Died on Friday, 28th November – Famous Deaths

28/11/2024

Prince Johnson, Liberian politician (born 1952)

Prince Yormie Johnson was a Liberian warlord and politician, who served as a senator for Nimba County from 2006 to 2024. Once a rebel leader, Johnson played a prominent role in the First Liberian Civil War.

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Ananda Krishnan, Malaysian businessman (born 1938)

Tatparanandam Ananda Krishnan, also known by the initialism A. K., was a Malaysian entrepreneur who was a founder and chairperson of Usaha Tegas and founder of Yu Cai Foundation (YCF).

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Silvia Pinal, Mexican actress (born 1931)

Silvia Pinal Hidalgo was a Mexican actress. She began her career in theatre before venturing into cinema in 1949. She became one of the greatest female stars of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and, with her performance in Shark! (1969), part of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Her work in film and popularity in her native country led Pinal to work in Europe, particularly in Spain and Italy. Pinal achieved international recognition by starring in a trilogy of films directed by Luis Buñuel: Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962) and Simon of the Desert (1965).

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Kioumars Pourhashemi, Iranian military general

Kioumars Pourhashemi, also known by his nom de guerre Haji Hashem, was an Iranian military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He served as an IRGC military advisor to the Syrian Arab Army during the Syrian civil war, and was killed in action shortly before the Battle of Aleppo of 2024.

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28/11/2023

Charlie Munger, American businessman and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (born 1924)

Charles Thomas Munger was an American businessman, investor, attorney and philanthropist. He was the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett, from 1978 until his death in 2023. Buffett described Munger as his closest partner and right-hand man, and credited him with being the "architect" of modern Berkshire Hathaway's business philosophy.

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28/11/2021

Virgil Abloh, American fashion designer and entrepreneur (born 1980)

Virgil Abloh was an American fashion designer and entrepreneur. A trained architect, Abloh founded his own line of luxury streetwear clothing under the moniker Pyrex Vision in 2012, which he transformed into the Milan based fashion label Off-White in 2013. Abloh was appointed artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection beginning in 2018 and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021. Abloh worked in Chicago street fashion before he entered the world of international fashion with an internship at Fendi in 2009, alongside American rapper Kanye West. Abloh assumed the role of creative director at Donda, West's creative agency in 2010.

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Frank Williams, British founder of Williams Grand Prix Engineering (born 1942)

Sir Francis Owen Garbett Williams was a British businessman, motorsport executive and racing driver. From 1977 to 2020, Williams served as co-founder, team principal and co-owner of Williams in Formula One, winning nine World Constructors' Championship titles between 1980 and 1997.

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28/11/2020

David Prowse, English weight-lifting champion, actor and Green Cross Man (born 1935)

David Charles Prowse was an English actor, bodybuilder, strongman and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy and a manservant in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. In 2015, he starred in two documentaries concerning his Darth Vader role, one titled The Force's Mouth, which included Prowse voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time, and the other titled I Am Your Father, covering the subject of the fallout between Prowse and Lucasfilm.

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28/11/2018

Harry Leslie Smith, British writer and political commentator (born 1923)

Harry Leslie Smith was an English writer and political commentator. He grew up in poverty in Yorkshire, served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, and emigrated to Canada in 1953. After retiring, Smith wrote his memoirs and about the social history of 20th-century Britain. Smith wrote five books, about life in the Great Depression, the Second World War, and post-war austerity, and columns for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Daily Mirror, International Business Times, and the Morning Star. He appeared in public at the 2014 Labour Party conference in Manchester, and during the 2015 general election and the 2016 EU membership referendum. In Canada he made a 2015 "Stand Up for Progress" national tour.

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28/11/2015

Wayne Bickerton, Welsh songwriter and producer (born 1941)

Wayne Bickerton was a British record producer, songwriter and music business executive. He became well known, with Tony Waddington, as writer and producer of a series of UK chart hits in the 1970s for The Rubettes, and as a leading figure in SESAC – one of the three major American performing rights organisations.

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Luc Bondy, Swiss director and producer (born 1948)

Luc Bondy was a Swiss theatre and film director.

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Gerry Byrne, English-Welsh footballer (born 1938)

Gerald Byrne was an English footballer who spent his entire playing career at Liverpool. He was a member of England's 1966 World Cup winning squad though only received a winner's medal some years later.

