Died on Friday, 21st November – Famous Deaths
On 21st November, 117 remarkable people passed away — from 615 to 2024. Remember the lives and legacies of those we lost on this day.
# On 21 November
Friday, 21 November 2025 marks a date that has witnessed the passage of numerous figures who shaped culture, science and politics across centuries. Among those commemorated on this date is Emil Zátopek, the Czech runner whose four Olympic gold medals and multiple world records established him as one of the greatest distance runners of the twentieth century. His death in 2000 concluded a life dedicated to athletic excellence and international sporting achievement. Another significant loss occurred in 2013 with Fred Kavli, the Norwegian-American businessman whose philanthropic vision through The Kavli Foundation created lasting support for scientific research and education across the globe. Additionally, Jean-Pierre Schumacher, the French Trappist monk who survived the 1996 kidnapping of monks at Thibirine in Algeria, passed on this date in 2021, leaving behind a legacy of spiritual resilience and interfaith dialogue.
The historical record of 21 November extends far deeper into the past, encompassing deaths from across Europe and beyond. Medieval figures, Renaissance scholars, and modern scientists all find their place within the collective memory of this date. The pattern reveals how November 21 has consistently marked moments when influential individuals concluded their contributions to their respective fields, whether through scientific discovery, artistic creation or political leadership.
DayAtlas provides comprehensive information about this date, including detailed weather conditions, significant historical events and notable births and deaths for any location and any date you choose to explore.
See who passed away today 13th April.
21/11/2024
Alice Brock, American artist, author and restauranteur (born 1941)
Alice May Brock was an American artist, author and restauranteur. A resident of Massachusetts for her entire adult life, Brock owned and operated three restaurants in the Berkshires—The Back Room, Take-Out Alice, and Alice's at Avaloch—in succession between 1965 and 1979. The first of these was the subject of Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant", which in turn inspired the 1969 film.
21/11/2021
Lou Cutell, American actor (born 1930)
Lou Cutell was an American actor, who was perhaps best known for his appearance as Amazing Larry in the 1985 film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and as Dr. Howard Cooperman in the 1995 Seinfeld episode "The Fusilli Jerry".
Jean-Pierre Schumacher, French Trappist monk and survivor of the Thibirine monks (born 1924)
Jean-Pierre Schumacher, OCSO was a French Trappist monk and prior who was one of the two survivors of the deadly terrorist attack on the Algerian Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas in 1996.
21/11/2017
David Cassidy, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1950)
David Bruce Cassidy was an American actor and musician. While he was best known in the United States for his role as Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family, he was an international success in his solo career as a singer. For a period, he was the highest-paid entertainer in the world.
21/11/2016
Hassan Sadpara, Pakistani mountaineer and adventurer (born 1963)
Hassan Sadpara PP was a Pakistani mountaineer and adventurer from Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. He is the first Pakistani to have climbed six eight-thousanders including Mount Everest (8848m), K2 (8611m), Gasherbrum I (8080m), Gasherbrum II (8034m), Nanga Parbat and Kangchenjunga (8586m). Although, he is credited for summiting five of the eight-thousanders without supplemental oxygen but, contrary to initial reports, Hassan Sadpara clarified that he used supplemental oxygen during his Everest ascent due to bad weather.
21/11/2015
Gil Cardinal, Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1950)
Gilbert Joseph "Gil" Cardinal was a Canadian filmmaker of Métis descent. Born in Edmonton in 1950, and placed in a foster home at the age of two, Cardinal only discovered his Métis roots while making his documentary Foster Child. This 1987 National Film Board of Canada (NFB) film received over 10 international film awards, including a Gemini Award for best direction for a documentary program, following its broadcast on CBC's Man Alive series.
Ameen Faheem, Indian-Pakistani poet and politician (born 1939)
Makhdoom Muhammad Ameen Faheem was a Pakistani populist left-wing political figure and poet. He was the senior vice-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party, chairman of Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians and former chairman of Alliance for Restoration of Democracy.
Bob Foster, American boxer and police officer (born 1938)
Robert Wayne Foster was an American professional boxer who fought as a light heavyweight and heavyweight. He won the world light heavyweight title from Dick Tiger in 1968 via fourth-round knockout, and went on to defend the title fourteen times against thirteen different fighters in total from 1968 to 1974. Foster challenged Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali during his career, but was knocked out by both. He was named to Ring's list of 100 Greatest Punchers of all time. He was also named to Ring's list of the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years, ranking at No. 55. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 1990.
Anthony Read, English screenwriter and producer (born 1935)
Anthony Read was an English television producer, screenwriter, script editor and author. He was principally active in British television from the 1960s to the mid-1980s, which included a period as a script editor and writer of Doctor Who from 1977 to 1979, although he occasionally contributed to televised productions until 1999.
Joseph Silverstein, American violinist and conductor (born 1932)
Joseph Harry Silverstein was an American violinist and conductor.
