1796 – Jacob Wilhelm Lustig, German composer, dies at 89
1875 – John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States (b. 1821)
1883 – Lydia Estes Pinklham, patent-medicine manufacturer, dies
1884 – Louis Brassin, Belgian pianist, composer and music educator, dies at 43
1888 – Giacomo Zanella, Italian poet (b. 1820)
1944 – Félix Éboué, French colonial administrator, dies at 60
1964 – Otto V. Kuusinen, Finnish politician (founder of the Finnish Communist Party), dies at 82
1987 – Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and economist (Nobel 1974), dies at 88
1992 – Warren Neal Boxer, dies of AIDS at 34
1996 – Johnny “Guitar” Watson, musician, dies at 61
Category: Famous Deaths
Famous Deaths for 16th May 2022
1691 – Jacob Leisler, becomes 1st American colonist hanged for treason
1835 – Felicia Dorothea Hemans, poet/hymn writer, dies
1924 – William “Candy” Cummings, American Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher (credited with creating the curveball), dies at 75
1938 – Stephen Fairbairn, oarsman/coach, dies
1953 – Django Reinhardt, Belgium born Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer considered the most significant European jazz musician, dies at 43
1955 – James Agee, American author (African Queen, Death in Family), dies at 45
1996 – Pierre Debizet, resistance fighter/special agent, dies at 72
2011 – Bob Davis, Australian rules footballer (b. 1928)
2019 – I. M. Pei, Chinese-American modernist architect (Louvre Pyramid) who won the 1961 Brunner Prize, dies at 102
2020 – Arthur Summons, Australian rugby union fly-half (10 Tests; Gordon RFC) and rugby league five-eighth (9 Tests; Western Suburbs RLFC), dies at 84
Famous Deaths for 15th May 2022
1174 – Nur ad-Din, King of Syria (1146-1174), dies at 56
1609 – Giovanni Croce, Italian composer (b. 1557)
1760 – Alaungpaya, King of Burma (b. 1711)
1821 – John Wall Calcott, English composer, dies at 54
1823 – Antonio Frantisek Becvarovsky, composer, dies at 69
1940 – Willem Adriaan Bonger, Dutch criminologist (Race and Crime), suicide at 63
1948 – Edward Flanagan, American priest and founder of Boys Town (b. 1886)
1965 – Adrian Schoevers, Dutch director (Schoevers Institution), dies
1987 – John Baur, American museum director and author (American Paintings in 19th Century), dies at 78
2018 – Ian Denholm, Scottish shipping CEO (Murray Investment Trust), dies at 91
Famous Deaths for 14th May 2022
347 – Pachomius, Egyptian monastery founder/abbot (Coenobieten), dies
1688 – Antoine Furetière, French writer (b. 1619)
1818 – Matthew Lewis, English novelist (The Monk), dies at 42
1918 – James Gordon Bennett, Jr., American newspaper publisher (thought to have inspired the phrase “Gordon Bennett”), dies at 77
1940 – Edgar du Perron, Dutch author and poet (Land of Origin), dies at 40
1985 – Mohammed Munir, Indonesian worker’s union leader, executed
1991 – Aladár Gerevich, Hungarian fencer (7 Olympic gold 1932, 36, 48, 52, 56, 60), dies at 81
2007 – Jean Saubert, American alpine ski racer (Olympic giant slalom silver, slalom bronze 1964), dies of breast cancer at 65
2014 – Stephen Sutton, English cancer blogger (Stephen’s Story), dies at 19
2021 – Torkild Brakstad, Norwegian soccer defender (3 caps; Molde) and coach (Molde, Tromsø, Rosenborg), dies at 75
Famous Deaths for 13th May 2022
1619 – Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Dutch lawyer and statesman, beheaded at 71
1839 – Joseph Fesch, French cardinal, diplomat and senator (Uncle of Napoleon), dies at 76
1866 – Nikolai Brashman, Russian mathematician, dies at 69
1873 – Kaspar Masek, Czech-Slovenian composer, dies at 79
1878 – Joseph Henry, American scientist and pioneer of electromagnetism, dies at 80
1882 – Jules Nicolas Crevaux, French naval doctor and explorer (French Guiana and the Amazon), murdered at 35
1938 – Charles Edouard Guillaume, French physicist (1920 Nobel Prize for Physics), dies at 77
1974 – Denny Shute, American golfer (British Open 1933, PGA C’ship 1936-37), dies at 69
1988 – (Chesney) “Chet” Baker, American jazz trumpeter and vocalist (“My Funny Valentine”), falls to his death from an Amsterdam hotel balcony at 59
2015 – Robert Drasnin, American clarinetist, composer, and film and television music supervisor (CBS, 1977-91), dies after a fall at 87
Famous Deaths for 12th May 2022
1796 – Johann Peter Uz, German poet (Theodicee), dies at 75
