Died on Tuesday, 20th May – Famous Deaths

20/05/2025

George Wendt, American actor and comedian (born 1948)

George Robert Wendt Jr. was an American actor. Wendt played Norm Peterson on the NBC sitcom Cheers from 1982 to 1993, which earned him six consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. After Cheers ended, he starred in his own short-lived CBS sitcom, The George Wendt Show (1995).

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20/05/2024

Ivan Boesky, American stock trader (born 1937)

Ivan Frederick Boesky was a convicted criminal and an American stock trader who was infamous for his prominent role in an insider trading scandal in the mid-1980s. After getting caught he became a government informant and then pleaded guilty, and was fined a record $100 million, and served twenty months in prison.

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20/05/2022

Roger Angell, American sportswriter and author (born 1920)

Roger Angell was an American essayist known for his writing on sports, especially baseball. He was a regular contributor to The New Yorker and was its chief fiction editor for many years. He wrote numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and criticism, and for many years wrote an annual Christmas poem for The New Yorker. Sportswriter Jane Leavy called him "the Babe Ruth of baseball writers."

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Susan Roces, Filipino actress (born 1941)

Susan Roces was a Filipino actress. She rose to fame in mid-1950s and became the biggest box-office star of the 1960s. Known for playing wholesome and sweet characters in romantic comedies and musicals during her youth, she dabbled into horror and drama in the succeeding decades. She was dubbed the "Queen of Philippine Movies" and appeared in more than 130 films throughout her career that spanned over six decades.

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20/05/2021

Gary Wilson, American anti-pornography activist (born 1956)

Gary Bruce Wilson was an American writer and anti-pornography campaigner.

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20/05/2019

Niki Lauda, Austrian race car driver (born 1949)

Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda was an Austrian racing driver, motorsport executive, and aviation entrepreneur, who competed in Formula One from 1971 to 1979 and from 1982 to 1985. Lauda won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles and—at the time of his retirement—held the record for most podium finishes (54); he won 25 Grands Prix across 13 seasons, and remains the only driver to have won a World Drivers' Championship with both Ferrari and McLaren.

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20/05/2016

Kho Jabing, Malaysian convicted murderer who was executed by hanging in Singapore (born 1984)

Kho Jabing, later in life Muhammad Kho Abdullah, was a Malaysian of mixed Chinese and Iban descent from Sarawak, Malaysia, who partnered with a friend to rob and murder a Chinese construction worker named Cao Ruyin in Singapore on 17 February 2008. While his accomplice was eventually jailed and caned for robbery, Kho Jabing was convicted of murder and sentenced to death on 30 July 2010, and lost his appeal on 24 May 2011.

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20/05/2015

Bob Belden, American saxophonist, composer, and producer (born 1956)

James Robert Belden was an American saxophonist, arranger, composer, bandleader, and producer. As a producer, he was mostly associated with the remastering of recordings by trumpeter Miles Davis for Columbia Records.

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Femi Robinson, Nigerian actor and playwright (born 1940)

Femi Robinson was a Nigerian film and television actor, famous for his lead role in The Village Headmaster, where his stage name, "Ife Araba, The Village Headmaster", was coined. Chief Eddie Ugbomah, former Chairman of the Nigerian Film Corporation, called him "an icon of the industry".

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20/05/2014

Sandra Bem, American psychologist and academic (born 1944)

Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem was an American psychologist known for her works in androgyny and gender studies. Her pioneering work on gender roles, gender polarization and gender stereotypes led directly to more equal employment opportunities for women in the United States.

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Ross Brown, New Zealand rugby player (born 1934)

Ross Handley Brown was a New Zealand rugby union footballer. He played 16 test matches, most frequently in the first-five back position, for New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks, from 1955 until 1962.

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Robyn Denny, English-French painter (born 1930)

Edward Maurice FitzGerald "Robyn" Denny was one of a group of young artists who transformed British art in the late 1950s, leading it into the international mainstream. Reacting against the mainstream St Ives School of landscape-based painting and inspired by Abstract Expressionism, American films, popular culture and urban modernity, they saw abstract painting as their only conceivable route.

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Arthur Gelb, American journalist, author, and critic (born 1924)

Arthur Gelb was an American editor, author and executive and was the managing editor of The New York Times from 1986 to 1989.

