Died on Tuesday, 6th May – Famous Deaths

06/05/2024

Bernard Pivot, French journalist, interviewer and host (born 1935)

Bernard Pivot was a French journalist, interviewer and host of cultural television programmes. He was chairman of the Académie Goncourt from 2014 to 2020.

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Brian Wenzel, Australian actor (born 1929)

Brian Thomas Wenzel was an Australian actor, comedian, director and singer. He was in the entertainment business for 60 years, including circus, stage, television and film.

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06/05/2022

George Pérez, American comic book artist and writer (born 1954)

George Pérez was an American comic book artist and writer, who worked primarily as a penciller. He came to prominence in the 1970s penciling Fantastic Four and The Avengers for Marvel Comics. In the 1980s, he penciled The New Teen Titans, which became one of DC Comics' top-selling series. He penciled DC's landmark limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, followed by relaunching Wonder Woman as both writer and penciller. In the meantime, he worked on other comics published by Marvel, DC, and other companies into the 2010s. He was known for his detailed and realistic rendering, and his facility with complex crowd scenes.

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06/05/2021

Kentaro Miura, Japanese manga artist (born 1966)

Kentaro Miura was a Japanese manga artist. He was best known for his dark fantasy series Berserk, which began serialization in 1989. By 2023, Berserk had over 60 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. In 2002, Miura received the Award for Excellence at the sixth Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.

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06/05/2016

Patrick Ekeng, Cameroonian footballer (born 1990)

Patrick Claude Ekeng Ekeng was a Cameroonian professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder. He had two international caps for his country's national team, whom he represented at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

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Reg Grundy, Australian businessman (born 1923)

Reginald Roy Grundy was an Australian entrepreneur and media mogul, best known for his numerous television productions. He was the producer of various Australian game shows, such as Blankety Blanks and Wheel of Fortune before later diversifying into soap operas and serials including Prisoner, The Young Doctors, Sons and Daughters and Neighbours, the last of which was inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame in 2005.

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06/05/2015

Novera Ahmed, Bangladeshi sculptor (born 1930)

Novera Ahmed was a Bangladeshi modern sculptor. She was awarded the Ekushey Padak medal by the government of Bangladesh in 1997 and Independence Award in 2025. Artist Zainul Abedin described her work saying "What Novera is doing now will take us a long time to understand – she is that kind of an artist."

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Denise McCluggage, American race car driver and journalist (born 1927)

Denise McCluggage was an American auto racing driver, journalist, author and photographer. McCluggage was a pioneer of equality for women in the U.S., both in motorsports and in journalism. She was born in El Dorado, Kansas, and spent her childhood in that state. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Mills College in Oakland, California. She began her career as a journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Jim Wright, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (born 1922)

James Claude Wright Jr. was a liberal American politician who served as the 48th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 1989. He represented Texas' 12th congressional district as a Democrat from 1955 to 1989.

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06/05/2014

Wil Albeda, Dutch economist and politician, Dutch Minister of Social Affairs (born 1925)

Willem Albeda was a Dutch politician of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and later of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and economist.

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William H. Dana, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut (born 1930)

William Harvey Dana was an American aeronautical engineer, U.S. Air Force pilot, NASA test pilot, and astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA. He was also selected for participation in the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.

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Jimmy Ellis, American boxer (born 1940)

James Albert Ellis was an American professional boxer. He won the vacant WBA heavyweight title in 1968 by defeating Jerry Quarry, making one successful title defense in the same year against Floyd Patterson, before losing to Joe Frazier in 1970.

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Billy Harrell, American baseball player and scout (born 1928)

William Harrell was an American reserve infielder in Major League Baseball who played between 1955 and 1961 for the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox (1961). Listed at 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m), 180 pounds (82 kg), Harrell batted and threw right-handed.

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Antony Hopkins, English pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1921)

Antony Hopkins was a composer, pianist, and conductor, as well as a writer and radio broadcaster. He was widely known for his books of musical analysis and for his radio programmes Talking About Music, broadcast by the BBC from 1954 to 1992, first on the Third Programme, later Radio 3, and then on Radio 4.

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Maria Lassnig, Austrian painter and academic (born 1919)

Maria Lassnig was an Austrian artist known for her painted self-portraits and her theory of "body awareness". In 1980, she became a professor for Painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she taught until her death. She was the first female artist to win the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1988 and was awarded the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 2005.

