Deaths
- 526 – Pope John I
- 1401 – Władysław II of Opole (b. 1332)
- 1550 – Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine, French cardinal (b. 1498)
- 1551 – Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Italian painter (b. 1486)
- 1584 – Ikeda Motosuke, Japanese samurai commander (b. 1559)
- 1675 – Stanisław Lubieniecki, Polish theologist (b. 1623)
- 1675 – Jacques Marquette, French missionary and explorer (b. 1637)
- 1692 – Elias Ashmole, English antiquarian (b. 1617)
- 1733 – Georg Böhm, German organist (b. 1761)
- 1780 – Charles Hardy, English navy officer and governor (b. 1714)
- 1781 – Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian Indian revolutionary (b. 1742)
- 1795 – Robert Rogers, French soldier (b. 1731)
- 1799 – Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, French playwright (b. 1732)
- 1800 – Alexander Suvorov, Russian general (b. 1729)
- 1807 – John Douglas, Scottish bishop (b. 1721)
- 1808 – Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (b. 1738/1743)
- 1829 – Maria Josepha of Saxony (b. 1803)
- 1844 – Richard McCarty, American politician (b. 1780)
- 1889 – Isabella Glyn, Scottish actress (b. 1823)
- 1900 – Jean Gaspard Felix Ravaisson-Mollien, French philosopher (b. 1813)
- 1908 – Louis-Napoléon Casault, French-Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1823)
- 1909 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet (b. 1828)
- 1909 – Isaac Albéniz, Spanish pianist and composer (b. 1860)
- 1910 – Pauline Viardot, French soprano and composer (b. 1821)
- 1910 – Eliza Orzeszkowa, Polish novelist (b. 1841)
- 1911 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (b. 1860)
- 1922 – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1845)
- 1927 – Andrew Kehoe, American educator and murderer, perpetrator of the Bath School Disaster (b. 1872)
- 1941 – Werner Sombart, German economist and sociologist (b. 1863)
- 1943 – Ōnishiki Daigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 28th Yokozuna (b. 1883)
- 1947 – Hal Chase, American baseball player (b. 1883)
- 1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator and activist (b. 1875)
- 1956 – Maurice Tate, English cricketer (b. 1895)
- 1958 – Jacob Fichman, Israeli poet and essayist (b. 1881)
- 1963 – Ernie Davis, American football player (b. 1939)
- 1967 – Andy Clyde, American actor (b. 1892)
- 1971 – Aleksandr Gennadievich Kurosh, Russian mathematician (b. 1908)
- 1973 – Jeannette Rankin, American politician, 1st woman in the United States Congress (b. 1880)
- 1975 – Leroy Anderson, American composer (b. 1908)
- 1980 – Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter and musician (Joy Division) (b. 1956)
- 1980 – Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:
- Harry Randall Truman, American owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge (b. 1896)
- David A. Johnston, American volcanologist (b. 1949)
- Reid Blackburn, American photojournalist (b. 1952)
- 1981 – Arthur O'Connell, American actor (b. 1908)
- 1981 – William Saroyan, American author (b. 1908)
- 1988 – Daws Butler, American voice actor (b. 1916)
- 1989 – Dorothy Ruth, American horse breeder, daughter of Babe Ruth (b. 1921)
- 1990 – Jill Ireland, English actress (b. 1936)
- 1992 – Skip Stephenson, American actor and comedian (b. 1940)
- 1992 – Marshall Thompson, American actor (b. 1925)
- 1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr., American actor (b. 1903)
- 1995 – Alexander Godunov, Russian ballet dancer and actor (b. 1949)
- 1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (b. 1933)
- 1995 – Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, English ufologist and nobleman (b. 1911)
- 1997 – Bridgette Andersen, American actress (b. 1975)
- 1999 – Augustus Pablo, Jamaican singer, musician, and producer (b. 1954)
- 1999 – Betty Robinson, American runner (b. 1911)
- 2000 – Stephen M. Wolownik, Russian composer and arranger (b. 1946)
- 2000 – Yousuf Ludhianvi, Indian-Muslim scholar (b. 1932)
- 2002 – Davey Boy Smith, English wrestler (b. 1962)
- 2003 – Anna Santisteban, Puerto Rican businesswoman (b. 1914)
- 2003 – Barb Tarbox, Canadian activist (b. 1961)
- 2004 – Elvin Jones, American drummer and bandleader (b. 1927)
- 2004 – Vladislav Terzyul, Ukrainian mountaineer (b. 1953)
- 2004 – Serge Turgeon, Canadian actor and union leader (b. 1946)
- 2006 – Andrew Martinez, American activist (b. 1972)
- 2007 – Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, French physicist (b. 1932)
- 2007 – Yoyoy Villame, Filipino singer-songwriter, composer, and actor (b. 1932)
- 2008 – Joseph Pevney, American director (b. 1911)
- 2009 – Dolla, American rapper and model (b. 1987)
- 2009 – Wayne Allwine, American voice actor (b.1947)
- 2009 – Velupillai Prabhakaran, Sri Lankan founder and leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (b. 1954)
- 2012 – Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, German singer and conductor (b. 1925)
- 2012 – Jai Gurudev, Indian Religious leader (b. 1895)
- 2012 – Peter Jones, English-Australian drummer (Crowded House and Deadstar) (b. 1967)
- 2012 – Paul O'Sullivan, Canadian actor and educator (b. 1964)
- 2012 – Alan Oakley, English bicycle designer (b. 1927)
Read more about this topic: May 18
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (19141953)
“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)
“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)