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Prince Rupert Loewenstein, Spanish-English businessman (born 1933)

Rupert, Prince zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg, Count of Löwenstein-Scharffeneck was a Spanish-born Bavarian aristocrat and the longtime financial manager of the rock band the Rolling Stones.

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Barbara Murray, English actress (born 1929)

Barbara Ann Murray was an English actress.

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20/05/2013

Flavio Costantini, Italian painter and illustrator (born 1926)

Flavio Costantini was an Italian painter and illustrator. Costantini created portraits of writers and artists for newspapers, and illustrated several novels. His early works were inspired by the novelist Franz Kafka, and by literary, utopian, and anarchist ideals. His later work presented a pessimistic view of civilization. He created series of paintings exploring historical themes: anarchy, the wreck of the Titanic, alchemy, Mozart, the French Revolution and its victims, Yekaterinburg, and the murder of Nicholas II and his family. His last series offered a dark reading of Pinocchio, which he considered one of the three or four greatest Italian novels.

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Billie Dawe, Canadian ice hockey player and manager (born 1924)

Billie Dawe was a Canadian amateur ice hockey player. He was a member of the 1950 World Champion team, the Edmonton Mercurys, and captained that team to a gold medal at the 1952 Winter Olympics.

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Anders Eliasson, Swedish composer (born 1947)

Anders Erik Birger Eliasson was a Swedish composer.

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Miloslav Kříž, Czech basketball player and coach (born 1924)

Miloslav Kříž was a Czech professional basketball player, coach and executive. As a player, he played first for Uncas Praha, and later for Sparta Praha, but he was better known as a head coach and trainer, especially as the head coach of the senior Czechoslovak women's national team. He was awarded the FIBA Order of Merit, for his services to basketball, in 2002.

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Ray Manzarek, American singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (born 1939)

Raymond Daniel Manzarek Jr. was an American keyboardist, vocalist, and music producer. He is best known as a member of the rock band the Doors, co-founding the group in 1965 with fellow UCLA Film School graduate Jim Morrison. Manzarek is credited for his innovative playing and abilities on organ-style keyboard instruments.

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Denys Roberts, English judge and politician (born 1923)

Sir Denys Tudor Emil Roberts was a British colonial official and judge. Joining the colonial civil service as a Crown Counsel in Nyasaland in 1953, he became Attorney General of Gibraltar in 1960. In 1962, he was posted to Hong Kong as Solicitor-General, and was successively promoted to Attorney-General in 1966, Colonial Secretary/Chief Secretary in 1973 and Chief Justice in 1979. He was the first and only Attorney-General to become both Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong. Never having been a judge before, he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1979 and was the first and only Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong to receive such appointment.

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Zach Sobiech, American singer-songwriter (born 1995)

Zachary David Sobiech was an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known for his single "Clouds", which gained extensive media attention on YouTube, prior to Sobiech's death from cancer in May 2013. It charted on the Billboard Hot 100, eventually becoming a hit also in the UK, Canada and France.

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20/05/2012

Leela Dube, Indian anthropologist and scholar (born 1923)

Leela Dube was a renowned anthropologist and feminist scholar, fondly called Leeladee by many. She had been married to the renowned anthropologist and sociologist Late Shyama Charan Dube. Leela Dube was the younger sister of the late classical singer Sumati Mutatkar. Her elder son Late Mukul Dube was an avid photographer. She is survived by her younger son, Saurabh Dube. Known for her work on kinship and in women's studies, she wrote several books including Matriliny and Islam: religion and society in the Laccadives and Women and kinship: comparative perspectives on gender in South and South‑east Asia.

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Robin Gibb, Manx-English singer-songwriter and producer (born 1949)

Robin Hugh Gibb was a British singer and songwriter. He gained global fame as a member of the Bee Gees with elder brother Barry and twin brother Maurice. Robin Gibb also had his own successful solo career.

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David Littman, English-Swiss historian, author, and academic (born 1933)

David Gerald Littman was a British political activist. He is known for organising the illegal transportation of Jewish Moroccan children from Morocco to Israel when he was 28.