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Farley Mowat, Canadian environmentalist and author (born 1921)

Farley McGill Mowat, was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1970.

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06/05/2013

Giulio Andreotti, Italian journalist and politician, 41st Prime Minister of Italy (born 1919)

Giulio Andreotti was an Italian politician and statesman who served as the 41st prime minister of Italy in seven governments. He was leader of the Christian Democracy party and its conservative faction; he was the sixth-longest-serving prime minister since the Italian unification and the second-longest-serving post-war prime minister. Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the First Republic.

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Severo Aparicio Quispe, Peruvian bishop (born 1923)

Severo Aparicio Quispe, O. de M., was a Peruvian friar of the Mercedarian Order who was made a bishop of the Catholic Church. He wrote a number of works on the history of the Catholic Church and of his Order in Peru.

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Michelangelo Spensieri, Italian-Canadian lawyer and politician (born 1949)

Michelangelo 'Michael' Spensieri was an Italian-Canadian politician and lawyer in Ontario. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1981 to 1985, as a member of the Ontario Liberal Party.

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06/05/2012

James R. Browning, American lieutenant, lawyer, and judge (born 1918)

James Robert Browning was an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

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James Isaac, American director and producer (born 1960)

James Isaac was an American film director and visual effects supervisor.

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Jean Laplanche, French psychoanalyst and author (born 1924)

Jean Laplanche was a French author, psychoanalyst and winemaker. Laplanche is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud's seduction theory, and wrote more than a dozen books on psychoanalytic theory. The journal Radical Philosophy described him as "the most original and philosophically informed psychoanalytic theorist of his day."

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06/05/2010

Robin Roberts, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (born 1926)

Robin Evan Roberts was an American Major League Baseball starting pitcher who pitched primarily for the Philadelphia Phillies (1948–1961). He spent the latter part of his career with the Baltimore Orioles (1962–1965), Houston Astros (1965–66), and Chicago Cubs (1966). Roberts was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.

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06/05/2009

Kevin Grubb, American race car driver (born 1978)

Kevin Grubb was an American race car driver from Mechanicsville, Virginia. He was the younger brother of former race car driver Wayne Grubb. He was under suspension from NASCAR competition due to two violations in NASCAR's substance abuse policy at the time of his death.

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06/05/2007

Enéas Carneiro, Brazilian physician and politician (born 1938)

Enéas Ferreira Carneiro was a Brazilian polymath, cardiologist, physicist, mathematician, professor, writer, military serviceman and politician. He represented the state of São Paulo in the National Chamber of Deputies and ran for presidency three times. He was founder and leader of the nationalist and conservative Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (PRONA), which was usually seen as being far-right. Although Enéas rejected the left-right dichotomy, as they were "sides of the same coin", defining himself only as a nationalist.

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Curtis Harrington, American actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1926)

Gene Curtis Harrington was an American film and television director, screenwriter, and producer. He emerged in the experimental film scene of the 1940s and ‘50s, notably as a collaborator of Kenneth Anger, before becoming a director of mainstream horror films and television series. He is considered one of the forerunners to New Queer Cinema. The Harvard Film Archive referred to him as “among the most wholly original directors to work in the Hollywood studio system.”

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06/05/2006

Grant McLennan, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1958)

Grant William McLennan was an Australian alternative rock singer-songwriter-guitarist. He co-founded the Go-Betweens with Robert Forster in Brisbane in 1977 and issued four solo albums: Watershed (1991), Fireboy (1992), Horsebreaker Star (1994) and In Your Bright Ray (1997). He collaborated with other artists on side projects. In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association called his "Cattle and Cane" (1983) one of its top 30 Australian songs of all time.

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Lorne Saxberg, Canadian journalist (born 1958)

Lorne Saxberg was a Canadian broadcast journalist for CBC Radio and CBC Newsworld. Saxberg was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario and first joined the CBC's radio arm. As host of Ontario Morning in the late 1980s, he was known for his keen mind, calm demeanour, and melodious voice. "He had a full, rich voice not often heard in modern radio," said Canadian freelance broadcaster James Careless, who worked with Saxberg at Ontario Morning. "He was truly a class act both on and off the air."