1878 – Catherine Beecher, American educator (championed higher education for women), dies at 77
1948 – Isidor Achron, American composer, dies of a heart attack at 55
1967 – John Masefield, British writer and poet (Salt-Water Ballads), Poet Laureate (1930-67), dies at 88
1970 – Leonie “Nelly” Sachs, German Swedish poet and playwright (Nobel prize for Literature 1966), dies at 78
1977 – Luc van Brabant, Flemish writer and erotic poet, dies at 67
1994 – Erik Erikson, American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst who coined the phrase “identity crisis”, dies at 91
1996 – Rob Hall, New Zealand mountaineer, dies on Mt Everest at 35
2001 – (Pierino) Perry Como, American singer (“Catch A Falling Star”) and TV personality (The Perry Como Show) dies at 89
2021 – Higinio Vélez, Cuban baseball manager (Olympic gold 2004; Santiago de Cuba, Cuban National Series 1999–2001), dies from COVID-19 at 73
Famous Deaths for 11th May 2022
1938 – Arnold Sauwen, Flemish poet (Hours of Solitude), dies at 81
1944 – Henk Hos, Dutch resistance fighter, executed at 37
1979 – Lester Flatt, American bluegrass guitarist (Flatt and Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”; “Ballad of Jed Clampett”), dies at 64
1986 – Henry P. McIlhenny, American philanthropist, dies at 76
1991 – Ho Dam, North Korean foreign minister (1970-83), dies at 62
1994 – Leonard Friedman, British-Lithuanian violinist (Scottish Baroque Ensemble), dies at 63
1995 – Tibor Sarai, Hungarian composer, dies at 76
1996 – Ademir de Menezes, Brazilian footballer (Brazil national team 1945-53), dies at 73
2014 – Ed Gagliardi, American bass guitarist (Foreigner, 1976-79 – “Feels Like The First Time”), dies from cancer at 62
2016 – David King, British graphic designer (album covers for Jimi Hendrix and The Who), photographer (I Am King), and historian (The Commissar Vanishes), dies at 73
Famous Deaths for 10th May 2022
1290 – Duke Rudolph II of Austria (b. 1271)
1569 – Juan the Avila, Spanish minister/writer
1760 – Johann Christoph Graupner, German harpsichordist and Baroque composer, dies at 77
1807 – Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, French military leader (commander of the French Expeditionary Force that assisted the Thirteen Colonies), dies at 81
1938 – Percy McAlister, Australian cricket batsman (8 Tests; Big Six cricket dispute 1912), dies at 68
1945 – Richard Glücks, German SS officer and concentration camp administrator, committed suicide at 56
1964 – Mikhail Larionov, Russian painter (b. 1881)
1968 – Maurie Sievers, cricket medium-pacer (Austral v England 1936-37), dies
1973 – Jack E. Leonard, American comedian (Disorderly Orderly), dies at 62
2001 – Deborah Walley, American actress (b. 1943)
Famous Deaths for 9th May 2022
1446 – Mary of Enghien, Queen of Naples, dies at 79
1790 – William Clingan, American delegate to the Continental Congress
1822 – Charles Duquesnoy, French composer, dies at 62
1905 – Ernst Pauer, Austrian composer and pianist, dies at 78
1963 – Charles Vyner Brooke, 3rd and last White Rajah of Sarawak (1917-46), dies at 88
1968 – Harold Gray, American comic strip artist (Little Orphan Annie), dies at 74
1970 – Walter P. Reuther, American worker’s union leader and president of the CIO, dies in a plane crash at 62
1976 – Raymond Chevreuille, Belgian composer, dies at 74
1986 – Tenzing Norgay, Tibetan climber who was the 1st to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 with Edmund Hillary, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at 71
2010 – Lena Horne, American singer and actress (Cabin in the Sky), dies at 92
Famous Deaths for 8th May 2022
535 – John [Mercurius], Italian Pope (533-35), dies
685 – Benedict II, Italian Pope (683-85), dies and is buried in St Peter’s
1577 – Viglius ab Aytta Zuichemus, Dutch lstatesman and lawyer (Raad van State), dies at 69
1766 – Samuel Chandler, English non-conformist minister (b. 1693)
1818 – Franz Ignaz Kaa, German composer, dies at 78
1853 – Joannes P. Roothaan, 1st Dutch lt col-gen of Jesuits, dies at 67
1990 – Tomas O’Fiach [Tomas Seamus Fee], Irish cardinal-archbishop, dies of a heart attack at 66
1996 – Serge Chermayeff, Russian-British architect and designer, dies at 95
2012 – Nicholas Katzenbach, American Attorney General, dies at 90
2018 – George Deukmejian, American politician, 35th Governor of California (1983-91), dies at 89