Died on Tuesday, 27th May – Famous Deaths

27/05/2025

Freddie Aguilar, Filipino musician and singer-songwriter (born 1953)

Ferdinand "Freddie" Pascual Aguilar, also known by his Muslim name Abdul Farid, was a Filipino musician regarded as one of the pillars and icons of Original Pilipino Music (OPM). He was best known for his international hit, "Anak" (1978), which became the best-selling Philippine music record of all time, selling 33 million copies worldwide, and the only Filipino song translated into 51 languages. His rendition of "Bayan Ko" became the anthem of the opposition against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos during the 1986 People Power Revolution. He was heavily associated with Pinoy rock.

---

27/05/2024

Elizabeth MacRae, American actress (born 1936)

Elizabeth Hendon MacRae was an American actress who performed in dozens of television series and in nine feature films, working predominantly in productions released between 1958 and the late 1980s. Among her more widely recognized roles was her recurring character Lou-Ann Poovie on the sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which was originally broadcast from 1964 to 1969.

---

Bill Walton, American basketball player and sportscaster (born 1952)

William Theodore Walton III was an American basketball player and television sportscaster. He played collegiately for the UCLA Bruins and professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Portland Trail Blazers, San Diego / Los Angeles Clippers, and Boston Celtics. He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

---

27/05/2021

Poul Schlüter, former Prime Minister of Denmark (born 1929)

Poul Holmskov Schlüter was a Danish politician who served as Prime Minister of Denmark from 1982 to 1993. He was the first member of the Conservative People's Party to become prime minister, as well as the first conservative to hold the office since 1901. Schlüter was a member of the Folketing for the Conservative People's Party from 1964 to 1994. He was also Chairman of the Conservative People's Party from 1974 to 1977 and from 1981 to 1993.

---

27/05/2020

Larry Kramer, American playwright, public health advocate and LGBT rights activist (born 1935)

Laurence David Kramer was an American playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London, where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love (1969) and received an Academy Award nomination for his work.

---

27/05/2018

Gardner Dozois, American science fiction author and editor (born 1947)

Gardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the founding editor of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies (1984–2018) and was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction (1986–2004), garnering multiple Hugo and Locus Awards for those works almost every year. He also won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice. He was inducted to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on June 25, 2011.

---

27/05/2017

Gregg Allman, American musician, singer and songwriter (born 1947)

Gregory LeNoir Allman was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was known for performing in the Allman Brothers Band. Allman grew up with an interest in rhythm and blues music, and the Allman Brothers Band fused it with rock music, jazz, and country. He wrote several of the band's most popular songs, including "Whipping Post", "Melissa", and "Midnight Rider". Allman also had a successful solo career, releasing eight studio albums. He was born and spent much of his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, before relocating to Daytona Beach, Florida, and then Macon, Georgia.

---

27/05/2015

Erik Carlsson, Swedish rally driver (born 1929)

Erik Hilding Carlsson was a Swedish rally driver for Saab. He was nicknamed "Carlsson på taket" as well as Mr. Saab.

---

Nils Christie, Norwegian sociologist, criminologist, and author (born 1928)

Nils Christie was a Norwegian sociologist and criminologist. He was a professor of criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. Considered a leading figure of his field, Christie is one of two Norwegian social scientists covered in the book 50 Key Thinkers in Criminology, alongside sociologist Thomas Mathiesen.

---

Andy King, English footballer and manager (born 1956)

Andrew Edward King was an English professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He made 350 appearances and scored 92 goals in the Football League in the 1970s and 1980s, and also played abroad. He was capped twice by England at under-21 level. After retiring as a player, he had a lengthy career in management.

---

Michael Martin, American philosopher and academic (born 1932)

Michael Lou Martin was an American philosopher and former professor at Boston University. Martin specialized in the philosophy of religion, although he also worked on the philosophies of science, law, and social science. He served with the US Marine Corps in Korea.

---

27/05/2014

Robert Genn, Canadian painter and author (born 1936)

Robert Douglas Genn was a Canadian artist, who gained recognition for his style, which is in the tradition of Canadian landscape painting. He ran a painters' website, which sends out twice weekly newsletters to 135,000 artists. In 2005, Genn campaigned against the Chinese website arch-world.com, which was selling thousands of high-resolution images of around 2,800 artists' work illegally without permission. He succeeded to an extent.