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Marjorie Lord, American actress (born 1918)

Marjorie Lord was an American television and film actress. She played Kathy "Clancy" O'Hara Williams, opposite Danny Thomas's character on The Danny Thomas Show.

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Olene Walker, American lawyer and politician, 15th Governor of Utah (born 1930)

Olene Walker was an American politician who served as the 15th governor of Utah from 2003 to 2005, succeeding the governorship after Mike Leavitt's resignation.

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28/11/2014

Chespirito, Mexican actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1929)

Roberto Mario Gómez y Bolaños, more commonly known by his stage name Chespirito, or "Little Shakespeare", was a Mexican actor, comedian, screenwriter, humorist, director, producer, and author. He is widely regarded as one of the icons of Spanish-speaking humor and entertainment and one of the greatest comedians of all time. He is also one of the most loved and respected comedians in Latin America. He is mostly known by his acting role Chavo from the sitcom El Chavo del Ocho.

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Said Akl, Lebanese poet, playwright, and linguist (born 1912)

Said Akl was a Lebanese poet, linguist, philosopher, writer, playwright and language reformer. He is considered one of the most important Lebanese poets of the modern era. He is most famous for his advocacy on behalf of codifying the spoken Lebanese Arabic language as competency distinct from Standard Arabic, to be written in a modern modified Roman script consisting of 36 symbols that he deemed an evolution of the Phoenician alphabet. Despite this, he contributed to several literary movements in Modern Standard Arabic, producing some of the masterpieces of modern Arabic belle lettres.

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Dale Armstrong, Canadian race car driver (born 1941)

Dale Armstrong was a Canadian drag racer and crew chief. After winning 12 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and 12 International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) events in the 1970s, including the Pro Comp title in 1975, he became Kenny Bernstein's crew chief. The combination produced four consecutive national championships in Funny Car and another in Top Fuel. Bernstein became the first driver to top the 300 miles per hour mark in an engine tuned by Armstrong. Armstrong has been inducted in numerous halls of fame. He died on November 28, 2014, at his home in Temecula, California, at the age of 73. He had sarcoidosis.

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28/11/2013

Jack Matthews, American author, playwright, and academic (born 1925)

John Harold "Jack" Matthews was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright and former professor. He published 7 novels, 11 story collections, a novella, and 8 volumes of essays. He was an avid book collector, and many of his book finds served as a basis for his essays and the historical topics he explored in his fiction. His 1972 novel The Charisma Campaigns was nominated by Walker Percy for the National Book Award. He has often made 19th century America and the Civil War period the setting for his fiction, starting with his 1981 novel Sassafras and most recently with the 2011 novel Gambler's Nephew and a 2015 story collection Soldier Boys: Tales of the Civil War. His plays have been performed at multiple theaters around the country.

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Mitja Ribičič, Italian-Slovenian soldier and politician, 25th Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (born 1919)

Mitja Ribičič was a Slovenian and Yugoslav communist politician. He was the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia—the only Slovenian to hold the office—from 1969 to 1971.

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Jean-Louis Roux, Canadian actor and politician, 34th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (born 1923)

Jean-Louis Roux was a Canadian politician, entertainer and playwright who was briefly the 26th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec.

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Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Austrian-American poet and songwriter (born 1920)

Beyle "Beyltse" Schaechter-Gottesman was a Yiddish poet and songwriter.

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28/11/2012

Knut Ahnlund, Swedish historian, author, and academic (born 1923)

Knut Emil Ahnlund was a Swedish literary historian, writer, and member of the Swedish Academy, the body that chooses the laureates for the annual Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Spain Rodriguez, American illustrator (born 1940)

Manuel Rodriguez, better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman.

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Franco Ventriglia, American opera singer (born 1922)

Franco Ventriglia was an opera singer who sang bass in every major European opera house during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He returned to the U.S. in 1978, where he continued to perform at venues including Carnegie Hall, and traveled to perform in southeast Asia, until his retirement in 2001 at age 79.

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Zig Ziglar, American soldier and author (born 1926)

Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar was an American author, salesman, and motivational speaker.

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28/11/2011

Lloyd J. Old, American immunologist and academic (born 1933)

Lloyd John Old was an American medical researcher, and one of the founders of the field of cancer immunology. When Old began his career in 1958, tumor immunology was in its infancy. Today, cancer immunotherapies are a significant advance in cancer therapy.