21/11/2014
John H. Land, American soldier and politician (born 1920)
John Horting Land was Mayor of Apopka, Florida for a total of 61 years, from 1950 to 1968 and again from 1971 to 2014. He was the longest-serving mayor in the history of Florida and one of the longest-serving mayors in the United States. After having served continuously since 1971, Land was defeated in a bid for re-election by Joe Kilsheimer on April 8, 2014.
Robert Richardson, English general (born 1929)
Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Francis Richardson was a British Army officer. Among other posts, he commanded a battalion and a brigade during the Troubles before becoming General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland from 1982 to 1985.
21/11/2013
John Egerton, American journalist and author (born 1935)
John Egerton was an American journalist and author known for his writing on the civil rights movement, Southern food, history of the South, and Southern culture.
Fred Kavli, Norwegian-American businessman and philanthropist, founded The Kavli Foundation (born 1927)
Fred Kavli was a Norwegian-American businessman and philanthropist. He was born on a small farm in Eresfjord, Norway. He founded the Kavlico Corporation, located in Moorpark, California. Under his leadership, the company became one of the world's largest suppliers of sensors for aeronautic, automotive, and industrial applications supplying General Electric and the Ford Motor Company.
Dimitri Mihalas, American astronomer and author (born 1939)
Dimitri Manuel Mihalas was a laboratory fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the field of astronomy, astrophysics, and stellar atmospheres. He was born in Los Angeles, California and was of Greek origin.
Vern Mikkelsen, American basketball player and coach (born 1928)
Arild Verner Agerskov Mikkelsen was an American professional basketball player. One of the National Basketball Association's first power forwards in the 1950s, he was known for his tenacious defense and durability, playing 699 out of a possible 704 games during his career. He was a six-time All-Star and four-time Second Team All-Pro, and was inducted into the NAIA Basketball Hall of Fame and the sport's Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.
Bernard Parmegiani, French composer (born 1927)
Bernard Parmegiani was a French composer best known for his electronic or acousmatic music.
Tôn Thất Đính, Vietnamese general (born 1926)
Lieutenant General Tôn Thất Đính was an officer who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He is best known as one of the key figures in the November 1963 coup that led to the arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, commonly known as South Vietnam.
Maurice Vachon, Canadian-American wrestler (born 1929)
Joseph Maurice Régis Vachon was a Canadian professional wrestler, best known by his ring name Mad Dog Vachon. He was the older brother of wrestlers Paul and Vivian Vachon, and the uncle of wrestler Luna Vachon.
21/11/2012
Emily Squires, American director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1941)
Emily Squires was an American television producer and director best known for her Emmy Award-winning work on Sesame Street.
Austin Peralta, American pianist (born 1990)
Austin Peralta was an American jazz pianist and composer from Los Angeles, California. He was the son of film director and Z-Boys skateboarder Stacy Peralta.
21/11/2011
Anne McCaffrey, American science fiction and fantasy author (born 1926)
Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and the first to win a Nebula Award. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.
21/11/2010
Norris Church Mailer, American author (born 1949)
Norris Church Mailer was an American novelist, actress, artist, and model. Norris published two novels, Windchill Summer and Cheap Diamonds, and a memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, which focuses on her nearly thirty-year marriage to Norman Mailer.
David Nolan, American activist and politician (born 1943)
David Fraser Nolan was an American activist and politician. He was one of the founders of the Libertarian Party of the United States, having hosted the meeting in 1971 at which the Party was founded. Nolan subsequently served the party in a number of roles including National Committee Chair, editor of the party newsletter, Chair of the By-laws Committee, Chair of the Judicial Committee, and Chair of the Platform Committee.
Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, American painter and author, co-founded the DuSable Museum of African American History (born 1917)
Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, also known as Margaret Taylor Goss, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs or Margaret T G Burroughs, was an American visual artist, writer, poet, educator, and arts organizer. She co-founded the Ebony Museum of Chicago, now the DuSable Museum of African American History.
21/11/2009
Konstantin Feoktistov, Russian engineer and astronaut (born 1926)
Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, was Russian engineer and a cosmonaut in the former Soviet space program.
21/11/2007
Fernando Fernán Gómez, Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1921)
Fernando Fernández Gómez, better known as Fernando Fernán Gómez, was a Spanish actor, screenwriter, film director, theater director, novelist, and playwright. Prolific in all these fields, he was elected member of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1998. He was born in Lima, Peru while his mother, Spanish actress Carola Fernán-Gómez, was making a tour in Latin America. He would later use her surname for his stage name when he moved to Spain in 1924.
Tom Johnson, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (born 1928)
Thomas Christian "Tomcat" Johnson was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and executive. As a player, he played for the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins in the National Hockey League. He later served as the assistant general manager and head coach of the Bruins. Johnson was the recipient of the Norris Trophy in 1959. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1970.
