Famous People Who Died Today

James Madison played an important role in drafting the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights and is hailed as the Father of the Constitution. He also co-wrote The Federalist Papers, considered to be a seminal work of political science. As president, he led the country into the 1812 war and historians place him as an above-average president.

Terry Fox was a popular cancer research activist and humanitarian. Despite suffering from cancer and having lost one of his legs to cancer, he embarked on a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. Although he died at the age of 22, his efforts resulted in a worldwide legacy and gave rise to the annual Terry Fox Run.

Rod Serling was an American playwright, screenwriter, narrator, and television producer. One of the first writers to write specifically for television, Serling is often credited with legitimizing television drama. He is also credited with creating the much-acclaimed series The Twilight Zone. For his much-publicized clashes with TV executives, Serling was often referred to as the angry young man of Hollywood.

Michael P. Murphy was a US Navy SEAL officer. In 2007, Murphy became the first member of the US Navy to be honored with the prestigious Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. He received the award posthumously for his participation in many War on Terrorism missions in Afghanistan, where he died fighting Taliban forces, at the age of 29.

Mikhail Tal was a Soviet Latvian chess player. Widely regarded as one of the best attacking players and a creative genius, Tal was renowned for his unpredictability and improvisation. He was also known as the magician from Riga for his daring, combinatorial playing style. Since 2006, the Mikhail Tal Memorial has been annually held in Moscow to honor Tal's memory.

Stanley Baker was a Welsh actor whose rugged appearance and intense screen persona earned him popularity during the late 1950s and early 1960s. His portrayal of Captain Langford in the 1959 war film Yesterday's Enemy earned him a nomination at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He received an honorary title of knighthood in 1976.

Best known for conceptualizing the Mahalanobis distance, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis was a renowned Padma Vibhushan-winning Indian statistician who played a major role in his country’s industrialization policies of the Second Five-Year Plan. He also taught at his alma, Presidency College, and was one of the founders of the Indian Statistical Institute.

Flemish cartographer of the 16th century, Abraham Ortelius is remembered as the person who created Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the world’s first modern atlas. Starting his career as an engraver, he later switched to map-making. He also served as Spanish king Philip II’s official geographer and proposed the idea of continental drift.

Alexander Berkman was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was famous for both his political activism and his writing and was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century. He served as the editor of fellow anarchist Emma Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth. He suffered from ill-health in his later years and died by suicide. 

Irina Baronova was a Russian actress and ballet dancer whose popularity peaked during the 1930s when she came to be known as one of the Original Ballet Russe's Baby Ballerinas along with Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabouchinska. In 2005, she appeared in a documentary titled Ballets Russes and also published her autobiography in the same year.

Best known for his coming-of-age novel Bless Me, Ultima, American author Rudolfo Anaya mostly includes elements of Spanish folklore and Mexican American heritage in his works. Initially a school teacher, he later taught at the University of New Mexico. He has also penned children’s books and the travelogue A Chicano in China.

Slovenia’s first book, Catechismus, was said to be authored by Primož Trubar. The Protestant reformer from Rašica also founded the Protestant Church of the Duchy of Carniola. He had also written in German and was the first translator of parts of the Bible into Slovene.

The grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Joseph Bonaparte was a French-American lawyer and political activist, born and raised in Baltimore. Founder of Baltimore Reform League, his works attracted Theodore Roosevelt’s admiration and serving as U.S. Secretary of the Navy and Attorney General during the latter’s tenure as President, he established Bureau of Investigation, later Day FBI, prosecuting many antitrust suits.

Theodore Levitt was a German American educator and economist. He served as a professor at the prestigious Harvard Business School where he edited the Harvard Business Review; Levitt is often credited with popularizing the publication. Over the course of his career, Theodore Levitt won several awards and honors, such as the John Hancock Award and Charles Coolidge Parlin Award.

Yanka Kupala was a Belarusian writer and poet who went on to become a symbol of culture of Belarus. Apart from writing poems and plays, Kupala also translated the works of other writers and poets into the Belarusian language. A dramatized version of Yanka Kupala's turbulent and tragic life was depicted in a biopic titled Kupala.

Apart from teaching and working as an electrical engineer, Vannevar Bush had also been the dean of the MIT School of Engineering. Working with the government, he initiated military funding of research projects, later known as the military-industrial complex. He also penned books such as Modern Arms and Free Men.