was an American futurist and self-described social engineer. Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design.

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18/05/2015

Halldór Ásgrímsson, Icelandic accountant and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Iceland (born 1947)

Halldór Ásgrímsson was an Icelandic politician, who served as prime minister of Iceland from 15 September 2004 to 15 June 2006 and was the leader of the Progressive Party from 1994 to 2006.

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Raymond Gosling, English physicist and academic (born 1926)

Raymond George Gosling was a British scientist. While a PhD student at King's College, London he worked under the supervision of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. The crystallographic experiments of Franklin and Gosling, together with others by Wilkins, produced data that helped James Watson and Francis Crick to infer the structure of DNA.

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Jean-François Théodore, French businessman (born 1946)

Jean-François Théodore was a French businessman, President, chairman and CEO of Euronext N.V., deputy CEO and Head of Strategy of NYSE Euronext Inc. for Euronext N.V and chairman of its Managing Board.

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18/05/2014

Dobrica Ćosić, Serbian politician, 1st President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (born 1921)

Dobrica Ćosić was a Yugoslav and Serbian writer, politician and political theorist.

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Hans-Peter Dürr, German physicist and academic (born 1929)

Hans-Peter Dürr was a German physicist. He worked on nuclear and quantum physics, elementary particles and gravitation, epistemology, and philosophy, and he advocated responsible scientific and energy policies. In 1987, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "his profound critique of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and his work to convert high technology to peaceful uses".

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Kaiketsu Masateru, Japanese sumo wrestler (born 1948)

Kaiketsu Masateru was a Japanese sumo wrestler, who reached the second highest rank of ōzeki on two occasions. He also won two top division tournament championships. After his retirement in 1979 he became a coach under the name of Hanaregoma-oyakata and established Hanaregoma stable. He was also chairman of the Japan Sumo Association from 2010 to 2012.

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Chukwuedu Nwokolo, Nigerian physician and academic (born 1921)

Chukwuedu Nathaniel II Nwokolo was a Nigerian physician specialist in tropical diseases. He was recognised for discovering and mapping out the area of paragonimiasis lung disease in Eastern Nigeria, with a study of the disease in Africa and clinical research for its control. He founded SICREP: Sickle Cell Research Programme to effectively fight the disease in Nigeria and globally.

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Wubbo Ockels, Dutch physicist and astronaut (born 1946)

Wubbo Johannes Ockels was a Dutch physicist and astronaut with the European Space Agency who, in 1985, became the first Dutch citizen in space when he flew on STS-61-A as a payload specialist. He later became professor of aerospace engineering at Delft University of Technology.

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18/05/2013

Aleksei Balabanov, Russian director and screenwriter (born 1959)

Aleksei Oktyabrinovich Balabanov was a Russian filmmaker. A member of the European Film Academy, he began his career by creating mostly arthouse pictures and music videos but gained significant mainstream popularity in action crime drama movies Brother (1997) and Brother 2 (2000), both of which starred Sergei Bodrov, Jr. Later, Balabanov directed the films Cargo 200 (2007), Morphine (2008), and A Stoker (2010), which also received critical recognition.

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Jo Benkow, Norwegian soldier and politician (born 1924)

Jo Benkow was a Norwegian politician and writer, notable for being an important person in the Conservative Party of Norway, and the President of the Parliament 1985–1993. He was also President of the Nordic Council in 1983.

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Steve Forrest, American actor (born 1925)

Steve Forrest was an American actor who was well known for his role as Lt. Hondo Harrelson in the hit television series S.W.A.T., which was broadcast on ABC from 1975 to 1976. He was also known for his performance in Mommie Dearest (1981).

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David McMillan, American football player (born 1981)

David McMillan was an American professional football defensive end. He was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round of the 2005 NFL draft. He played college football for the Kansas Jayhawks.

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Lothar Schmid, German chess player (born 1928)

Lothar Maximilian Lorenz Schmid was a German chess grandmaster. He was born in Radebeul in Saxony into a family who were the co-owners of the Karl May Press, which published the German Karl May adventure novels.

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18/05/2012

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, German opera singer and conductor (born 1925)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music. One of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, he is best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.

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Peter Jones, English-Australian drummer and songwriter (born 1967)

Peter Robert Jones was an English-born Australian musician. He replaced Paul Hester on drums for Crowded House in mid-1994. After the band split up in June 1996, he played in Deadstar with Caroline Kennedy and Nick Seymour, but did not return to Crowded House when they re-formed in 2006 about a year after Hester's death. Jones worked as a secondary teacher in Melbourne and on 18 May 2012, he died from brain cancer, aged 49.

