Famous People Who Died Today

Known as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, Tina Turner was one of the best-selling recording artists of all time and had a very long and successful career. Let's Stay Together, What's Love Got to Do with It, Private Dancer and Golden Eye are some of her chartbuster songs. She was also a songwriter and had acted in films too.

Nicolaus Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer. He is credited with formulating Heliocentrism, which led to the Copernican Revolution. Although Aristarchus of Samos had formulated Heliocentrism 18 centuries earlier, Copernicus was responsible for popularizing it. Copernicus is also credited with formulating an economic principle, which was later called Gresham's law.

Vivian Liberto was an American author and homemaker. She started hogging the limelight after marrying singer and actor, Johnny Cas,h with whom she had four daughters, including Rosanne Cash, who went on to become a singer-songwriter. Vivian Liberto’s 2007 book I Walked the Line formed the basis of the documentary movie My Darling Vivian, which was directed by Matt Riddlehoover.

William Lloyd Garrison was an American journalist, abolitionist, social reformer, and suffragist. He is best remembered for founding The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper, which was published from 1831 to 1865. He also co-founded the American Anti-Slavery Society which helped fight slavery in the United States. In the 1870s, William Lloyd Garrison was an important figure in the women's suffrage movement.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for two non-consecutive terms, Harold Wilson was a British Labour politician. Historians commend him for leading his party through difficult political issues with considerable skill. With a moderate approach to socialism, he was a popular politician during his first tenure as the prime minister; his second tenure wasn’t as successful.

Rob Knox is best remembered as Marcus Belby from the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and had signed to reprise the role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. However, at 18, he was stabbed outside a Southeast London bar by a man named Karl Bishop and died.

Nobel Prize-winning American physicist Murray Gell-Mann is best remembered for his research on elementary particles. The Yale and MIT alumnus later taught at Caltech and is credited with coining the terms "quark" and "strangeness" in quantum physics. A linguistic enthusiast, he also co-established the Evolution of Human Languages program.

Franciscan abbess and spiritual-writer María de Agreda was a noted mystic of her era. She served as the spiritual and at times political advisor to King Philip IV of Spain for over two decades and is best-known for the correspondence she had with the King besides reports of her bilocation. She penned 14 books, including the most notable Mystical City of God.    

Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury was a British statesman best remembered for his contribution during the Union of the Crowns. One of the main discoverers of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, Robert Cecil served as the Lord High Treasurer from 1608 to 1612. From 1596 to 1612, he served as the Secretary of State of England.

Majrooh Sultanpuri was an Indian Urdu poet and lyricist. A much-respected figure in India's Hindi language film industry, he wrote Hindustani lyrics for Hindi film soundtracks. He was a towering figure in Indian cinema in the mid-20th-century and a key personality in the Progressive Writers' Movement. He received the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1993. 

Initially a lawyer, Lanfranc later taught at a school he founded. He eventually renounced his career to enter the Benedictine ministry as a monk. He discovered a conspiracy by some earls against William of Normandy. He later served as the abbot of St Stephen and as the archbishop of Canterbury.

Amado Nervo was a Mexican poet, educator, and journalist. Widely regarded as one of the most prominent poets of 19th century Mexico, Nervo was renowned for using metaphor as well as his references to mysticism in his poetry. Apart from being a respected literary figure, Amado Nervo also served as Mexican Ambassador to Uruguay and Argentina.

Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Francis Thomas Bacon gained an interest in fuel cells while working at C.A. Parsons. He later invented the world’s first hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell, which converted air and fuel into electricity in a pollution-free manner. His cells were later used in the Apollo moon mission.

Xi Zhongxun was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader. From establishing Communist guerrilla bases in the 1930s to launching economic liberalization in the 1980s, Xi Zhongxun made immense contributions to the development of China. He is also known as the father of the present paramount leader of China, Xi Jinping.

Oleg Yefremov, who received the honorary titles of People's Artist of the USSR and Hero of Socialist Labour, was a Soviet and Russian actor noted for starring in films like Three Poplars in Plyushchikha and Aybolit-66. He was Chief Producer of Moscow Art Theatre, Professor of Moscow Art Theatre School-Studio; and co-founded and served as first director of Sovremennik Theatre.