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28/11/2010

Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American actor and producer (born 1926)

Leslie William Nielsen was a Canadian-American actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he appeared in more than 100 films and 150 television programs, portraying more than 220 characters.

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28/11/2009

Gilles Carle, Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1928)

Gilles Carle, was a Canadian filmmaker and painter, who was a key figure in the development of a commercial Quebec cinema.

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28/11/2008

Havaldar Gajender Singh, Indian sergeant (born 1972)

Gajender Singh Bisht was an NSG commando and Havildar (Sergeant) who was killed during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. His act of bravery was honored with the Ashoka Chakra award by the President of India on India's 60th Republic Day on 26 January 2009.

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Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Indian soldier (born 1977)

Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, AC was an Indian Army officer, who was serving in the 51 Special Action Group of the National Security Guard on deputation. He was killed in action during the 2008 Mumbai attacks and was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award, on 26 January 2009.

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28/11/2007

Gudrun Wagner, Prussian director and producer (born 1944)

Gudrun Wagner was the second wife of Wolfgang Wagner, sole director of the Bayreuth Festival since 1967. Her behind-the-scenes influence led her to be considered virtual co-director.

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28/11/2005

Marc Lawrence, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1910)

Marc Lawrence was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. He has also been credited as F. A. Foss, Marc Laurence and Marc C. Lawrence.

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Jack Concannon, American football player and actor (born 1943)

John Joseph Concannon Jr. was an American professional football quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for the Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, and Detroit Lions. He played college football at Boston College.

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28/11/2003

Ted Bates, English footballer and manager (born 1918)

Edric Thornton Bates MBE was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. He spent the majority of his career at Southampton F.C. as a player, manager, director and president which earned him the sobriquet "Mr. Southampton".

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Antonia Forest, English author (born 1915)

Antonia Forest was the pseudonym of Patricia Giulia Caulfield Kate Rubinstein, an English writer. She wrote 13 books for children, published between 1948 and 1982. Her ten best-known works concern the doings of the fictional Marlow family. Several are school stories. Forest also wrote two historical novels about the Marlows' Elizabethan ancestors.

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Mihkel Mathiesen, Estonian engineer and politician (born 1918)

Mihkel Mathiesen was an Estonian statesman.

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28/11/2002

Melih Cevdet Anday, Turkish poet and author (born 1915)

Melih Cevdet Anday was a Turkish poet and author whose poetry stands outside the traditional literary movements. He also wrote in many other genres which, over six and a half decades, included eleven collections of poems, eight plays, eight novels, fifteen collections of essays, several of which won major literary awards. He also translated several books from diverse languages into Turkish.

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28/11/2001

Kal Mann, American songwriter (born 1917)

Kal Mann was an American lyricist. He is best known for penning the words to Elvis Presley's "Teddy Bear", plus "Butterfly", a hit for both Charlie Gracie and Andy Williams, and "Let's Twist Again", sung by Chubby Checker, which won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll Recording.

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William Reid, Scottish lieutenant and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1921)

William Reid was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He earned his Victoria Cross as a pilot in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command during the Second World War.

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28/11/1998

Kerry Wendell Thornley, American soldier and author (born 1938)

Kerry Wendell Thornley was an American author. He is known as the co-founder of Discordianism, in which context he is usually known as Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst or simply Lord Omar. He and Hill authored the religion's text Principia Discordia, Or, How I Found Goddess, and What I Did to Her When I Found Her. Thornley also was known for his 1962 manuscript The Idle Warriors, which was inspired by the activities of his acquaintance Lee Harvey Oswald before the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.

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Rita Hester, American transgender woman (born 1963)

Rita Hester was a transgender African American woman who was murdered in Allston (Boston), Massachusetts, on November 28, 1998.

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28/11/1997

Georges Marchal, French actor (born 1920)

Georges Marchal was a French actor.

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28/11/1995

Joe Kelly, Irish race car driver (born 1915)

Joseph Michael Kelly was an Irish racing driver and businessman, who entered into the 1950 and 1951 British Grand Prix.

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28/11/1994

Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (born 1960)

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

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Buster Edwards, English boxer and criminal (born 1932)

Ronald Christopher "Buster" Edwards was a British criminal who was a member of the gang that committed the 1963 Great Train Robbery. He had also been a boxer, and owned a nightclub and a flower shop.