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06/05/2004

Virginia Capers, American actress and singer (born 1925)

Eliza "Virginia" Capers was an American actress. She won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in 1974 for her performance as Lena Younger in Raisin, a musical version of Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun.

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Philip Kapleau, American monk and educator (born 1912)

Philip Kapleau was an American Zen Buddhist teacher. He trained in the Harada–Yasutani tradition, which is rooted in Japanese Sōtō and incorporates Rinzai-school koan study. He established Rochester Zen Center, which grew to become one of the most influential Zen communities in the West. His independent lineage includes teachers active in the USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the UK and New Zealand.

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Barney Kessel, American guitarist and composer (born 1923)

Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups as well as a "first call" guitarist for studio, film, and television recording sessions. Kessel was a member of the group of session musicians informally known as the Wrecking Crew.

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06/05/2003

Art Houtteman, American baseball player and journalist (born 1927)

Arthur Joseph Houtteman was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for 12 seasons in the American League with the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians and Baltimore Orioles. In 325 career games, Houtteman pitched 1,555 innings and posted a win–loss record of 87–91, with 78 complete games, 14 shutouts, and a 4.14 earned run average (ERA).

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06/05/2002

Murray Adaskin, Canadian violinist, composer, conductor, and educator (born 1906)

Murray Adaskin, was a Canadian violinist, teacher, and composer.

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Otis Blackwell, American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1932)

Otis Blackwell was an American songwriter whose work influenced rock and roll. His compositions include "Fever", "Great Balls of Fire" and "Breathless", "Don't Be Cruel", "All Shook Up", and "Return to Sender", and "Handy Man".

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Pim Fortuyn, Dutch sociologist, academic, and politician (born 1948)

Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn, was a Dutch politician, author, civil servant, businessman, sociologist and academic who founded the party Pim Fortuyn List in 2002.

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Bjørn Johansen, Norwegian saxophonist (born 1940)

Bjørn John Johansen was a Norwegian jazz musician, known from a number of recordings and international cooperation. He has been one of the most influential Norwegian saxophonists of all time and has been the inspiration for a generations of musicians, among them Jan Garbarek.

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06/05/2000

Gordon McClymont, Australian ecologist and academic (born 1920)

Gordon Lee McClymont AO was an Australian agricultural scientist, ecologist, and educationist. The originator of the term "sustainable agriculture", McClymont is known for his multidisciplinary approach to farm ecology. McClymont was the foundation chair of the Faculty of Rural Science at the University of New England, the first degree program of its kind to integrate animal husbandry, veterinary science, agronomy, and other disciplines into the field of livestock and agricultural production. In 1978, in recognition of his work and contributions to his field, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia.

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06/05/1995

Noel Brotherston, Northern Irish footballer (born 1956)

Noel Brotherston was an international footballer for Northern Ireland.

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06/05/1993

Ann Todd, English actress and producer (born 1909)

Dorothy Ann Todd was an English film, television and stage actress who achieved international fame when she starred in The Seventh Veil (1945). From 1949 to 1957 she was married to David Lean who directed her in The Passionate Friends (1949), Madeleine (1950), and The Sound Barrier (1952). She was a member of The Old Vic theatre company and in 1957 starred in a Broadway play. In her later years she wrote, produced and directed travel documentaries.

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06/05/1992

Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress and singer (born 1901)

Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich was a German and American actress and singer whose career spanned nearly seven decades. In 1920s Berlin, she performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola Lola in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930) brought her international acclaim and a contract with Paramount Pictures. Dietrich starred in many Hollywood films, including six roles directed by Sternberg: Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress (1934), The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she delivered notable performances in several post-war films, including Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948), Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958), and Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), she spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer.

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06/05/1991

Wilfrid Hyde-White, English actor (born 1903)

Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English actor. Described by Philip French as a "classic British film archetype", Hyde-White often portrayed droll and urbane upper-class characters. He had an extensive stage and screen career in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and portrayed over 160 film and television roles between 1935 and 1987. He was twice nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, in 1957 for The Reluctant Debutante and in 1973 for The Jockey Club Stakes.

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06/05/1990

Charles Farrell, American actor (born 1900)

Charles David Farrell was an American film actor whose height was in the 1920s and 1930s and the Mayor of Palm Springs from 1947 to 1955. Farrell was known for his onscreen romances with actress Janet Gaynor in more than a dozen films, including 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Lucky Star. Later in life, he starred on TV in the 1950s sitcoms My Little Margie and played himself in The Charles Farrell Show. He was also among the early developers of Palm Springs.

