Deaths
- 274 – Pope Felix I
- 1218 – Richard de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford, English politician (b. 1162)
- 1460 – Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, claimant to the English throne (killed in battle) (b. 1411)
- 1460 – Edmund, Earl of Rutland, second son of Richard, Duke of York (murdered after battle) (b. 1443)
- 1525 – Jakob Fugger, German banker (b. 1459)
- 1572 – Galeazzo Alessi, Italian architect (b. 1512)
- 1573 – Giovanni Battista Giraldi, Italian writer (b. 1504)
- 1591 – Pope Innocent IX (b. 1519)
- 1621 – Saint Job of Maniava, Ukrainian Orthodox Saint (b. 1550)
- 1640 – John Francis Regis, French saint (b. 1597)
- 1644 – Jan Baptist van Helmont, Flemish chemist (b. 1577)
- 1662 – Archduke Ferdinand Charles of Austria (b. 1628)
- 1691 – Robert Boyle, English scientist (b. 1627)
- 1769 – Nicholas Taaffe, 6th Viscount Taaffe, Austrian soldier (b. 1685)
- 1803 – Francis Lewis, signer of the American Declaration of Independence (b. 1713)
- 1879 – Manuel de Araújo Porto-alegre, Brazilian Romantic poet, painter and caricaturist (b. 1806)
- 1896 – José Rizal, national hero of the Philippines, (executed) (b. 1861)
- 1908 – Thomas-Alfred Bernier, Canadian lawyer, journalist and senator (b. 1844)
- 1928 – Jean Collas, French rugby player (b. 1874)
- 1937 – Hans Niels Andersen, Danish businessman, founder of the East Asiatic Company (b. 1852)
- 1940 – Childe Wills, early associate of Henry Ford, one of the first employees of the Ford Motor Company, and a contributor to the design of the Model T (b. 1878)
- 1941 – El Lissitzky, Russian artist and architect (b. 1890)
- 1944 – Romain Rolland, French writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1866)
- 1945 – Song Jin-woo, Korean politician, educationist, journalist (b. 1889)
- 1947 – Alfred North Whitehead, English mathematician and philosopher (b. 1861)
- 1947 – Han van Meegeren, Dutch painter, portraitist and art forger (b. 1889)
- 1954 – Archduke Eugen of Austria, Austrian field marshal (b. 1863)
- 1955 – Rex Ingamells, Australian poet (b. 1913)
- 1967 – Vincent Massey, Governor-General of Canada (b. 1887)
- 1968 – Trygve Lie, Norwegian politician, first United Nations Secretary General (b. 1896)
- 1970 – Angelos Evert, Greek police chief (b. 1894)
- 1970 – Sonny Liston, American boxer (b. 1932)
- 1971 – Melba Rae, American actress (b. 1922)
- 1971 – Jo Cals, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1965 to 1966. (b. 1914)
- 1979 – Richard Rodgers, American composer (b. 1902)
- 1981 – Alfie Anido, Filipino actor (b. 1959)
- 1984 – Massa, oldest gorilla on record (b. 1930)
- 1986 – Era Bell Thompson, American journalist (b. 1905)
- 1988 – Yuli Daniel, Russian writer (b. 1925)
- 1989 – Lenore Lemmon, wife of George Reeves (b. 1923)
- 1992 – Ling-Ling, panda given to the USA by China (b. 1969)
- 1993 – Mack David, American lyricist and songwriter (b. 1912)
- 1993 – Irving "Swifty" Lazar, American Hollywood talent agent (b. 1907)
- 1993 – Giuseppe Occhialini, Italian physicist (b. 1907)
- 1994 – Dmitri Ivanenko, Russian physicist (b. 1904)
- 1994 – Maureen Starkey, wife of Ringo Starr (b. 1946)
- 1995 – Ralph Flanagan – American band leader (b. 1914)
- 1995 – Doris Grau, American actress (b. 1924)
- 1996 – Lew Ayres, American actor (b. 1908)
- 1996 – Jack Nance, American actor (b. 1943)
- 1997 – Shinichi Hoshi, Japanese novelist (b. 1926)
- 1998 – Johnny Moore, American singer (The Drifters) (b. 1934)
- 1998 – Sam Muchnick, American professional wrestling promoter (b. 1905)
- 1998 – George Webb, English actor (b. 1911)
- 1999 – Fritz Leonhardt, German structural engineer (b. 1909)
- 1999 – Sarah Knauss, American, once considered the world's oldest living person (b. 1880)
- 2000 – Julius J. Epstein, American screenwriter (b. 1909)
- 2002 – Mary Brian, American actress (b. 1906)
- 2002 – Mary Wesley, English novelist (b. 1912)
- 2003 – David Bale, South African–born activist (b. 1941)
- 2003 – John Gregory Dunne, American writer (b. 1932)
- 2003 – Anita Mui, Hong Kong singer and actress (b. 1963)
- 2004 – Artie Shaw, American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1910)
- 2005 – Eddie Barlow, South African cricketer (b. 1940)
- 2005 – Rona Jaffe, American author (b. 1932)
- 2006 – Terry Peck, Falkland Islander who acted as a scout for 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment in the Falklands War (b. 1938)
- 2006 – Michel Plasse, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1948)
- 2006 – Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi Dictator, (executed for war crimes) (b. 1937)
- 2007 – Themis Cholevas, Greek basketball player (b. 1926)
- 2009 – Rowland S. Howard, Australian guitarist (The Birthday Party) (b. 1959)
- 2009 – Abdurrahman Wahid, 4th President of Indonesia (b. 1940)
- 2010 – Bobby Farrell, Aruban singer (Boney M) (b. 1949)
- 2010 – Per Oscarsson, Swedish actor (b. 1927)
- 2011 – Ronald Searle, British cartoonist and writer (b. 1920)
Read more about this topic: December 30
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)
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (19131992)
“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)