Noel McGregor, New Zealand cricketer (born 1931)
Spencer Noel McGregor was a Test cricketer who played 25 Test matches for New Zealand between 1954–55 and 1964–65. He was the New Zealand Cricket Almanack Player of the Year in 1968.
21/11/2006
Hassan Gouled Aptidon, Somalian-Djiboutian politician, 1st President of Djibouti (born 1916)
Hassan Gouled Aptidon was a Djiboutian politician who served as the first President of Djibouti from 1977 to 1999.
Pierre Amine Gemayel, Lebanese lawyer and politician (born 1972)
Pierre Amine Gemayel was a Lebanese politician in the Kataeb Party, also known as the Phalange Party in English.
21/11/2005
Alfred Anderson, Scottish soldier (born 1896)
Alfred Anderson was a Scottish joiner and veteran of the First World War. He was the last known holder of the 1914 Star, the last known combatant to participate in the 1914 World War I Christmas truce, Scotland's last known World War I veteran, and Scotland's oldest man for more than a year.
Hugh Sidey, American journalist and academic (born 1927)
Hugh Swanson Sidey was an Iowa State University educated American journalist who worked for Life magazine starting in 1955, then moved on to Time magazine in 1957.
21/11/2002
Hadda Brooks, American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1916)
Hadda Brooks was an American pianist, vocalist and composer, who occasionally appeared playing the piano in film. Billed as "Queen of the Boogie", she was Inducted in the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1993.
21/11/2000
Ernest Lluch, Spanish economist and politician (born 1937)
Ernest Lluch Martín, OC3, OCS, was a Spanish economist and politician, member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC). He was Minister of Health and Consumer Affairs from 1982 to 1986 in the first Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government of Felipe González. He was assassinated in 2000 by the Basque separatist organisation, ETA.
Emil Zátopek, Czech runner (born 1922)
Emil Zátopek was a Czech long-distance runner who won three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He came first in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres runs before he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life, which he also won. Zátopek was nicknamed the "Czech Locomotive".
21/11/1999
Quentin Crisp, English actor, author, and illustrator (born 1908)
Quentin Crisp was an English raconteur, whose work in the public eye included a memoir of her life and various media appearances. Before becoming well known, she was an artist's model, hence the title of Crisp's most famous work, The Naked Civil Servant. She afterwards became a gay icon due to her flamboyant personality, fashion sense, and wit. Her iconic status was occasionally controversial due to her remarks about subjects like the AIDS crisis, inviting censure from gay activists including human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
21/11/1996
Bernard Rose, English organist and composer (b 1916)
Bernard William George Rose was a British organist, soldier, composer, and academic.
Abdus Salam, Pakistani-English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1926)
Mohammad Abdus Salam was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current". He was the first Pakistani, first Muslim scientist, and second person from any Muslim country to win a Nobel Prize.
21/11/1995
Peter Grant, English actor and manager (born 1935)
Peter Grant was an English music manager, best known as the manager of Led Zeppelin from their creation in 1968 to their breakup in 1980. With his intimidating size and weight, confrontational manner, knowledge and experience, Grant was able to procure strong and unprecedented deals for Led Zeppelin, and is widely credited with improving pay and conditions for all musicians in dealings with concert promoters. Grant has been described as "one of the shrewdest and most ruthless managers in rock history".
Noel Jones, Indian-English diplomat, British ambassador to Kazakhstan (born 1940)
Noel Andrew Stephen Jones was an Indian-born British diplomat, British ambassador to Kazakhstan from 1993 to 1995. He was the first British ambassador to have come from an ethnic minority.
21/11/1994
Willem Jacob Luyten, Dutch-American astronomer and academic (born 1899)
Willem Jacob Luyten was a Dutch-American astronomer.
21/11/1993
Bill Bixby, American actor (born 1934)
Wilfred Bailey Everett Bixby III was an American actor and television director. His career spanned more than three decades, including appearances on stage, in films, and on television series. He is known for his roles in the CBS sitcom My Favorite Martian as Tim O'Hara, in the ABC sitcom The Courtship of Eddie's Father as Tom Corbett, in the NBC crime drama series The Magician as stage illusionist Anthony Blake, in the ABC miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man as Willie Abbott, and the CBS science-fiction drama series The Incredible Hulk as Dr. David Bruce Banner.
21/11/1992
Kaysone Phomvihane, Laotian soldier and politician, 2nd President of Laos (born 1920)
Kaysone Phomvihane was the first leader of the Communist Lao People's Revolutionary Party from 1955 until his death in 1992. After the Communists seized power in the wake of the Laotian Civil War, he was the de facto leader of Laos from 1975 until his death. He served as the first Prime Minister of the Lao People's Democratic Republic from 1975 to 1991 and then as the second President from 1991 to 1992. His theories and policies are officially known as Kaysone Phomvihane Thought.