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Alan Oakley, English bicycle designer, designed the Raleigh Chopper (born 1927)

Alan Oakley was a British bicycle designer from Nottingham who worked for the Raleigh Bicycle Company.

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18/05/2009

Dolla, American rapper (born 1987)

Roderick Anthony Burton II better known by his stage name Dolla, was an American rapper from Atlanta, Georgia. Burton embarked on his music career in 2003, with hip hop group Da Razkalz Cru, under the pseudonym Bucklyte. The group quickly disbanded, and Burton went on to work as a model for the Sean John clothing line. In 2007, Burton signed to Akon's Konvict Muzik label. Burton released three singles from 2007 to 2009. The first, his commercial debut single "Who the Fuck Is That?", featuring T-Pain and Tay Dizm, charted on the Billboard Hot 100.

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Wayne Allwine, American voice actor, sound effects editor and Foley artist (born 1947)

Wayne Anthony Allwine was an American voice actor, sound effects editor, and foley artist. He was best remembered as the third official voice of Mickey Mouse and the first official casting following the establishment of Disney Character Voices International in 1988. To date, he holds the record for the longest-running voice actor to play Mickey Mouse, having performed the role for 32 years. He was notably married to Russi Taylor in 1991, who voiced Minnie Mouse until her death in 2019.

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Velupillai Prabhakaran, Sri Lankan rebel leader, founded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (born 1954)

Velupillai Prabhakaran was an Eelam Tamil guerrilla and a major figure of Tamil nationalism, being the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE was a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka in reaction to the oppression of the country's Tamil population by the Sri Lankan government. Under his direction, the LTTE undertook a military campaign against the Sri Lankan government for more than 25 years.

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18/05/2008

Joseph Pevney, American actor and director (born 1911)

Joseph Pevney was an American film and television director.

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Roberto García-Calvo Montiel, Spanish judge (born 1942)

Roberto García-Calvo Montiel was a Spanish judge. Since 2001, he was a member of the Constitutional Court of Spain, sponsored by the conservative People's Party. In the last year of the Francoist State, García-Calvo served as a local official repressing workers strikes. During his serving in the highest court, he was considered as part of the persistence of the shadow of Francoism in the Spanish institutions. He died by natural causes on May 17, 2008 at aged 65 in Villaviciosa de Odón, Madrid.

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18/05/2007

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1932)

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991.

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18/05/2006

Jaan Eilart, Estonian geographer, ecologist, and historian (born 1933)

Jaan Eilart was an Estonian phytogeographer, landscape ecologist, cultural historian and conservationist.

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18/05/2004

Elvin Jones, American drummer and bandleader (born 1927)

Elvin Ray Jones was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane's quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such albums as My Favorite Things, A Love Supreme, Ascension and Live at Birdland. After 1966, Jones led his own trio, and later larger groups under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank and Thad were also celebrated jazz musicians with whom he occasionally recorded. Elvin was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1995. In his The History of Jazz, jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia calls Jones "one of the most influential drummers in the history of jazz". He was also ranked at Number 23 on Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Drummers of All Time".

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18/05/2002

Davey Boy Smith, English professional wrestler (born 1962)

David Smith was an English professional wrestler best known for his appearances in the United States with the World Wrestling Federation under the ring names Davey Boy Smith and The British Bulldog.

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18/05/2001

Irene Hunt, American author and illustrator (born 1907)

Irene Hunt was an American children's writer known best for historical novels. She was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal for her first book, Across Five Aprils, and won the medal for her second, Up a Road Slowly. For her contribution as a children's writer she was U.S. nominee in 1974 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books.

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18/05/2000

Stephen M. Wolownik, Russian-American composer and musicologist (born 1946)

Stephen M. "Steve" Wolownik was a pioneer in the Russian and Eastern European music community in the United States. He was a co-founder of the Balalaika and Domra Association of America.

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18/05/1999

Augustus Pablo, Jamaican singer, keyboard player, and producer (born 1954)

Horace Michael Swaby, also known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub composer, performer, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He was active from the 1970s until his death. He was known for playing the melodica.

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Betty Robinson, American runner (born 1911)

Elizabeth R. Schwartz was an American athlete and winner of the first Olympic 100 metres for women.

