Famous People Who Died Today

Best known for his star role in the television sitcom Growing Pains, Alan Thicke was a Canadian actor, songwriter and television host, who began his career as a series regular in It's Our Stuff, eventually appearing in numerous films and television productions. Also a popular game and talk show host, he patronized many NGOs including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Donatello was an Italian sculptor best remembered for his most famous work, David, which is often viewed as the first major work of Renaissance sculpture. Donatello is one of the most popular Italian sculptors of all time. He was played by English actor Ben Starr in a historical drama TV series titled Medici: Masters of Florence.

Essayist, biographer, lexicographer, and literary critic Samuel Johnson, or Dr. Johnson, is remembered for his A Dictionary of the English Language and Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. He was also a poet, a playwright, and a staunch Tory. His mannerisms indicated he had Tourette syndrome.

Businessman Lamar Hunt was a major promoter of American football, soccer, tennis, basketball, and ice hockey in the United States. He was the principal founder of the Major League Soccer (MLS) and American Football League (AFL). He was also the co-founder of World Championship Tennis. In 1982, he was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. 

Anna Mary Robertson, better known as Grandma Moses, revolutionized American folk art with her iconic depictions of American rural life. After spending 15 years of her life working as a housekeeper, she deviated toward embroidery. A bout of arthritis made her switch to painting in her late 70s.

Gustav Schwarzenegger was better known as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father than as the police chief of Austria. He was a master sergeant in Wehrmacht after his country was annexed by Nazi Germany. He was made a postal inspector after injuries he suffered in Russia ruled him out of the armed forces. He returned to the Austrian police force in 1947.

Russian painter, writer, philosopher, theosophist and archaeologist, Nicholas Roerich, counted among the greatest Russian painters, is noted for initiating the modern movement for the defense of cultural objects. One of the greatest feats that he achieved during his lifetime was the Roerich Pact that was signed into law by the US and most nations of the Pan-American Union.

French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon is best remembered for his research on crowd psychology. In his iconic work La psychologie des foules, or The Crowd, he stated that people are driven by their emotions and not by their intellect when they act as part of a crowd.

Immortalized in the Irish ballad Grace, Irish cartoonist Grace Gifford was a regular contributor to many reputed publications such as The Irish Review. She was part of the Republican movement and married her lover Joseph Plunkett just hours before he was killed by firing squad for his invoolvement in the Easter Rising.

Mary Renault was a British writer best remembered for her historical novels. Some of her historical novels, such as The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea were adapted into a BBC Radio 4 serial. Although she is renowned for her fictional portrayals of prominent real-life characters like Alexander the Great, Mary Renault also wrote Alexander's non-fiction biography.

Considered one of the most significant of German scholars, Johannes Trithemius made a major contribution to German Renaissance and was a cryptographer, a magician, and a lexicographer at the same time. He ran away from home at 17 and took shelter at a Benedictine abbey, where he began the life of an abbot.

Born to a poor fur dealer, Conrad Gessner was sent to study under an uncle who dealt in medicinal herbs. He then studied theology but later grew up to become a Renaissance polymath, excelling in subjects such as natural history and medicine. His Bibliotheca universalis remains a major work in bibliography.

French-Swiss artist Théophile Steinlen is best remembered for his Art Nouveau paintings. He was also known for his signature, and mostly symbolic, use of cats in most of his works. He got acquainted with several artists at the Le Chat Noir club, leading to commissions for artwork.

Maurice Herzog was a French administrator and mountaineer. He is best remembered for leading the French Annapurna expedition in 1950, which scaled the Annapurna peak of over 8000m for the first time. Maurice Herzog reached the peak along with Louis Lachenal and wrote a best-selling book titled Annapurna after his return.

Herder Prize-winning Romanian poet and essayist Nichita Stănescu was also nominated for the Nobel Prize. Best known for his work 11 Elegies, he was a Communist at heart and lived most of his live in poverty. He was posthumously made a member of The Romanian Academy.

A Benedictine priest, Anyos Jedlik also taught physics and is often termed the unknown inventor of the first electric car, though Carl Benz later patented the motorcar for producing the first automobile series. His invention of the dynamo, which he didn’t speak of for years, was later credited to Werner von Siemens.

Juan Leon Mera was an Ecuadorian novelist, essayist, painter, and politician. He is credited with writing Ecuador's national anthem, Salve, Oh Patria. Among his other well-known literary works is a novel titled Cumandá, which was translated into English by Noé O. Vaca in 2007.