Ricky Williams, American singer-songwriter and drummer (born 1956)
Ricky Williams, also known as Ricky Tractor, was an American musician based in San Francisco. He is best known as a vocalist and lyricist, but also played drums and guitar. He was the second drummer for Crime (1976–1977), the original singer for Flipper (1979) and the Sleepers (1977–1981), and vocalist for Toiling Midgets (1981–1983). He has been credited with giving Flipper their band name, although he was fired before they made any recordings. Williams died at the age of 36 on November 21, 1992, of a heroin overdose.
21/11/1991
Sonny Werblin, American businessman and philanthropist (born 1907)
David Abraham "Sonny" Werblin was a prominent entertainment industry executive and sports impresario who was an owner of the New York Jets and served as chairman of Madison Square Garden, and who built and managed the Meadowlands Sports Complex.
21/11/1990
Dean Hart, Canadian wrestler and referee (born 1954)
Dean Harry Anthony Hart was a Canadian–American amateur wrestler, professional wrestler, referee, wrestling as well as music promoter and member of the Hart family who wrestled in Canadian regional promotions during the 1970s and 1980s, most notably in the Calgary-based Stampede Wrestling. He was the son of Stu and Helen Hart and the younger brother of Smith, Bruce, Keith and Wayne, as well as older brother of Ellie, Georgia, Bret, Alison, Ross, Diana and Owen Hart. Dean was widely regarded as the most handsome of the Hart brothers. He died at the age of 36 in 1990, from a heart attack induced by kidney failure.
21/11/1989
Harvey Hart, Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1928)
Harvey Hart was a Canadian television and film director and a television producer.
Margot Zemach, American author and illustrator (born 1931)
Margot Zemach was an American illustrator of more than forty children's books, some of which she also wrote. Many were adaptations of folk tales from around the world, especially Yiddish and other Eastern European stories. She and her husband Harvey Fischtrom, writing as Harve Zemach, collaborated on several picture books including Duffy and the Devil for which she won the 1974 Caldecott Medal.
21/11/1988
Carl Hubbell, American baseball player and scout (born 1903)
Carl Owen Hubbell, nicknamed "the Meal Ticket" and "King Carl", was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player. He was a pitcher for the New York Giants of the National League (NL) from 1928 to 1943, and remained on the team's payroll for the rest of his life, long after their move to San Francisco.
21/11/1987
Jim Folsom, American politician and 42nd Governor of Alabama (born 1908)
James Elisha "Big Jim" Folsom Sr. was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of Alabama, having served from 1947 to 1951, and again from 1955 to 1959. He was the first governor of Alabama born in the 20th century.
21/11/1986
Jerry Colonna, American singer-songwriter and actor (born 1904)
Gerardo Luigi Colonna was an American musician, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter and trombonist who played the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s. He also voiced the March Hare in Walt Disney's 1951 animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.
21/11/1984
Ben Wilson, American basketball player (born 1967)
Benjamin Wilson Jr. was an American high school basketball player from Chicago, Illinois. Wilson, a Neal F. Simeon Vocational High School basketball player, was regarded as the top high school player in the U.S. by scouts and coaches attending the 1984 Athletes For Better Education basketball camp. Wilson is noted as the first Chicago athlete to receive this honor. On November 21, 1984, Wilson died due to injuries he sustained in a shooting the day before.
21/11/1982
John Hargrave, English activist and author (born 1894)
John Gordon Hargrave, , was a prominent youth leader and politician in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s, Head Man of the Kibbo Kift, described in his obituary as an 'author, cartoonist, inventor, lexicographer, artist and psychic healer'. He was a Utopian thinker, a believer in both science and magic, and a figure-head for the Social Credit movement in British politics.
21/11/1981
Harry von Zell, American actor and comedian (born 1906)
Harry Rudolph Von Zell was an American announcer of radio programs, and an actor in films and television shows. He is best remembered for his work on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.
21/11/1980
Sara García, Mexican actress (born 1895)
Sara Rita de la Luz García was a Mexican actress and comedian who made her biggest mark during the "Golden Age of Mexican cinema". During the 1940s and 1950s, she often played the part of a no-nonsense but lovable grandmother in numerous Mexican films. In later years, she played parts in Mexican telenovelas.
21/11/1975
Gunnar Gunnarsson, Icelandic author (born 1889)
Gunnar Gunnarsson was an Icelandic author who wrote mainly in Danish. He grew up, in considerable poverty, on Valþjófsstaður in Fljótsdalur valley and on Ljótsstaðir in Vopnafjörður. During the first half of 20th century he became one of the most popular novelists in Denmark and Germany. One time he went to Germany and had a meeting with Hitler and is considered to be the only Icelander to have met him.
21/11/1974
John B. Gambling, American radio host (born 1897)
John Bradley Gambling was an American radio personality. He was a member of the Gambling family, 3 generations of whom—John B., John A. and John R.—were hosts of WOR Radio's morning show Rambling with Gambling over the course of over 75 years.
