Famous People Who Died Today

An Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and a missionary, Mother Teresa was the founder of Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation. She was both an admired and controversial figure and was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. While she was admired by many for her charitable work, she also earned criticism for her stance against abortion and contraception.

Nineteenth-century Lakota war lord Crazy Horse, of the Oglala subtribe, is remembered as a legendary hero who fought against white encroachment of Native American territories. He was part of the Black Hills War and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He died fighting at Camp Robinson, in modern-day Nebraska.

Sir Douglas Bader was a RAF pilot during World War II. Although he lost both his legs in an aerobatics accident in 1931, he recovered and rejoined the RAF. Following the war, he joined the oil industry. The film and book Reach for the Sky details his life.

Rudolf Virchow was a German physician, pathologist, anthropologist, biologist, prehistorian, editor, writer, and politician. Nicknamed the Pope of medicine by his colleagues, Virchow is credited with founding the field of social medicine. He is also widely regarded as the father of modern pathology.  Rudolf Virchow was the first person to name diseases, such as thrombosis, leukemia, ochronosis, embolism, and chordoma.

Austrian physicist and philosopher, Ludwig Boltzmann, played a key role in the development of statistical mechanics. As a young man, he was appointed a professor of mathematical physics at the University of Graz. He worked extensively with other physicists over the course of his brilliant academic career. He suffered from bipolar disorder and died by suicide in 1906. 

Georg Solti was an operatic and orchestral conductor. He is best remembered for his association with opera companies in London, Frankfurt, and Munich. He also worked with the popular Chicago Symphony Orchestra where he served as a music director for a long time. Solti became the subject of a 1987 biographical TV documentary titled This Is Your Life.

Though born in Germany, racer Jochen Rindt competed for Austria throughout his illustrious career, which saw him score 6 Grand Prix wins. At 28, he was killed in a practice race for the Italian Grand Prix. He later became the only racer to be posthumously named the F-1 World Champion.

The daughter of Kannada poet P. Lankesh, Gauri Lankesh began her career as a journalist for The Times of India. She also worked as an editor of Lankesh Patrike. Later, she was known for her firebrand left-wing activism against Hindutva and was eventually shot dead by three men near her Bengaluru home.

German actor Gert Fröbe is best remembered as Auric Goldfinger from the James Bond film Goldfinger and as Baron Bomburst from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He initially gained fame with German films such as Berliner Ballade. He was also part of the Canadian-German series The Little Vampire.

Filmmaker and producer Paul Bern was the man behind the launch of American sex symbol Jean Harlow. He, unfortunately, died of a gunshot wound only 2 months after his marriage to Bern, which gave rise to numerous theories, one of them being suicide. The handwritten suicide not found was not conclusive.

Yossef Romano was an Israeli weightlifter who competed in the 1972 Munich Oympics in West Germany. An Israeli weight-lifting champion for nine years, Romano was among the 11 Israeli team members who were killed in the 1972 Munich massacre, an attack by a terrorist group named Black September. Romano was 32 years old at the time of his death.

Former Indonesian vice-president and UN general assembly president Adam Malik was initially a journalist. He had launched the news agency Antara. Part of the youth group that kidnapped leaders Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta to snatch Indonesian independence, he later restored relations with other South Asian countries as a foreign minister.

D. James Kennedy was a pastor, evangelist, broadcaster, and author. He was the senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale for almost five decades. In the 1970s, he started a weekly religious television program The Coral Ridge Hour, which was aired in 200 countries. He was also a founding member of the board of Moral Majority. 

South African writer Lewis Nkosi had initially been a journalist for the Zulu-English paper Ilanga lase Natal. After receiving a scholarship to Harvard, he was exiled from his country by the Suppression of Communism Act. His critical essays appeared in Home and Exile, and his themes included politics and sexuality.

Canadian-born Sarah Emma Edmonds is best-remembered as the woman who served the Union Army, disguised as a man, during American Civil War. She also claimed that she served as a spy. She later used her real identity and served as a nurse at a hospital in Washington, D.C.  In 1897, Edmonds was admitted to the Grand Army of the Republic.

Richard C. Tolman was an American physical chemist and mathematical physicist. He is best remembered for making immense contributions to statistical mechanics. Tolman also made significant contributions to theoretical cosmology. Richard C. Tolman is also remembered for his association with the California Institute of Technology, where he worked as a professor of mathematical physics and physical chemistry.