Famous People Who Died Today

Ted Williams was an American baseball player who spent his entire 19-year MLB career with the Boston Red Sox. A nineteen-time All-Star and two-time Triple Crown winner, Ted Williams is widely considered one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball. In 1991, he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Director of blockbuster films like Superman, The Goonies, Scrooged, Lethal Weapon, Richard Donner initially wanted to become an actor. But encouraged by Martin Ritt, he soon moved behind the camera, eventually directing 22 films and 25 television productions, producing many more, yet finding time to collaborate on two comic books; Action Comics and Lost Son and also on his biography.

Nicéphore Niépce revolutionized science by inventing heliography and made the first permanent photographic image. He had initially been part of Napoleon’s army but had to quit due to his failing health. The Niépce Prize is awarded to a photographer every year in France, in his honor.

Walter Gropius was a German architect. Along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is regarded as a pioneer in modernist architecture. Gropius founded the Bauhaus School. The large-scale housing projects he designed in Berlin, Karlsruhe, and Dessau in the late 1920s and early 1930s became major contributions to the New Objectivity movement.  

James Stockdale was an American aviator and US Navy vice admiral. He is best remembered for his time spent as a prisoner of war for more than seven years during the Vietnam War. His efforts during the war earned him the Medal of Honor. In 2002, James Stockdale was made an inductee of the National Aviation Hall of Fame. 

Born to Irish immigrants, John Curtin had witnessed working-class uprisings in his younger days, which led him to join Australia’s Labour Movement. He was the only Australian prime minister with a Western Australian seat. The strenuous job of leading his country during World War II affected his health.

Cy Twombly was an American sculptor, painter, and photographer. Although he wasn’t popular among the critics, Twombly's works influenced several younger artists like Francesco Clemente, Anselm Kiefer, and Julian Schnabel. Today, his works are preserved in many museums globally, including the Tate Modern in London, the Menil Collection in Houston, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Stamford Raffles was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies from 1811 to 1816. From 1818 to 1824, he served as the Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen. Raffles is best remembered for founding the Straits Settlements and modern Singapore. He also played a major role in the invasion of Java in 1811 during the Napoleonic Wars.

Raffaella Carra was an Italian singer, television presenter, dancer, and actress. She achieved immense popularity across Europe and Latin America during the peak of her illustrious career. An icon of women's liberation, Raffaella Carra supported the LGBT movement and was honored at the 2017 World Pride Madrid with the Gay Icon award.

Nobel Prize-winning Hungarian-Swedish chemist George de Hevesy is best remembered for his research on isotopic tracer techniques to study animal metabolism. He is also credited with co-discovering the element hafnium with physicist Dirk Coster. He fled the Nazi regime and moved first to Denmark and then to Sweden.

George Melly was an English blues and jazz singer, critic, lecturer, and writer. Melly worked for The Observer from 1965 to 1973 where he was a television and film critic. George Melly was also interested in surrealist art and often emphasized surrealism while delivering his lectures on art history.

A pioneer of cross-circulation, Clarence Walton Lillehei successfully conducted cardiac surgeries by linking the circulatory systems of healthy people with those of his patients, thus eventually developing the open-heart surgery. Affectionately known as the King of Hearts, he won awards such as the Harvey Prize and the Lasker Award.

Japanese-American physicist Yoichiro Nambu won the Nobel Prize for discovering spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics. He was associated with the faculty of the University of Chicago since the 1950s till his death in 2015. He also received the prestigious Wolf Prize and the Max Planck Medal.

Kenyan politician Tom Mboya is counted among the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya. A leading independence-activist, Mboya advocated for Kenya's independence from British colonial rule and led negotiations at Lancaster House Conferences. He remained influential in forming Kenya African National Union and served as its first Secretary-General. Post-independence Mboya became an MP and served as Minister of Justice.

Maria Pia of Savoy was an Italian princess who became the Queen of Portugal after marrying King Luís I of Portugal in 1862. She was the third queen to represent the House of Savoy. Maria Pia is best remembered for her compassion and charitable works. She was often referred to as the mother of the poor and angel of charity.

Albrecht Kossel was a German biochemist whose work in ascertaining nucleic acids' chemical composition earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1910. Kossel is also remembered for conducting prominent research into protein's composition. His work influenced several other important researchers like Henry Drysdale Dakin, Edwin B. Hart, Friedrich Miescher, and Felix Hoppe-Seyler.

Spanish linguist, poet and humanist Antonio de Nebrija, considered the most influential Spanish humanist of his time, is noted for making significant contributions in the fields of grammar and lexicography. He is best known for authoring Gramática de la lengua castellana (Grammar of the Castilian Language), the first work that focused on the Spanish language and its rules.

Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney made important contributions in the areas of cosmic physics and the theory of gases. Most significant scientific work of Stoney was the conception and calculation of the magnitude of the atom or particle of electricity. He is noted for introducing the term electron to elucidate the fundamental unit of electrical charge.

A 3-time World Champion, Mika Myllylä was a legendary Finnish cross-country skier who also had 6 Olympic medals in his kitty, including a gold. He also held a record 23 Finnish cross-country titles. His career was plagued by doping scandals, and he ultimately died in an accident in his apartment.

Bengt I. Samuelsson is a Swedish biochemist best known for winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1982. He shared the prize with John R. Vane and Sune K. Bergström for their discoveries concerning prostaglandins. Bengt I. Samuelsson is also a recipient of Columbia University's Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize which he received in 1975.

Nasr Abu Zayd was an Egyptian Quranic author, thinker, and academic. One of the most important liberal theologians in Islam, Abu Zayd wrote several important books in Arabic and English. Interestingly, Nasr Abu Zayd’s views sparked controversy within the Muslim world and he was declared an apostate by an Egyptian Sharia court in 1995. 

Vaikom Muhammad Basheer was an Indian independence activist, writer, novelist, and humanist. He is best remembered for his simple style of writing that impressed the critics and the common man alike. One of the most celebrated and renowned writers from India, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer was honored with prestigious awards, such as the Sahitya Academy Fellowship.

Jean-Louis Tauran was a French cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. He was also the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church. Ordained to the priesthood in 1969, he entered the Vatican's diplomatic service a few years later. He was the Vatican's chief archivist and librarian for several years.