Famous People Who Died Today

For someone who was voted by his acting school peers as 'The Least Likely To Succeed', Gene Hackman went on to have a remarkable acting career spanning around half a century with multiple prestigious awards. His notable films include Bonnie and Clyde, The French Connection, Unforgiven, Mississippi Burning and The Royal Tenenbaums. Apart from acting, Gene Hackman is also a novelist and has written six books.

Stand-up comedian Bill Hicks was known for his controversial themes, which included religion and politics. He was ranked fourth on Channel 4's 2010 list of the "100 Greatest Stand-Up Comics.” He had also experimented with music before his untimely death due to pancreatic cancer at age 32.

Wendy Richard is best remembered as Shirley Brahms from Are You Being Served? and as Pauline Fowler from EastEnders, and won the British Soap Award for Special Achievement for the latter. She died of breast cancer at 65 but documented the final months of her life in a BBC documentary.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was an Indian politician and independence activist. He formulated the Hindu nationalist philosophy of Hindutva and was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha. He was known for his strong oratory skills and was an eloquent writer. He was initially charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi but was later acquitted.

Though she was married off at age 9 and had had a baby by 14, Anandi Gopal Joshi rose to become one of the first female doctors in India and the first Indian-origin woman to graduate with a medical degree in the US. Unfortunately, she died of tuberculosis shortly before her 22nd birthday.

Russian naval officer and explorer Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich was the brother-in-law of the last emperor of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II. He played a significant role in the development of Russian military aviation during WWI. He spent his later life in exile in Paris and conducted many archaeological expeditions.

Italian violinist Giuseppe Tartini initially studied and also established himself as a skilled fencer. Arrested for marrying an acquaintance of the archbishop of Padua, he fled to a monastery in Assisi, where he got addicted to music, later inventing the difference tone and a theory of harmony.

Especially remembered for his pioneering work on rote learning and memory, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus became interested in the subject after reading Gustav Fechner's Elements of Psychophysics.  Eventually, he developed the experimental methods for measuring memory, using 2,300 three-letter nonsense syllables that he devised. Later, he also discovered the forgetting curve and the spacing effect and described the learning curve.

Carl Menger made significant contributions to the marginal utility theory and the subjective theory of value. Born to a lawyer father, he too studied law and also worked as a journalist for a while. He later taught at the University of Vienna and also established the Austrian School of economics.

Born to a militia officer, Sybil Ludington later made history with her fearless resistance to the British during the American Revolutionary War. Most of her statues today find her perched on a horse, in a tribute to her night-long horseback ride to inform American soldiers of an impending British attack.

Japanese naval officer Saitō Makoto had initially worked as a naval attaché in the U.S. He later served as the governor of Korea and the minister of the Japanese navy, eventually becoming the prime minister of Japan. He was assassinated by members of the February 26 rebellion in 1936.

Born an illegitimate son of an official painter of the shogunate, Takahashi Korekiyo was later adopted by a samurai. He went to the U.S. and worked there for a while, before returning to Japan. He eventually stepped into politics and later became the prime minister of Japan.

Otto Wallach was a German chemist best remembered for winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1910. He won the award for his work on alicyclic compounds. Wallach is also remembered for developing the Wallach rearrangement, the Leuckart-Wallach reaction, Wallach degradation, and Wallach's rule. In 1912, Otto Wallach was honored with the prestigious Davy Medal.

A pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy, Italian Jesuit priest and astronomer Angelo Secchi was among the first scientists who authoritatively stated that the Sun is a star. Notable contributions of Secchi, who served as director of the observatory at the Roman College for nearly three decades, includes discovering three comets and solar spicules; and inventing Secchi disk, heliospectrograph and telespectroscope.

Dan Shomron was a Israeli military commander who served as the Israel Defense Forces' Chief of Staff from 1987 to 1991. He is best remembered for planning and commanding Operation Entebbe, a hostage-rescue operation, in 1976. The operation was dramatized in a couple of films, including the 1977 film Raid on Entebbe, where Dan Shomron was played by Charles Bronson.

Sakai Hidemaro, better known by his pseudonym, Yokoyama Taikan, redefined Japanese art along with his artist friend Hishida Shunsō. Both he and Shunsō pioneered the Nihonga technique, which focused on colors rather than the traditional technique of line drawing. Cherry Blossoms and Mountain Path remain two of his best works.

Theodore Hesburgh was an American educator, social activist, and author. Over the course of his career, Hesburgh was involved in several American governmental and civic initiatives, international humanitarian projects, commissions, and papal assignments. In 1964, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2000, he received the Congressional Gold Medal for his service.

Aḥmad Shuqayrī was a Lebanese Palestinian political leader who served as the first Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization from May 1964 to December 1967. Aḥmad Shuqayrī was used as a scapegoat by his opponents as one of his purported statements was used as part of the government's rationalization of their initiation of the Six-Day War.

Ronald Gillespie was a British chemist who specialized in the field of molecular geometry. Gillespie, who moved to Canada in 1958, is credited with instituting inorganic chemistry education in Canada. Ronald Gillespie was the recipient of several prestigious awards and honors, such as the Keith Laidler Award, the Henry Marshall Tory Medal, and the Canadian Centennial Medal.

Arnošt Lustig was a Czech author best remembered for writing novels, plays, short stories, and screenplays. Some of his most popular books include A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa, Dita Saxová, and Lovely Green Eyes. Arnošt Lustig was honored with the National Jewish Book Award in 1980 and 1986.

José Cadalso was a colonel of the Royal Spanish Army in the 18th century. He was also a well-known author, playwright, poet, and essayist. As an army man, he traveled through Italy, Germany, England, France, and Portugal and studied the literature of these countries. He is credited to have made massive contributions to Spanish Enlightenment literature. 

Twentieth-century Existentialist Karl Jaspers had initially followed in his father’s footsteps to study law, but had then switched to medicine. One of the pioneers of clinical psychiatry, he applied phenomenology to study mental illnesses and also developed psychopathological research. He was highly influenced by Immanuel Kant’s ideas.