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06/05/1989

Earl Blaik, American football player and coach (born 1897)

Earl Henry "Red" Blaik was an American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and United States Army officer. He served as the head football coach at Dartmouth College from 1934 to 1940 and at the United States Military Academy from 1941 to 1958, compiling a career college football record of 166–48–14. His Army football teams won three consecutive national championships in 1944, 1945 and 1946. Blaik was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1964.

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06/05/1987

William J. Casey, American politician, 13th Director of Central Intelligence (born 1913)

William Joseph Casey was an American lawyer who was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout much of the Reagan administration.

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06/05/1984

Mary Cain, American journalist and politician (born 1904)

Mary Dawson Cain was an American newspaper editor, political activist, and gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi. A Democrat, she advocated for conservative causes and is particularly remembered for her campaigns against the Social Security tax. She ran for Governor of Mississippi in 1951 and 1955, the first woman to do so.

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Bonner Pink, English politician (born 1912)

Ralph Bonner Pink was a British Conservative politician.

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06/05/1983

Ezra Jack Keats, American author and illustrator (born 1916)

Ezra Jack Keats was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He is best known for The Snowy Day, which won the 1963 Caldecott Medal and is considered one of the most important American books of the 20th century. He wrote 22 books and illustrated at least 70 more in his signature collage art style. Keats is known for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream American children's literature. Keats' works have been translated into some 20 languages, including Japanese, French, Danish, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, German, Swedish, Thai, Chinese, and Korean.

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Kai Winding, Danish-American trombonist and composer (born 1922)

Kai Chresten Winding was a Danish-born American trombonist and jazz composer. He is known for his collaborations with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson. His version of "More", the theme from the movie Mondo Cane, reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963 and remained his only entry there.

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06/05/1980

María Luisa Bombal, Chilean writer (born 1910)

María Luisa Bombal Anthes was a Chilean novelist and poet. Her work incorporates erotic, surrealist, and feminist themes. She was a recipient of the Santiago Municipal Literature Award. In 1938 she published her most famous novel The Shrouded Woman.

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06/05/1975

József Mindszenty, Hungarian cardinal (born 1892)

József Mindszenty was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Esztergom and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, for five decades "he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary".

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06/05/1973

Ernest MacMillan, Canadian conductor and composer (born 1893)

Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan, was a Canadian orchestral conductor, composer, organist, and Canada's only "Musical Knight". He is widely regarded as being Canada's pre-eminent musician from the 1920s through the 1950s. His contributions to the development of music in Canada were sustained and varied, as conductor, performer, composer, administrator, lecturer, adjudicator, writer, humourist, and statesman.

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06/05/1970

Alexander Rodzyanko, Russian general (born 1879)

Alexander Pavlovich Rodzyanko was an officer of the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and lieutenant-general and a corps commander of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. He also competed at the 1912 Summer Olympics.

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06/05/1967

Zhou Zuoren, Chinese author and translator (born 1885)

Zhou Zuoren was a Chinese writer, primarily known as an essayist and a translator. He was a major figure in the genre of prose essays. Zhou was a younger brother of Lu Xun, the second of three brothers.

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06/05/1963

Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, and engineer (born 1881)

Theodore von Kármán was a Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer, and physicist who worked in aeronautics and astronautics. He was responsible for crucial advances in aerodynamics characterizing supersonic and hypersonic airflow. The human-defined threshold of outer space is named the "Kármán line" in recognition of his work. Kármán is regarded as an outstanding aerodynamic theoretician of the 20th century.

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Ted Weems, American violinist, trombonist, and bandleader (born 1901)

Wilfred Theodore Wemyes, known professionally as Ted Weems, was an American bandleader and musician. Weems's work in music was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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Monty Woolley, American raconteur, actor, and director (born 1888)

Edgar Montillion "Monty" Woolley was an American film and theater actor. At the age of 50, he achieved a measure of stardom for his role in the 1939 stage play The Man Who Came to Dinner and its 1942 film adaptation. His distinctive white beard was his trademark and he was affectionately known as "The Beard."