---

Helma Sanders-Brahms, German director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1940)

Helma Sanders-Brahms was a German film director, screenwriter and producer.

---

Roberto Vargas, Puerto Rican-American baseball player, coach, and manager (born 1929)

Roberto Enrique Vargas Vélez was a Puerto Rican pitcher in Major League Baseball and Negro league baseball. Vargas played for the Chicago American Giants for one season in 1948, in which he was named a Negro League All-Star. He also played one season for the Milwaukee Braves of the National League during the 1955 season. He was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

---

Massimo Vignelli, Italian-American graphic designer (born 1931)

Massimo Vignelli was an Italian designer active in graphic design, industrial design, furniture, and architecture. He worked within the modernist tradition, emphasizing simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms. With his wife Lella, Vignelli helped establish the New York office of Unimark International and Vignelli Associates.

---

27/05/2013

Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri, Indian politician (born 1917)

Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri was an Indian politician. He was the oldest surviving member of the founding Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

---

Bill Pertwee, English actor (born 1926)

William Desmond Anthony Pertwee was an English actor and comedian. He played Chief ARP Warden Hodges in Dad's Army and P.C. Wilson in You Rang, M'Lord?.

---

Abdoulaye Sékou Sow, Malian politician, Prime Minister of Mali (born 1931)

Abdoulaye Sékou Sow was a Malian politician who served as Prime Minister of Mali from 12 April 1993 to 4 February 1994 under President Alpha Oumar Konaré.

---

27/05/2012

Simeon Daniel, Nevisian educator and politician, 1st Premier of Nevis (born 1934)

Simeon Daniel was the first Premier of Nevis.

---

Friedrich Hirzebruch, German mathematician and academic (born 1927)

Friedrich Ernst Peter Hirzebruch ForMemRS was a German mathematician, working in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and a leading figure in his generation. He has been described as "the most important mathematician in Germany of the postwar period."

---

Anahit Perikhanian, Russian-born Armenian Iranologist (born 1928)

Anahit Georgievna Perikhanian was a Soviet-born Armenian academic. An Iranologist, Perikhanian specialized in Sasanian jurisprudence, history and society. In addition to her work on many aspects of ancient and medieval Iran, Perikhanian was also interested in ancient inscriptions of Asia Minor and the Middle East, as well as Middle Iranian languages and Armenian language. She also spent much time researching Armenian philology and etymology, especially in relation to Iranian loanwords in the Armenian language, and contributed to the understanding of Aramaic inscriptions found in Armenia.

---

David Rimoin, Canadian-American geneticist and academic (born 1936)

David Lawrence Rimoin was a Canadian American geneticist. He was especially noted for his research into the genetics of skeletal dysplasia (dwarfism), inheritable diseases such as Tay–Sachs disease, and diabetes.

---

27/05/2011

Jeff Conaway, American actor and singer (born 1950)

Jeffrey Charles William Michael Conaway was an American actor. He portrayed Kenickie in the film Grease and had roles in three television series: struggling actor Bobby Wheeler in Taxi (1978–1982), Prince Erik Greystone in Wizards and Warriors, and security officer Zack Allan on Babylon 5. Conaway was featured in the first and second seasons of the reality television series Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.

---

Margo Dydek, Polish-American basketball player (born 1974)

Małgorzata Teresa Dydek-Twigg, better known as Margo Dydek, was a Polish professional basketball player. Standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall, she was the tallest professional female basketball player in the world. Playing center position, she won nine national championships in Poland and four in Spain during her career. Outside of Europe, she played 11 seasons in the WNBA, for three teams, and was a coach for the Northside Wizards in the Queensland Basketball League. She was awarded the Polish Gold Cross of Merit (1999).

---

Gil Scott-Heron, American singer-songwriter and poet (born 1949)

Gilbert Scott-Heron was an American jazz poet, singer, musician and author, known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson fused jazz, blues and soul with lyrics relative to social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles. He referred to himself as a "bluesologist", his own term for "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". His poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop music.

