Famous People Who Died Today

Angela Lansbury played a key role in shaping the Golden Age of Hollywood. Recognized as one of the few stars still alive from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, Angela Lansbury has received accolades, such as an Honorary Oscar. In 2014, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Best known for her dressing style and idiosyncratic personality, Diane Keaton is one of the earliest actresses to take precautionary action to avoid being typecast in the entertainment industry. Widely regarded as one of the greatest actresses of the 1970s, Diane is also one of the most respected and celebrated actresses of all time.

A prominent actor who was active in the entertainment industry for five decades, Robert Forster was known for his versatility. As a college student, he initially planned to study law but eventually changed his mind and ventured into acting. Dedicated to his profession with a passion, he continued working even after being diagnosed with cancer.

Best known for his exploration of the Pacific Northwest and Oregon, Meriwether Lewis led the legendary Lewis and Clark Expedition. He had also been the governor of Louisiana. His mysterious death at age 35, due to gunshot wounds, sparked a huge debate on whether it was a murder or a suicide.

English physicist, and mathematician, James Prescott Joule primarily worked on the nature of heat, in course of which he established that all forms of energy are fundamentally same and therefore inter-convertible. His findings resulted in the development of the first law of thermodynamics and negation of calorie theory. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named after him.

Huldrych Zwingli was a Swiss pastor who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland. Also a well-known scholar and humanist, Zwingli was popular with the masses. Although he is remembered as a stern reformer, he had a great sense of humor; he often used puns, satiric fables, and spoofing in his writings.

Austrian composer Anton Bruckner was born to a schoolmaster father who was also an organist. Bruckner learned to play the violin by 4. In spite of being a musical legend, he often criticized his own work and re-worked on his pieces, leading to many versions of the same piece.

Kazimierz Pułaski was a Polish nobleman, military commander, and soldier. Dubbed the father of the American cavalry, Pulaski is credited with creating the Pulaski Cavalry Legion and reorganizing the American cavalry. He played an important role in the American Revolutionary War and is remembered for fighting for the independence of Poland and the United States.

Jan Žižka was a Czech general and military leader. Today, he is regarded as a national hero in the Czech Republic for his role in the Battle of Grunwald and the Hussite Wars. Renowned for his innovative and unorthodox war tactics, Jan Žižka pioneered the usage of gunpowder.  He has been immortalized in video games, novels, and films.

Apart from being a lyric poet who is credited with having written the first English sonnets, Thomas Wyatt was also a seasoned politician and an ambassador who was patronized by Thomas Cromwell. He was also said to have had an affair with Anne Boleyn and was later arrested for it.

Canadian-American economist William Vickrey was declared the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on incentives under asymmetric information just 3 days before he died. A Columbia University alumnus and faculty member, he had economists such as David Colander as his doctoral students.

A Lebanese cultural icon, Wadih El Safi was 16 when he began his musical journey with a singing contest on Lebanese Radio. Over his 75-year career, he had sung more than 5,000 tracks, mostly of the Lebanese folk genre, and in multiple languages, including French and Portuguese.

Ottoman grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha led the Ottoman army to a loss in the Battle of Lepanto but eventually acquired Cyprus from the Venetian forces. A tough military leader, he held the post of governor-general. Following the death of sultan Selim II, he faced hostility and was eventually assassinated.

Jean-Henri Fabre was a French entomologist, naturalist, teacher, chemist, physicist, botanist, and author. He is best remembered for his study of insects; Fabre is widely regarded as the father of modern entomology. He is also remembered for his interesting literary work on the lives of insects. Jean-Henri Fabre's life and career inspired the 1951 biographical movie Monsieur Fabre.

Vito Volterra is remembered for his work on calculus and functional analysis. Born into a poor family in Ancona, he used his math skills to join the University of Pisa. He later taught as mechanics professor. He was also the first to suggest the use of helium in airships.

A 16th-century Italian Catholic bishop, Pope Boniface VIII initially held important positions in the papal government. He collated canon law in the Liber Sextus and also brought about peace between France and Aragon. Though he died of natural causes, an alternate theory states his enemies probably had a role in his death.

Lars Ahlfors was a Finnish mathematician best remembered for his text on complex analysis and his work concerning Riemann surfaces. He also made decisive contributions to value distribution theory, meromorphic curves, quasiconformal mappings, and conformal geometry among other areas. Lars Ahlfors was the recipient of the Fields Medal, Wolf Prize, Wihuri Prize, and Leroy P. Steele Prize. 

Ivan A. Getting was an American electrical engineer and physicist. He is credited with the development of GPS which is currently being used around the world. Getting, who played a significant role during the Second World War, received several prestigious awards during his illustrious career. In 2004, Ivan A. Getting was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 

US geophysicist and geologist M. King Hubbert is remembered for developing what is now known as the Hubbert peak theory. Associated with Houston’s Shell research lab, he mostly conducted studies on the migration of petroleum. He was also associated with the faculty of Stanford and Johns Hopkins.