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18/05/1998

Obaidullah Aleem, Indian-Pakistani poet and author (born 1939)

Obaidullah Aleem was a Pakistani poet of Urdu language.

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18/05/1995

Elisha Cook, Jr., American actor (born 1903)

Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. was an American character actor famed for his work in film noir. He played cheerful, brainy collegiates until he was cast against type as the bug-eyed baby-faced killer Wilmer Cook in the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon. He went on to play deceptively mild-mannered villains. Cook's acting career spanned more than 60 years, with roles in productions including The Big Sleep, Shane, The Killing, House on Haunted Hill and Rosemary's Baby.

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Alexander Godunov, Russian-American ballet dancer and actor (born 1949)

Alexander Borisovich Godunov was a Russian-American ballet dancer and film actor. A member of the Bolshoi Ballet, he became the troupe's Premier danseur. In 1979, he defected to the United States. While continuing to dance, he also began working as a supporting actor in Hollywood films. He had prominent roles in films such as Witness (1985) and Die Hard (1988).

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Brinsley Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, Irish ufologist and historian (born 1911)

William Francis Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, 7th Marquess of Heusden, was a prominent ufologist. He was an Irish peer, as well as a nobleman in the Dutch nobility.

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Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (born 1933)

Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery was an American actress whose career spanned five decades in film, stage and television. She portrayed the good witch Samantha Stephens on the popular television series Bewitched, which earned her five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations.

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18/05/1990

Jill Ireland, English actress (born 1936)

Jill Dorothy Ireland was an English actress and singer.

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18/05/1989

Dorothy Ruth, American horse breeder and author (born 1921)

Dorothy Ruth Pirone was the adopted daughter of the American baseball player Babe Ruth and his mistress Juanita Jennings. She was adopted by Babe and his first wife Helen Woodford Ruth of Boston, Massachusetts. She wrote a memoir of her father, titled My Dad, the Babe (1988).

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18/05/1987

Mahdi Amel, Lebanese journalist, poet, and academic (born 1936)

Hassan Abdullah Hamdan, more commonly known by his pseudonym Mahdi 'Amel, was a Lebanese Marxist philosopher, historian and militant in the second half of the 20th century.

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18/05/1981

Arthur O'Connell, American actor (born 1908)

Arthur Joseph O'Connell was an American stage, film and television actor, who achieved prominence in character roles in the 1950s. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for both Picnic (1955) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

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William Saroyan, American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (born 1908)

William Saroyan was an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer of Armenian descent. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film The Human Comedy. When the studio rejected his original 240-page treatment, he turned it into a novel, The Human Comedy.

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18/05/1980

Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:

Reid Turner Blackburn was an American photographer killed in the 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. A photojournalist covering the eruption for a local newspaper—the Vancouver, Washington The Columbian—as well as National Geographic magazine and the United States Geological Survey, he was caught at Coldwater Camp in the blast.

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Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:

David Alexander Johnston was an American United States Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist who was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington. A principal scientist on the USGS monitoring team, Johnston was killed in the eruption while manning an observation post six miles (10 km) away on the morning of May 18, 1980. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before he was swept away by a lateral blast; despite a thorough search, Johnston's body was never found, but state highway workers discovered remnants of his USGS trailer in 1993.

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Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter (born 1956)

Ian Kevin Curtis was an English singer, songwriter and musician. He was the lead vocalist, songwriter, and occasional guitarist of the band Joy Division, with whom he released the albums Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980).

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18/05/1975

Leroy Anderson, American composer and conductor (born 1908)

Leroy Anderson was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music."

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18/05/1974

Harry Ricardo, English engine designer and researcher (born 1885)

Sir Harry Ralph Ricardo was an English engineer who was one of the foremost engine designers and researchers in the early years of the development of the internal combustion engine.

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18/05/1973

Jeannette Rankin, American social worker and politician (born 1880)

Jeannette Pickering Rankin was an American politician and women's rights advocate who became the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916 for one term, then was elected again in 1940. Rankin remains the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana.

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18/05/1971

Aleksandr Gennadievich Kurosh, Russian mathematician and theorist (born 1908)

Aleksandr Gennadyevich Kurosh was a Soviet mathematician, known for his work in abstract algebra. He is credited with writing The Theory of Groups, the first modern and high-level text on group theory, published in 1944.

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18/05/1968

Frank Walsh, Australian politician, 34th Premier of South Australia (born 1897)

Francis Henry Walsh was an Australian politician who was the 34th Premier of South Australia from 1965 to 1967, representing the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party.