---

27/05/2010

Payut Ngaokrachang, Thai animator and director (born 1929)

Payut Ngaokrachang was a Thai cartoonist and animator. He created Thai cinema's first cel-animated feature film, The Adventure of Sudsakorn.

---

27/05/2009

Thomas M. Franck, American lawyer and academic (born 1931)

Thomas Martin Franck was an American legal scholar and expert on international law. Franck was the Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law at New York University and advised many nations on legal matters, even helping some to write their constitutions.

---

Clive Granger, Welsh-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1934)

Sir Clive William John Granger was a British econometrician known for his contributions to nonlinear time series analysis. He taught in Britain, at the University of Nottingham and in the United States, at the University of California, San Diego. Granger was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2003 in recognition of the contributions that he and his co-winner, Robert F. Engle, had made to the analysis of time series data. This work fundamentally changed the way in which economists analyse financial and macroeconomic data.

---

Mona Grey, British nursing administrator; Northern Ireland's first Chief Nursing Officer (born 1910)

Mona Elizabeth Clara Grey was a British nurse who was named Northern Ireland's first Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in 1960.

---

Abram Hoffer, Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist (born 1917)

Abram Hoffer was a Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist known for his "adrenochrome hypothesis" of schizoaffective disorders. According to Hoffer, megavitamin therapy and other nutritional interventions are potentially effective treatments for cancer and schizophrenia. Hoffer was also involved in studies of LSD as an experimental therapy for alcoholism and the discovery that high-dose niacin can be used to treat high cholesterol and other dyslipidemias.

---

Gérard Jean-Juste, Haitian-American priest and theologian (born 1946)

Gérard Jean-Juste was a Haitian Catholic priest who served as rector of Saint Claire's Church for the Poor in Port-au-Prince. He was also a liberation theologian and a supporter of the Fanmi Lavalas political party, as well as heading the Miami, Florida-based Haitian Refugee Center from 1977 to 1990.

---

Carol Anne O'Marie, American nun and author (born 1933)

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie, C.S.J., was a Roman Catholic sister in the Religious Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. She was also a mystery writer.

---

William Refshauge, Australian soldier and physician (born 1913)

Major General Sir William Dudley Duncan Refshauge, was an Australian soldier and public health administrator. He was Honorary Physician to Queen Elizabeth II (1955–64), director-general of the Australian Government Department of Health (1960–73), and secretary-general of the World Medical Association (1973–76).

---

Paul Sharratt, English-American television host (born 1933)

Paul William Sharratt, was an English-born Australian entertainer and television personality, and later an American television producer.

---

27/05/2008

Franz Künstler, Hungarian soldier (born 1900)

Franz Künstler was, at age 107, the last known surviving veteran of the First World War who fought for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Following the death of 110-year-old Ottoman veteran Yakup Satar on 2 April 2008, he was also the last Central Powers veteran of any nationality. He was born in Sósd, in the Kingdom of Hungary, now Măureni, Romania.

---

27/05/2007

Izumi Sakai, Japanese singer-songwriter (born 1967)

Sachiko Kamachi , known professionally as Izumi Sakai , was a Japanese pop singer and core member of the group Zard. As Sakai was the only member in the group for the majority of the 16 years which it was active, Zard and Sakai may be referred to interchangeably. She was the best-selling female recording artist of the 1990s and has sold over 38 million copies of sales, making her one of the best-selling music artists in Japan of all time.

---

Gretchen Wyler, American actress and dancer (born 1932)

Gretchen Wyler was an American actress and dancer. She was also an animal rights advocate and founder of the Genesis Awards for animal protection.

---

Ed Yost, American inventor, created the modern hot air balloon (born 1919)

Paul Edward Yost was the American inventor of the modern hot air balloon and is referred to as the "Father of the Modern Day Hot-Air Balloon." He worked for a high-altitude research division of General Mills in the early 1950s until he left to establish Raven Industries in 1956, along with several colleagues from General Mills.

---

27/05/2006

Rob Borsellino, American journalist (born 1949)

Rob Borsellino was a newspaper columnist who worked for the Des Moines Register. His columns, which appeared three times weekly, became popular due to Borsellino's colloquial writing style and ability to tell a story straight from the heart. His columns appeared several times in such publications as USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post, and a compilation of Borsellino's columns were published in his 2005 book So I'm Talkin' To This Guy... (ISBN 1-888223-66-9).