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Ken Lyons, American bass guitarist (born 1953)

Kenneth Leo Lyons was a bass guitarist and founding member of the southern rock band 38 Special. He was born to mother Joyce Lavelle Godwin Lyons and father Clynn Leo Lyons in Jacksonville, Florida. He founded 38 Special with Don Barnes, Donnie Van Zant, Jack Grondin, Steve Brookins, and Jeff Carlisi in 1974. He was a member of 38 special from 1974 to 1977. He only played on their self-titled debut album. He left 38 Special in 1977, before their first album was released. Lyons was replaced by Larry Junstrom, who continued to play in 38 Special until his retirement in 2014. Lyons died on May 20, 2012, at the age of 59 at the Wake Forest Baptist Health Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

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Eugene Polley, American engineer, invented the remote control (born 1915)

Eugene Joseph Polley was an electrical engineer and engineering manager for Zenith Electronics who invented the first wireless remote control for television.

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Andrew B. Steinberg, American lawyer (born 1958)

Andrew Bart Steinberg was a leading aviation regulatory lawyer, who held several key posts in the public and private sectors in the United States. He served until 2008 as the Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs within the United States Department of Transportation, after being confirmed to the position by the U.S. Senate on September 29, 2006, following appointment by President George W. Bush. Prior to that post, he had been appointed by the president in May 2003, as the chief counsel of the Federal Aviation Administration, where he served as the top legal advisor to FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey. Steinberg was a partner in the Washington D.C. office of the international law firm of Jones Day, where he led the firm's aviation regulatory practice, a post once held by aviation pioneer L. Welch Pogue.

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20/05/2011

Randy Savage, American wrestler and actor (born 1952)

Randy Mario Poffo, better known by his ring name "Macho Man" Randy Savage, was an American professional wrestler, rapper, and professional baseball player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he is best known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

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20/05/2009

Arthur Erickson, Canadian architect and urban planner, designed Roy Thomson Hall (born 1924)

Arthur Charles Erickson was a Canadian architect and urban planner. He studied at the University of British Columbia and, in 1950, received his B.Arch. (Honours) from McGill University. He is known as one of Canada's most influential architects and was the only Canadian architect to win the American Institute of Architects AIA Gold Medal. When told of Erickson's award, Philip Johnson said, "Arthur Erickson is by far the greatest architect in Canada, and he may be the greatest on this continent."

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Lucy Gordon, American actress and model (born 1980)

Lucy Imogen Gordon was an English actress and model. She became a face of CoverGirl in 1997 before starting an acting career. Her first film was Perfume in 2001 before going on to have small roles in Spider-Man 3, Serendipity, and The Four Feathers. Gordon had played the actress and singer Jane Birkin in the film Gainsbourg, a biopic of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Before the film was released, she hanged herself in her flat in Paris on 20 May 2009.

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Pierre Gamarra, French author, poet, and critic (born 1919)

Pierre Gamarra was a French poet, novelist and literary critic, a long-time chief editor and director of the literary magazine Europe.Gamarra is best known for his poems and novels for the youth and for narrative and poetical works deeply rooted in his native region of Midi-Pyrénées.

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20/05/2008

Hamilton Jordan, American politician, 8th White House Chief of Staff (born 1944)

William Hamilton McWhorter Jordan was an American politician who served as Chief of Staff to President of the United States Jimmy Carter.

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20/05/2007

Norman Von Nida, Australian golfer (born 1914)

Norman Guy Von Nida was an Australian professional golfer.

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20/05/2005

Paul Ricœur, French philosopher and academic (born 1913)

Jean Paul Gustave Ricœur was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutics. As such, his thought is within the same tradition as other major hermeneutic phenomenologists, such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Gabriel Marcel. In 2000, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy for having "revolutionized the methods of hermeneutic phenomenology, expanding the study of textual interpretation to include the broad yet concrete domains of mythology, biblical exegesis, psychoanalysis, theory of metaphor, and narrative theory."

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William Seawell, American general (born 1918)

William Thomas Seawell was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force and former head of Pan Am.

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20/05/2002

Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist, biologist, and academic (born 1941)

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1996, Gould was hired as the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University, after which he divided his time teaching between there and Harvard.

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20/05/2001

Renato Carosone, Italian singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1920)

Renato Carosone was an Italian musician.

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20/05/2000

Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flute player (born 1922)

Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. Rampal popularised the flute in the post–World War II years, recovering flute compositions from the Baroque era, and spurring contemporary composers, such as Francis Poulenc, to create new works that have become modern standards in the flautist's repertoire.

