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- JANUARY
-
- January 1
- Heinrich Hertz, German physicist and pioneer of radio communication (1894).
- L Ron Hubbard, American sci-fi writer and founder of Scientology (1986).
-
- January 2
- Ovid, full name Puplius Ovidius Naso, Roman Poet (AD17).
- Dick Emery, British comedian (1983).
-
- January 3
- Josiah Wedgwood, celebrated English manufacturer of earthenware (1795).
-
- January 4
- Donald Campbell, trying to achieve a speed of 300mph at Coniston Water, England (1967).
- T S Eliot, American-born British poet (1965).
-
- January 5
- Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, English Antarctic explorer (1922).
-
- January 7
- Trevor Howard, English actor (1988).
-
- January 8
- St Gudula, the patroness-saint of Brussels (712).
- Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist, one of the founders of modern science (1642).
-
- January 9
- Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor, (1873).
-
- January 10
- Gabrielle Coco Chanel, French fashion designer (1971).
-
- January 11
- Sir Hans Sloane, English physician and naturalist (1753).
-
- January 16
- Edward Gibbon, English historian and author (1794).
-
- January 21
- Louis XVI, King of France, guillotined with his wife during the French Revolution (1793).
- Cecil B. De Mille, US film producer and director known for his lavish biblical epics (1959).
-
- January 24
- Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (1965).
-
- January 28
- Charlemagne, King of the Franks and creator of the Holy Roman Empire (814).
- Sir Francis Drake, English sailor and explorer (1596).
-
- January 30
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 'Mahatma', Indian leader, assassinated (1948).
- Orville Wright, US aviation (1948).
-
-
- January 31
- Winter, Rockwood, Keys and Guy Fawkes, executed for being the Gunpowder Conspirators
- (1606).
-
- FEBRUARY
-
- February 1
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer and author of Frankenstein (1851).
-
- February 7
- Anne Radcliffe, influential English novelist (1823).
-
- February 11
- René Descartes, French mathematician and father of modern philosophy (1650).
-
- February 12
- Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (1804).
-
- February 13
- Jean Renoir, French film director and son of the famous painter (1979).
-
- February 14
- St Valentine, priest and martyr (270).
- Captain James Cook, English naval explorer, killed by natives at Hawaii (1779).
-
- February 15
- John Hadley, English inventor of the sextant (1744).
-
- February 17
- Michaelangelo Buonarotti, Italian painter, sculptor, and poet (1563).
-
- February 18
- Martin Luther, German Protestant theologian (1546).
-
- February 21
- Malcolm X, American political activist and leader of the Black Muslims (1965).
-
- February 24
- John Keats, English poet (1821).
-
- February 25
- Sir Christopher Wren, English architect of over 40 London buildings (1723).
-
- February 28
- Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, assassinated while walking home, Stockholm (1986).
-
- MARCH
-
- March 1
- St David, Welsh monk, patron saint of Wales (544).
- William Caxton, English printer and the first to print books in England (1468).
-
- March 2
- John Wesley, English preacher and co-founder of Methodism (1791).
-
- March 3
- Lou Costello, US actor and comedian (1959).
-
- March 5
- Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (1953).
-
- March 6
- Sir John Hawkwood, the first English general (1393).
- David Crockett, US frontiersman and politician, killed at the siege of the Alamo (1836).
-
- March 8
- Sir Thomas Beecham Bt., conductor (1961).
-
- March 10
- Muzio Clementi, pianist and composer (1832).
-
- March 11
- Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish bacteriologist (1955).
-
- March 12
- Anne Frank, Dutch Jewish diarist, in a Nazi concentration camp (1945).
-
- March 15
- Julius Caesar, dictator of the Roman Empire (44BC).
- H P Lovecraft, US author of the macabre (1937).
-
- March 17
- St Patrick (464 or 493), Apostle and patron saint of Ireland.
-
- March 18
- Ivan IV ('The Terrible'), Tsar of Russia (1584).
- Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, statesman (1745).
-
- March 19
- Mary Anning, English palaeontologist who discovered the first ichthyosaur (1847).
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, US novelist and creator of Tarzan (1950).
-
- March 20
- Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist (1727).
-
- March 21
- St Benedict, Italian hermit (550).
-
- *Good Friday
- Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure in Christian religion, crucified in Palestine
- (32AD).
-
- March 24
- Jules Verne, French novelist (1905)./
-
- March 25
- Claude Debussy, French composer (1918).
-
- March 26
- Ludwig van Beethoven, prolific German music composer (1827).
- Charlotte Bronté (Mrs Nicol), English novelist (1855).
