Deaths
- 72 – Thomas the Apostle
- 882 – Hincmar, French bishop (b. 806)
- 1295 – Marguerite Berenger of Provence, wife of Louis IX of France (b. c.1221)
- 1308 – Henry I of Hesse (b. 1244)
- 1375 – Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian writer (b. 1313)
- 1504 – Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild, German archbishop and elector (b. 1442)
- 1549 – Marguerite of Navarre, wife of Henry II of Navarre (b. 1492)
- 1579 – Vicente Masip, Spanish painter
- 1597 – Petrus Canisius, Dutch Jesuit (b. 1521)
- 1799 – Philip Affleck, British Admiral and First Lord of the Admiralty (b. 1726)
- 1807 – John Newton, English cleric and hymnist (b. 1725)
- 1824 – James Parkinson, English physician and paleontologist (b. 1755)
- 1869 – Friedrich Ernst Scheller, German jurist and politician (b. 1791)
- 1873 – Francis Garnier, French explorer (b. 1839)
- 1889 – Friedrich August von Quenstedt, German geologist (b. 1809)
- 1900 – Roger Wolcott, American politician (b. 1847)
- 1920 – Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, Somalian nationalist leader (b. 1856)
- 1933 – Knud Rasmussen, Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist (b. 1879)
- 1935 – Kurt Tucholsky, German journalist and satirist (b. 1890)
- 1937 – Frank B. Kellogg, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1856)
- 1940 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (b. 1896)
- 1945 – George Smith Patton Jr., American military commander (b. 1885)
- 1952 – Kenneth Edwards, American golfer (b. 1886)
- 1957 – Eric Coates, English-born American composer (b. 1886)
- 1958 – Lion Feuchtwanger, German writer (b. 1884)
- 1959 – Rosanjin, Japanese calligrapher, restaurateur and ceramicist (b. 1883)
- 1964 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer and photographer (b. 1880)
- 1963 – Jack Hobbs, English cricketer (b. 1882)
- 1965 – Claude Champagne, Canadian composer (b. 1891)
- 1967 – Stuart Erwin, American actor (b. 1903)
- 1968 – Vittorio Pozzo, Italian football coach (b. 1886)
- 1974 – James Henry Govier, British artist (b. 1910)
- 1974 – Richard Long, American actor (b. 1927)
- 1982 – Hafeez Jullundhri, Pakistani writer, poet composer of the National Anthem of Pakistan (b. 1900)
- 1983 – Paul de Man, Belgian-born literary critic (b. 1919)
- 1986 – Bill Simpson, Scottish actor (b. 1931)
- 1987 – John Spence, American musician (No Doubt) (b. 1969)
- 1988 – Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch ornithologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1907)
- 1989 – Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Nigerian-born British photographer (b.1955)
- 1990 – Clarence Johnson, American aeronautical engineer (b. 1910)
- 1992 – Albert King, American blues musician (b. 1924)
- 1992 – Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian violinist (b. 1903)
- 1997 – Amie Comeaux, American country music singer (b. 1976)
- 1998 – Roger Avon, Durham actor (b. 1914)
- 1998 – Karl Denver, Scottish singer (b. 1931)
- 1998 – Ernst-Günther Schenck, German physician (b. 1904)
- 2001 – Dick Schaap, American sports journalist (b. 1934)
- 2003 – Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Spanish businessman (b. 1924)
- 2004 – Autar Singh Paintal, Indian medical scientist (b. 1925)
- 2005 – Elrod Hendricks, American baseball player and coach (b. 1940)
- 2006 – Scobie Breasley, Australian jockey (b. 1914)
- 2006 – Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan (b. 1940)
- 2007 – Ken Hendricks, American businessman (b. 1941)
- 2009 – Edwin G. Krebs, American biochemist (b. 1918)
- 2010 – Enzo Bearzot, Italian football player and manager (b. 1927)
Read more about this topic: December 21
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (19141953)
“This is the 184th Demonstration.
...
What we do is not beautiful
hurts no one makes no one desperate
we do not break the panes of safety glass
stretching between people on the street
and the deaths they hire.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)