Famous People Who Died Today

Harry Dean Stanton was an American musician, singer, and actor. A self-made man, Stanton established himself as an actor by playing supporting roles in popular films, such as The Godfather Part II and Alien. A lovable person, Harry Dean Stanton was celebrated by singer Deborah Harry and the music band Pop Will Eat Itself.

Richard Wright was an English musician. He is credited with co-founding the popular band ,Pink Floyd, for which he also served as a vocalist and keyboardist. Wright contributed immensely to the success of Pink Floyd and his distinctive keyboard playing was a key component of the music produced by the band.

English civil engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history." Considered a major figure of the Industrial Revolution, he built docks, a series of steamships, and many important bridges and tunnels. He was placed second in a BBC public poll to determine the "100 Greatest Britons" in 2002. 

Tito Jackson is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is one of the members of the famed Jackson family, which has produced popular musicians, including Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. An original member of the popular pop band, The Jackson 5, Tito Jackson reached the peak of his success in the 1960s and 1970s.

Bill Evans was an American composer and jazz pianist. Many of his compositions and other works continue to influence jazz pianists and are played and recorded by several artists. His work has influenced players like Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Steve Kuhn, and Michel Petrucciani among many other musicians. Evans is an inductee of the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

Belgian physicist and mathematician Joseph Plateau was a pioneer of the modern animation and movie industry, as he invented the phenakistiscope, the world’s first device to create an illusion of motion through images. He also laid down the structure of soap films through Plateau's laws.

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a core member in the circle of the Second Viennese School and an exponent of atonality and twelve-tone technique. He focused on lyricism, nuance, and sensitivity in the performance of music and was considered radical for his era. He received posthumous attention in the latter half of the 20th century. 

Remembered as a medical pioneer and a much-loved mentor, Alfred Blalock is especially noted for his work on traumatic and hemorrhagic shock, which saved thousands of lives during WWII. Working with Vivien Thomas and Helen Taussig, he also developed the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt. Designed to treat children with Blue Baby Syndrome, it ushered a revolution in the field of cardiac surgery.

Oriana Fallaci was an Italian author, journalist, and political interviewer. She achieved international recognition during the '60s, '70s, and '80s for her long and revealing interviews with several world leaders, including Indira Gandhi, Yasser Arafat, Willy Brandt, and Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. Fallaci had a successful journalistic career and won important awards like the Bancarella Prize and the St. Vincent Prize.

Russian baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg gained fame as an anticommunist general during the Russian Civil War. Also known as the Mad Baron for his cruelty toward his enemies, he had converted to Buddhism but retained strains of Christianity in his faith. He was eventually executed by a firing squad.

Momcilo Krajisnik was a Bosnian Serb politician best known for co-founding the Serb Democratic Party alongside Radovan Karadžić. Although he was an important politician, Momčilo Krajišnik was accused of crimes against humanity in 2006 and was given a 20-year prison sentence.

Sir Guy Green was an English film producer, director, cinematographer, and screenwriter. He is best remembered for his work as a cinematographer in the 1946 British drama film Great Expectations for which he won an Academy Award. In 2002, Guy Green was honored at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

American politician and slaveholder Abraham Clark, a Revolutionary War figure who earned the reputation as "the poor man's councilor," signed the United States Declaration of Independence as a delegate for New Jersey to the Continental Congress. He later served as Member of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey's At-large district in both the Second and Third United States Congress.

Trevor Rhone was a Jamaican writer, filmmaker, and playwright. He is best remembered for his contribution as a co-writer of the internationally successful 1972 Jamaican crime film The Harder They Come. In 1999, Trevor Rhone was honored by the Institute of Jamaica with the prestigious Musgrave Gold Medal for his contributions to Jamaican literature, theatre, and film.

José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado was a Spanish scientist, psychiatrist, and educator. He is best remembered for his association with the Yale University, where he worked as a professor of neurophysiology. José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado is also remembered for his research on mind control with the help of electrical stimulation of the brain.

Dutch poet Herman Gorter was part of the literary revival of the 1880s and of the group Tachtigers, or the Eightiers. He is best remembered for his epic poem Mei, which consisted of 4,000 verses. He later deviated to communism, which is clearly reflected in his epic poem Pan.