-
- March 28
- Viriginia Woolf, author and critic (1941).
-
- March 31
- Charlotte Brontë, novelist (1855).
-
- APRIL
-
- April 1
- Max Ernst, German surrealist painter (1976).
-
- April 3
- John Napier, Scottish mathematician and inventor of logarithms (1617).
- Jesse James, notorious US outlaw of the wild west, shot in the back (1882).
-
- April 4
- Martin Luther King, US civil-rights leader, assassinated by James Earl Ray (1968).
-
- April 5
- Georges Danton, French revolutionary leader, executed by guillotine (1794).
-
- April 6
- Richard I 'Richard The Lionheart', King of England (1199).
- Sanzio Raffaelle, Italian painter (1520).
-
- April 7
- Henry Ford, US Motor Car Manufacturer (1947).
-
- April 8
- Elisha Graves Otis, US inventor of the safety lift (1861).
- Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor, and graphic artist (1973).
-
- April 9
- Lord Lovat, a Scottish Jacobite, last person in Britain to be executed by being beheaded (1747).
-
- April 12
- Charles-Joseph Messsier, French astronomer (1817).
-
- April 13
- George Frederick Handel, German-born, England-resident baroque composer (1759).
-
- April 14
- Frederic March, US Oscar-winning actor (1975).
-
- April 15
- Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the (1865).
-
- April 16
- Madame Tussaud, French founder of London's Madame Tussaud Wax Museum (1850).
-
- April 17
- Benjamin Franklin, US statesman, inventor and scientist (1790).
-
- April 19
- Lord George Gordon Byron, English poet (1824).
-
- April 21
- Mark Twain, US novelist (1910).
-
- April 22
- Richard Trevithick, steam engineer (1833).
-
- April 23
- William Shakespeare, English writer (1616).
- William Wordsworth, English playwright and poet (1850).
-
- April 24
- Daniel Defoe, novelist, journalist and author of the first English novel (1731).
-
- April 26
- Count (William) Basie, US jazz pianist and bandleader (1984).
-
- April 28
- Died, a goat that had twice circumnavigated the globe (1772).
-
- April 29
- Alfred Hitchcock, English-born film director (1980).
-
- MAY
-
- May 1
- John Dryden, first official Poet Laureate (1700).
- Ayrton Senna, Brazilian motor-racing driver, sustained fatal injuries after (1994).
-
- May 2
- Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, scientist, inventor and designer (1519).
-
- May 5
- (of cancer) Napoleon Bonaparte, French general (1821).
-
- May 6
- Frank Baum, American children's story writer (1919).
-
- May 8
- Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, considered the father of modern chemistry (1794).
- Paul Gauguin, French painter (1903).
-
- May 11
- Spencer Perceval, British Prime Minister, assassinated in the House of Commons (1812).
-
- May 12
- (of syphilis) Bedrich Smetana, composer and founder of Czech music (1884).
-
- May 13
- John Nash, English architect (1835).
-
- May 14
- Henry Heinz, American food manufacturer (1919).
- Henry Rider Haggard, English novelist (1925).
-
- May 16
- Charles Perrault, French fairytale writer and collector (1703).
- Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, of pneumonia in New York (1990).
-
- May 17
- Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter famous for his mythological paintings (1510).
-
- May 19
- Pierre Beaumarchais, French comic dramatist (1799).
- T E Lawrence, 'Lawrence of Arabia', British soldier and writer (1935).
-
- May 20
- (in poverty) Christopher Columbus, Italian-born Spanish explorer (1506).
- Jacqueline Onassis, wife of Aristotle, widow of President Kennedy (1994).
-
- May 22
- Victor Hugo, French poet, novelist, dramatist and author of Les Misérables (1885).
-
- May 23
- outlaws Bonnie and Clyde killed in an ambush, Louisiana, USA (1934).
- Judge Giovanni Falcone, famous anti-Mafia investigator, killed by a car bomb (1992).
-
- May 24
- Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer (1543).
-
- May 25
- Samuel Pepys, Englishman made famous by his personal Diary (1703).
-
- May 26
- Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian musical composer and teacher of Mozart and Beethoven (1809).
-
- May 28
- Noah Webster, American lexicographer (1843).
- (tuberculosis) Anne Bronte, English novelist, sister of Charlotte and Emily (1849).
-
- May 30
- Joan d'Arc, Saint (known as the 'Maid of Orleans'), French national heroine (1431).
-
- May 31
- during childbirth Charlotte Brontë, English novelist (1855).
-
- JUNE
-
- June 2
- Giuseppe Garibalddi, Italian patriot and military leader (1882).