---

Paul Gleason, American actor (born 1939)

Paul Xavier Gleason was an American film and television actor. He was known for his roles on television series such as All My Children and films such as The Breakfast Club, Trading Places, and Die Hard.

---

Craig Heyward, American football player (born 1966)

Craig William Heyward, nicknamed "Ironhead", was an American professional football player who was a fullback in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Pittsburgh Panthers. He then played for the New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears, Atlanta Falcons, St. Louis Rams, and Indianapolis Colts in an 11-year NFL career.

---

27/05/2003

Luciano Berio, Italian composer and educator (born 1925)

Luciano Berio was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work, and for his pioneering work in electronic music. His early work was influenced by Igor Stravinsky and experiments with serial and electronic techniques, while his later works explore indeterminacy and the use of spoken texts as the basic material for composition.

---

27/05/2002

Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, Scottish historian (born 1909)

Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson was a Scottish historian and paleographer.

---

27/05/2000

Kazimierz Leski, Polish engineer and pilot (born 1912)

Kazimierz Leski, nom de guerre Bradl, was a Polish engineer, co-designer of the Polish submarines ORP Sęp (1938) and ORP Orzeł, a fighter pilot, and an officer in World War II Home Army's intelligence and counter-intelligence.

---

Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch, Scottish politician and diplomat, 25th Governor of Hong Kong (born 1917)

Crawford Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch,, was a British politician, diplomat and colonial official who served as the 25th Governor of Hong Kong, from 1971 to 1982. He was the longest-serving governor of the colony, with four successive terms in office. He previously worked for the British Council in China and was the British ambassador to South Vietnam and Denmark.

---

Maurice Richard, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1921)

Joseph Henri Maurice "Rocket" Richard was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Montreal Canadiens. He was the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in one season, accomplishing the feat in 50 games in 1944–45, and the first to reach 500 career goals.

---

27/05/1998

Minoo Masani, Indian lawyer and politician (born 1905)

Minocher Rustom "Minoo" Masani was an Indian politician, a leading figure of the erstwhile Swatantra Party. He was a three-time Member of Parliament, representing Gujarat's Rajkot constituency in the second, third and fourth Lok Sabha. A Parsi, he was among the founders of the Indian Liberal Group think tank that promoted classical liberalism.

---

27/05/1992

Uncle Charlie Osborne, American fiddler (born 1890)

Charles Nelson Osborne, affectionately known as "Uncle Charlie," was a musician in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia. He was born in what is now known as Cowan Osborne Hollow, named for his father, in Copper Creek, Virginia. He was regionally famous from the time he was about 15 until his death at age 101 in 1992.

---

27/05/1991

Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist and theorist (born 1904)

Leopold Nowak was an Austrian musicologist chiefly known for editing the works of Anton Bruckner for the International Bruckner Society. He reconstructed the original form of some of those works, most of which had been revised and edited many times.

---

27/05/1990

Robert B. Meyner, American lawyer and politician, 44th Governor of New Jersey (born 1908)

Robert Baumle Meyner was an American Democratic Party politician and attorney who served as the 44th governor of New Jersey from 1954 to 1962. Before being elected governor, Meyner represented Warren County in the New Jersey Senate from 1948 to 1951.

---

27/05/1989

Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet and translator (born 1907)

Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian poet and translator. He was predeceased by his son, film director and screenwriter Andrei Tarkovsky.

---

27/05/1988

Hjördis Petterson, Swedish actress (born 1908)

Hjördis Olga Maria Petterson was a Swedish actress. She appeared in more than 140 films. She was born in Visby, Sweden and died in Stockholm. She had one child with her second husband, Fred Renstroem.

---

Ernst Ruska, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1906)

Ernst August Friedrich Ruska was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 for his work in electron optics, including the design of the first electron microscope.

---

27/05/1987

John Howard Northrop, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891)

John Howard Northrop was an American biochemist who, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award was given for these scientists' isolation, crystallization, and study of enzymes, proteins, and viruses. Northrop was a Professor of Bacteriology and Medical Physics, Emeritus, at University of California, Berkeley.

