Famous People Who Died Today

Chuck Berry was an American singer-songwriter. Referred to as the Father of Rock and Roll, Berry is credited with pioneering rock and roll music. He is also credited with influencing the attitude with which the rock music lifestyle is usually associated. Also revered for his guitaring skills, Berry is often included in lists like the Greatest Artists of All Time.

Erich Fromm was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, and socialist. A German Jew, he fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. He was a co-founder of  The William Alanson White Institute and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He is best remembered for authoring the book Escape from Freedom.

US fighter pilot, engineer, and NASA astronaut Alfred Worden served as the pilot of the command module Endeavour for the 1971 Apollo 15 mission. His spacewalk was at a record distance from Earth. Post-retirement, he worked for private enterprises and wrote several books, including a memoir, a poetry collection, and a children’s book.

Known as The Hungarian Rhapsody in the US, actor Vilma Bánky was a star of silent films such as The Son of The Sheik. She was also an avid golfer who had won club championships and dealt in real estate, too. She also funded a children’s foundation with her husband.

Cyril of Jerusalem was a theologian of the early Church who succeeded Maximus as Bishop of Jerusalem towards the end of 350 AD. He is credited with documenting the instruction of catechumens and the order of the Liturgy in his day.  He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1883. 

Eleuthérios Venizélos was a Greek statesman who played a prominent role in the Greek national liberation movement. He served as the Prime Minister of Greece on eight occasions between 1910 and 1933. As a politician, he contributed immensely to the expansion of Greece. Eleuthérios Venizelos is often called the Maker of Modern Greece due to his influence on the country.

Augustus De Morgan was a British logician and mathematician. He is best remembered for formulating De Morgan's laws which are widely applied in solving mathematical equations. He also came up with the term mathematical induction, a mathematical proof technique. 

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot was a chief economist of 18th-century France. One of the pioneers of economic liberalism, he was previously clubbed with the economists of the Physiocratic school. Many of Adam Smith’s ideas in the pathbreaking book Wealth of Nations were hugely inspired by Turgot’s.

American aviation pioneer Geraldyn M. Cobb was part of the pathbreaking Mercury 13 program and scripted history as the first female candidate to pass astronaut testing. She had a pilot’s license by 18 and later found new air routes to the Andes and the Amazon rain forests and immersed herself in humanitarian work.

Born to a doctor in Paris, Marcellin Berthelot was an intelligent student in his younger days and excelled in history and philosophy before gaining an interest in chemistry. Best known for proposing the Thomsen–Berthelot principle of thermochemistry, he was one of the “Forty Immortals” of the French Academy.

Apart from being a renowned economist, Philip Wicksteed had also been a Unitarian minister. He was also a literary critic and writer and a prominent Fabian Society member. He wrote extensively on the distribution theory, apart from penning literary works such as Dante and Aquinas.

Born in Germany, neurosurgeon Ludwig Guttmann fled the country during the Nazi regime and later settled in the UK. What started as his effort to rehabilitate injured soldiers, materialized into the launch of the Paralympic Games to encourage sports among the disabled. He also worked extensively on paraplegia.

Natasha Richardson, the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave, came to prominence after her Broadway debut in the 1993 revival of Anna Christie. Some of the films that she acted in are Asylum, The Handmaid's Tale, The Parent Trap, Maid in Manhattan and The White Countess. She also worked in many television projects. She died after a skiing accident in Quebec.

António Nobre was a Portuguese poet best remembered for his magnum opus Só, a collection of poems. Só was the only work published during his lifetime and two other works of his were published posthumously. His contribution to literature was honored by erecting a monument for him in Leça da Palmeira.