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18/05/1963

Ernie Davis, American football player, coach, and manager (born 1939)

Ernest R. Davis was an American college football player who was a halfback for the Syracuse Orangemen and won the Heisman Trophy in 1961. He was the award's first black recipient. Davis was selected first overall by the Washington Redskins in the 1962 NFL draft but was almost immediately traded to the Cleveland Browns. He was diagnosed with leukemia that same year, and died shortly after at age 23 without ever playing in a professional game. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979 and was the subject of the 2008 film The Express: The Ernie Davis Story.

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18/05/1958

Jacob Fichman, Israeli poet and critic (born 1881)

Jacob Fichman, also transliterated as Yakov Fichman, was an acclaimed Hebrew poet, essayist and literary critic.

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18/05/1956

Maurice Tate, English cricketer (born 1895)

Maurice William Tate was an English cricketer of the 1920s and 1930s and the leader of England's Test bowling attack for a long time during this period. He was also the first Sussex cricketer to take a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket.

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18/05/1955

Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator and activist (born 1875)

Mary McLeod Bethune was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, and proceeded to establish the Aframerican Women's Journal, which was the flagship journal of the organization. She presided over other African-American women's organizations, including the National Association for Colored Women. Bethune became the first Black woman to lead a federal agency when she was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the secretary to lead the National Youth Association (NYA).

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18/05/1947

Hal Chase, American baseball player and manager (born 1883)

Harold Homer Chase, nicknamed "Prince Hal", was an American professional baseball first baseman and manager in Major League Baseball, widely viewed as the best fielder at his position. During his career, he played for the New York Highlanders (1905–1913), Chicago White Sox (1913–1914), Buffalo Blues (1914–1915), Cincinnati Reds (1916–1918), and New York Giants (1919).

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18/05/1943

Ōnishiki Daigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 28th Yokozuna (born 1883)

Ōnishiki Daigorō was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler. He was the sport's 28th yokozuna.

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18/05/1941

Werner Sombart, German economist and sociologist (born 1863)

Werner Sombart was a German economist, historian and sociologist. Head of the "Youngest Historical School," he was one of the leading Continental European social scientists during the first quarter of the 20th century. The term "late capitalism" is accredited to him. The concept of "creative destruction" associated with capitalism is also of his coinage.

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18/05/1922

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician and parasitologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1845)

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran was a French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of infectious diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis. Following his father, Louis Théodore Laveran, he took up military medicine as his profession. He obtained his medical degree from University of Strasbourg in 1867.

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18/05/1916

Chen Qimei, Chinese revolutionary (born 1878)

Chen Qimei, courtesy name Yingshi (英士) was a Chinese revolutionary activist and key figure of the Green Gang, close political ally of Sun Yat-sen, and an early mentor of Chiang Kai-shek. He was one of the founders of the Republic of China, and the uncle of CC Clique leaders Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu.

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18/05/1911

Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer and conductor (born 1860)

Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.

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18/05/1910

Eliza Orzeszkowa, Polish author and publisher (born 1841)

Eliza Orzeszkowa was a Polish novelist and a leading writer of the Positivism movement during the foreign Partitions of Poland. In 1905, together with Henryk Sienkiewicz, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Pauline Viardot, French soprano and composer (born 1821)

Pauline Viardot was a French dramatic mezzo-soprano, composer and pedagogue of Spanish descent. Born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García, she came from a musical family and took up music at a young age. She began performing as a teenager and had a long and illustrious career as a star performer.

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18/05/1909

Isaac Albéniz, Spanish pianist and composer (born 1860)

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor. He is one of the foremost composers of the post-romantic era who also had a significant influence on his contemporaries and younger composers. He is best known for his piano works that incorporate Spanish folk music idioms and elements. His compositions, particularly his suite Iberia (1905–1908), are considered masterpieces and have influenced both classical music and Spanish nationalism in music. Isaac Albéniz was close to the Generation of '98.

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George Meredith, English novelist and poet (born 1828)

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) briefly scandalised Victorian literary circles. Of his later novels, the most enduring is The Egoist (1879), though in his lifetime his greatest success was Diana of the Crossways (1885). His novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology, and also portrayed social change. His style, in both poetry and prose, was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". Meredith was an encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. Meredith was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

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18/05/1908

Louis-Napoléon Casault, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (born 1823)

Sir Louis-Napoléon Casault was a Quebec lawyer, judge, professor and political figure. He represented Bellechasse in the 1st Canadian Parliament from 1867 to 1870 as a Conservative member.