---

27/05/1986

Murder of the Faruqis:

Ismaʿil Raji al-Faruqi was a Palestinian-American Muslim philosopher and scholar of religion. He contributed significantly to Islamic studies, ethics, and interfaith dialogue, and is best known for pioneering the Islamization of knowledge and articulating tawhid (monotheism) as a comprehensive worldview. He proposed a model of meta-religion based on shared ethical values and the universal concept of divine unity.

---

Murder of the Faruqis:

Lois Lamya al-Faruqi was an American scholar and expert on Islamic art and music. She made contributions to the field of ethnomusicology, particularly in the study of Islamic musical culture, and co-authored the work The Cultural Atlas of Islam with her husband, Ismail al-Faruqi.

---

Ajoy Mukherjee, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (born 1901)

Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee was an Indian independence activist and politician who served three short terms as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. He hailed from Tamluk, Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal.

---

Giorgos Tzifos, Greek actor and cinematographer (born 1918)

Giorgos Tzifos was a Greek actor in theater and movies. He played mostly secondary roles in comedies, even Law 4000 of Giorgos Dalianidis. I Will Make You Queen and I de gyni na fovitai ton andra as a chauffeur. In 1982, he appeared in the movie Alaloum with Harry Klynn. He also appeared in that time in a television series about milk, as a hero of little Bobo. He died on 27 May 1986 and is buried in Athens Cemetery.

---

27/05/1984

Vasilije Mokranjac, Serbian composer (born 1923)

Vasilije Mokranjac was a Serbian composer, professor of composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was one of the most prominent Serbian composers in the second half of the 20th century. Although famed for his symphonies, he also wrote piano music, as well as music for radio, film and theatre. He won the most prestigious awards in former Yugoslavia, including the October Prize, the award of the Yugoslav Radio-Diffusion, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award.

---

27/05/1980

Gün Sazak, Turkish agronomist and politician (born 1932)

Gün Sazak was a Turkish nationalist politician and former government minister of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). He was assassinated by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front after his police guard was removed. After his killing, MHP supporters carried out the Çorum massacre in reprisal.

---

27/05/1971

Béla Juhos, Hungarian-Austrian philosopher from the Vienna Circle (born 1901)

Béla Juhos was a Hungarian-Austrian philosopher and member of the Vienna Circle.

---

Armando Picchi, Italian footballer and coach (born 1935)

Armando Picchi was an Italian football player and coach. Regularly positioned as a libero, he captained the Inter Milan side known as "La Grande Inter".

---

27/05/1969

Jeffrey Hunter, American actor and producer (born 1926)

Jeffrey Hunter was an American film and television actor and producer known for his roles in films such as The Searchers and King of Kings. On television, Hunter is known for his 1965 role as Captain Christopher Pike in the original pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.

---

27/05/1967

W. Otto Miessner, American composer and educator (born 1880)

William Otto Miessner was an American composer and music educator. Most of his life was spent in the midwest, particularly Indiana and Wisconsin.

---

Ernst Niekisch, German academic and politician (born 1889)

Ernst Niekisch was a German writer and political theorist. Initially a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and of the Old Social Democratic Party of Germany (ASPD), he later became a prominent exponent of the National revolutionary branch of the Conservative Revolution and National Bolshevism.

---

27/05/1965

John Rinehart Blue, American military officer, educator, businessperson, and politician (born 1905)

John Rinehart Blue was an American military officer, educator, businessperson, and politician in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Blue was a Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates representing Hampshire County, from 1953 until 1959.

---

27/05/1964

Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of India (born 1889)

Jawaharlal Nehru was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India's independence in 1947, he served as the country's first prime minister for 16 years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation. In international affairs, he steered India clear of the two blocs of the Cold War. A well-regarded author, he wrote books such as Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929), An Autobiography (1936) and The Discovery of India (1946), that have been read around the world.

---

27/05/1963

Grigoris Lambrakis, Greek physician and politician (born 1912)

Grigoris Lambrakis was a Greek politician, physician, athlete, and lecturer. He participated in track and field sports and was a member of the faculty of the School of Medicine at the University of Athens. A member of the Greek resistance to Axis rule during World War II, he later became a prominent anti-war activist. His assassination by right-wing zealots that were covertly supported by the police and military provoked mass protests and led to a political crisis.