-
- June 3
- William Harvey, English physician and discover of the circulation of blood (1657).
- Jethro Tull, English agriculturist who invented drill-sowing (1740).
-
- June 6
- Robert Kennedy, American Attorney-General (1968).
-
- June 7
- Dorothy Parker, US author and journalist (1967).
-
- June 8
- Muhammad, Arab prophet and founder of Islam, buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia (632).
- Russell Harty, English broadcaster (1988).
-
- June 9
- Nero, Roman Emperor, adopted son and successor of Claudius (AD68).
- Charles Dickens, English novelist (1870).
-
- June 10
- 14 women and 5 men, hanged at the end of witch hunt trials, Salem, America (1692),
-
- June 11
- Roger Bacon, English philosopher, scientist, Franciscan monk and education reformer (1294).
-
- June 12
- Dame Marie Rambert, founder of the Rambert dance company (1982).
-
- June 13
- Alexander The Great, of fever at Babylon (in Iraq), Greek commander (BC 323).
-
- June 14
- Jerome K Jerome, English author of 'Three Men in a Boat' (1927).
- G K Chesterton, English author of the Father Brown detective series (1936).
-
- June 15
- Wat Tyler, leader of the English Peasants' Revolt (1381).
-
- June 16
- François Pilâtre de Rozier, killed whilst trying to balloon across the English Channel (1785).
- Wernher von Braun, German rocket engineer and developer of V2 rockets (1977).
-
- June 19
- Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole (1928).
- James Matthew Barrie, Scottish writer whose work included 'Peter Pan' (1937).
-
- June 20
- Richard Brandon, official executioner of London, who executed King Charles I (1649).
- King William IV (1837).
-
- June 22
- Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian statesman and political philosopher (1527).
- Judy Garland, American film actress and singer, from an overdose (1969).
-
- June 24
- Tony Hancock, English comedy actor, committed suicide in a hotel room in Sydney (1968).
-
- June 25
- George Custer, American cavalry general, killed by Sioux Indians (1876).
-
- June 26
- King George IV (1830).
- Carl Foreman, film producer and writer (1984).
-
- June 27
- Giorgio Vasari, Italian painter, architect and biographer (1574).
- aged 4 years, Christian Heinechen, Danish prodigy who spoke fluent Latin and French (1721).
-
- June 28
- Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by a 19 years old student (1914).
-
- June 29
- PC William Grantham, first poilceman to die on duty while attempting to stop a brawl (1829).
- David Niven, English film actor (1983).
-
- JULY
-
- July 1
- Michael Landon, American TV actor (1991).
-
- July 2
- Michel Nostradamus, French physician and astrologer (1566).
- Ernest Hemingway, American novelist, committed suicide fearing ill health(1961).
-
- July 4
- Thomas Jefferson, third American president (1826).
- Marie Curie, Polish-born French physicist who pioneered radioactivity (1934).
-
- July 6
- Guy De Maupassant, French novelist and short-story writer (1893).
- Louis Armstrong, American jazz trumpet player and singer (1971).
-
- July 7
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish novelist (1930).
-
- July 8
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1822).
- Vivien Leigh, British actress and double Academy Award winner (1967).
-
- July 9
- King Camp Gillette, American inventor of the safety razor blade (1932).
-
- July 10
- Roman Emperor Hadrian, creator of 'Hadrian's Wall' (AD138).
- Mel Blanc, American actor responsible for various cartoon voices (1989).
-
- July 11
- Nero, Roman emperor, committed suicide (66BC).
- Lord Laurence Olivier, English actor (1989).
-
- July 12
- Titus Oates, English clergyman and conspirator (1705).
- Hitoshi Igarashi, Japanese translator of 'Satanic Verses', stabbed to death, Tokyo (1991).
-
- July 13
- Jean Paul Marat, French revolutionary leader, stabbed to death in his bath (1793).
-
- July 14
- Grock, famous Swiss clown (1959).
-
- July 15
- outlaw William H Bonney, ('Billy The Kid'), shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett, New Mexico (1881).
- Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist and short story writer (1904).
-
- July 16
- Tsar of Russia, Nichollas II, and his family, murdered by the Bolsheviks, Russia (1918).
-
- July 17
- Thomas Cook, founder of the famous travel agency (1892).
-
- July 18
- Jane Austen, English novelist, works include 'Pride and Prejudice' (1817).
-
- July 20
- Ignaz Semmelweiss, Austrian doctor (1865).
- Guglielmo Marconi, Italian electrical engineer (1937).