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18/05/1900

Félix Ravaisson-Mollien, French archaeologist and philosopher (born 1813)

Jean Gaspard Félix Lacher Ravaisson-Mollien was a French philosopher, 'perhaps France's most influential philosopher in the second half of the nineteenth century'. He was originally and remains more commonly known as Félix Ravaisson.

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18/05/1889

Isabella Glyn, Scottish-English actress (born 1823)

Isabella Glyn was a well-known Victorian-era Shakespearean actress.

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18/05/1867

Clarkson Stanfield, English painter (born 1793)

Clarkson Frederick Stanfield was an English painter best known for his large-scale paintings of marine art and landscapes. He was the father of the painter George Clarkson Stanfield and the composer Francis Stanfield.

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18/05/1853

Lionel Kieseritzky, Estonian-French chess player (born 1806)

Lionel Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritzky was a Baltic German chess master and theoretician, known for his contributions to chess theory, as well for a game he lost against Adolf Anderssen, known as the "Immortal Game". Kieseritzky's name became associated with several openings and opening variations, such as the Kieseritzky Gambit, Kieseritzky Attack, and the Boden–Kieseritzky Gambit.

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18/05/1844

Richard McCarty, American lawyer and politician (born 1780)

Richard McCarty was an American politician from New York.

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18/05/1808

Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (born 1738)

Elijah Craig was an American Baptist preacher, who became an educator and capitalist entrepreneur in the area of Virginia that later became the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He has sometimes, although rather dubiously, been credited with the invention of bourbon whiskey.

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18/05/1807

John Douglas, Scottish bishop and scholar (born 1721)

John Douglas was a Scottish scholar and Anglican bishop.

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18/05/1800

Alexander Suvorov, Russian general (born 1729)

Count Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov-Rymniksky, Prince of Italy was a Russian general and military theorist in the service of the Russian Empire.

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18/05/1799

Pierre Beaumarchais, French playwright and publisher (born 1732)

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French playwright and diplomat of the Age of Enlightenment. Best known for his three Figaro plays, at various times in his life he was also a watchmaker, inventor, musician, spy, publisher, arms dealer, and revolutionary.

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18/05/1795

Robert Rogers, English colonel (born 1731)

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Rogers was a British Army officer and frontiersman. Born in Methuen, Province of Massachusetts Bay, he fought in King George's War, the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. During the French and Indian War, Rogers raised and commanded Rogers' Rangers, a ranger unit trained for carrying out asymmetric warfare.

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18/05/1792

Levy Solomons, Canadian merchant and fur trader (born 1730)

Lucius Levy Solomons was a Jewish Canadian merchant and fur trader.

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18/05/1781

Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian indigenous rebel leader (born 1742)

Túpac Amaru II, c. 1742 – May 18, 1781) was an Indigenous cacique who led a large Andean rebellion against the Spanish in Peru as self-proclaimed Sapa Inca of the new Inca Empire. He was later elevated to a mythical status in the Peruvian struggle for independence and indigenous rights movement, as well as an inspiration to myriad causes in Spanish America and beyond.

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18/05/1780

Charles Hardy, English-American admiral and politician, 29th Colonial Governor of New York (born 1714)

Admiral Sir Charles Hardy was a Royal Navy officer, politician and colonial administrator who sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain between 1764 and 1780. He served as governor of New York from 1755 to 1757.

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18/05/1733

Georg Böhm, German organist and composer (born 1661)

Georg Böhm was a German Baroque organist and composer. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach.

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18/05/1721

Maria Barbara Carillo, victim of the Spanish Inquisition (born1625)

Maria Barbara Carillo was burned at the stake for heresy during the Spanish Inquisition. She was executed at the age of 95 or 96 and is the oldest person known to have been executed at the instigation of the Spanish Inquisition.

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18/05/1692

Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (born 1617)

Elias Ashmole was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer, freemason and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, serving in the artillery of Lord Astley's Regiment of Foot. He held the military rank of a captain. At the restoration of Charles II, Ashmole was rewarded with several lucrative offices. In his later years, he collected notes on his life in diary form to serve as source material for a biography. His diary was posthumously published in 1717.