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06/05/1961

Lucian Blaga, Romanian poet, playwright, and philosopher (born 1895)

Lucian Blaga was a Romanian philosopher, poet, playwright, poetry translator and novelist. He is one of the most important philosophers and poets of Romania, and a prominent philosopher of the interwar period in Eastern Europe who, due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his career, is barely known to the outside world.

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06/05/1959

Maria Dulęba, Polish actress (born 1881)

Maria Zofia Dulęba was a Polish stage and film actress. She made her stage debut in 1902 and performed in a number of films, mostly in the silent era. She later taught drama.

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Ragnar Nurkse, Estonian-American economist and academic (born 1907)

Ragnar Wilhelm Nurkse was an Estonian-American economist and policy maker mainly in the fields of international finance and economic development. He is considered the pioneer of Balanced Growth Theory.

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06/05/1952

Maria Montessori, Italian-Dutch physician and educator (born 1870)

Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori was an Italian physician and educator best known for her philosophy of education and her writing on scientific pedagogy. At an early age, Montessori enrolled in classes at an all-boys technical school, with hopes of becoming an engineer. She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, becoming one of the first women to attend medical school in Italy; she graduated with honors in 1896. Her educational method is in use globally in many public and private schools.

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06/05/1951

Élie Cartan, French mathematician and physicist (born 1869)

Élie Joseph Cartan was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems, and differential geometry. He also made significant contributions to general relativity and indirectly to quantum mechanics. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century.

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06/05/1949

Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian-French poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1862)

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations". The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. He was a leading member of the group La Jeune Belgique, and his plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement. In later life, Maeterlinck faced credible accusations of plagiarism.

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06/05/1939

Konstantin Somov, Russian-French painter and illustrator (born 1869)

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov was a Russian painter and draughtsman during the Modernist period, best known as co-founding member of the Mir iskusstva society. After the Russian Revolution, he eventually emigrated to Paris, along with other prominent figures in the Russian arts. In his private life, he had a longtime, younger male companion, Methodiy Lukyanov, and an ambiguous artistic and personal relationship with a young boxer, Boris Snezhkovsky, whom he painted many times. In the 21st century, his paintings have sold in the millions of dollars. In 2007, Somov's The Rainbow sold at Christie's London for GBP 3,716,000, an auction record for a Russian work of art.

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06/05/1919

L. Frank Baum, American novelist (born 1856)

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.

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06/05/1911

René Vallon, French aviator (born 1880)

René Vallon was an early French aviator. Born in Paris, he travelled to Shanghai, China, in 1911 with a group of aviation enthusiasts to promote aircraft sales. He achieved the first aeroplane flight in China on 21 February 1911 at Jiangwan Racecourse, with this and subsequent flights drawing large crowds. He died in an aviation accident less than three months later, resulting in the cancellation of a planned purchase by the Chinese government. Vallon was commemorated with a road and a memorial in the Shanghai French Concession.

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06/05/1910

Edward VII of the United Kingdom (born 1841)

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.

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06/05/1907

Emanuele Luigi Galizia, Maltese architect and civil engineer (born 1830)

Emanuele Luigi Galizia was a Maltese architect and civil engineer, who designed many public buildings and several churches. He is regarded as "the principal Maltese architect throughout the second half of the nineteenth century".

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06/05/1905

Robert Herbert, English-Australian politician, 1st Premier of Queensland (born 1831)

Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert,, was the first Premier of Queensland, Australia. At 28 years and 181 days of age, he was the youngest person ever to become premier of an Australian state.

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06/05/1888

Abraham Joseph Ash, American rabbi (born c. 1813)

Abraham Joseph Ash was an Orthodox rabbi and Talmudist.

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06/05/1882

Thomas Henry Burke, Irish civil servant (born 1829)

Thomas Henry Burke was an Irish civil servant who served as Permanent Under Secretary at the Irish Office for many years before being assassinated during the Phoenix Park Murders on Saturday 6 May 1882. The assassination was carried out by an Irish republican organisation known as the Irish National Invincibles.

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Lord Frederick Cavendish, British politician, Chief Secretary for Ireland (born 1836)

Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish was a British Liberal politician and protégé of the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone. Cavendish was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in May 1882 but was killed along with Thomas Henry Burke in what came to be known as the Phoenix Park Murders only hours after his arrival in Dublin, a victim of the Irish National Invincibles organisation.

