Deaths
- 1125 – Cosmas of Prague, Bohemian priest and historian (b. 1045)
- 1204 – Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester
- 1221 – Alix, Duchess of Brittany (b. 1201)
- 1266 – Birger Jarl, Swedish statesman (b. 1210)
- 1422 – Charles VI of France (b. 1368)
- 1500 – Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado of Japan (b. 1442)
- 1505 – Paul Scriptoris, German mathematician (b. 1460)
- 1558 – Julius Caesar Scaliger, Italian scholar (b. 1484)
- 1600 – Toda Katsushige, Japanese warlord (b. 1557)
- 1623 – William Wade, English politician and diplomat (b. 1546)
- 1662 – Henry Lawes, English composer (b. 1595)
- 1687 – Edmund Waller, English poet (b. 1606)
- 1708 – Guru Gobind Singh, Indian 10th Sikh gurus (b. 1666)
- 1765 – Giovanni Paolo Panini, Italian painter (b. 1691)
- 1775 – Peyton Randolph, American politician, 1st President of the Continental Congress (b. 1721)
- 1777 – Samuel Foote, English actor and playwright (b. 1720)
- 1805 – John Cooke, English navy officer (b.1763)
- 1805 – George Duff, Scottish navy officer (b.1764)
- 1805 – Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, English navy officer (b. 1758)
- 1821 – Dorothea Ackermann, German actress (b. 1752)
- 1872 – Jacques Babinet, French physicist (b. 1794)
- 1873 – Johann Sebastian Welhaven, Norwegian poet (b. 1807)
- 1896 – James Henry Greathead, South African-English engineer (b. 1844)
- 1903 – Jinmaku Kyūgorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 12th Yokozuna (b. 1829)
- 1904 – Isabelle Eberhardt, Swiss explorer and journalist (b. 1877)
- 1907 – Jules Chevalier, French priest, founded the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (b. 1824)
- 1931 – Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian author and playwright (b. 1862)
- 1938 – Dorothy Hale, American actress (b. 1905)
- 1940 – William G. Conley, American politician, 18th Governor of West Virginia (b. 1866)
- 1944 – Alois Kayser, German-French missionary (b. 1877)
- 1952 – Hans Merensky, South African geologist and philanthropist (b. 1871)
- 1963 – Józef Franczak, Polish soldier (b. 1918)
- 1965 – Bill Black, American bass player (The Blue Moon Boys) (b. 1926)
- 1969 – Jack Kerouac, American author (b. 1922)
- 1969 – Waclaw Sierpinski, Polish mathematician (b. 1882)
- 1973 – Nasif Estéfano, Argentine race car driver (b. 1932)
- 1975 – Charles Reidpath, American runner (b. 1887)
- 1978 – Anastas Mikoyan, Soviet politician (b. 1895)
- 1980 – Hans Asperger, Austrian psychologist (b. 1906)
- 1984 – François Truffaut, French director (b. 1932)
- 1985 – Dan White, American politician, assassin of George Moscone and Harvey Milk (b. 1946)
- 1986 – Lionel Murphy, Australian politician and jurist, 22nd Attorney-General of Australia (b. 1922)
- 1989 – Jean Image, Hungarian-French animator (b. 1910)
- 1990 – Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Indian philosopher and author (b. 1921)
- 1990 – Dany Chamoun, Lebanese politician (b. 1934)
- 1991 – Lorenc Antoni, Albanian composer (b. 1909)
- 1992 – Jim Garrison, American attorney (b. 1921)
- 1993 – Sam Zolotow, American journalist (b. 1899)
- 1995 – Maxene Andrews, American singer (The Andrews Sisters) (b. 1916)
- 1995 – Jesús Blasco, Spanish writer and illustrator (b. 1919)
- 1995 – Shannon Hoon, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Blind Melon) (b. 1967)
- 1996 – Georgios Zoitakis, Greek general (b. 1910)
- 1998 – Francis W. Sargent, American politician, 64th Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1915)
- 1999 – Lars Bo, Danish writer and illustrator (b. 1924)
- 2003 – Fred Berry, American actor (b. 1951)
- 2003 – Louise Day Hicks, American politician (b. 1916)
- 2003 – Luis A. Ferré, Puerto Rican engineer and politician, 3rd Governor of Puerto Rico (b. 1904)
- 2003 – Elliott Smith, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Heatmiser) (b. 1969)
- 2006 – Sandy West, American singer-songwriter and drummer (The Runaways) (b. 1959)
- 2007 – Paul Fox, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Ruts) (b. 1951)
- 2010 – A. Ayyappan, Indian poet (b. 1949)
- 2012 – Harvie Andre, Canadian politician (b. 1940)
- 2012 – Yash Chopra, Indian director, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1932)
- 2012 – Ted Kazanoff, American actor (b. 1922)
- 2012 – Alf Khumalo, South African photographer (b. 1930)
- 2012 – George McGovern, American historian and politician (b. 1922)
- 2012 – Mike Morris, English journalist (b. 1947)
Read more about this topic: October 21
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)
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“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)