---

27/05/1960

James Montgomery Flagg, American painter and illustrator (born 1877)

James Montgomery Flagg was an American artist, comics artist, and illustrator. He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning, but is best remembered for his political posters, particularly his 1917 poster of Uncle Sam created for United States Army recruitment during World War I.

---

27/05/1953

Jesse Burkett, American baseball player and manager (born 1868)

Jesse Cail Burkett, nicknamed "Crab", was an American professional baseball left fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1890 to 1905 for the New York Giants, Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Perfectos / Cardinals, St. Louis Browns, and Boston Americans.

---

27/05/1949

Robert Ripley, American cartoonist, publisher, and businessman, founded Ripley's Believe It or Not! (born 1890)

LeRoy Robert Ripley was an American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist, who is known for creating the Ripley's Believe It or Not! newspaper panel series, television show, and radio show, which feature odd facts from around the world.

---

27/05/1947

Ed Konetchy, American baseball player and manager (born 1885)

Edward Joseph Konetchy, nicknamed "Big Ed" and "the Candy Kid", was an American first baseman in Major League Baseball for a number of teams, primarily in the National League, from 1907 to 1921. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals (1907–1913), Pittsburgh Pirates (1914), Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League (1915), Boston Braves (1916–1918), Brooklyn Robins (1919–1921), and Philadelphia Phillies (1921). He batted and threw right-handed.

---

27/05/1945

Enno Lolling, German physician (born 1888)

Enno Lolling was a Nazi doctor. As a member of the SS, he served as a Lagerarzt at Dachau concentration camp. He later headed up the medical division for all the SS concentration camps. Lolling committed suicide in Flensburg as the war was ending.

---

27/05/1943

Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (born 1878)

Joseph Gordon Coates served as the 21st prime minister of New Zealand from 1925 to 1928. He was the third successive Reform prime minister since 1912.

---

27/05/1942

Muhammed Hamdi Yazır, Turkish theologian, logician, and translator (born 1878)

Muhammed Hamdi Yazır also known as Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır and Elmalılı was a Turkish Maturidi theologian, logician, Qur'an translator, Qur'anic exegesis scholar, Islamic legal academic, philosopher and encyclopedist.

---

27/05/1941

Ernst Lindemann, German captain (born 1894)

Otto Ernst Lindemann was a German Kapitän zur See. He was the only commander of the battleship Bismarck during its eight months of service in World War II.

---

Günther Lütjens, German admiral (born 1889)

Johann Günther Lütjens was a German admiral whose military service spanned more than 30 years and two world wars. Lütjens is best known for his actions during World War II and his command of the battleship Bismarck during her foray into the Atlantic Ocean in 1941. He was killed in action during the last battle of the battleship Bismarck.

---

27/05/1939

Joseph Roth, Austrian-French journalist and author (born 1894)

Moses Joseph Roth was a Austro-Hungarian journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life Job (1930) and his seminal essay "Juden auf Wanderschaft", a fragmented account of the Jewish migrations from eastern to western Europe in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution. In the 21st century, publications in English of Radetzky March and of collections of his journalism from Berlin and Paris created a revival of interest in Roth.

---

27/05/1933

Achille Paroche, French target shooter (born 1868)

Nicolas Achille Paroche was a French sport shooter who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics and 1920 Summer Olympics.

---

27/05/1919

Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Indian author and activist (born 1848)

Kandukuri Veeresalingam was a social reformer and writer from the Madras Presidency, British India, current Andhra Pradesh. He was considered as the Father of the Telugu Renaissance movement. He was one of the early social reformers who encouraged the education of women and the remarriage of widows. He also fought against child marriage and the dowry system. He started a school in Dowlaiswaram in 1874, constructed the 'Brahmo Mandir' in 1887 and built the 'Hithakarini School' in 1908 in Andhra Pradesh. His novel Rajasekhara Charitramu is considered to be the first novel in Telugu literature.

---

27/05/1918

Ōzutsu Man'emon, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 18th Yokozuna (born 1869)

Ōzutsu Man'emon was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture. He was the sport's 18th yokozuna.

---

27/05/1910

Robert Koch, German physician and microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1843)

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician and microbiologist. He won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis".