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18/05/1675

Stanisław Lubieniecki, Polish astronomer, historian, and theologian (born 1623)

Stanisław Lubieniecki was a Polish Socinian theologist, historian, astronomer, and writer. He is the eponym of the lunar crater Lubiniezky.

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Jacques Marquette, French-American missionary and explorer (born 1637)

Jacques Marquette, sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Ignace. In 1673, Marquette, along with Louis Jolliet, an explorer born near Quebec City, explored and mapped the northern portion of the Mississippi River Valley.

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18/05/1551

Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Italian painter (born 1486)

Domenico di Pace Beccafumi was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter active predominantly in Siena. He is considered one of the last undiluted representatives of the Sienese school of painting.

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18/05/1550

Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine (born 1498)

Jean de Lorraine was the third son of the ruling Duke of Lorraine, and a French cardinal, who was archbishop of Reims (1532–1538), Lyon (1537–1539), and Narbonne (1524–1550), bishop of Metz, and Administrator of the dioceses of Toul, Verdun, Thérouanne, Luçon, Albi, Valence, Nantes and Agen (1538–1550). He was a personal friend, companion, and advisor of King Francis I of France. Jean de Lorraine was the richest prelate in the reign of Francis I, as well as the most flagrant pluralist. He is one of several cardinals known as the Cardinal de Lorraine.

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18/05/1410

Rupert of Germany, Count Palatine of the Rhine (born 1352)

Rupert of the Palatinate, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, was Elector Palatine from 1398 and King of the Romans from 1400 until his death.

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18/05/1401

Vladislaus II of Opole (born 1332)

Vladislaus II of Opole, nicknamed Naderspan, was Duke of Opole from 1356, Count palatine of Hungary (1367–1372), Duke of Wieluń (1370–1392), Governor of Ruthenia (1372–1378), Count palatine of Poland (1378) as well as Duke of Dobrzyń, Inowrocław (1378–1392), Krnov and Kuyavia (1385–1392).

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18/05/1297

Nicholas Longespee, Bishop of Salisbury

Nicholas Longespee was a medieval Bishop of Salisbury.

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18/05/1160

Eric Jedvardsson (King Eric IX) of Sweden (since 1156); (born circa 1120)

Saint Erik, also called Eric IX or Erik Jedvardsson was King of Sweden from c. 1156 until his death in 1160. The Roman Martyrology of the Catholic Church names him as a saint memorialized on 18 May. He was the founder of the House of Erik, which ruled Sweden with interruptions from c. 1156 to 1250.

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18/05/1096

Minna of Worms, Jewish martyr killed during the Worms massacre (1096)

Minna of Worms was a Jewish businesswoman and martyr, killed by antisemitic Christians. She was an influential Jewish person, being a significant moneylender with clients and friends among the Christian nobility. Minna was one of the most famous victims of the 1096 Worms massacre which occurred during the First Crusade. She was murdered after refusing to convert to Christianity.

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18/05/1065

Frederick, Duke of Lower Lorraine (born c. 1003)

Frederick of Lower Lorraine was a younger son of Frederick, Lord of Gleiberg.

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18/05/0978

Frederick I, duke of Upper Lorraine

Frederick I was the count of Bar and duke of Upper Lorraine. He was a son of Wigeric, count of Bidgau, also count palatine of Lorraine, and Cunigunda, and thus a sixth-generation descendant of Charlemagne.

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18/05/0947

Emperor Taizong of the Liao Dynasty

Emperor Taizong of Liao, personal name Yaogu, sinicised name Yelü Deguang, courtesy name Dejin, was the second emperor of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty of China.

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18/05/0932

Ma Shaohong, general of Later Tang

Ma Shaohong, known during the reign of Emperor Zhuangzong of Later Tang as Li Shaohong (李紹宏), was a powerful eunuch official/general during the early Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, who served Emperor Zhuangzong during his reign as emperor and, previously to that, as the Prince of Jin.

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18/05/0893

Stephen I of Constantinople (born 867)

Stephen I of Constantinople, called the Macedonian, was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 886 to 893.

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18/05/0526

Pope John I

Pope John I was the bishop of Rome from 13 August 523 to his death on 18 May 526. He was a native of Siena, in Italy. He was sent on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople by the Ostrogoth King Theoderic to negotiate better treatment for Arians. Although John was relatively successful, upon his return to Ravenna, Theoderic had him imprisoned for allegedly conspiring with Constantinople. The frail pope died of neglect and ill-treatment.

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