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Jerry Rubin, American businessman and activist (born 1938)

Jerry Clyde Rubin was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and early 1970s. Despite being known for holding radical views when he was a political activist, he ceased holding his more extreme views at some point in the 1970s and instead opted for a successful career as a businessman. In the 1960s, during his political activism heyday, he was known for being one of the co-founders of the Youth International Party (YIP) whose members were referred to as Yippies, and standing trial in the Chicago Seven case.

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28/11/1993

Jerry Edmonton, Canadian-American drummer (born 1946)

Gerald Michael Edmonton was a Canadian musician who was the drummer and secondary lead vocalist for the rock band Steppenwolf.

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Garry Moore, American comedian, television personality, and game show host (born 1915)

Garry Moore was an American entertainer, comedic personality, game show host, and humorist best known for his work in television. He began a long career with the CBS network starting in radio in 1937. From 1949 through the mid-1970s, Moore was a television host on several variety and game shows.

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28/11/1992

Sidney Nolan, Australian-English painter and academic (born 1917)

Sir Sidney Robert Nolan was one of the leading Australian artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of media, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known for his series of paintings on legends from Australian history, most famously that of Ned Kelly, the bushranger and outlaw. Nolan's stylised depiction of Kelly's armour has become an icon of Australian art.

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28/11/1987

Choh Hao Li, Chinese-American biologist and chemist (born 1913)

Choh Hao Li was a Chinese-born American biochemist who discovered in 1966 that human pituitary growth hormone (somatotropin) consists of a chain of 256 amino acids. In 1970, he succeeded in synthesizing this hormone, the largest protein molecule synthesized up to that time.

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Kazuharu Sonoda, Japanese wrestler (born 1956)

Kazuharu Sonoda also known under the ring names Haru Sonoda and Magic Dragon , was a Japanese professional wrestler. He was a former NWA Western States Tag Team Champion, NWA/WWC North American Tag Team Champion with Mitsu Ishikawa and the WCCW All Asia Tag Team Championship with the Great Kabuki in 1982.

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28/11/1983

Christopher George, American actor (born 1929)

Christopher John George was an American television and film actor who starred in the 1960s television series The Rat Patrol. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1967 as Best TV Star for his performance in the series. He was also the recipient of a New York Film Festival award as the Best Actor in a Television Commercial. George was married to actress Lynda Day George.

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28/11/1982

Helen of Greece and Denmark (born 1896)

Helen of Greece and Denmark was the queen mother of Romania during the reign of her son King Michael I (1940–1947). Her humanitarian efforts to save Romanian Jews during World War II led to her being awarded by the State of Israel with the honorific of Righteous Among the Nations in 1993.

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28/11/1978

Antonio Vespucio Liberti, Argentinian businessman (born 1902)

Antonio Vespucio Liberti was a chairman of Club Atlético River Plate. He presided the club four times, becoming the president who was most often in charge of the club, with 20 non-consecutive years in office.

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28/11/1977

Bob Meusel, American baseball player and sailor (born 1896)

Robert William Meusel was an American baseball player. A left and right fielder, he played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for eleven seasons from 1920 through 1930, all but the last for the New York Yankees. He was best known as a member of the Yankees' championship teams of the 1920s, nicknamed "Murderers' Row", during which time the team won its first six American League (AL) pennants and first three World Series titles.

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28/11/1976

Rosalind Russell, American actress and singer (born 1907)

Catherine Rosalind Russell was an American actress, model, comedian, screenwriter, and singer, known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her role of catty Sylvia Fowler in George Cukor's The Women (1939), opposite Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, and for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in the 1956 stage and 1958 film adaptations of Auntie Mame, and Rose in Gypsy (1962). A noted comedienne, she received various accolades, including five Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award. Russell has been honored with a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1973 and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1975.

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28/11/1975

Peder Furubotn, Norwegian Communist and anti-Nazi Resistance leader (born 1890)

Peder Furubotn was a Norwegian cabinetmaker, politician for the Communist Party and resistance member during World War II.

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28/11/1973

Marthe Bibesco, Romanian-French author and poet (born 1886)

Princess Martha Bibescu, also known outside of Romania as Marthe Bibesco, was a Romanian-French writer, socialite, known for her literary work and social involvement in political circles. She spent her childhood at the noble Lahovary's estates in Balotești and Biarritz, where she received an education in literature. Throughout her life, she travelled extensively across Europe, meeting notable political figures of her time. After World War I, she rebuilt her family's estates, but later lived in exile following the establishment of communist rule in Romania after World War II.