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Malik Sealy, American basketball player and actor (born 1970)

Malik Sealy was an American professional basketball player, active from 1992 until his death in an automobile accident at the age of 30. Posthumously inducted into the NYC Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004, Sealy played eight seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers, Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves.

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Yevgeny Khrunov, Russian colonel, engineer, and astronaut (born 1933)

Yevgeny Vasilyevich Khrunov was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 5/Soyuz 4 mission.

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20/05/1998

Robert Normann, Norwegian guitarist (born 1916)

Robert Uno Normann was a Norwegian guitarist and considered a jazz guitar pioneer.

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20/05/1996

Jon Pertwee, English actor, portrayed the Third Doctor (born 1919)

John Devon Roland Pertwee, known professionally as Jon Pertwee, was an English actor. He made many appearances on television, film and in the theatre throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but is best known for playing the third incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction series Doctor Who (1970–1974) and the title character in Worzel Gummidge. Other notable roles included Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in the BBC Radio sitcom The Navy Lark (1959–1977) and appearing in four films in the Carry On series (1964–1992). He also hosted the game show Whodunnit? (1974–1978).

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20/05/1995

Les Cowie, Australian rugby league player (born 1925)

Leslie Gordon Cowie was an Australian rugby league footballer, a fine lock for the champion South Sydney Rabbitohs teams of the 1950s and an Australia national representative. In 1994 he received a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to Rugby League football.

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20/05/1989

John Hicks, English economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1904)

Sir John Richard Hicks was a British economist. He is considered one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics were his statement of consumer demand theory in microeconomics, and the IS–LM model (1937), which summarised a Keynesian view of macroeconomics. His book Value and Capital (1939) significantly extended general-equilibrium and value theory. The compensated demand function is named the Hicksian demand function in memory of him.

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Gilda Radner, American actress and comedian (born 1946)

Gilda Susan Radner was an American actress and comedian.

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20/05/1976

Syd Howe, Canadian ice hockey player (born 1911)

Sydney Harris Howe was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. Howe played 17 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Quakers, Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Eagles and Detroit Red Wings.

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Zelmar Michelini, Uruguayan journalist and politician (born 1924)

Zelmar Raúl Michelini Guarch was a Uruguayan reporter and politician, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976 as part of Operation Condor.

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Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, Uruguayan politician (born 1934)

Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz was a former President of the Chamber of Deputies of Uruguay who was assassinated in Operation Condor.

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20/05/1975

Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor and lithographer (born 1903)

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives during the Second World War.

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20/05/1973

Renzo Pasolini, Italian motorcycle racer (born 1938)

Renzo Pasolini, nicknamed "Paso", was an Italian professional motorcycle road racer. He competed in the FIM Grand Prix motorcycle racing world championships from 1964 to 1972.

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Jarno Saarinen, Finnish motorcycle racer (born 1945)

Jarno Karl Keimo Saarinen was a Finnish professional Motorcycle racer. He competed in the FIM Grand Prix motorcycle racing world championships from 1968 to 1971 as Yamaha privateer, before receiving the Yamaha factory's full support in 1972 and 1973. In the early 1970s, he was considered one of the most promising and talented motorcycle road racers of his era until he was killed during the 1973 Nations Grand Prix in Italy. Saarinen's death led to increased demands for better safety conditions for motorcycle racers competing in the world championships. He remains the only Finn to have won a solo motorcycle road racing world championship. Saarinen was inducted into the F.I.M. MotoGP Hall of Fame in 2009.

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20/05/1971

Waldo Williams, Welsh poet and academic (born 1904)

Waldo Goronwy Williams was one of the leading Welsh-language poets of the 20th century. He was also a notable Christian pacifist, anti-war campaigner, and Welsh nationalist. He is often referred to by his first name only.

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20/05/1964

Rudy Lewis, American singer (born 1936)

Rudy Lewis was an American rhythm and blues singer known for his work with the Drifters. In 1988, he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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20/05/1962

Timothy (Szretter), a Polish Orthodox clergyman, the third Metropolitan of Warsaw and all Poland (born 1901)

Timothy, secular name Jerzy Szretter was a Polish Orthodox clergyman, the third Metropolitan of Warsaw and all Poland.

