Died On February 14th

British explorer, navigator, and cartographer James Cook, who had also served the merchant navy and Royal Navy, was the first to complete an expedition around New Zealand. He explored areas in the South Pacific, such as eastern Australia and Hawaii. He was killed while trying to kidnap a Hawaiian king.

Reeva Steenkamp was a British-South African model and TV personality. She had a successful career as a model before she was shot dead, at the age of 29, by Paralympic champion, Oscar Pistorius. Her death became international news and she was posthumously named SA Persons of the year along with Anene Booysen by the Daily Maverick in 2013.

German mathematician David Hilbert was first drawn to math inspired by his mother, who was a budding math enthusiast. He contributed to a host of concepts, theories, and postulates, such as Hilbert space, Hilbert's program, and Hilbert's problems. He died in oblivion, with a handful of people at his funeral.

Richard II of England was King of England from 1377 to 1399. Also known as Richard of Bordeaux, he was a firm believer in the royal prerogative. He was not popular as a king and was deposed in 1399 and is believed to have been starved to death in captivity. Modern historians believe he may have had a personality disorder.

Jean-Marie Loret learned he was Adolf Hitler’s illegitimate child when his mother, a French lady named Charlotte revealed it to him on her deathbed. Though Loret died before finding any concrete evidence to prove the same, following his death, proof of cash sent to Charlotte by Hitler proved Loret's claim.

William Blackstone was a British politician, jurist, and judge of the 18th century. Best remembered for authoring the Commentaries on the Laws of England, Blackstone is credited with influencing prominent American personalities like Abraham Lincoln, James Kent, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall among others. His Commentaries, which were cited often in Supreme Court cases, were repeatedly republished throughout the 1770s.

U Nu was a Burmese nationalist politician and statesman. He is best remembered for his service as the Prime Minister of Burma on three occasions between 1948 and 1962. U Nu is also remembered for his literary works; he wrote several plays and novels during his lifetime.

US ornithologist James Bond is remembered as the author of Birds of the West Indies. British author Ian Fleming, himself a bird enthusiast, borrowed his name to create James Bond, the iconic fictional spy. He was mostly associated with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia’s Drexel University.

Christopher Lasch was an American historian, social critic, and moralist. He served as a professor at the University of Rochester. Christopher Lasch is best remembered for his books that aimed at using history as a tool to help Americans realize the independence and competence of families and communities. His best-selling book The Culture of Narcissism won the National Book Award.

While he initially apprenticed under a lock maker, he later joined the factory of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, where he invented scores of machines, the most notable of them being the metal lathe. He also developed plane surfaces to aid his workmen at his factory. He was married to inventor Joseph Bramah's housemaid.

Karl Guthe Jansky was an American physicist and radio engineer. He first discovered radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in August 1931. However, due to his lack of formal training as an astronomer, research into radio astronomy remained dormant for many years. Later on, he came to be widely regarded as one of the founding figures of radio astronomy. 

Tonmi Lillman, more-famous as Otus, was a Finnish musician, producer and graphics-designer. He gained recognition playing drums with the bands Lordi, Sinergy and To/Die/For. He was associated with the bands Ajattara, Vanguard, Kylähullut, and 3rror before his death. Otus specialized in 3D-graphics and worked as an editor on several music-videos and designed cover art for bands like Sinergy and Kylähullut.

Better known as the younger brother of Hollywood sensation Maureen O'Hara, Irish actor and producer Charles B. Fitzsimons later moved to the US. Initially an attorney, he also became the youngest in his country to get a law degree. He also led the Producers Guild of America as its executive director.

South African heavyweight kickboxer and boxer Mike Bernardo was a regular at the K-1 World Grand Prix championships in Japan. Post-retirement, he became a clinical psychologist. He shocked the world with his untimely death at 42, due to uncertain causes, and many still suspect he had committed suicide.

Born in Austria, architect Victor Gruen had his own firm in Vienna but moved to the U.S. after Germany invaded his country. He then launched Victor Gruen Associates and revolutionized the shopping experience of Americans by pioneering the shopping center and mall designs of the country.