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28/11/1972

Havergal Brian, English composer (born 1875)

William Havergal Brian was an English composer, librettist, and church organist.

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28/11/1971

Wasfi al-Tal, Jordanian captain and politician, 34th Prime Minister of Jordan (born 1920)

Wasfi Tal was a Jordanian politician, statesman and military officer. He served as the 15th Prime Minister of Jordan for three separate terms, 1962–63, 1965–67 and 1970 until his assassination in 1971.

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28/11/1968

Enid Blyton, English author and poet (born 1897)

Enid Mary Blyton was an English children's writer. She is widely regarded as one of the most successful and prolific writers of all time, particularly in the realm of children's literature. Blyton's books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies, and have been translated into ninety languages. As of June 2019, Blyton was the fourth-most translated author. She wrote on a wide range of topics, including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives. She is best remembered for her Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers, and Malory Towers books, although she also wrote many others, including St. Clare's, The Naughtiest Girl, and The Faraway Tree series.

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28/11/1962

K. C. Dey, Indian singer-songwriter and actor (born 1893)

Krishna Chandra Dey, better known as K. C. Dey, was an Indian music director, music composer, musician, singer, actor, and music teacher born in Calcutta. He was S.D. Burman's first musical teacher and mentor. His father's name was Shibchandra Dey. In 1906, at the age of fourteen, he lost his eyesight and became completely blind. He worked for various theatre groups and finally went on to work for New Theatres in Kolkata until 1940. He is best remembered for his Kirtan songs. He was patronized by many elite families of Calcutta at that time. He often sang in Jalsa of Rajbari of Sovabazar, Mitra House of Beadon Street and many others. K. C. Dey recorded around 600 songs, mostly in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and 8 Naats.

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Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (born 1880)

Wilhelmina was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. She reigned for nearly 58 years, making her the longest-reigning monarch in Dutch history, as well as the longest-reigning female monarch outside of the United Kingdom. Her reign encompassed World War I, the Dutch economic crisis of 1933, and World War II.

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28/11/1960

Dirk Jan de Geer, Dutch lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (born 1870)

Jonkheer Dirk Jan de Geer was a Dutch politician of the Christian Historical Union. He served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 8 March 1926 until 10 August 1929, and from 10 August 1939 until 3 September 1940.

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Tsunenohana Kan'ichi, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 31st Yokozuna (born 1896)

Tsunenohana Kan'ichi was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Okayama. He was the sport's 31st yokozuna.

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Richard Wright, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet (born 1908)

Richard Nathaniel Wright (1908–1960) was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries suffering discrimination and violence. His best known works include the novella collection Uncle Tom's Children (1938), the novel Native Son (1940), and the memoir Black Boy (1945). Literary critics believe his work helped change race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century.

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28/11/1954

Enrico Fermi, Italian-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1901)

Enrico Fermi was an Italian–American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons". He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical and experimental physics. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.

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28/11/1953

Frank Olson, American biologist and chemist (born 1910)

Frank Rudolph Emmanuel Olson was an American bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist, and an employee of the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) who worked at Camp Detrick in Maryland. At a meeting in rural Maryland, he was covertly dosed with LSD by his colleague Sidney Gottlieb and, nine days later, plunged to his death from the window of the Hotel Statler in New York. The U.S. government first described his death as a suicide, and then as misadventure, while others allege murder. The Rockefeller Commission report on the CIA in 1975 acknowledged their having conducted covert drug studies on fellow agents. Olson's death is one of the most mysterious outcomes of the CIA mind control project MKUltra.

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28/11/1947

Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, French general (born 1902)

Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque was a Free-French general during World War II. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal Leclerc or just Leclerc.

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28/11/1945

Dwight F. Davis, American tennis player and politician, 49th United States Secretary of War (born 1879)

Dwight Filley Davis Sr. was an American tennis player and politician. He is best remembered as the founder of the Davis Cup international tennis competition. He was the Assistant Secretary of War from 1923 to 1925 and Secretary of War from 1925 to 1929.

