Famous People Who Died Today

An automobile designer known for his involvement with the AC Shelby Cobra and Ford Mustang, Carroll Shelby was also a well-known racing driver, and a successful entrepreneur, who established Shelby American after a heart ailment put an end to his racing career.  Meanwhile, he also ran a a high-performance driving school and published a memoir entitled The Carroll Shelby Story.

Shel Silverstein was an American writer, playwright, songwriter, and cartoonist. Renowned for his children's books, songs, and cartoons, Silverstein's works have been translated into over 30 languages. The recipient of many prestigious awards, such as Grammy Awards, Shel Silverstein was posthumously inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

Susan Oliver was an American actress, aviator, and television director. She achieved popularity after appearing in popular TV series like Star Trek. Susan Oliver also achieved fame as an aviator; in 1967, she became only the fourth woman to fly a single-engined airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese printmaker, ukiyo-e painter, and artist of the Edo period. He is best known as the creator of the monumental Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, a series of landscape prints, which includes the iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. He is credited with transforming the ukiyo-e art form to include a much broader style of art.

Henry Morton Stanley was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, colonial administrator, soldier, politician, and author. He is remembered for his exploration of central Africa and his search for the source of the River Nile. Stanley received an honorary title of knighthood in 1899. His life and career inspired the 1939 movie Stanley and Livingstone, where Stanley was played by Spencer Tracy.

Bessie Regina Norris, better known as Betty Wright, ruled the American gospel, R&B, and soul scene for 6 decades. The Grammy-winning artist joined her family gospel group at age 2, gained fame with the track Clean Up Woman at 17, and had her own record label by the 1980s.

Frank Frazetta was an American science fiction and fantasy artist remembered for his work on comic books, LP record album covers, paperback book covers, posters, and paintings among other media. Nicknamed the Godfather of fantasy art, Frazetta is also considered one of the 20th century's best-known illustrators. He was honored at the World Fantasy Convention with a Life Achievement Award. 

Often referred as The Last Man Who Knew Everything, British polymath Thomas Young made significant contributions to a wide range of subjects like vision, light, energy, musical harmony etc. Especially famous for Wave Theory of Light, he also made significant contribution in deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Young-Helmholtz theory, Young temperament and Young's Modulus carry his legacy to these days.

A close associate of Isaac Newton, Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, was, according to many, the reason for Newton’s nervous breakdown after they fell apart. He is best remembered for co-discovering the phenomenon of zodiacal light and for inventing the shadow theory of gravitation.

Russian avant-garde artist and stage designer Mikhail Larionov is best known as a co-founder of the Rayonist movement, which he established along with his wife and collaborator Natalya Goncharova. He also introduced abstraction in painting and spent his later life in France, obtaining a French citizenship.

John of Ávila, or the Apostle of Andalusia, was a prominent Spanish priest and preacher. Though he was supposed to be sent for missionary work to North America, he later stayed back in Spain, persuaded by the archbishop of Seville. He also wrote religious treatises such as Audi filia.

Sixteenth-century German physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs is best known for his extensive research on the medicinal properties of plants and herbs. His work Historia Stirpium is an invaluable treatise on the history of plants. The plant Fuchsia found in the Caribbean was named in his honor.

German-born novelist and playwright Peter Weiss was forced to move to England, Switzerland, and Czechoslovakia, to avoid Nazi persecution, and eventually moved to Sweden and took up Swedish citizenship. Initially a painter and photographer, he later turned to filmmaking. His best-known works include the play The Investigation and the novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.

Formerly the head of Logic Department of Moscow University, Soviet philosopher Alexander Zinoviev first came to limelight with his 1960 publication, Philosophical Problems of Many-Valued Logic, and later for his satirical novel, The Yawning Heights. Exiled from his country in 1978, he lived in Munich until his return to Russia in 1999, meanwhile producing numerous seminal fictional and nonfictional works.  

Horst Faas was a German photo-journalist remembered for capturing pictures of the Vietnam War. Faas was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Photography twice. He also worked as a picture editor, playing a key role in the publication of two of the most controversial pictures: Saigon Execution and Napalm Girl. Faas was the recipient of the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

Max Sick was a German gymnast and strongman. He is credited with co-developing the Maxalding system of bodybuilding along with Monte Saldo. Unusually weak during his childhood, Sick became determined to excel in bodybuilding and created his own regimen of exercise and made his own weights at the age of 10. He achieved his dream when he became a strongman. 

Corey La Barrie was an Australian-American social media star whose YouTube channel had gained prominence right before his untimely death at the age of 25. La Barrie died in a car crash while celebrating his birthday with celebrity tattoo artist Daniel Silva. While Silva escaped with injuries, Corey La Barrie succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital.

Theodore Parker was an American transcendentalist minister whose words and quotations would later help inspire popular speeches of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. A reformer and abolitionist, Parker played a key role in fighting against such laws as the Fugitive Slave Act.

Lillian Nordica was an American opera singer and one of the most prominent dramatic sopranos of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Lillian Nordica achieved immense popularity in Europe, performing a wide range of roles in the French, Italian, and German operatic repertoires.

A.M. Rosenthal was an American journalist best remembered for his association with The New York Times where he worked as the managing editor before serving as the executive editor from 1977 to 1988. In 1960, Rosenthal was honored with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He also received other prestigious awards, such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Formula One racer Lorenzo Bandini had started his career as an apprentice mechanic at 15, after his father’s death, and gradually began racing motorcycles and then moved on to cars. He sustained deadly injuries at a horrific car crash during the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix, and died three days later.

English navigator and Royal Navy officer George Vancouver was the first to explore the Pacific coast of North America. His explored territories included the Canada’s British Columbia, the US’s Alaska, and Australia’s southwest coast. His 3-volume treatise on his journeys, with a collection of maps, was published posthumously.

Stonewall Jackson was a commander of the Confederate States Army. He played a major role as a Confederate general in the American Civil War, winning several significant battles in the Eastern Theater of the war. Considered one of the most tactically sound commanders in the history of the US, Jackson was idolized by George Patton, Chesty Puller, and Alexander Vandegrift.