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20/05/1961

Josef Priller, German colonel and pilot (born 1915)

Josef "Pips" Priller was a German military aviator and wing commander in the Luftwaffe during World War II. As a fighter ace, he was credited with 101 enemy aircraft shot down in 307 combat missions. All of his victories were claimed over the Western Front, including 11 four-engine bombers and at least 68 Supermarine Spitfire fighters.

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20/05/1956

Max Beerbohm, English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (born 1872)

Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the drama critic for the Saturday Review from 1898 until 1910, when he relocated to Rapallo, Italy. In his later years he was popular for his occasional radio broadcasts. Among his best-known works is his only novel, Zuleika Dobson, published in 1911. His caricatures, drawn usually in pen or pencil with muted watercolour tinting, are in many public collections.

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Zoltán Halmay, Hungarian swimmer and trainer (born 1881)

Zoltán Imre Ödön Halmay de Erdőtelek was a Hungarian Olympic swimmer. He competed in four Olympics, winning the following medals:1900: silver, bronze 1904: gold 1906: gold, silver 1908: silver

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20/05/1949

Damaskinos of Athens, Greek archbishop and politician, 137th Prime Minister of Greece (born 1891)

Archbishop Damaskinos Papandreou, born Dimitrios Papandreou, was the archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1941 until his death in 1949. He was also the regent of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King George II to Greece in 1946. His rule was between the liberation of Greece from the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II and the Greek Civil War.

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20/05/1947

Philipp Lenard, Slovak-German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1862)

Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard was a Hungarian–German experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays. This work led to his experimental realization of the photoelectric effect, discovering that the energy (speed) of the electrons ejected from a cathode depends only on the frequency and not the intensity of light.

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Georgios Siantos, Greek sergeant and politician (born 1890)

Georgios Siantos was a Greek politician and prominent figure of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) who served as acting general secretary of the party, and as a leader of the National Liberation Front (EAM)/Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) Resistance movement during the German occupation of Greece in World War II.

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20/05/1946

Jacob Ellehammer, Danish pilot and engineer (born 1871)

Jacob Christian Hansen-Ellehammer was a Danish inventor and aviation pioneer. He obtained a total of 59 Danish patents and worked with many different things, including amusement machines, Tivoli boats, egg openers, cleavers for pig slaughterhouses, engines in countless shades, motorcycles, cars, alternative energy and fire-fighting equipment. He was also among the first in Europe to fly an airplane.

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20/05/1942

Hector Guimard, French Architect (born 1867)

Hector Guimard was a French architect and designer prominent for his Art Nouveau style designs including Paris Métro entrances. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Béranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building in Paris, which was selected in an 1899 competition as one of the best new building facades in the city. He is best known for the glass and iron edicules or canopies, with ornamental Art Nouveau curves, which he designed to cover the entrances of the first stations of the Paris Métro.

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20/05/1940

Verner von Heidenstam, Swedish author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1859)

Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam was a Swedish poet, novelist and laureate of the 1916 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912. His poems and prose work are filled with a great joy of life, sometimes imbued with a love of Swedish history and scenery, particularly its physical aspects.

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20/05/1931

Ernest Noel, Scottish businessman and politician (born 1831)

Ernest Noel, FGS was Member of Parliament (MP) for the Scottish seat of Dumfries Burghs from 1874 to 1886. He was chairman of the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company from 1880, during the construction of a new suburb for the working classes in Wood Green which was named "Noel Park" in his honour.

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20/05/1925

Joseph Howard, Maltese politician, 1st Prime Minister of Malta (born 1862)

Joseph Howard OBE was the first Prime Minister of Malta, holding this office from 1921 to 1923.

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20/05/1924

Bogd Khan, Mongolian ruler (c. 1869)

Bogd Khan was the khan of the Bogd Khanate of Mongolia from 1911 to 1924, following the state's de facto independence from the Qing dynasty of China after the Xinhai Revolution. Born in Tibet, he was the third most important person in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy as the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, below only the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, and therefore also known as the "Bogdo Lama". He was the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism in the Bogd Khaganate. His wife Tsendiin Dondogdulam, the Ekh Dagina, was believed to be a manifestation of White Tara.

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20/05/1917

Valentine Fleming, Scottish soldier and politician (born 1887)

Major Valentine Fleming, was a Scottish Conservative Member of Parliament who was killed in the First World War. He was the father of the authors Peter Fleming and Ian Fleming, the latter of whom created the James Bond character.