---

27/05/1896

Aleksandr Stoletov, Russian physicist, engineer, and academic (born 1839)

Alexander Grigorievich Stoletov was a Russian physicist, founder of electrical engineering, and professor in Moscow University. He was the brother of general Nikolai Stoletov.

---

27/05/1867

Thomas Bulfinch American mythologist (born 1796)

Thomas Bulfinch was an American author born in Newton, Massachusetts, known best for Bulfinch's Mythology, a posthumous combination of his three volumes of mythologies.

---

27/05/1840

Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (born 1782)

Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices for Solo Violin Op. 1 are among the best known of his compositions and have served as an inspiration for many prominent composers.

---

27/05/1831

Jedediah Smith, American hunter, explorer, and author (born 1799)

Jedediah Strong Smith was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western United States, and the Southwest during the early 19th century. After 75 years of obscurity following his death, Smith was rediscovered as the American whose explorations led to the use of the 20-mile (32 km)-wide South Pass as the dominant route across the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail.

---

27/05/1797

François-Noël Babeuf, French journalist (born 1760)

François-Noël Babeuf, also known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French proto-communist, revolutionary, and journalist of the French Revolutionary period. His newspaper Le Tribun du Peuple was best known for its advocacy for the poor and calling for a popular revolt against the Directory, the government of France. He was a leading advocate for democracy and the abolition of private property. He made his own variant of Jacobinism (Robespierrism) which is called Neo-Jacobinism. Besides the influence of Robespierrism on his thought, due to his proto-communism, his political views were more aligned with the ideology of the Enragés. He angered the authorities who were clamping down hard on their radical enemies. In spite of the efforts of his Jacobin friends to save him, Babeuf was executed for his lead role in the Conspiracy of the Equals.

---

27/05/1781

Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist and academic (born 1716)

Giovanni Battista Beccaria was an Italian physicist. A fellow of the Royal Society, he published several papers on electrical subjects in the Phil. Trans. Beccaria was one of Benjamin Franklin's more conspicuous correspondents. His students included Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Giovanni Francesco Cigna, Giuseppe Angelo Saluzzo, and the successor to the Chair of physics, Antonio Vassalli Eandi; moreover, his researches inspired the physicists of Pavia, Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani.

---

27/05/1707

Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (born 1640)

Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan, commonly known as Madame de Montespan, was a French noblewoman and the most celebrated royal mistress of King Louis XIV. During their romantic relationship, which lasted from the late 1660s to the late 1670s, she was sometimes referred to by contemporaries as the "true Queen of France" due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court.

---

27/05/1702

Dominique Bouhours, French priest and critic (born 1628)

Dominique Bouhours was a French Jesuit priest, essayist, grammarian, and neo-classical critic. He was born and died in Paris.

---

27/05/1690

Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian organist and composer (born 1626)

Giovanni Legrenzi was an Italian composer of opera, vocal and instrumental music, and organist, of the Baroque era. He was one of the most prominent composers in Venice in the late 17th century, and extremely influential in the development of late Baroque idioms across northern Italy.

---

27/05/1675

Gaspard Dughet, Italian-French painter (born 1613)

Gaspard Dughet, also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome.

---

27/05/1661

Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish general and politician (born 1607)

Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll was a Scottish nobleman, politician, and peer. The de facto head of Scotland's government during most of the conflict of the 1640s and 1650s known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, he was the main leader of the Covenanter movement that fought for the Establishment of Presbyterianism in opposition to the preference of King Charles I and the Caroline Divines for instead establishing both High Church Anglicanism and Bishops. He is often remembered as the principal antagonist to the Royalist general James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose.

---

27/05/1637

John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Brantfield, English politician (born c. 1566)

John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Brantfield, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1625 to 1626. The Butlers of Hertfordshire claimed descent from Ralph le Boteler, butler to Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan and Earl of Leicester in the time of Henry I, and by the 15th century they had been seated at Watton for some time.

---

27/05/1624

Diego Ramírez de Arellano, Spanish sailor and cosmographer (born c. 1580)

Diego Ramírez de Arellano was a Spanish sailor and cosmographer. He achieved fame for piloting the Garcia de Nodal expedition to the region of the Strait of Magellan. The expedition discovered the Diego Ramírez Islands, the most southerly point visited by Europeans until the discovery of the South Sandwich Islands by Captain James Cook in 1775.

