Deaths
- 795 – Pope Adrian I
- 820 – Leo V, Byzantine Emperor (b. 775)
- 940 – Makan ibn Kaki, Dailamite warlord
- 1156 – Peter the Venerable, French Benedictine abbot of Cluny (b. c.1092)
- 1635 – Samuel de Champlain, French explorer (b. 1567)
- 1676 – Matthew Hale, English jurist (b. 1609)
- 1676 – William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, English soldier (b. 1592)
- 1683 – Kara Mustafa, Ottoman general (b. 1634)
- 1758 – James Hervey, English clergyman (b. 1714)
- 1763 – Suraj Mal, Sinsiwar Jat ruler of Bharatpur (b. 1707)
- 1765 – Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech theologian and natural scientist (b. 1698)
- 1784 – Yosa Buson, Japanese painter (b. 1716)
- 1824 – Barbara Juliana, Baroness von Krüdener, Russian writer (b. 1764)
- 1868 – Linus Yale, Jr., American mechanical engineer and inventor (b. 1821)
- 1875 – Young Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (b. 1851)
- 1880 – Fridolin Anderwert, Swiss jurist (b. 1828)
- 1916 – Solko van den Bergh, Dutch sports shooter (b. 1854)
- 1916 – St. Albert Chmielowski, Polish Catholic saint (b. 1845)
- 1921 – Vladimir Korolenko, Russian writer (b. 1853)
- 1925 – Karl Abraham, German psychoanalyst (b. 1877)
- 1926 – Emperor Taishō of Japan (b. 1879)
- 1928 – Miles Burke, American flyweight boxer (b. 1885)
- 1933 – Francesc Macià i Llussà, Catalonian statesman (b. 1859)
- 1935 – Paul Bourget, French novelist and critic (b. 1852)
- 1938 – Karel Čapek, Czech author (b. 1890)
- 1940 – Agnes Ayres, American actress (b. 1898)
- 1944 – George Steer, British journalist (b. 1909)
- 1945 – Franz Kröwerath, German rower (b. 1880)
- 1946 – W. C. Fields, American comedian (b. 1880)
- 1947 – Gaspar G. Bacon, American politician (b. 1886)
- 1949 – Leon Schlesinger, American film producer (b. 1884)
- 1950 – Neil Francis Hawkins, British fascist (b. 1903)
- 1952 – Margrethe Mather, photographer (b. 1886)
- 1953 – Patsy Donovan, Irish-born American baseball player (b. 1865)
- 1953 – William Haselden, Spanish cartoonist (b. 1872)
- 1954 – Johnny Ace, American singer (b. 1929)
- 1956 – Robert Walser, Swiss writer (b. 1878)
- 1957 – Charles Pathé, French pioneer of film and record industries (b. 1863)
- 1961 – Otto Loewi, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1873)
- 1961 – Owen Brewster, American politician (b. 1888)
- 1963 – Tristan Tzara, Romanian writer (b. 1896)
- 1970 – Michael Peto, Hungarian/British photojournalist (b. 1908)
- 1973 – İsmet İnönü, Turkish statesman (b. 1884)
- 1973 – Gabriel Voisin, French aviator (b. 1880)
- 1975 – Gaston Gallimard, French publisher (b. 1881)
- 1977 – Charlie Chaplin, English actor and film director (b. 1889)
- 1979 – Joan Blondell, American actress (b. 1906)
- 1979 – Jordi Bonet, Quebec muralist and sculptor (b. 1932)
- 1983 – Joan Miró, Catalan painter (b. 1893)
- 1988 – Ooka Shohei, Japanese novelist (b. 1909)
- 1988 – Edward Pelham-Clinton, 10th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne (b. 1920)
- 1989 – Nicolae Ceauşescu, former President of S.R.Romania (b. 1918)
- 1989 – Elena Ceauşescu, Romanian politician (b. 1916)
- 1989 – Billy Martin, American baseball manager (b. 1928)
- 1992 – Monica Dickens, British writer (b. 1915)
- 1993 – Pierre Victor Auger, French physicist (b. 1899)
- 1994 – Zail Singh, President of India (b. 1916)
- 1995 – Dean Martin, American singer (b. 1917)
- 1995 – Emmanuel Levinas, French philosopher (b. 1906)
- 1996 – JonBenét Ramsey, American beauty queen and murder victim (b. 1990)
- 1996 – Bill Hewitt, Canadian sportscaster (b. 1928)
- 1997 – Anatoli Boukreev, Kazakh mountaineer (b. 1958)
- 1997 – Denver Pyle, American actor (b. 1920)
- 1998 – Bryan MacLean, American musician and songwriter (Love) (b. 1946)
- 1998 – John Pulman, English snooker player (b. 1926)
- 1999 – Peter Jeffrey, English actor (b. 1929)
- 2000 – Neil Hawke, Australian cricketer and footballer (b. 1939)
- 2000 – Willard Van Orman Quine, American philosopher (b. 1908)
- 2002 – William T. Orr, American television producer (b. 1917)
- 2003 – Nicholas Mavroules, American politician (b. 1929)
- 2004 – Gennady Strekalov, Russian cosmonaut (b. 1940)
- 2005 – Derek Bailey, English guitar virtuoso (b. 1930)
- 2005 – Robert Barbers, Philippine senator (b. 1944)
- 2005 – Birgit Nilsson, Swedish opera singer (b. 1918)
- 2006 – James Brown, American singer (b. 1933)
- 2006 – Hiroaki Hidaka, Japanese serial killer (b. 1962)
- 2007 – Desmond Barrick, English Cricketer (b. 1927)
- 2007 – Jim Beauchamp, American baseball player (b. 1939)
- 2007 – Mighty King Kong, Kenyan reggae musician (b. 1973)
- 2008 – Eartha Kitt, American actress and singer (b. 1927)
- 2009 – Vic Chesnutt, American singer and songwriter (b. 1964)
- 2010 – Carlos Andrés Pérez, former President of Venezuela (b. 1922)
- 2011 – Giorgio Bocca, Italian journalist (b. 1920)
- 2011 – Ben Breedlove, American Internet personality (b. 1993)
- 2011 – Jim Sherwood, American musician (The Mothers of Invention) (b. 1942)
Read more about this topic: December 25
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“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)
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)