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Philipp von Ferrary, Italian stamp collector (born 1850)

Philip Ferrari de La Renotière was a noted French-born stamp collector, assembling probably the most complete worldwide collection that ever existed, or is considered likely to exist. Among his extremely rare stamps were the unique Treskilling Yellow of Sweden and the 1856 one-cent "Black on Magenta" of British Guiana.

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20/05/1909

Ernest Hogan, American actor and composer (born 1859)

Ernest Hogan was the first Black American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show, The Oyster Man in 1907, and helped to popularize the musical genre of ragtime.

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20/05/1896

Clara Schumann, German pianist and composer (born 1819)

Clara Josephine Schumann was a German virtuoso pianist, composer, and piano teacher and prodigy. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital by lessening the importance of purely virtuosic works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto, chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.

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20/05/1880

Ana Néri, Brazilian nurse and philanthropist (born 1814)

Ana Justina Ferreira Néri was a Brazilian nurse, considered the first in her country. She is best known for her volunteer work with the Triple Alliance during the Paraguayan War.

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20/05/1873

George-Étienne Cartier, Canadian soldier, lawyer, and politician, 9th Premier of East Canada (born 1814)

Sir George-Étienne Cartier, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian statesman and Father of Confederation. The English spelling of the name—George, instead of Georges, the usual French spelling—is explained by his having been named in honour of King George III.

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20/05/1864

John Clare, English poet (born 1793)

John Clare was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and his sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century; he is now often seen as a major 19th-century poet. His biographer Jonathan Bate called Clare "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self."

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20/05/1841

Joseph Blanco White, Spanish poet and theologian (born 1775)

Joseph Blanco White, born José María Blanco y Crespo, was an Anglo-Spanish political thinker, theologian, and poet.

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20/05/1834

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, French general (born 1757)

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, known in the United States as Lafayette, was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Continental Army, led by General George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette commanded Continental Army troops in the decisive siege of Yorktown in 1781, the Revolutionary War's final major battle, which secured American independence. After returning to France, Lafayette became a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830 and continues to be celebrated as a hero in both France and the United States.

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20/05/1812

Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, Austrian archbishop (born 1732)

Hieronymus Joseph Franz de Paula Graf Colloredo von Wallsee und Melz was Prince-Bishop of Gurk from 1761 to 1772 and Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1772 until 1803, when the prince-archbishopric was secularized. After secularization, Colloredo fled to Vienna and remained the non-resident archbishop of Salzburg, bereft of temporal power, until his death in 1812. He is most famously known as a patron and employer for Mozart.

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20/05/1793

Charles Bonnet, Swiss botanist and biologist (born 1720)

Charles Bonnet was a Genevan naturalist and philosophical writer. He is responsible for coining the term phyllotaxis to describe the arrangement of leaves on a plant. He was among the first to notice parthenogenetic reproduction in aphids and established that insects respired through their spiracles. He was among the first to use the term "evolution" in a biological context. Deaf from an early age, he also suffered from failing eyesight and had to make use of assistants in later life to help in his research.

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20/05/1782

William Emerson, English mathematician and academic (born 1701)

William Emerson was an English mathematician. He was born in Hurworth, near Darlington, where his father, Dudley Emerson, also a mathematician, taught a school.

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20/05/1732

Thomas Boston, Scottish author and educator (born 1676)

Thomas Boston was a Scottish Presbyterian church leader, theologian and philosopher. Boston was successively schoolmaster at Glencairn, and minister of Simprin in Berwickshire, and Ettrick in Selkirkshire. In addition to his best-known work, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State, one of the religious classics of Scotland, he wrote an original little book, The Crook in the Lot, and a learned treatise on the Hebrew points. He also took a leading part in the Courts of the Church in what was known as the "Marrow Controversy," regarding the merits of an English work, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, which he defended against the attacks of the "Moderate" party in the Church. Boston, if unduly introspective, was a man of singular piety and amiability. His autobiography is an interesting record of Scottish life, full of sincerity and tenderness, and not devoid of humorous touches, intentional and otherwise.

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20/05/1722

Sébastien Vaillant, French botanist and mycologist (born 1669)

Sébastien Vaillant was a French botanist who was born at Vigny in present-day Val d'Oise.

