Famous People Who Died Today

Leslie Nielsen was a Canadian actor who played more than 220 characters, appearing in over 150 television programs and 100 films in a career that spanned 60 years. In the latter part of his career, he gained recognition as a comedian and went on to become one of the most popular Canadian comedians of his generation.

Widely known as the first American man of letters, Washington Irving penned the legendary tales of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which are also called the first short stories by an American author. He had also had a brief stint as a lawyer.

Charlie Munger is an American businessman, investor, architectural designer, and former real estate attorney. Over the years, he has played an important role as the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. A well-known philanthropist, Charlie Munger has donated millions of dollars to universities and schools.

Rosalind Russell is remembered as Hildy Johnson from the film His Girl Friday and as Mame Dennis from Auntie Mame. She won five Golden Globes and was nominated for several Academy Awards. Mostly seen playing professional women, she also won a Tony for her role in the musical Wonderful Town.

Mexican comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños became a cultural icon with his show Chespirito, which also starred him as the titular character and thus made him adopt Chespirito as his stage name later. He was a boxer before venturing into entertainment and had even dropped out of an engineering course.

Basho was a Japanese poet of the Edo period. Regarded as the greatest master of haiku, Basho's poetry is read all over the world; many of his works have been translated into English. Such is his popularity that in 1979 a crater on planet Mercury was named after him by the International Astronomical Union.

Jyotiba Phule was an Indian thinker, social activist, writer, and anti-caste social reformer. During his lifetime, he worked towards eradicating the caste system and untouchability in India. He was also a pioneer of women education in India and began his first school for girls in Pune in 1848. B. R. Ambedkar had often cited Jyotiba Phule as an inspiration.

Cesare Beccaria was an 18th-century Italian criminologist, philosopher, jurist, and politician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. He is still remembered for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), a pioneering work in the field of penology. He is considered the father of modern criminal law. 

Known as the last Renaissance man, Athanasius Kircher was a German Jesuit priest who taught at the Roman College for 4 decades. He was also obsessed with Sinology and Egyptology, and studied everything from fossils to microbes. He was also interested in medicine and invented machines such as the magnetic clock.

Sidney Nolan is best remembered for his depictions of Australian folklore in his art. The artist had had brief stints as a cyclist, a gold miner, and a cook, before he took up painting as a vocation at 21. Apart from landscapes, his paintings also portrayed legendary figures such as outlaw Ned Kelly.

Stanisław Wyspiański was a Polish poet, playwright, and painter. He was one of the most patriotic writers of the Young Poland Movement and is best remembered for creating several symbolic, national dramas. Stanisław Wyspiański is sometimes referred to as the Fourth Bard of Polish literature.

Karl Ernst von Baer was a Baltic German explorer and scientist. A multi-talented personality, Baer was also a biologist, naturalist, geologist, geographer, and meteorologist. He is also regarded as the founding father of embryology. One of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society, Karl Ernst von Baer also served as the maiden president of the Russian Entomological Society.

Croat-Yugoslav politician Ante Markovic, who served as Yugoslavia’s last prime minister, witnessed his country being disintegrated into Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia amid an economic collapse. He was also a businessman who built luxury apartments and hydropower plants. He had also served as the director of Rade Koncar.

Marthinus Theunis Steyn was a South African lawyer, politician, and statesman. As a young man, he studied law at the Inner Temple in London and returned home to set up his practice. He became the sixth and last president of the independent republic the Orange Free State in 1896, a position he held till 1902.  

Peter Mulgrew was a New Zealand mountaineer, businessman, and yachtsman. He is best remembered for his expeditions alongside Edmund Hillary, including the 1960–61 Silver Hut expedition, during which he suffered pulmonary edema and ultimately lost both feet due to frostbite. He also represented New Zealand in the One Ton Cup. In 1958, Mulgrew was honored with the British Empire Medal.

Mark Taimanov was a Soviet and Russian chess player. A leading player of his generation, Taimanov was ranked among the top 20 players in the world from 1946 to 1971. In 1952, he was honored with the Grandmaster title. A multi-talented personality, Mark Taimanov was also a concert pianist. He had formed a piano duo with his wife Lyubov Bruk. 

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printer Kobayashi Kiyochika had also mastered oil painting and photography. He pioneered the kōsen-ga technique, which included Western traditions and a play of light and shade. Cat on the Canvas and Tokyo and Its Suburbs remain two of his best-known series of paintings.