Famous People Who Died Today

Rosa Parks, “the first lady of civil rights,” was a pioneer in the American revolution against color segregation and racism. Her refusal to leave her bus seat to a white passenger gave rise to the iconic Montgomery Bus Boycott, which also led her to work with Martin Luther King Jr.

Maureen O'Hara was an Irish singer and actress. Dubbed The Queen of Technicolor due to her long and successful career throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Maureen O'Hara was popular for playing passionate, but sensible characters. In 2014, she received an Honorary Academy Award. In 2020, she was ranked first on Ireland's greatest film actors list published by The Irish Times.

Starting his career as a journalist, László Bíró also tried his hand at Surrealist painting in his early days. Trying to come up with a writing device that would use a fast-drying ink type, he invented the ballpoint pen. Invited by the Argentine government, he set up his pen manufacturing company there.

Charles Marion Russell was an American artist best remembered for depicting the American Old West. Dubbed the cowboy artist, Russell produced over 2,000 paintings featuring Native Americans, landscapes of the western United States, and cowboys. In 1955, Charles Marion Russell was made a member of the Hall of Great Westerners.

Richard Hofstadter was an American intellectual and historian who served as a professor at Columbia University. Hofstadter mentored Eric Foner and Paula S. Fass, who became respected historians in their own right. In 1956, Hofstadter won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for his work The Age of Reform. In 1964, he received his second Pulitzer Prize for Anti-intellectualism in American Life.

Louis Renault was a French industrialist. A pioneer of the automobile industry, Renault is remembered for co-founding the popular automobile manufacturer, Renault Group. Renault is credited with building factories that contributed immensely to the war effort during the First World War; the Renault FT tank, the first tank of modern configuration, was created and manufactured by his company.

Australian special operations soldier Leonard Siffleet was an avid sports lover in his youth. Although rejected from the police force due to poor vision, he made it to the army. He went down in history for being brutally beheaded by the Japanese army, a photograph of which was later retrieved by American soldiers.

Two-time Grammy Award-winning Soviet violinist David Oistrakh had been trained in the instrument since age 5 and performed in his first concert at age 6. He later taught at the Moscow Conservatory and performed throughout the world, especially in Europe and the US. He also played for Soviet soldiers during World War II.

Born to Rick Hendrick, the founder of the NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports, Ricky Hendrick had begun racing at age 15. The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series winner died in a horrific plane crash that killed all 10 people aboard the plane at the tender age of 24.

Hungarian composer Franz Lehár is best remembered for his operettas and became a worldwide sensation with The Merry Widow, which was later filmed, too. His distinctive style of Viennese operetta consisted of satire and Parisian dances. Though he had a Jewish-turned-Catholic wife, Hitler loved his music.

French Catholic priest and astronomer Pierre Gassendi is remembered for his efforts to reconcile atomism with Christian ideals and for his anti-Aristotelianism. His studies included research on Epicurean philosophy. Apart from observing the transit of Mercury, he also studied the speed of sound and horizontal momentum.

Cardinal James Aloysius Hickey of the Roman Catholic Church had also been the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. The son of a dentist, he started off by providing pastoral services to migrant workers. He was vocal in his opposition of Ronald Reagan’s policies regarding El Salvador.

Once the archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen was also the first Irish cardinal. Although he played a major role in the national movement of 1850–1852, he clashed with extreme nationalists and thus quit his clergy to step into politics. He supported papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council.