-
- July 21
- Robert Burns, national poet of Scotland (1796).
- James Fixx, founder of the 'jogging' craze, suffered a heart attack while jogging (1884).
-
- July 24
- Matthew Webb, first man to swim the English channel (1883).
- Peter Sellers, English comic actor (1980).
-
- July 25
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet (1834).
-
- July 27
- James Mason, English actor (1984).
-
- July 28
- Anotonio Vivaldi, Italian composer and violinist noted for his Four Seasons (1741).
- Johann Sebastian Bach, prolific German music composer and father of 20 children (1750).
-
- July 29
- Robert Schumann, German composer, in an asylum near Bonn (1856).
- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter, having shot himself in the chest two days earlier (1890).
-
- July 30
- Thomas Gray, English poet (1771).
-
- July 31
- Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer (1886).
- Jim Reeves, killed in an air crash (1964).
-
- August 1
- Queen Anne, with George I succeeding her to the throne (1714).
-
- August 2
- King William II, accidentally killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest (1100).
- Thomas Gainsborough, English landscape painter (1788).
-
- August 3
- Peter Collins, British racing driver, killed in an accident at the German Grand Prix (1958).
- Lenny Bruce, US comedian from a drugs overdose (1966).
-
- August 4
- Hans Christian Anderson, Danish fairy-tale writer, in Copenhagen (1875).
- Eddie Condon, US jazz guitarist (1973).
-
- August 5
- Marilyn Monroe American film actress, apparently from an overdose of sleeping pills (1962).
- Richard Burton, Welsh actor, in a Geneva hospital from a cerebral haemorrhage (1984).
-
- August 6
- Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare (1623).
- Pope Paul VI of a heart attack (1978).
-
- August 7
- Bix Beiderbecke, legendary US jazz musician and composer (1931).
- Oliver Hardy, US comedian and half of the Laurel and Hardy duo (1957).
-
- August 9
- Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer (1975).
-
- August 11
- Jackson Pollock, US painter, killed when his car hit a tree (1956).
-
- August 12
- George Stephenson, English engineer, designer of the first steam engine (1848).
- Ian Fleming, English author and creator of James Bond (1964).
-
- August 13
- Florence Nightingale (1910).
- H G Wells, English writer whose works include 'The War of the Worlds' (1946).
-
- August 14
- Rin Tin Tin, Hollywood star dog (1932).
- J B Priestley, English novelist (1984).
-
- August 15
- Died, Macbeth, King of Scotland, on whose life Shakespeare probably based his play (1057).
-
- August 16
- Elvis Presley, American pop singer and dominant personality in early rock and roll (1977).
-
- August 17
- Harry Corbett, inventor of Sooty (1989).
-
- August 18
- Genghis Khan, Mongol conqueror and controller of the largest empire in history (1227).
-
- August 19
- Blaise Pascal, French philosopher and mathematician (1662).
- Groucho Marx, US comedian (1977).
-
- August 20
- William Booth, English social reformer and founder of the Salvation Army (1912).
-
- August 23
- Rudolph Valentino, Italian-born actor, following an appendix operation (1926).
-
- August 24
- The Duke of Kent when his flying boat crashed on its way to Iceland (1942).
-
- August 25
- James Watt, Scottish engineer (1819).
- Michael Faraday, English physicist (1867).
-
- August 26
- Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer (1958).
- Sir Francis Chichester, English solo round-the-world yachtsman (1972).
-
- August 29
- Born Ingrid Bergman, Oscar-winning Swedish actress (1982).
-
- August 30
- Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, reputed to have committed suicide (30BC).
-
- August 31
- Henry V, King of England (1422).
- Sir Henry Moore, English sculptor (1986).
-
- SEPTEMBER
-
- September 2
- Thomas Telford, civil engineer (1834).
-
- Septermber 3
- e e cummings, US poet (1962).
-
- September 5
- John Home, clergyman and playwright (1808).
-
- September 8
- Died, Patrick Cotter O'Brian, Irish giant measuring 8'3 (1783).
-
- September 10
- (during child birth) Mrs Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, feminist and (1797).
-
- September 11
- Died, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian defector fatally stabbed by a poisoned umbrella point (1978).
-
- September 14
- Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, British military commander and Prime Minister (1852).
-
- September 15
- William Huskisson MP, first person to be killed by a train, England (1830).
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel, English engineer (1859).
-
- September 16
- Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, German physicist and inventor of the thermometer scale (1736).
-
- September 17
- Lt Selfridge, first passenger to die in an air crash (1908).
-
- September 20
- Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer (1957).
