Famous People Who Died Today

Widely considered The Father of Economics, Adam Smith was a Scottish philosopher and economist. A pioneer of political economy, Adam Smith played a major role during the Scottish Enlightenment. His book The Wealth of Nations is regarded as the first modern work of economics and a forerunner of today's academic discipline of economics.

Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia was the heir apparent to the Russian Empire's throne. The only son of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Emperor Nicholas II, Alexei was born with haemophilia, which was treated by the popular faith healer Grigori Rasputin. In 1918, Alexei and his family members were executed brutally by Communist revolutionaries.  

Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian skydiver, BASE jumper, and daredevil. He is best known for jumping from the stratosphere to the Earth as part of the Red Bull Stratos project. Baumgartner set the world record for gaining an estimated top speed of Mach 1.25, becoming the first person without vehicular power to break the sonic barrier relative to the surface.

Jules Bianchi, grandson of GT World Champion Mauro Bianchi, was a Formula 3 Euro Series winner and a French Formula Renault 2.0 champion. A collision during the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix caused him a diffuse axonal injury. He was in a coma for 8 months before dying at age 25.

The daughter of American publisher and financier Eugene Meyer, Katharine Graham later carried forward her family’s newspaper, The Washington Post. While the newspaper was initially handed over to her husband, Philip Graham, by her father, she took over as the owner, following Philip’s suicide. She later penned a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir.

Popularly known as one of the Big Six—leaders of six important civil rights organizations who masterminded the Great March on Washington in 1963—John Lewis played an important role in the civil rights movement that eventually ended racial segregation in the US. Also a statesman, Lewis was honored with many awards, such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Known as the ultimate American mountain man, Jim Bridger is remembered for his exploration of the Western United States. It is believed, the illiterate fur trader was the first white man to explore the Great Salt Lake and one of the first to visit Yellowstone. He also worked as a forest guide.

Dorothea Dix was an American advocate who fought for the welfare of the mentally ill. She helped create the first generation of mental asylums in the United States. Dix also played a key role during the Civil War, serving as a Superintendent of Army Nurses. In 1979, Dorothea Dix was made an inductee of the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Charlotte Corday was an important figure of the French Revolution. She is remembered for murdering Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, for which she was executed by guillotine. Her action changed the political position and role of women at the time. She was also considered a hero by those who opposed the teachings of Jean-Paul Marat.

Juan Manuel Fangio was an Argentine race car driver who dominated the first 10 years of Formula One racing. He won the World Drivers' Championship on five occasions, a record which was broken by Michael Schumacher after 46 years. Juan Manuel Fangio is also the only Argentine racer to have won the prestigious Argentine Grand Prix.

Initially a sweeper at Andy Warhol's Factory, Jed Johnson later also edited some of Warhol’s films. He later drifted to interior designing and partnered with fellow architect Alan Wanzenberg on many designs. He died at 47, when a Trans World Airlines flight he was traveling in, crashed.

Serbian military leader Dragoljub Mihailović headed the Yugoslavian underground army known as the Chetniks, during World War II. He had also fought in the Balkan Wars and World War I, but post-World War II, he was convicted of treason and executed by the communist powers of Yugoslavia.

Andrea Camilleri was an Italian writer whose book The Potter's Field was honored with the CWA International Dagger award in 2012. Over the course of his career, Camilleri also won other prestigious awards, such as the Nino Martoglio International Book Award.

Karl Wolff was a German SS official during World War II. By the end of the war, Wolff was serving as the Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy, where he played a major role in bringing the war to an end sooner than in the rest of Europe. Wolff was prosecuted in 1962 for the deportation of Italian Jews.

Leszek Kołakowski was a Polish philosopher. He is remembered for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, which he published in his three-volume history, Main Currents of Marxism. He was exiled from Poland in 1968 due to his criticism of Marxism. Despite this, he was a major inspiration for the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s.

Zizi Jeanmaire was a French actress, ballet dancer, and singer. Jeanmaire achieved popularity in the 1950s after portraying the title role in the popular ballet Carmen which was created by Roland Petit and staged at the Prince's Theatre in London. She went on to marry Roland Petit, who created several revues and ballets for her.

Marguerite Steinheil was a French woman best remembered for having love affairs with prominent men, including President Félix Faure. Interestingly, it is said that Steinheil was involved in a sexual encounter with Félix Faure at the time of his death in 1899. Steinheil achieved notoriety after the incident; her character was portrayed in a TV series titled Paris Police 1900.

Known for his pathbreaking research on the hormone insulin, Romanian physiologist Nicolae Paulescu was also a professor of medicine. He had a tiff with the Nobel Prize committee on their decision to award two other scientists for the discovery of insulin. His anti-Semitic writings influenced the Iron Guard movement.

One of the most prominent figures of Lebanon’s independence movement, Riad al-Sulh became the country’s first prime minister after its independence. He was assassinated by Syrian Nationalist Party members, while visiting King Abdullah of Jordan. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Lebanon.

Though Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén was trained in law, he began his career as a journalist. He served as the director of the writers’ union of Cuba and was part of the Cuban Communist Party. One of the pioneers of Black poetry, he was awarded honors such as the Stalin Peace Prize.