Deaths
- 702 – K'inich Kan B'alam II, king of the Maya state of Palenque (b. 635)
- 1154 – Saint Wulfric of Haselbury Plucknett
- 1171 – Conan IV, Duke of Brittany (b. 1138)
- 1194 – King Tancred of Sicily (b. 1138)
- 1258 – Al-Musta'sim, last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad (b. 1213)
- 1408 – Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, English statesman (b. 1342)
- 1431 – Pope Martin V (b. 1368)
- 1524 – Tecún Umán, last leader of the K'iche' (Quiché) Maya people
- 1579 – Nicholas Bacon, English politician (b. 1509)
- 1618 – Philip William, Prince of Orange (b. 1554)
- 1626 – John Dowland, English composer and lutenist (b. 1563)
- 1762 – Tobias Mayer, German astronomer (b. 1723)
- 1771 – Jean Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist (b. 1678)
- 1773 – King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia (b. 1701)
- 1778 – Laura Bassi, Italian scholar (b. 1711)
- 1790 – Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1741)
- 1803 – Marie Dumesnil, French actress (b. 1713)
- 1806 – Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (b. 1725)
- 1810 – Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean national hero (executed) (b. 1767)
- 1862 – William Wallace Lincoln, son of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (b. 1850)
- 1871 – Paul Kane, Irish-born painter (b. 1810)
- 1893 – P.G.T. Beauregard, American Confederate general (b. 1818)
- 1895 – Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist writer (b. 1818)
- 1905 – Jeremiah W. Farnham, American merchant captain
- 1907 – Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1852)
- 1910 – Boutros Ghali, the Prime Minister of Egypt from (b. 1846)
- 1916 – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer, pacifist, Nobel laureate (b. 1844)
- 1917 – Leone Sextus Tollemache, British Army captain (b. 1884)
- 1920 – Jacinta Marto, Portuguese saint (b. 1910)
- 1920 – Robert Peary, American explorer (b. 1856)
- 1929 – Manuel Díaz, Cuban fencer (b. 1874)
- 1936 – Max Schreck, German actor (b. 1879)
- 1941 – Madame Bolduc, Canadian singer and songwriter (b. 1894)
- 1961 – Percy Grainger, Australian composer (b. 1882)
- 1963 – Ferenc Fricsay, Hungarian conductor (b. 1914)
- 1963 – Jacob Gade, Danish composer(b. 1879)
- 1965 – Fred Immler, German actor (b. 1880)
- 1966 – Chester Nimitz, American admiral (b. 1885)
- 1968 – Anthony Asquith, British film director and writer (b. 1902)
- 1969 – Ernest Ansermet, Swiss conductor (b. 1883)
- 1970 – Sophie Treadwell, American playwright and journalist (b. 1885)
- 1972 – Maria Goeppert-Mayer, German physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1906)
- 1972 – Walter Winchell, American journalist (b. 1897)
- 1974 – David Monrad Johansen, Norwegian composer (b. 1888)
- 1976 – René Cassin, French judge, Nobel laureate (b. 1887)
- 1976 – Kathryn Kuhlman, American evangelist (b. 1907)
- 1981 – Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, magazine editor, socialite (b. 1904)
- 1983 – Fritz Köberle, Austrian-Brazilian physician (b. 1910)
- 1985 – Clarence "Ducky" Nash, American voice actor (b. 1904)
- 1992 – A. J. Casson, Canadian painter (b. 1898)
- 1992 – Roberto D'Aubuisson, Salvadoran politician (b. 1944)
- 1992 – Pierre Dervaux, French conductor, composer and pedagogue (b. 1917)
- 1992 – Dick York, American actor (b. 1928)
- 1993 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian automobile manufacturer (b. 1916)
- 1993 – Ernest L. Massad, U.S. Army general (b. 1908)
- 1996 – Solomon Asch, American psychologist (b. 1907)
- 1996 – Tōru Takemitsu, Japanese composer (b. 1930)
- 1997 – Zachary Breaux, American jazz guitarist (b. 1960)
- 1999 – Sarah Kane, English playwright (b. 1971)
- 1999 – Gene Siskel, American film critic (b. 1946)
- 2000 – Anatoly Sobchak, Russian politician (b. 1937)
- 2001 – Rosemary DeCamp, American actress (b. 1910)
- 2001 – Donella Meadows, American scientist (b. 1941)
- 2003 – Maurice Blanchot, French author (b. 1907)
- 2003 – Orville L. Freeman, American politician (b. 1918)
- 2003 – Harry Jacunski, American football player (b. 1915)
- 2003 – Ty Longley, American guitarist (Great White and Samantha 7) (b. 1971)
- 2003 – Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistani Chief of the Air Staff (b. 1947)
- 2005 – Pam Bricker, American jazz singer (b. 1954)
- 2005 – Sandra Dee, American actress (b. 1944)
- 2005 – John Raitt, American actor (b. 1917)
- 2005 – Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (b. 1937)
- 2005 – Tom Willmore, English geometer (b. 1919)
- 2006 – Michael M. Ames, Canadian academic and professor (b. 1933)
- 2006 – Curt Gowdy, American sportscaster (b. 1919)
- 2006 – Lucjan Wolanowski, Polish journalist, writer and traveller (b. 1920)
- 2007 – F. Albert Cotton, American chemist (b. 1930)
- 2007 – Carl-Henning Pedersen, Danish artist, member of the CoBrA movement (b. 1913)
- 2008 – Emily Perry, English actress (b. 1907)
- 2009 – Larry H. Miller, American businessman and owner of the Utah Jazz (b. 1944)
- 2010 – Alexander Haig, American soldier and politician (b. 1924)
- 2010 – Basavaraju Venkata Padmanabha Rao, Tollywood comedian, film producer and director (b. 1931)
- 2012 – Asar Eppel, Russian writer and translator (b. 1935)
- 2012 – Katie Hall, American politician (b. 1938)
- 2012 – S. N. Lakshmi, Indian actress (b. 1927)
Read more about this topic: February 20
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“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 soldiers 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)
“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)
“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)