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06/05/1877

Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Swedish-Finnish poet and hymn-writer (born 1804)

Johan Ludvig Runeberg was a Finnish priest, lyric and epic poet. He wrote exclusively in Swedish. He is considered a national poet of Finland. He is the author of the lyrics to Vårt land which became the Finnish national anthem. Runeberg was also involved in the modernization of the Finnish Lutheran hymnal and produced many texts for the new edition.

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06/05/1867

Socrates Nelson, American businessman and politician (born 1814)

Socrates Nelson was an American businessman, politician, and pioneer who served one term as a Minnesota State Senator from 1859 to 1861. He was a general store owner, lumberman, and real estate speculator associated with numerous companies in the insurance and rail industries. He was involved in the establishment of the community of Stillwater, Minnesota, and was an early member of the first Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodge in Minnesota. He served on the University of Minnesota's first board of regents before being elected to the Minnesota Senate.

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06/05/1862

Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (born 1817)

Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.

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06/05/1859

Alexander von Humboldt, German geographer and explorer (born 1769)

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Humboldt and Carl Ritter are both regarded as the founders of modern geography as they established it as an independent scientific discipline.

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06/05/1840

Francisco de Paula Santander, Colombian general and politician, 4th President of the Republic of the New Granada (born 1792)

Francisco José de Paula Santander y Omaña was a Neogranadine military and political leader who served as Vice-President of Gran Colombia between 1819 and 1826, and was later elected by Congress as the President of the Republic of New Granada between 1832 and 1837. Santander played a pivotal role in the Colombian War of Independence being one of the main leaders of the Patriot forces and helped lead the Patriot Army alongside Simón Bolívar to victory. He's often credited with creating the legal foundations for democracy in Colombia, as well as creating the country's first system of public education. For these reasons he is considered a National Hero in Colombia and has thus commonly been known as "The Man of the Laws" as well as the "Organizer of Victory".

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06/05/1782

Christine Kirch, German astronomer and academic (born 1696)

Christine Kirch, was a German astronomer.

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06/05/1757

Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (born 1683)

Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton was a British peer and politician.

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Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Prussian field marshal (born 1684)

Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall, one of the leading commanders under Frederick the Great.

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06/05/1708

François de Laval, French-Canadian bishop (born 1623)

Francis-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval, commonly referred to as François de Laval, was considered the founder of the Catholic faith in New France. He was a French Catholic prelate who served as Apostolic Vicar of New France from 1658 to 1674. In 1674, he was given the diocese, making him the first bishop of Quebec. He held this position until he retired due to poor health in 1688. He continued to work in New France until his death in 1708.

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06/05/1638

Cornelius Jansen, Dutch-French bishop and theologian (born 1585)

Cornelius Jansen was the Dutch Catholic bishop of Ypres in Flanders and the father of a theological movement known as Jansenism.

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06/05/1631

Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington, English historian and politician, founded the Cotton library (born 1570)

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet of Conington Hall in the parish of Conington in Huntingdonshire, England, was a Member of Parliament and an antiquarian who founded the Cotton library.

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06/05/1596

Giaches de Wert, Flemish-Italian composer (born 1535)

Giaches de Wert was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active in Italy. Intimately connected with the progressive musical center of Ferrara, he was one of the leaders in developing the style of the late Renaissance madrigal. He was one of the most influential of late sixteenth-century madrigal composers, particularly on Claudio Monteverdi, and his later music was formative on the development of music of the early Baroque era.

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06/05/1540

Juan Luís Vives, Spanish scholar (born 1492)

Juan Luis Vives y March was a Spanish (Valencian) scholar and Renaissance humanist who spent most of his adult life in the southern Habsburg Netherlands. His beliefs on the soul, insight into early medical practice, and perspective on emotions, memory and learning earned him the title of the "father" of modern psychology. Vives was the first to shed light on some key ideas that established how psychology is perceived today.

