Famous People Who Died Today

Known to his fans as "Big George,” boxer George Foreman won the world heavyweight champion twice and also gas an Olympic gold medal to his credit. Multidimensional in his pursuits, the international boxing hall-of-famer has also been a Christian minister, invented a fat-reducing grill, and written several books, including cookbooks.

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian poet, novelist, professor, and critic. Often described as Africa's greatest storyteller, Achebe is widely regarded as the father of modern African writing. He was the recipient of several awards and honors, including the Man Booker International Prize 2007. His novel Things Fall Apart is one of the most read books in Africa.

Game show creator, producer, and host Chuck Barris began his career at NBC in New York City as a page. Brilliant and creative, he moved up the ranks in the entertainment industry and was soon producing music for TV shows. He then opened his own production company and went ahead to gain fame as a game show creator.

Dean Paul Martin made his way into pop singing at the age of thirteen when he joined the pop group Dino, Desi & Billy. He earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance in Players. He also became a successful tennis player and competed in junior competition at Wimbeldon. At the age of 16, he obtained his pilot's license.

American inventor, mechanical engineer and an accomplished tennis and golf player, Frederick Winslow Taylor, regarded as the father of scientific management, sought to improve industrial efficiency. His approach on scientific management, referred to as Taylorism, has significantly influenced development of industrial engineering and production management. His monograph, The Principles of Scientific Management, laid out his views on principles of scientific management.

Once the deputy minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness has also served as his country’s education minister. He had also been part of the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the Northern Ireland conflict. The Sinn Féin politician had a major role to play in the Good Friday Agreement.

American-Canadian developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth is best remembered for her contributions in developing the attachment theory. She devised the Strange situation procedure during the 1970s to observe early emotional connect and relationship between a caregiver and child. She was ranked as the 97th most cited psychologist of the 20th century in a 2002 survey of Review of General Psychology.

Jerry Krause was a sports scout and executive. He served as the general manager of the Chicago Bulls in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for several years, from 1985 to 2003. He won the NBA Executive of the Year Award twice. He died in 2017 and was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame later that year. 

John Law was a Scottish economist best remembered for his work as Controller General of Finances under the Regent of the Kingdom of France, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Law is credited with founding Banque Générale Privée, the first financial organization to pioneer the use of paper money. Law is also credited with originating ideas like the real bills doctrine.

Makonnen Wolde Mikael served as Shum of Harar from 1887 to 1906 under Ethiopian monarchs Yohannes IV and Menelik II. The governor of Harar province and a military leader, Mikael is best-remembered for his role as an effective general during various military-campaigns, most notably during First Italo–Ethiopian War when he played a key role at the Battle of Adwa.

Thomas Cranmer was the first Protestant to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was instrumental in the annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which led to the separation of the English Church from the See of Rome. He was eventually burnt at the stake for preaching Protestantism.

Nicolas Louis de Lacaille was a French astronomer and geodesist. He is credited to have named 14 out of the 88 constellations. He studied rhetoric, theology, and philosophy and became an abbot. He later found employment as a professor of mathematics in the Mazarin college and was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 

Denied formal education for being a woman, Toni Wolff later became one of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s closest collaborators. She entered Jung’s life as a patient of depression after her father’s death. She later headed the Psychologischer Club Zürich as its president and is often described as an intellectual rival of Jung’s wife.