May 20 - Deaths

Deaths

  • 685 – Ecgfrith of Northumbria (b. 645)
  • 1277 – Pope John XXI (b. 1215)
  • 1285 – John II of Jerusalem (b. 1259)
  • 1444 – Bernardino of Siena, Italian missionary and saint (b. 1380)
  • 1503 – Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, Italian banker and politician (b. 1463)
  • 1506 – Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer, discovered the Americas (b. 1451)
  • 1550 – Ashikaga Yoshiharu, Japanese shogun (b. 1510)
  • 1622 – Osman II, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1604)
  • 1648 – Wladislaus IV of Poland (b. 1595)
  • 1677 – George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, English statesman (b. 1612)
  • 1713 – Thomas Sprat, English writer (b. 1635)
  • 1717 – John Trevor, English statesman (b. 1637)
  • 1722 – Sébastien Vaillant, French botanist (b. 1669)
  • 1732 – Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (b. 1676)
  • 1782 – William Emerson, English mathematician (b. 1701)
  • 1793 – Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist (b. 1720)
  • 1812 – Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg (b. 1732)
  • 1825 – Papaflessas, Greek priest and politician (b. 1788)
  • 1834 – Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, French military officer (b. 1757)
  • 1841 – Joseph Blanco White, English theologian (b. 1775)
  • 1873 – George-Étienne Cartier, French-Canadian statesman (b. 1814)
  • 1880 – Ana Néri, Brazilian nurse (b. 1814)
  • 1896 – Clara Schumann, German pianist and composer (b. 1819)
  • 1909 – Ernest Hogan, American comedian and composer (b. 1859)
  • 1917 – Philipp von Ferrary, Italian philatelist (b. 1850)
  • 1917 – Valentine Fleming, Scottish politician (b. 1887)
  • 1927 – Oscar Stribolt, Danish actor (b. 1872)
  • 1931 – Ernest Noel, British businessman and MP (b. 1831)
  • 1940 – Verner von Heidenstam, Swedish writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1859)
  • 1946 – Jacob Ellehammer, Danish aviation pioneer and engineer (b. 1871)
  • 1947 – Philipp Lenard, German physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1862)
  • 1947 – Georgios Siantos, Greek politician, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (b. 1890)
  • 1949 – Randolph West, American biochemist, known for the Dakin-West reaction (b. 1890)
  • 1949 – Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens (b. 1891)
  • 1956 – Max Beerbohm, English critic (b. 1872)
  • 1956 – Zoltán Halmay, Hungarian swimmer (b. 1881)
  • 1961 – Josef Priller, German nazi military aviator (b. 1915)
  • 1964 – Rudy Lewis, American singer (The Drifters) (b. 1936)
  • 1971 – Waldo Williams, Welsh poet (b. 1904)
  • 1973 – Jarno Saarinen, Finnish motorcycle racer (b. 1945)
  • 1975 – Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor (b. 1903)
  • 1976 – Syd Howe, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1911)
  • 1976 – Zelmar Michelini, Uruguayan politician (b. 1924)
  • 1976 – Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, Uruguayan politician (b. 1934)
  • 1989 – John Hicks, English economist, Nobel laureate (b. 1904)
  • 1989 – Gilda Radner, American comedian and actress (b. 1946)
  • 1992 – Roger Keith Coleman, American coal miner and convicted murder (b. 1958)
  • 1996 – Jon Pertwee, English actor (b. 1919)
  • 2000 – Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flutist (b. 1922)
  • 2000 – Malik Sealy, American basketball player (b. 1970)
  • 2001 – Renato Carosone, Italian pianist and bandleader (b. 1920)
  • 2002 – Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist (b. 1941)
  • 2005 – Paul Ricoeur, French philosopher (b. 1913)
  • 2005 – William Seawell, American general (b. 1918)
  • 2007 – Norman Von Nida, Australian golfer (b. 1914)
  • 2008 – Hamilton Jordan, American politician, 8th White House Chief of Staff (b. 1944)
  • 2009 – Arthur Erickson, Canadian architect, designed Roy Thomson Hall (b.1924)
  • 2009 – Lucy Gordon, English model and actress (b. 1980)
  • 2011 – "Macho Man" Randy Savage, American professional wrestler and actor (b. 1952)
  • 2012 – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Libyan terrorist, conducted the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing (b. 1952)
  • 2012 – Bob Bethell, American politician (b. 1942)
  • 2012 – Geoffrey Evans, Irish serial killer (b. 1943)
  • 2012 – Robin Gibb, English singer-songwriter and musician (Bee Gees) (b. 1949)
  • 2012 – Eugene Polley, American engineer, inventor of the first wireless remote control for television (b. 1915)
  • 2012 – Andrew B. Steinberg, American lawyer, Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Aviation and International Affairs (b. 1958)

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Famous quotes containing the word deaths:

    “I sang of death but had I known
    The many deaths one must have died
    Before he came to meet his own!”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “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)

    “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)