Frank Martin, Swiss-Dutch pianist and composer (born 1890)
Frank Théodore Martin was a Swiss composer who spent much of his life in the Netherlands.
21/11/1973
Thomas Pelly, American lawyer and politician (born 1902)
Thomas Minor Pelly was an American politician. He served as a U.S. Representative from the state of Washington between 1953 and 1973.
21/11/1970
Newsy Lalonde, Canadian lacrosse and ice hockey player (born 1887)
Édouard Cyrille "Newsy" Lalonde was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward in the National Hockey League (NHL) and a professional lacrosse player. Lalonde is regarded as one of hockey's and lacrosse's greatest players of the first half of the 20th century and one of Canadian sport's most colourful characters. He played for the Montreal Canadiens – considered to be the original "Flying Frenchman" – in the National Hockey Association and the NHL. As player-coach, Lalonde led the Canadiens to their first Stanley Cup in 1916. His goal-scoring prowess in the 1919 Stanley Cup playoffs set three NHL records that remain unbroken over a century later. He also played for the WCHL's Saskatoon Sheiks.
C. V. Raman, Indian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1888)
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was an Indian physicist known for his work in the field of light scattering. Using a spectrograph that he developed, he and his student K. S. Krishnan discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, the deflected light changes its wavelength. This phenomenon, a hitherto unknown type of scattering of light, which they called modified scattering was subsequently termed the Raman effect or Raman scattering. In 1930, Raman received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him" discovery and was the first Asian and non-White person to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics.
21/11/1967
C. M. Eddy, Jr., American author (born 1896)
Clifford Martin Eddy Jr. was an American writer known for his horror, mystery and supernatural short stories. He is best remembered for his work in Weird Tales magazine and his friendship with H. P. Lovecraft.
21/11/1964
Catherine Bauer Wurster, American architect and public housing advocate (born 1905)
Catherine Krouse Bauer Wurster was an American public housing advocate and educator of city planners and urban planners. A leading member of the "housers," a group of planners who advocated affordable housing for low-income families, she dramatically changed social housing practice and law in the United States. Wurster's influential book Modern Housing was published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1934 and is regarded as a classic in the field.
21/11/1963
Artur Lemba, Estonian composer and educator (born 1885)
Artur Lemba was an Estonian composer and piano teacher, and one of the most important figures in Estonian classical music. Artur and his older brother Theodor (1876–1962) were the first professional pianists in Estonia to give concerts abroad. Artur's 1905 opera Sabina was the first opera composed by an Estonian. His Symphony No. 1 in 1908 was the first symphony composed by an Estonian.
Robert Stroud, American ornithologist and author (born 1890)
Robert Franklin Stroud, known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was a convicted murderer, American federal prisoner, and author who has been cited as one of the most notorious criminals in the United States. During his time at Leavenworth Penitentiary, he reared and sold birds and became a respected ornithologist. From 1942 to 1959, he was incarcerated at Alcatraz, where regulations did not allow him to keep birds. Stroud was never released from the federal prison system; he was imprisoned from 1909 to his death in 1963.
21/11/1962
Frank Amyot, Canadian canoeist (born 1904)
Francis Amyot was a Canadian sprint canoeist who competed in the 1930s. He won Canada's only gold medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics.
21/11/1959
Max Baer, American boxer, referee, and actor (born 1909)
Maximilian Adelbert Baer Sr. was an American professional boxer and the world heavyweight champion from June 14, 1934, to June 13, 1935. He was known in his time as the Livermore Larupper and Madcap Maxie. Two of his fights were rated Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine. Baer was also a boxing referee, and had occasional roles in film and television. He was the brother of heavyweight boxing contender Buddy Baer and father of actor Max Baer Jr. Baer is rated #22 on The Ring magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.
21/11/1958
Mel Ott, American baseball player, manager, and sportscaster (born 1909)
Melvin Thomas Ott, nicknamed "Master Melvin", was an American professional baseball right fielder, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Giants, from 1926 through 1947.
21/11/1957
Francis Burton Harrison, American general and politician, 6th Governor-General of the Philippines (born 1873)
Francis Burton Harrison was an American-Filipino statesman who served four terms in the United States House of Representatives between 1903 and 1913 and was appointed governor-general of the Philippines by President of the United States Woodrow Wilson. Harrison was a prominent adviser to the president of the Philippine Commonwealth, as well as the next four presidents of the Republic of the Philippines. He is the only former governor-general of the Philippines to be awarded Philippine citizenship.
21/11/1953
Felice Bonetto, Italian race car driver (born 1903)
Felice Bonetto was an Italian racing driver, who competed in Formula One at 16 Grands Prix from 1950 to 1953. Nicknamed "il Pirata", Bonetto won the Targa Florio in 1952 with Lancia.
