Famous People Who Died Today

Jim Henson was an American animator, puppeteer, cartoonist, inventor, actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, and composer. He is credited with creating The Muppets, an ensemble cast of puppet characters, for which he achieved worldwide popularity. He is also credited with co-founding Muppets, Inc. in 1958, which eventually became The Jim Henson Company. In 2011, Jim Henson was named a Disney Legend.

Nicknamed “Mister Show Business,” posthumous Grammy-winner Samuel Davis Jr. was a multifaceted performer who excelled in dancing, singing, and acting. From delivering vaudeville performances as a child, Samuel graduated to creating Billboard charters and performing with Frank Sinatra as part of the Rat Pack. Sadly, he died in debt.

Andy Kaufman was an American entertainer and wrestler. Considered an anti-comedian for his ability and willingness to provoke confused and negative reactions from audiences, Kaufman is revered for his counterintuitive approach to comedy. Apart from influencing comedians like Jim Carrey, Kaufman also inspired movies like Toni Erdmann. There are rumours that his death is believed to be a hoax and part of his prank.

I. M. Pei was a Chinese-American architect who drew inspiration from the garden villas at Suzhou when he was young. He is credited with founding I. M. Pei & Associates, an independent design firm, in 1955. Today, the award-winning firm is known by the name, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Pei is known for designing structures like the Mesa Laboratory.

Most people have grown up reading fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots. However, they aren’t probably aware that these folk tales were first collated and presented under the genre fairy tales, as Tales of Mother Goose, by 17th-century French author Charles Perrault.

Joseph Fourier was a French physicist and mathematician best remembered for commencing the investigation of the Fourier series, which is used widely to solve problems of heat transfer and vibrations. Fourier's law of conduction and Fourier transform are named in his honor. Fourier is also said to have discovered the greenhouse effect.

One of the first-known Westerner to gain the title of samurai, William Adams, also known as Anjin Miura, was an English navigator who explored uncharted territories for his country. Apart from being the first Englishman to travel to Thailand and Japan, he was also the third from his country to travel to Vietnam.

Billed as the winningest short track driver in history of American car racing, Dick Trickle is believed to have won 1,200 events out of an estimated appearance of 2,200 featured races.  Considered a legend in short track racing community and nicknamed the White Knight, he competed in most major races including ASA, ARTGO, ARCA, All Pro, IMCA, NASCAR, and USAC.

Best known for designing the Golden Gate Bridge, engineer Joseph Strauss specialized in movable bridges and developed the concepts of the bascule bridge and the vertical-lift bridge. Born to a pianist mother and a painter-writer father, he later also penned poems such as The Mighty Task is Done.

Mary Richardson Kennedy, who was married to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the brother of Kerry Kennedy, was associated with green building practices and food allergy research in the U.S. She made headlines with her suicide in 2012. She was apparently found hanging in the garage of her Bedford home.

Frederick Gowland Hopkins was an English biochemist whose discovery of vitamins earned him the prestigious 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He also received other prestigious awards like the Royal Medal and Copley Medal. He is also credited with discovering the amino acid tryptophan. From 1930 to 1935, Frederick Gowland Hopkins served as the President of the Royal Society.

A major force behind setting up the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand Edward, English economist Gibbon Wakefield lent his name to the colonizing plan called the Wakefield scheme. He formulated the Canadian colonial policy Durham Report. Interestingly, he had been convicted of abducting and marrying a 15-year-old girl.

Alec Campbell was 16 when he was named to the Australian Army during World War I. A water carrier at Gallipoli, he developed partial facial paralysis due to a fever and was thus discharged. Named one of Australian Legends, he later led a vibrant civilian life and became a prominent unionist.

Mary Breckinridge was an American nurse midwife best remembered for founding the Frontier Nursing Service, which educates nurse-midwives and provides healthcare services to the rural population. In 1995, Mary Breckinridge was made an inductee of the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Edmund Gosse was an English author, poet, and critic. His book Father and Son inspired the popular TV play Where Adam Stood as well as Peter Carey's novel Oscar and Lucinda. Gosse also helped promote the works of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in England. He is also credited with helping James Joyce and W. B. Yeats establish themselves as writers.

Nobel Prize-winning Swiss mathematician Heinrich Rohrer is best remembered for co-designing the scanning tunneling microscope along with fellow Nobel winner Ernst Ruska. He was also associated with the IBM Research laboratory and even conducted research on thermal conductivity at Rutgers University in New Jersey while on his honeymoon in the US.

Kamala Markandaya, also known as Kamala Taylor after her marriage, was one of the most significant Indian writers of English. Known for novels such as Nectar in a Sieve and A Silence of Desire, she was known to portray Western ideals as materialistic. She moved to England after India’s independence.