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28/11/1943

Aleksander Hellat, Estonian lawyer and politician, 6th Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1881)

Aleksander Hellat was an Estonian politician and a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia. He was a member of the Estonian Social Democratic Workers' Party. After Estonia had been annexed by the Soviet Union, Hellat was arrested in 1940 by the NKVD and deported to a prison camp in Siberia, where he died three years later.

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28/11/1939

James Naismith, Canadian-American physician and educator, created basketball (born 1861)

James Naismith was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach, best known as the inventor of the game of basketball.

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28/11/1935

Erich von Hornbostel, Austrian musicologist and scholar (born 1877)

Erich Moritz von Hornbostel was an Austrian ethnomusicologist, comparative musicologist, and scholar of music. He is remembered for his pioneering work in the field of ethnomusicology, and for the Sachs–Hornbostel system of musical instrument classification which he co-authored with Curt Sachs. He is also known as the father of the "Berlin School of Ethnomusicology" in conjunction with Carl Stumpf.

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28/11/1930

Constantine VI of Constantinople (born 1859)

Constantine VI of Constantinople was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 17 December 1924 till 22 May 1925.

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28/11/1921

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Head of the Baháʼí Faith (born 1844)

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, born ʻAbbás, was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who designated him to be his successor and head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later cited as the last of three "central figures" of the religion, along with Baháʼu'lláh and the Báb, and his writings and authenticated talks are regarded as sources of Baháʼí sacred literature.

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28/11/1917

Mikelis Avlichos, Greek poet and scholar (born 1844)

The term Heptanese school of literature denotes the literary production of the Ionian Islands' literature figures from the late 18th century till the end of the 19th century. The center of this production is considered to be the poet Dionysios Solomos, so its periods are conventionally divided as follows: Pre-Solomian poets, Solomian poets, Post-Solomian poets, minors and descendants.

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28/11/1912

Walter Benona Sharp, American businessman (born 1870)

Walter Benona Sharp was an American oilman and innovator in drilling techniques.

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28/11/1907

Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish playwright, poet, and painter (born 1869)

Stanisław Mateusz Ignacy Wyspiański was a Polish playwright, painter, poet, and interior and furniture designer. A patriotic writer, he created symbolic national dramas accordant with the artistic premises of the Young Poland movement.

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28/11/1904

Hermann de Pourtalès, Swiss sailor (born 1847)

Count Hermann Alexander de Pourtalès was a Swiss sailor who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics.

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28/11/1901

Moses Dickson, African-American abolitionist, soldier, minister, and founder of The Knights of Liberty (born 1824)

Moses Dickson (1824–1901) was an abolitionist, soldier, minister, and founder of the Knights of Liberty, an anti-slavery organization that planned a slave uprising in the United States and helped Black-American enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad. He also founded the black fraternal organization The International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor and was a co-founder of Lincoln University in Missouri. Moses Dickson was also active in Prince Hall Freemasonry.

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28/11/1893

Talbot Baines Reed, English author (born 1852)

Talbot Baines Reed was an English writer of boys' fiction who established a genre of school stories that endured into the mid-20th century. Among his best-known work is The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. He was a regular and prolific contributor to The Boy's Own Paper (B.O.P.), in which most of his fiction first appeared. Through his family's business, Reed became a prominent typefounder, and wrote a standard work on the subject: History of the Old English Letter Foundries.

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28/11/1891

Sir James Corry, 1st Baronet, British politician (born 1826)

Sir James Porter Corry, 1st Baronet was an Irish politician. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from 1874 to 1891 and an Irish Unionist Alliance MP until his death.

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28/11/1890

Jyotirao Phule, Indian philosopher and activist (born 1827)

Jyotirao Phule, also known as Jyotiba Phule, was an Indian social activist, businessman, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra.

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28/11/1880

Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, Portuguese archbishop (born 1837)

Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos was a Portuguese Roman Catholic Archbishop of Goa.

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28/11/1878

Orson Hyde, American religious leader, 3rd President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (born 1805)

Orson Hyde was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and a member of the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 to 1875 and was a missionary of the LDS Church in the United States, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire.

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28/11/1873

Caterina Scarpellini, Italian astronomer and meteorologist (born 1808)

Caterina Scarpellini was an Italian astronomer and meteorologist who discovered a comet and as a meteorologist she established a station in Rome in the 1850s. She published more than fifty notes and reports over twenty years, and was rewarded with a silver medal by the Italian government.