António Cabreira, Portuguese polygraph (born 1868)
D. António Tomás da Guarda Cabreira de Faria e Alvelos Drago da Ponte was a Portuguese mathematician, polygraph and publicist. A member of the aristocratic Cabreira family, António Cabreira was a claimant to the Miguelist noble titles of Count of Lagos and Viscount of Vale da Mata, which he used.
Larry Shields, American clarinet player and composer (born 1893)
Lawrence James Shields was an early American dixieland jazz clarinetist. He was a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record commercially.
21/11/1951
Jean Trescases, French soldier who died during the Indochina War
Jean Jules Émile Trescases, also known as Jean Trescases, was a French Army Chief warrant officer who fought in various conflicts. Born on April 5, 1916, in Palalda, in the present-day commune of Amélie-les-Bains in the Pyrénées-Orientales region, he died in action on November 21, 1951, during the Indochina War.
21/11/1947
William McCormack, Australian politician, 22nd Premier of Queensland (born 1879)
William McCormack was Premier of Queensland, Australia, from 1925 to 1929.
21/11/1945
Robert Benchley, American humorist, newspaper columnist, and actor (born 1889)
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist, newspaper columnist and actor. From his beginnings at The Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, through his many years writing essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from his peers at the Algonquin Round Table in New York City to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry.
Al Davis, American boxer (born 1920)
Al "Bummy" Davis, born Albert Abraham Davidoff, was an American lightweight and welterweight boxer who fought from 1937 to 1945. He was a serious contender, and a world ranked boxer in both weight classes.
Ellen Glasgow, American author (born 1873)
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel In This Our Life. She published 20 novels, as well as short stories, to critical acclaim. A lifelong Virginian, Glasgow portrayed the changing world of the contemporary South in a realistic manner, differing from the idealistic escapism that characterized Southern literature after Reconstruction.
Alexander Patch, American general (born 1889)
Alexander McCarrell Patch was a senior United States Army officer who fought in both world wars, rising to rank of general. During World War II, he commanded U.S. Army and Marine Corps forces during the Guadalcanal campaign in the Pacific, and the Seventh Army on the Western Front in Europe.
21/11/1943
Winifred Carney, Irish suffragist, trade unionist, and Irish republican (born 1887)
Maria Winifred "Winnie" Carney, was an Irish republican, a participant in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and, as a trade union secretary, women's suffragist, and socialist party member, a lifelong social and political activist in Belfast. In March 2024, a statue to her was unveiled on the grounds of Belfast City Hall.
21/11/1942
Count Leopold Berchtold, Austrian-Hungarian politician, Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary (born 1863)
Leopold Anton Johann Sigismund Josef Korsinus Ferdinand Graf Berchtold von und zu Ungarschitz, Frättling und Püllütz was an Austro-Hungarian politician, diplomat and statesman who served as Imperial Foreign Minister at the outbreak of World War I.
J. B. M. Hertzog, South African general and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of South Africa (born 1866)
General James Barry Munnik Hertzog, better known as Barry Hertzog or J. B. M. Hertzog, was a South African politician and soldier. He was a Boer general during the Second Boer War who served as the third prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1924 to 1939. Hertzog advocated for the development of Afrikaner culture and was determined to prevent Afrikaners from being excessively influenced by British culture. He founded the National Party in 1914.
21/11/1941
Henrietta Vinton Davis, American actress and playwright (born 1860)
Henrietta Vinton Davis was an elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator. In addition to being "the premier actress of all nineteenth-century black performers on the dramatic stage", Davis was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey to be the "greatest woman of the Negro race today".
21/11/1938
Leopold Godowsky, Polish-American pianist and composer (born 1870)
Leopold Mordkhelovich Godowsky Sr. was a virtuoso pianist, composer and teacher, born in what is now Lithuania to Jewish parents, who became an American citizen in 1891. He was one of the most highly regarded performers of his time, known for his theories concerning the application of relaxed weight and economy of motion within pianistic technique – principles later propagated by his pupils, such as Heinrich Neuhaus.
21/11/1934
John Scaddan, Australian politician, 10th Premier of Western Australia (born 1876)
John Scaddan, CMG, popularly known as "Happy Jack", was Premier of Western Australia from 7 October 1911 until 27 July 1916.
21/11/1928
Heinrich XXVII, Prince Reuss Younger Line (born 1858)
Heinrich XXVII, Prince Reuss Younger Line was the last reigning Prince Reuss Younger Line from 1913 to 1918. Then he became Head of the House of Reuss Younger Line from 1918 to 1928.
21/11/1926
Edward Cummins, American golfer (born 1886)
Edward McClellan Cummins was an American golfer who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. In 1904 he was part of the American team which won the gold medal. He finished 25th in this competition. In the individual competition he finished 25th in the qualification and was eliminated in the first round of the match play. He died in a car accident in 1926.