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20/05/1717

John Trevor, Welsh lawyer and politician, 102nd Speaker of the House of Commons (born 1637)

Sir John Trevor was a Welsh lawyer and politician. He was Speaker of the English House of Commons from 1685 to 1687 and from 1689 to 1695. Trevor also served as Master of the Rolls from 1685 to 1689 and from 1693 to 1717. His second term as Speaker came to an end due to a bribery allegation; he was expelled from the House of Commons shortly thereafter.

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20/05/1713

Thomas Sprat, English bishop (born 1635)

Thomas Sprat, FRS was an English churchman and writer, Bishop of Rochester from 1684.

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20/05/1677

George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, Spanish-English politician, English Secretary of State (born 1612)

George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol was an English politician and peer who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 until 1641, when he was raised to the House of Lords by a writ of acceleration. He supported the Royalists during the English Civil War, but his ambition and instability of character caused serious problems to himself and both Kings he served.

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20/05/1648

Władysław IV Vasa, Polish son of Sigismund III Vasa (born 1595)

Władysław IV Vasa or Ladislaus IV was King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and claimant of the thrones of Sweden and Russia. Born into the House of Vasa as a prince of Poland and of Sweden, Władysław IV was the eldest son of Sigismund III Vasa and his first wife, Anna of Austria.

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20/05/1645

Shi Kefa, Chinese general and calligrapher (born 1601)

Shi Kefa, courtesy names Xianzhi and Daolin, was a government official and calligrapher who lived in the late Ming dynasty. He was born in Xiangfu and claimed ancestry from Daxing County, Shuntian Prefecture. He was mentored by Zuo Guangdou (左光斗). He served as the Minister of War in Nanjing during the early part of his career. He is best remembered for his defence of Yangzhou from the Qing dynasty and was killed when Yangzhou fell to Qing forces in April 1645. After his death, the Southern Ming granted him the posthumous name "Zhongjing". Nearly a century later, the Qianlong Emperor of Qing granted Shi Kefa another posthumous name, "Zhongzheng" His descendants collected his works and compiled them into a book titled Lord Shi Zhongzheng's Collections (史忠正公集).

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20/05/1622

Osman II, Ottoman sultan (born 1604)

Osman II, also known as Osman the Young, was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 26 February 1618 until his regicide on 20 May 1622.

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20/05/1579

Isabella Markham, English courtier (born 1527)

Isabella Markham, was an English courtier, a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber of Queen Elizabeth I of England and a personal favourite of the queen. Isabella Markham was muse to the court official and poet John Harington, who wrote sonnets and poems addressed to her, before and after they married. Thomas Palfreyman dedicated his Divine Meditations to her in 1572.

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20/05/1550

Ashikaga Yoshiharu, Japanese shōgun (born 1510)

Ashikaga Yoshiharu was the twelfth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate from 1521 through 1546 during the late Muromachi period of Japan. He was the son of the eleventh shōgun Ashikaga Yoshizumi.

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20/05/1506

Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer, early European explorer of the Americas (born 1451)

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.

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20/05/1503

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, Italian banker and politician (born 1463)

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, nicknamed the Popolano, was an Italian banker and politician, the brother of Giovanni il Popolano. He belonged to the junior branch of the House of Medici of Florence.

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20/05/1501

Columba of Rieti, Italian Dominican tertiary Religious Sister (born 1467)

Columba of Rieti was an Italian religious sister of the Third Order of St. Dominic who was noted as a mystic. She was renowned for her spiritual counsel, devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and fantastic miracles were attributed to her. She was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1625.

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20/05/1476

Isabel Ingoldisthorpe, English noblewoman (born 1441)

Isabel Ingoldisthorpe was an English noblewoman and heiress, who by her marriage to John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu was Countess of Northumberland and Marchioness of Montague.

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20/05/1449

Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches

Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches was a Portuguese knight and nobleman, with a long and illustrious career abroad in England. He was invested by the English king, Henry VI as the 1st Count of Avranches and made a Knight of the Garter.