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06/05/1527

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, Count of Montpensier and Dauphin of Auvergne (born 1490)

Charles III de Bourbon, comte de Montpensier, then duc de Bourbon was a French military commander, governor, prince of the royal blood and rebel during the early Italian Wars. The son of Gilbert de Bourbon and Clara Gonzaga, he was born into a junior branch of the royal house of France. The early death of his father and elder brother meant that he became the comte de Montpensier in 1501. He then secured a very advantageous marriage in 1505 to Suzanne de Bourbon, the heiress to the senior line of the house of Bourbon. By this means he became the greatest feudal lord in the French kingdom. He participated in the expeditions of king Louis XII seeing combat at Genoa in 1507 and at the famous battle of Agnadello in 1509. In 1512, he was established as the governor of Languedoc, and in the final years of Louis XII's reign he would fight the Spanish in Navarre and the English in Picardy.

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06/05/1502

James Tyrrell, English knight (born 1450)

Sir James Tyrrell was an English knight, a trusted servant of king Richard III of England. He is known for allegedly confessing to the murders of the Princes in the Tower under Richard's orders. In his 1593 play Richard III, William Shakespeare portrays Tyrrell as the man who organises the princes’ murders.

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06/05/1483

Queen Jeonghui, Korean regent (born 1418)

Queen Jeonghui, of the Papyeong Yun clan, was a posthumous name bestowed on the wife and queen of Yi Yu, King Sejo. She was Queen of Joseon from 1455 until her husband's death in 1468, after which she was honoured as Queen Dowager Jaseong (자성왕대비) during the reign of her son, Yi Hwang, King Yejong, She was later honoured as Grand Queen Dowager Jaseong (자성대왕대비) during the reign of her grandson, Yi Hyeol, King Seongjong.

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06/05/1475

Dieric Bouts, Flemish painter (born 1415)

Dieric Bouts was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from 1457 until his death in 1475. His name also appears at various museums and institutions as Dirk Bouts.

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06/05/1471

Edmund Beaufort, English commander (born 1438)

Edmund Beaufort, styled 4th Duke of Somerset, 6th Earl of Somerset, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, 3rd Earl of Dorset, was an English nobleman, and a military commander during the Wars of the Roses, in which he supported the Lancastrian King Henry VI.

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Thomas Tresham, Speaker of the House of Commons

Sir Thomas Tresham was an English politician, soldier and administrator. He was the son of Sir William Tresham and his wife Isabel de Vaux, daughter of Sir William Vaux of Harrowden. Thomas's early advancement was due to his father's influence. In 1443 he and his father were appointed as stewards to the Duchy of Lancaster's estates in Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, and by 1446 Thomas was serving as an esquire for Henry VI, being made an usher of the king's chamber in 1455. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Huntingdonshire in 1446, a position he held until 1459, and was returned to Parliament for Buckinghamshire in 1447 and Huntingdonshire in 1449. Despite the Tresham family's close links with the royal court they were also on good terms with Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and when he returned from Ireland in 1450 Tresham and his father went to greet him. Shortly after leaving home on 23 September they were attacked by a group of men involved in a property dispute with his father; William Tresham was killed, and Thomas was injured.

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06/05/1236

Roger of Wendover, Benedictine monk and chronicler

Roger of Wendover, probably a native of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, was an English chronicler of the 13th century.

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06/05/1187

Ruben III, Prince of Armenia (born 1145)

Ruben III, also Roupen III, Rupen III, or Reuben III, was the ninth lord of Armenian Cilicia (1175–1187).

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06/05/1002

Ealdwulf, Archbishop of York, Abbot of Peterborough and Bishop of Worcester

Ealdwulf was a medieval Abbot of Peterborough, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York.

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06/05/0988

Dirk II, count of Frisia and Holland

Dirk II or Theoderic II was a count in West Frisia, and ancestor of the counts of Holland. He was the son and heir of Dirk I and his wife Geva.

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06/05/0932

Qian Liu, Chinese warlord and king (born 852)

Qian Liu, courtesy name Jumei, childhood name Poliu, also known by his temple name as the King Taizu of Wuyue (吳越太祖), was the founding king of Wuyue during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of China. He was originally a warlord of the late Tang dynasty.

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06/05/0850

Ninmyō, Japanese emperor (born 808)

Emperor Ninmyō was the 54th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Ninmyō's reign lasted from 833 to 850, during the Heian period.His personal name (imina) was Masara (正良). After his death, he was given the title Ninmyō (仁明).

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06/05/0698

Eadberht, bishop of Lindisfarne

Eadberht of Lindisfarne, also known as Saint Eadberht, was Bishop of Lindisfarne, England, from 688 until his death on 6 May 698.

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