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28/11/1870

Frédéric Bazille, French soldier and painter (born 1841)

Jean Frédéric Bazille was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air.

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28/11/1859

Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian (born 1783)

Washington Irving was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as the Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as the American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.

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28/11/1852

Ludger Duvernay, French journalist and politician (born 1799)

Ludger Duvernay, born in Verchères, Quebec, was a printer by profession and published a number of newspapers including the Gazette des Trois-Rivières, the first newspaper in Lower Canada outside of Quebec City and Montreal, and also La Minerve, which supported the Parti patriote and Louis-Joseph Papineau in the years leading up to the Lower Canada Rebellion.

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Emmanuil Xanthos, Greek activist, co-founded Filiki Eteria (born 1772)

Emmanuil Xanthos was a Greek merchant. He was one of the founders of the Filiki Eteria, a Greek conspiratorial organization which opposed the Ottoman Empire.

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28/11/1815

Johann Peter Salomon, German violinist, composer, and conductor (born 1745)

Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario. Although an accomplished violinist, he is best known for bringing Joseph Haydn to London and for conducting the symphonies that Haydn wrote during his stay in England. He also knew and worked with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

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28/11/1801

Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, French geologist and academic (born 1750)

Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Gratet de Dolomieu usually known as Déodat de Dolomieu was a French geologist. The mineral and the rock dolomite and the largest summital crater on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano were named after him.

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28/11/1794

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Prussian-American general (born 1730)

Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Freiherr von Steuben, also referred to as Baron von Steuben, was a Prussian-born army officer who played a leading role in the American Revolutionary War by reforming the Continental Army into a disciplined and professional fighting force. His contributions marked a significant improvement in the performance of U.S. troops, and he is consequently regarded as one of the fathers of the United States Army.

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Sir James Tylney-Long, 7th Baronet, English politician (born 1736)

Sir James Tylney-Long, 7th Baronet was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons for 32 years from 1762 to 1794.

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28/11/1785

William Whipple, American general and politician (born 1730)

William Whipple Jr. was an American Founding Father and signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence. He represented New Hampshire as a member of the Continental Congress from 1776 through 1779. He worked as both a ship's captain and a merchant, and he studied in college to become a judge. He died of heart complications in 1785, aged 55.

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28/11/1763

Naungdawgyi, Burmese king (born 1734)

Dabayin Min, commonly known as Naungdawgyi, personal name Maung Lauk (မောင်လောက်), was the second king of Konbaung Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar), from 1760 to 1763. He was a top military commander in his father Alaungpaya's reunification campaigns of the country. As king, he spent much of his short reign suppressing multiple rebellions across the newly founded kingdom from Ava (Inwa) and Toungoo (Taungoo) to Martaban (Mottama) and Chiang Mai. The king suddenly died less than a year after he had successfully suppressed the rebellions. He was succeeded by his younger brother Hsinbyushin.

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28/11/1698

Louis de Buade de Frontenac, French soldier and politician, 3rd Governor General of New France (born 1622)

Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau was a French soldier, courtier, and Governor General of New France in North America from 1672 to 1682, and again from 1689 to his death in 1698. He established a number of Forts on the Great Lakes and engaged in a series of battles against the English and the Iroquois.

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28/11/1695

Giovanni Paolo Colonna, Italian organist, composer, and educator (born 1637)

Giovanni Paolo Colonna was an Italian composer, teacher, organist and organ builder. In addition to being chapel-master and organist of San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, he served prominent members of the courts of Ferrara, Parma, Modena and Florence. He was a founder-member and president of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. Emperor Leopold I collected manuscripts of his sacred music, which reflects the Roman church cantata style of Giacomo Carissimi and looks forward to the manner of George Frideric Handel.

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Anthony Wood, English historian and author (born 1632)

Anthony Wood, who styled himself Anthony à Wood in his later writings, was an English antiquary. He was responsible for a celebrated Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon.

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28/11/1694

Matsuo Bashō, Japanese poet and scholar (born 1644)

Matsuo Bashō ; born Matsuo Kinsaku , later known as Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa was the most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku. He is also well known for his travel essays beginning with Records of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton (1684), written after his journey west to Kyoto and Nara.

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28/11/1680

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor and painter (born 1598)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor, architect, painter and city planner. Bernini's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as a uomo universale or Renaissance man. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture.