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Infante Pedro, Duke of Coimbra (born 1392)

Dom Peter, Duke of Coimbra, KG was a Portuguese infante (prince) of the House of Aviz, son of King Dom John I of Portugal and his wife, Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt. In Portugal, he is known as Infante Dom Pedro das Sete Partidas [do Mundo], "of the Seven Parts [of the World]" because of his travels. Possibly the best-travelled prince of his time, he was regent between 1439 and 1448. He was also 1st Lord of Montemor-o-Velho, Aveiro, Tentúgal, Cernache, Pereira, Condeixa and Lousã.

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20/05/1444

Bernardino of Siena, Italian-Spanish missionary and saint (born 1380)

Bernardino of Siena, OFM, was an Italian Catholic priest and Franciscan missionary preacher in the Republic of Siena. He was a systematizer of scholastic economics.

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20/05/1366

Maria of Calabria, Empress of Constantinople (born 1329)

Maria of Calabria, Countess of Alba, was a Neapolitan princess of the Capetian House of Anjou whose descendants inherited the crown of Naples following the death of her older sister, Queen Joanna I.

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20/05/1291

Sufi Saint Sayyid Jalaluddin Surkh-Posh Bukhari

Sayyid Jalaluddin Surkh-Posh Naqvi Al Bukhari (Persian: سید جلال الدین سرخ پوش بخاری, c. 595-690 AH, 1190 – 1295 CE was a saint from the Indian subcontinent. He belonged to the Jalali Sufi order and was descended from the 10th Shia Imam, Ali al-Hadi.

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20/05/1285

John I of Cyprus (born 1259)

John I was King of Cyprus and, in contention with Charles I of Anjou, of Jerusalem from 1284 to 1285.

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20/05/1277

Pope John XXI (born 1215)

Pope John XXI, born Pedro Julião, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 September 1276 to his death in May 1277. He is the only ethnically Portuguese pope in history. He is sometimes identified with the logician and herbalist Peter of Spain, which would make him the only pope to have been a physician.

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20/05/1062

Bao Zheng, Chinese magistrate and mayor of Kaifeng (born 999)

Bao Zheng, commonly known as Bao Gong, was a Chinese politician during the reign of Emperor Renzong in China's Song Dynasty. During his twenty-five years in civil service, Bao was known for his honesty and uprightness, with actions such as impeaching an uncle of Emperor Renzong's favourite concubine and punishing powerful families. His appointment from 1057 to 1058 as the prefect of Song's capital Kaifeng, where he initiated a number of changes to better hear the grievances of the people, made him a legendary figure. During his years in office, he gained the honorific title Justice Bao due to his ability to defend peasants and commoners against corruption or injustice. Bao Zheng is depicted as the incarnation of the Astral God of Civil Arts, while famous Northern Song warrior Di Qing is depicted as the Astral God of Military Arts.

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20/05/0965

Gero the Great, Saxon ruler (bornc. 900)

Gero I, sometimes called the Great, was a prominent German noble from the Duchy of Saxony in the East Francia, who held several offices during the reign of king and later emperor Otto I (936–973). As one of the most notable counts in northern regions of Otto's realm, Gero was appointed as king's representative (legate) in the Saxon duchy. He was also appointed as margrave, thus ranking above other counts. The nature and scope of his jurisdiction as margrave was indicated in several sources, such as the Thietmar's Chronicle from the beginning of the 11th century, that mentions Gero as Margrave of the East. Since various sources provide data on Gero's continuous and frequent involvement in German expansion towards the lands of Polabian Slavs, that lied to the east of Saxon and Thuringian lands, traditional historiography regarded Gero as margrave over the subdued Slavic regions, thus coining the term March of Gero. Newer scholarly analyses have shown that some charters that contain data on Gero's march should be considered as later forgeries, thus leading modern researchers to question or reject various traditional views regarding the nature and effective scope of such a frontier province in the middle of the 10th century.

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20/05/0794

Æthelberht II, king of East Anglia

Æthelberht, also called Saint Ethelbert the King was an 8th-century saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Little is known of his reign, which may have begun in 779, according to later sources, and very few of the coins he issued have been discovered. It is known from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that he was killed on the orders of Offa of Mercia in 794.

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20/05/0685

Ecgfrith of Northumbria (born 645)

Ecgfrith was the King of Northumbria from 670 until his death on 20 May 685. He ruled over Northumbria when it was at the height of its power, but his reign ended with a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Nechtansmere against the Picts of Fortriu in which he lost his life.

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