21/11/1922
Ricardo Flores Magón, Mexican journalist and activist (born 1874)
Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón was a Mexican anarchist and social reform activist. His brothers Enrique and Jesús were also active in politics. Followers of the Flores Magón brothers were known as Magonistas. He has been considered an important participant in the social movement that sparked the Mexican Revolution.
21/11/1916
Franz Joseph I of Austria (born 1830)
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his death in 1916. In the early part of his reign, his realms and territories were referred to as the Austrian Empire, but in 1867 they were reconstituted as the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. From 1 May 1850 to 24 August 1866, he was also president of the German Confederation.
21/11/1909
Peder Severin Krøyer, Norwegian-Danish painter (born 1851)
Peder Severin Krøyer, also known as P. S. Krøyer, was a Danish painter.
21/11/1908
Carl Friedrich Schmidt, German-Russian geologist and botanist (born 1832)
Carl Friedrich Schmidt was a Baltic German geologist and botanist in the Russian Empire. He is acknowledged as the founder of Estonian geology. In the mid-19th century, he researched Estonian oil shale, kukersite, and named it after Kuckers.
21/11/1907
Harry Boyle, Australian cricketer (born 1847)
Henry Frederick Boyle was a leading Australian cricketer of the 1870s and 1880s.
Paula Modersohn-Becker, German painter (born 1876)
Paula Modersohn-Becker was a German Expressionist painter and draftswoman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is noted for the many self-portraits, including nudes. She is considered one of the most important representatives of early expressionism, producing more than 700 paintings and over 1000 drawings during her active painting life. She is recognized both as the first known woman painter to paint nude self-portraits, and the first woman to have a museum devoted exclusively to her art. Additionally, she is believed to be the first woman artist to depict herself pregnant.
21/11/1899
Garret Hobart, American lawyer and politician, 24th Vice President of the United States (born 1844)
Garret Augustus Hobart was the 24th vice president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his death in 1899, under President William McKinley. A member of the Republican Party, Hobart was an influential New Jersey businessman and political operative prior to his vice presidency.
21/11/1881
Ami Boué, German-Austrian geologist and ethnographer (born 1794)
Ami Boué was a geologist of French Huguenot origin. Born at Hamburg, he was trained in Edinburgh and across Europe. Based on fossil and the strata in which he observed them, he suggested that there were continuous change in the animal forms that existed over time and opposed the theories of catastrophism of the period. He travelled across Europe, studying geology, as well as ethnology, and is considered to be among the first to produce a geological map of the world.
21/11/1874
Marià Fortuny, Spanish painter (born 1838)
Mariano Fortuny y Marsal was a Spanish painter known for works focusing on Romantic fascination with Orientalist themes, historicist genre painting, and military painting of Spanish imperial expansion.
21/11/1870
Karel Jaromír Erben, Czech historian and poet (born 1811)
Karel Jaromír Erben was a Czech folklorist. He is best known for his collection Kytice, which contains poems based on traditional and folkloric themes. He also wrote Písně národní v Čechách which contains 500 songs and Prostonárodní české písně a říkadla, a five-part book that brings together most of Czech folklore.
21/11/1861
Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, French priest and activist (born 1802)
Jean-Baptiste Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, OP, often styled Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, was a French Catholic priest, journalist, theologian and political activist. He re-established the Dominican Order in post-Revolutionary France. Lacordaire was reputed to be the greatest pulpit orator of the nineteenth century.
21/11/1859
Yoshida Shōin, Japanese academic and politician (born 1830)
Yoshida Shōin , commonly named Torajirō (寅次郎), was one of Japan's most distinguished intellectuals in the late years of the Tokugawa shogunate. He devoted himself to nurturing many ishin shishi who in turn made major contributions to the Meiji Restoration.
21/11/1844
Ivan Krylov, Russian poet and playwright (born 1769)
Ivan Andreyevich Krylov is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journalist, he only discovered his true genre at the age of 40. While many of his earlier fables were loosely based on Aesop's and La Fontaine's, later fables were original work, often with a satirical bent.
21/11/1811
Heinrich von Kleist, German poet and author (born 1777)
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays The Prince of Homburg, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, The Broken Jug, Amphitryon and Penthesilea, and the novellas Michael Kohlhaas and The Marquise of O. Kleist ended his life in a suicide pact by shooting himself together with a close female friend who was terminally ill.
21/11/1782
Jacques de Vaucanson, French engineer (born 1709)
Jacques de Vaucanson was a French inventor and artist who built the first all-metal lathe. This invention was crucial for the Industrial Revolution. The lathe is known as the mother of machine tools, as it was the first machine tool that led to the invention of other machine tools. He was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative automata. He also was the first person to design an automatic loom.
21/11/1775
John Hill, English botanist and author (born 1719)
Sir John Hill was an English composer, actor, author and botanist. He contributed to contemporary periodicals and engaged in literary battles with poets, playwrights and scientists. He is remembered for his illustrated botanical compendium The Vegetable System, one of the first works to use the nomenclature of Carl Linnaeus. In recognition of his efforts, he was created a knight of the Order of Vasa in 1774 by Gustav III of Sweden and thereafter called himself Sir John Hill.