-
- September 21
- Sir Walter Scott, Scottish historical novelist (1832).
-
- September 22
- Virgil, epic Roman poet whose work includes 'Eclogues' and 'Aeneid' (19BC).
-
- September 23
- Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychoanalyst (1939).
-
- September 26
- Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer (1945).
-
- September 28
- Herman Melville, American novelist and short-story writer (1891).
- Pope John Paul I, found dead after being pope for just 33 days (1978).
-
- September 30
- James Dean, US film actor (1955).
-
- OCTOBER
-
- October 2
- Aristotle, Greek philosopher and scientist (322BC).
-
- October 3
- Woody Guthrie, US singer and composer (1967).
-
- October 4
- Max Planck, German physicist (1947).
-
- October 6
- Lord Alfred Tennyson, English poet laureate (1892).
-
- October 7
- Edgar Allan Poe, American poet and critic (1849).
-
- October 9
- Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Argentinean guerrilla leader and revolutionary (1967).
-
- October 11
- Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer (1896).
-
- October 13
- Claudius, Roman emperor, poisoned by his wife Agrippina (AD54).
-
- October 15
- Mata Hari, Dutch dancer and secret agent in Paris, executed for espionage (1917).
-
- October 16
- Marie Antoinette, Queen of Louis XVI and France (1793).
-
- October 17
- Frédéric Chopin, Polish-born French musical composer (1849).
-
- October 20
- Herbert Hoover, 31st American President (1964).
- Sir Anthony Quayle, English actor who specialised in Shakespearian roles (1989).
-
- October 21
- Horatio Lord Nelson, British admiral (1805).
-
- October 25
- Geoffrey Chaucer, first great English poet, most famous work, the 'Canterbury Tales' (1400).
-
- October 27
- Died, Marcus Junius Brutus, assassin of Julius Caesar, committed suicide (42BC).
-
- October 29
- Sir Walter Raleigh, English navigator and adventurer, beheaded for treason(1618).
-
- October 30
- Edmund Cartwright, English engineer and inventor of the power-loom (1823).
-
- October 31
- Max Reinhardt, leading Austrian director (1943).
-
- NOVEMBER
-
- November 2
- George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1950).
-
- November 3
- Henri Matisse, French painter (1954).
-
- November 5
- Robert Maxwell, Czech-born British publisher (1991).
-
- November 8
- John Milton, English poet (1674).
-
- November 9
- Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet, alcohol poisoning (1953).
-
- November 12
- Percival Lowell, US astronomer (1916).
-
- November 13
- Camille Pissarro, French painter (1903).
-
- November 15
- Johannes Kepler, German astronomer, discover of laws governing planetary motion (1630).
-
- November 16
- William Clark Gable, US film actor (1960).
-
- November 19
- Count Anthony Matthioli, imprisoned by King Louis XIV of France for betrayal (1703).
-
- November 21
- Henry Purcell, English musician and composer of the first English opera (1695).
-
- November 22
- Mae West, American actress (1980).
- John F Kennedy, American US president assassinated in Dallas, USA (1963).
-
- November 24
- Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy, shot while in police custody
- (1963).
- Freddy Mercury, flamboyant lead singer with Queen (1991).
-
- November 26
- John Loudoun MacAdam, British surveyor (1836).
-
- November 27
- Ross McWhirter, British editor with his brother of 'The Guinness Book of Records' (1975).
-
- November 30
- Euripides, last of the trio of Greek tragic dramatists after Aeschylus and Sophocles (406BC).
-
- DECEMBER
-
- December 2
- Philip Larkin, English poet (1985).
-
- December 3
- Frank Zappa, American rock singer, songwriter and guitarist (1993).
-
- December 5
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (1791).
-
- December 7
- William Bligh, English captain of the Bounty (1817).
-
- December 8
- Scaramouche, celebrated Italian clown (1694).
- John Lennon, English rock singer and songwriter, assassinated in New York (1980).
-
- December 9
- Dame Edith Sitwell, English poet (1964).
-
- December 12
- Sir Mark Isambard Brunel, French-born English engineer (1849).
-
- December 13
- Dr Samuel Johnson, English lexicographer, writer and critic (1784).
-
- December 14
- George Washington, American soldier and statesman, first American President (1799).
-
- December 19
- Joseph Mallord William Turner, English painter of seascapes (1851).
- Emily Bronte, English author of 'Wuthering Heights' (1848).
-
- December 22
- Beatrix Potter, English writer for children (1943).
-
- December 29
- Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered by 4 Knights (1170).
-
- December 31
- John Flamsteed, first Astronomer Royal (1719).
-