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Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Italian painter and architect (born 1606)

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi was an Italian painter, draughtsman, printmaker and architect. He was an accomplished fresco painter of classical landscapes which were popular with leading Roman families.

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Athanasius Kircher, German priest, philologist, and scholar (born 1601)

Athanasius Kircher was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his vast range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts". He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities that would become the Kircherian Museum. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades.

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28/11/1675

Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh, English soldier and politician (born 1608)

Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh was an English diplomat, politician and parliamentarian army officer during the English Civil War.

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Leonard Hoar, English minister and academic (born 1630)

Leonard Hoar was an English-born American Congregational minister and educator who served as the third president of Harvard College from 1672 to 1675. His tenure was one of immense disapproval.

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28/11/1667

Jean de Thévenot, French linguist and botanist (born 1633)

Jean de Thévenot was a French traveller in Asia, who wrote extensively about his journeys. He was also a linguist, natural scientist and botanist.

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28/11/1585

Hernando Franco, Spanish composer (born 1532)

Hernando Franco was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance, who was mainly active in Guatemala and Mexico.

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28/11/1574

Georg Major, German theologian and educator (born 1502)

Georg Major was a Lutheran theologian of the Protestant Reformation.

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28/11/1499

Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick (born 1475)

Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick was the son of Isabel Neville and George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and a potential claimant to the English throne during the reigns of both his uncle, Richard III (1483–1485), and Richard's successor, Henry VII (1485–1509). He was also a younger brother of Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury. Edward was tried and executed for treason in 1499.

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28/11/1476

James of the Marches, Franciscan friar

Jacob de Marchia, commonly known in English as Saint James of the Marches, was an Italian Friar Minor, preacher and writer. He was a Papal legate and Inquisitor.

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28/11/1317

Yishan Yining, Zen monk and writer from China who taught in Japan (born 1247)

Yishan Yining was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Japan. Before monkhood his family name was Hu. He was born in 1247 in Linhai, Taizhou, Zhejiang, China. He was a monk of the Linji school during the Yuan dynasty of China, and subsequently a Rinzai Zen master who rose to prominence in Kamakura Japan. He was one of the chief disseminators of Zen Buddhism among the new militarized nobility of Japan, a calligrapher and a writer. Mastering a variety of literary genres and being a prolific teacher, he is mostly remembered as the pioneer of Japanese Gozan Bungaku literature, that recreated in Japan the literary forms of Song dynasty.

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28/11/1290

Eleanor of Castile (born 1241)

Eleanor of Castile was Queen of England as the first wife of Edward I. She was educated at the Castilian court and also ruled as Countess of Ponthieu in her own right from 1279. After diplomatic efforts to secure her marriage and affirm English sovereignty over Gascony, 13-year-old Eleanor was married to Edward at the monastery of Las Huelgas, Burgos, on 1 November 1254. She is believed to have birthed a child not long after.

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28/11/1170

Owain Gwynedd, Welsh king (born 1080)

Owain ap Gruffudd or Owain Gwynedd was King of Gwynedd from 1137 until his death in 1170, succeeding his father Gruffudd ap Cynan. He is known as Owain Gwynedd to distinguish him from the contemporary Powysian ruler, Owain Cyfeiliog, whose name was also Owain ap Gruffudd. Owain Gwynedd was the first recorded Welsh ruler to style himself king of Wales and Prince of the Welsh.

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28/11/1122

Margrave Ottokar II of Styria

Ottokar II was Margrave of Styria.

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28/11/1039

Adalbero, duke of Carinthia (born 980)

Adalbero of Eppenstein was Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Verona from 1011 or 1012 until 1035.

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28/11/0939

Lady Ma, Chinese noblewoman (born 890)

Lady Ma, formally the Lady Gongmu of Wuyue (吳越國恭穆夫人), was a wife of Qian Yuanguan, the second king of the Chinese state Wuyue of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

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28/11/0741

Pope Gregory III

Pope Gregory III was the bishop of Rome from 11 February 731 to his death on 28 November 741. His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by Byzantine iconoclasm and the advance of the Lombards, in which he invoked the intervention of Charles Martel, although ultimately in vain. He was the last pope to seek the consent of the Byzantine exarch of Ravenna for his election, the last pope of Syrian origin, and the last pope born outside Europe until the election of Pope Francis 1,272 years later in 2013.

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