21/11/1710
Bernardo Pasquini, Italian organist and composer (born 1637)
Bernardo Pasquini was an Italian composer of operas, oratorios, cantatas and keyboard music. A renowned virtuoso keyboard player, he was one of the most important Italian composers for harpsichord between Girolamo Frescobaldi and Domenico Scarlatti, having also made substantial contributions to opera and oratorio.
21/11/1695
Henry Purcell, English organist and composer (born 1659)
Henry Purcell was an English composer and organist of the middle Baroque era. He was extremely prolific, having composed more than 100 songs, a tragic opera Dido and Aeneas, and wrote incidental music to a version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream called The Fairy Queen.
21/11/1652
Jan Brożek, Polish mathematician, physician, and astronomer (born 1585)
Jan Brożek or Johannes Broscius was the most prominent Polish mathematician of his era and an early biographer of Copernicus. He held numerous ecclesiastical offices in the Catholic Church and was associated with the Kraków Academy for his entire career.
21/11/1639
Henry Grey, 8th Earl of Kent, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire (born 1583)
Henry Grey, 8th Earl of Kent of Wrest Park, Bedfordshire was Earl of Kent from 1623 to his death.
21/11/1579
Thomas Gresham, English merchant and financier (born 1519)
Sir Thomas Gresham the Elder was an English merchant and financier who acted on behalf of King Edward VI (1547–1553) and Edward's half-sisters, queens Mary I (1553–1558) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603). In 1565 Gresham founded the Royal Exchange in the City of London.
21/11/1566
Annibale Caro, Italian poet and author (born 1507)
Fra' Annibale Caro, K.M., was an Italian writer and poet.
21/11/1555
Georgius Agricola, German mineralogist, philologist, and scholar (born 1490)
Georgius Agricola was a German Renaissance humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, he was broadly educated, but took a particular interest in the mining and refining of metals. He was the first to drop the Arabic definite article al-, exclusively writing chymia and chymista in describing activity that we today would characterize as chemical or alchemical, giving chemistry its modern name. For his groundbreaking work De Natura Fossilium published in 1546, he is generally referred to as the father of mineralogy and the founder of geology as a scientific discipline.
21/11/1361
Philip I, Duke of Burgundy (born 1346)
Philip of Rouvres was the Count of Burgundy and Count of Artois from 1347, Duke of Burgundy from 1349, and Count of Auvergne and Boulogne from 1360. He was the only son of Philip, heir to the Duchy of Burgundy, and Joan I, heiress of Auvergne and Boulogne.
21/11/1325
Yury of Moscow, Prince of Moscow and Vladimir
Yury (Georgy) Danilovich was Prince of Moscow from 1303 to 1325 and Grand Prince of Vladimir from 1318 to 1322. He contested the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir with his uncle Mikhail of Tver. As Yury's father had never held the title, he had no legitimate claim. Despite two failed campaigns by Mikhail to subdue Yury, the latter allied with the Golden Horde and married the khan's sister Konchaka. However, he never had any children with her and was made grand prince after Mikhail's execution in 1318.
21/11/1150
García Ramírez of Navarre (born 1112)
García Ramírez, sometimes García IV, V, VI or VII, called the Restorer, was the King of Navarre (Pamplona) from 1134. The election of García Ramírez restored the independence of the Navarrese kingdom after 58 years of political union with the Kingdom of Aragon. After some initial conflict he would align himself with king Alfonso VII of León and Castile, and as his ally take part in the Reconquista.
21/11/1136
William de Corbeil, English archbishop (born 1070)
William de Corbeil or William of Corbeil was a medieval Archbishop of Canterbury. Very little is known of William's early life or his family, except that he was born at Corbeil, south-east of Paris, and that he had two brothers. Educated as a theologian, he taught briefly before serving the bishops of Durham and London as a clerk and subsequently becoming an Augustinian canon. William was elected to the See of Canterbury as a compromise candidate in 1123, the first canon to become an English archbishop. He succeeded Ralph d'Escures who had employed him as a chaplain.
21/11/1011
Reizei, emperor of Japan (born 950)
Emperor Reizei was the 63rd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.
21/11/0933
Al-Tahawi, Arab imam and scholar (born 853)
Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad aṭ-Ṭaḥāwī, commonly known as at-Tahawi, was an Egyptian Arab Hanafi jurist and Traditionalist theologian. He studied with his uncle al-Muzani and was a Shafi'i jurist, before then changing to the Hanafi school. He is known for his work al-'Aqidah al-Tahawiyyah, a summary of Sunni Islamic creed which influenced Hanafis in Egypt.
21/11/0615
Columbanus, Irish missionary and saint (born 543)
Saint Columbanus was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in present-day Italy.