Deaths
- 427 – Archbishop Sisinnius I of Constantinople
- 738 – Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik, Umayyad prince and general
- 1257 – John I, Count of Hainaut (b. 1218)
- 1400 – Archibald the Grim, Scottish magnate (b. 1328)
- 1453 – John Dunstaple, English composer (b. c.1390)
- 1524 – Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer (b. c.1469)
- 1635 – Hester Jonas, executed for witchcraft (b. c.1570)
- 1660 – Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (b. 1631)
- 1707 – Noël Coypel, French painter (b. 1628)
- 1813 – Empress Go-Sakuramachi of Japan (b. 1740)
- 1863 – William Makepeace Thackeray, British writer (b. 1811)
- 1865 – Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, British painter and writer (b. 1793)
- 1868 – Adolphe d'Archiac, French paleontologist and geologist (b. 1802)
- 1872 – William John Macquorn Rankine, British physician and engenier (b. 1820)
- 1873 – Johns Hopkins, Baltimore philanthropist and businessman (b. 1795)
- 1889 – Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate, Dutch poet and clergyman (b. 1819)
- 1898 – Sharbel Makhluf, Lebanese monk canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI (b. 1828)
- 1914 – John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist (b. 1838)
- 1920 – Stephen Mosher Wood, American politician (b. 1832)
- 1926 – Wesley Coe, American athlete (b. 1979)
- 1935 – Alban Berg, Austrian composer (b. 1885)
- 1938 – Bruno Taut, German architect (b. 1880)
- 1941 – Siegfried Alkan, German composer (b. 1858)
- 1942 – François Darlan, vice-premier of Vichy France (b. 1881)
- 1947 – Charles Gondouin, French rugby player (b. 1875)
- 1957 – Norma Talmadge, American actress (b. 1893)
- 1965 – William M. Branham, Christian minister (b. 1906)
- 1967 – Burt Baskin, American entrepreneur (b. 1913)
- 1971 – Maria Koepcke, ornithologist (b. 1924)
- 1972 – Gisela Richter, British art historian (b. 1882)
- 1972 – Melville Ruick, American actor (b. 1898)
- 1975 – Bernard Herrmann, American film composer (b. 1911)
- 1976 – Duarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza, heir to the throne of Portugal (b. 1907)
- 1977 – Samael Aun Weor, Columbian writer (b. 1917)
- 1980 – Karl Dönitz, German naval admiral, and last leader of Nazi Germany (b. 1891)
- 1980 – Siggie Nordstrom, model, actress, entertainer, socialite and lead singer of The Nordstrom Sisters (b. 1893)
- 1982 – Louis Aragon, French writer (b. 1897)
- 1984 – Peter Lawford, British actor (b. 1923)
- 1985 – Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, Last Lincoln descendant (b. 1904)
- 1985 – Camille Tourville, Professional wrestler (b. 1927)
- 1986 – Gardner Fox, American writer (b. 1911)
- 1987 – Joop den Uyl, Dutch politician (b. 1919)
- 1987 – Betty Noyes, singer who dubbed Debbie Reynold's singing voice in Singin' in the Rain
- 1987 – M. G. Ramachandran, Chief Minister of the Tamil Nadu (b. 1917)
- 1990 – Thorbjørn Egner, Norwegian author (b. 1922)
- 1992 – Bobby LaKind, American musician and singer (The Doobie Brothers) (b. 1945)
- 1992 – Peyo, Belgian comics artist, and creator of The Smurfs (b. 1928)
- 1993 – Norman Vincent Peale, American writer (b. 1898)
- 1994 – John Boswell, American historian (b. 1947)
- 1994 – Rossano Brazzi, Italian actor and singer (b. 1916)
- 1997 – Toshirō Mifune, Japanese actor (b. 1920)
- 1997 – Pierre Péladeau, Quebec businessman, founder of Quebecor (b. 1925)
- 1998 – Syl Apps, Canadian ice hockey player and pole vaulter (b. 1915)
- 1999 – Bill Bowerman, American track and field coach (b. 1911)
- 1999 – Maurice Couve de Murville, French politician, Prime minister of France (b. 1907)
- 1999 – João Figueiredo, President of Brazil (b. 1918)
- 2000 – John Cooper, English race car designer (b. 1923)
- 2000 – Nick Massi, American singer (The Four Seasons) (b. 1935)
- 2002 – Kjell Aukrust, Norwegian author (b. 1920)
- 2002 – Laci Peterson, American murder victim (b. 1975)
- 2002 – Jake Thackray, English singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
- 2004 – Johnny Oates, baseball player and manager (b. 1946)
- 2005 – Michael Vale, American commercial actor (b. 1922)
- 2006 – "Braguinha", Brazilian songwriter (b. 1907)
- 2006 – Kenneth Sivertsen, Norwegian singer, poet and comedian (b. 1961)
- 2006 – Frank Stanton, American television executive (b. 1908)
- 2007 – Nicholas Pumfrey, British judge (b. 1951)
- 2007 – Akbar Radi, Iranian dramatist and playwright (b. 1939)
- 2008 – Harold Pinter, British playwright (b. 1930)
- 2009 – Marcus Bakker, Dutch politician (b. 1923)
- 2009 – Rafael Caldera, lawyer, sociologist, writer, speaker, politician, and ex-president of Venezuela (b. 1916)
- 2009 – George Michael, American sportscaster (The George Michael Sports Machine) (b. 1939)
- 2010 – Elisabeth Beresford, British author and creator of The Wombles (b. 1926)
- 2010 – Frans de Munck, Dutch football goalkeeper (b. 1922)
- 2010 – Orestes Quércia, Brazilian politician (b. 1938)
- 2010 – Eino Tamberg, Estonian composer (b. 1930)
- 2011 – Johannes Heesters, Dutch actor and singer (b. 1903)
Read more about this topic: December 24
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“This is the 184th Demonstration.
...
What we do is not beautiful
hurts no one makes no one desperate
we do not break the panes of safety glass
stretching between people on the street
and the deaths they hire.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)