Famous People Who Died Today

Ray Charles went on to become a great singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist, despite suffering blindness due to glaucoma early in his life. One of the most respected and decorated musicians of all time, Ray Charles has been named in lists, such as 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. He pioneered the soul music genre, which remains his greatest contribution.

Christina Grimmie was an American singer-songwriter, actress, and YouTuber. She was fatally shot in 2016 when she was signing autographs after performing at The Plaza Live in Florida. Following her murder, celebrities demanded better security measures at concert venues and Billboard published an open letter demanding background checks for gun purchases. Several venues observed safety precautions like adding metal detectors.  

One of the most popular actors of classical Hollywood cinema, Spencer Tracy was known for his versatility, which helped him win two successive Oscars for Best Actor. In 1999, he was ranked the ninth greatest male star of Hollywood's Golden Age by the American Film Institute. Tracy is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of the 20th century.

Jack Johnson was an American boxer and one of the most dominant champions of his generation. Considered one of the most influential boxers ever, Jack Johnson became the first African American to win the world heavyweight championship at the peak of the Jim Crow era. He is often credited with influencing popular boxers like Muhammad Ali.

Andre Marie Ampere was a French physicist and mathematician. He is best known for being one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism. He was a professor at the École Polytechnique and the Collège de France and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. The base SI unit of electric current, the ampere, is named after him. 

Copley Medal-winning Scottish botanist Robert Brown is remembered for his detailed descriptions on topics such as the cell nuclei and what later came to be known as the Brownian motion. After studying medicine, he had also served the British Army as a surgeon and also toured the Australian shores aboard The Investigator.

Luís de Camões was a Portuguese poet whose mastery of verse often draws comparison to that of Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante. He is best remembered for his 1572 epic poem Os Lusíadas. Camões had such a great impact that Portuguese is sometimes referred to as the language of Camões. He is considered the Portuguese language's and Portugal's greatest poet.

Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist best remembered for her trilogy of historical novels, Kristin Lavransdatter. In 1928, she was honored with the prestigious Nobel Prize for literature, which she donated on 25 January 1940 in order to support the Finnish war effort during the Second World War. A crater on Venus is named in her honor.

Robert Borden was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the eighth prime minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920. World War I started during his tenure, and he received much admiration for his leadership throughout the war. As the prime minister, he introduced women's suffrage for federal elections. 

Chinghiz Aitmatov, recipient of Lenin Prize, was an eminent figure in Kyrgyz and Russian literature. He worked for Pravda for eight-years. Notable works of Aitmatov includes the novels Jamila, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, and The White Ship. Aitmatov served as ambassador for the Soviet Union and thereafter for Kyrgyzstan, to the NATO, European Union and UNESCO.

Son of King George V and Queen Mary, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was educated at Eton, becoming the first son of a monarch in Britain to attend school. He made headlines with his affair with Beryl Markham. Owing to his multiple strokes, he was wheelchair-bound in his final years.

Gala Dali was the muse and wife of the Spanish surrealist artist, Salvador Dali. Even though she was not a poet or artist herself, she played a major role in influencing many artists and writers. She was a frequent model in Dalí's work. Before marrying Dali, she was married to French poet Paul Éluard, a prominent figure in surrealism.  

Vasily Perov was a Russian painter who played an important role in the Realist movement in Russia. He is credited with co-founding one of the most popular groups of Russian realist artists called Peredvizhniki. Over the course of his career, Vasily Perov received several prestigious awards and honors like the grand gold medal from the Russian Academy of Arts.

John A. Eddy, also known as Jack Eddy, is best remembered for his extensive research on the Sun and was the first to prove that the Sun is a variable star and not a constant star. He also discovered an amateur astronomical observatory of the Native Americans in Wyoming.

American astronomer Jerry Nelson is best known for designing segmented mirror telescopes. He was working in the Physics Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory when he designed the segmented mirror telescopes. He was also the chief designer and project scientist of the Keck telescopes. His work on segmented mirrors led him to share the 2010 Kavli Prize for Astrophysics.  

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a German actor, filmmaker, and playwright. He grew up in the aftermath of World War II and had a tough childhood. He sought solace by watching films and took acting lessons. He began his career in theater and eventually entered films as well. He is considered a prominent figure of the New German Cinema movement. 

Padma Shri- and Arjuna Award-winning legendary Indian boxer Dingko Singh was born into a poor family in a Manipur village and was raised in an orphanage. He is best remembered for his Asian Games gold win in 1998. He died after a long struggle with liver cancer at age 42.