---

27/05/1610

François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (born 1578)

François Ravaillac was a French Catholic who assassinated King Henry IV of France in 1610.

---

27/05/1564

John Calvin, French pastor and theologian (born 1509)

John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was the principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Calvinist doctrines were influenced by and elaborated upon Augustinian and other Christian traditions. Various Reformed Church movements, including Continental Reformed, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Waldensians, Baptist Reformed, Calvinist Methodism, and Reformed Anglican Churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world.

---

27/05/1541

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (born 1473)

Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and his wife Isabel Neville. As a result of Margaret's marriage to Richard Pole, she was also known as Margaret Pole. She was one of just two women in 16th-century England to be a peeress in her own right without a husband in the House of Lords.

---

27/05/1525

Thomas Müntzer, German mystic and theologian (born 1488)

Thomas Müntzer was a German preacher and theologian of the early Reformation whose opposition to both Martin Luther and the Catholic Church led to his open defiance of late-feudal authority in central Germany. Müntzer was foremost amongst those reformers who took issue with Luther's compromises with feudal authority. He was a leader of the German peasant and plebeian uprising of 1525 commonly known as the German Peasants' War.

---

27/05/1508

Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (born 1452)

Ludovico Maria Sforza, also known as Ludovico il Moro, and called the "arbiter of Italy" by historian Francesco Guicciardini, was an Italian nobleman who ruled as the Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499.

---

27/05/1444

John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English commander (born 1404)

John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, 3rd Earl of Somerset was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was a paternal first cousin of King Henry V and the maternal grandfather of Henry VII.

---

27/05/1240

William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey (born 1166)

William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey was the son of Isabel de Warenne, 4th Countess of Surrey and Hamelin de Warenne. His father Hamelin granted him the manor of Appleby, North Lincolnshire.

---

27/05/1178

Godfrey van Rhenen, bishop of Utrecht

Godfried or Godfrey van Rhenen was a bishop of Utrecht from 1156 to 1178.

---

27/05/1045

Bruno of Würzburg, imperial chancellor of Italy (born c. 1005)

Bruno of Würzburg, also known as Bruno of Carinthia, was imperial chancellor of Italy from 1027 to 1034 for Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, to whom he was related, and from 1034 until his death prince-bishop of Würzburg.

---

27/05/1039

Dirk III, Count of Holland (born 981)

Dirk III was the count with jurisdiction over what would become the county of Holland, often referred to in this period as "West Frisia", from 993 to 27 May 1039. Until 1005, this was under regency of his mother. It is thought that Dirk III went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land around 1030, hence his nickname of Hierosolymita.

---

27/05/0927

Simeon I of Bulgaria first Bulgarian Emperor (born 864)

Simeon I the Great was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 until his death in 927. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern and Southeast Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

---

27/05/0866

Ordoño I of Asturias (born 831)

Ordoño I was King of Asturias from 850 until his death. He was born in Oviedo, where he spent his early life in the court of Alfonso II. He was probably raised in Lugo, capital of the province of Galicia, where his father, Ramiro I, had been named governor. He received his education and military training there.

---

27/05/0475

Eutropius, bishop of Orange

Eutropius of Orange was bishop of Orange, France, during the 5th century and probably since 463, in succession to Justus.

---

27/05/0398

Murong Bao, emperor of the Xianbei state Later Yan (born 355)

Murong Bao, courtesy name Daoyou (道佑), Xianbei name Kugou (庫勾), also known by his posthumous name as the Emperor Huimin of Later Yan (後燕惠愍帝), was an emperor of the Xianbei-led Chinese Later Yan dynasty. He inherited from his father Murong Chui a sizable empire but lost most of it within a span of a year, and would be dead in less than three, a victim of a rebellion by his granduncle Lan Han. Historians largely attributed this to his irresolution and inability to judge military and political decisions. While the Later Yan would last for one more decade after his death, it would never regain the power it had under Murong Chui.

---

27/05/0366

Procopius, Roman usurper (born 325)

Procopius was a Roman usurper against Valens.

---