Died On December 20th

Britanny Murphy was an American singer and actress. She received critical acclaim for playing important roles in films like 8 Mile before leaving for heavenly abode due to pneumonia at age 32. A month after her demise, her mother and widower established a charitable fund called The Brittany Murphy Foundation, which aimed at aiding children's arts education and cancer research.

Famous for his novels The Grapes of Wrath and Tortilla Flat, John Ernst Steinbeck was noted for his sympathy for the plight of workers in his books. The Nobel laureate, who said he did not deserve the prize, authored 33 books, some of which were best sellers during his time. His books were also adapted into films.

Roy Oliver Disney, older brother of Walt Disney, co-founded The Walt Disney Company and was its first CEO. He had also served in the U.S. Navy and had been a banker. He postponed his retirement plans following the death of Walt Disney and supervised the completion of Walt Disney World.

The Kingston-born American actress, who began her career with the New York Shakespearean Festival, acted in a number films and television series and won Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the crime drama Gabriel's Fire. Madge Sinclair was also a voice artist in the famous animated film The Lion King, released a year before she succumbed to leukaemia.

Elsa Einstein was the second wife of Albert Einstein. She is best remembered for her relationship with Albert Einstein as the latter started a relationship with Elsa, who also happens to be his cousin, while he was still married to Mileva Marić. Elsa Einstein was instrumental in the Einsteins building their summer house in 1929.

German military leader Erich Ludendorff gained fame with the victories at Liège and Tannenberg during World War I. He promoted the theory that Marxists, Jews, and Freemasons were responsible for Germany’s defeat in the war. He later became a military theorist, writing books such as The Total War.

Arthur Rubinstein was a Polish-American pianist counted amongst the greatest pianists of all time. He had an extensive career spanning eight decades, during which he earned much international acclaim. He played music performed by several illustrious composers and is especially remembered for his interpretation of Chopin’s music. Renowned pianists François-René Duchâble and Avi Schönfeld were his students. 

Hank Snow was a Canadian-American country music artist who had an extensive career spanning half a century. He rose to fame in the 1950s and released around 140 albums during his career. He endured extreme difficulties as a youngster and sought solace in music, eventually becoming one of the most influential artists in all of country music. 

Social psychologist Stanley Milgram was inspired by the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust to understand what drove people to harm others, and thus created his Milgram experiment. He also taught at prestigious institutes such as Harvard and Yale. His studies also included the six degrees of separation concept.

Stefan Dušan reigned as the King of all Serbian and Maritime Lands from 1331 to 1346. He then reigned as the Emperor of the Serbian Empire from 16 April 1346 until his death on 20 December 1355. Stefan Dušan was counted among the most powerful monarchs of his generation as he had conquered a major part of southeast Europe.

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese cultural theorist, poet, and politician. He was Senegal's first president, a position in which he served from 1960 to 1980. Widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most prominent African intellectuals, Senghor is credited with founding the Senegalese Democratic Bloc party. Senghor received many awards, including the African Studies Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Known as Albert Dussel in Anne Frank’s diary, Fritz Pfeffer was a successful Jewish dentist who had hid along with Anne Frank and her family in the Secret Annex during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. Initially deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, he later died at the Neuengamme concentration camp.

Max Brod was a Czech German-speaking Jewish author, composer, and journalist. He studied law at the German Charles-Ferdinand University and proceeded to pursue a career as a journalist and composer. He worked as an editor and literary adviser for the Israeli national theatre for three decades. He was a close friend and biographer of writer Franz Kafka. 

Katharina von Bora was a former nun, whose marriage with German professor of theology, priest, Augustinian monk, author and composer Martin Luther, a seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, set a model for clerical marriage, permitting Protestant clergy to marry. She is often regarded to have played a key role in Reformation as she helped in defining Protestant family life.

Filipino politician Benigno Aquino, Sr., or Igno, led the fascist KALIBAPI party, which was the only Filipino political party during the Japanese occupation. He had held several significant political positions, including that of the vice-president of the Philippines. He was also the 6th Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines.

Ambroise Paré was a French surgeon remembered for his service as barber surgeon for Henry II, Henry III, Charles IX, and Francis II. Regarded as one of the fathers of surgery, Paré is also considered a pioneer in surgical techniques. He specialized in battlefield medicine and in the treatment of wounds. Ambroise Paré is credited with inventing several surgical instruments.

The bishop of Rome from 199 to 217, Pope Zephyrinus faced strong opposition from Roman priest St. Hippolytus, who began the first schism of the Christian Church. Ironically, the only source of information on Zephyrinus is Hippolytus’s Philosophoumena. He is remembered for combating heresies.

A qualified lawyer and a skilled orator, Émile Loubet had been the mayor of Montélimar, before becoming the prime minister and then the president of France. He was responsible for improving France’s relationship with Britain. He also accelerated the separation of the Church and the French government.

James Hilton was an English novelist and screenwriter. Many of his books such as Lost Horizon, Knight Without Armour, We Are Not Alone, The Story of Dr. Wassell, and Rage in Heaven were adapted into films. A well-known screenwriter in Hollywood, James Hilton received the prestigious Academy Award for his work in Mrs. Miniver in 1942.

Born to a lawyer, William Edwards Deming grew up to become a renowned mathematical physicist and later taught statistics at the New York University. His research focused on the application of statistical methods to improve quality control in various industries. His ideas were later widely used by Japanese corporates.

Considered a pioneer in the field of abstract algebra, Austro-German mathematician Emil Artin reached great heights in academics in spite of losing his father to syphilis at age 8. He's best remembered for his contribution to the class field theory and his theorems and concepts such as the Artin rings.

Fazle Hasan Abed was a Bangladeshi social worker credited with founding one of the largest non-governmental organizations in the world, BRAC. For his significant contributions to social development, Abed was honored with many national and international awards, including the Laudato Si' Award and LEGO Prize. In 2014 and 2017, he was included in Fortune magazine's World's 50 Greatest Leaders list.

Roland Matthes was a German swimmer famous as the most successful backstroke swimmer of all time. He swam 19 world and 21 European records in various backstroke,  freestyle, butterfly, and medley events between April 1967 and August 1974. After retiring from swimming, he studied medicine at the University of Jena and became an orthopedic surgeon.

Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Alan Lloyd Hodgkin is remembered for his research on the chemical processes related to nerve impulses. As a child, he was also interested in ornithology. He also taught at Cambridge and was a research professor at the Royal Society. He was knighted for his achievements.

Eighteenth-century Catalan Spanish composer Antonio Soler is remembered for his church music. Educated at a choir school, he later became a teacher of the organ and the harpsichord for the royal family. A master of Baroque music, he also invented the keyboard instrument afinador and penned works on music theory.

Olga Lepeshinskaya is not just remembered for her association with the Bolshoi Theatre but also for her Stalin Prize-winning performance in Flames of Paris. She had also chaired ballet competitions in Moscow. Politically conscious, she also performed for the Red Army soldiers during World War II.