On This Day

Famous People Who Died in August 1940

  • Aug 3 Willard Hershberger, American baseball catcher (Cincinnati Reds), commits suicide at 30
  • Aug 4 Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, dies
  • Aug 5 Frederick Cook, American explorer, claimed to have 1st discovered North Pole, dies at 75
  • Aug 8 Johnny Dodds, American early jazz clarinetist, dies at 48
  • Aug 13 George C. Pearce, American actor (The Shadow Sinister, British Agent, Valiant), dies at 75

Person of interestHenri Desgrange

Aug 16 Henri Desgrange, French cyclist, journalist and founder of the Tour de France, dies at 75

Cyclist and Founder of the Tour-de-France Henri Desgrange
Cyclist and Founder of the Tour-de-France
Henri Desgrange
  • Aug 17 Billy Fiske, US RAF-pilot/2nd lieutenant and 1st American serviceman killed in action in World War II, dies at 29

Person of interestWalter Chrysler

Aug 18 Walter Chrysler, American automotive pioneer (Chrysler Corporation) and thoroughbred breeder, dies at 65

Founder of Chrysler Walter Chrysler
Founder of Chrysler
Walter Chrysler

MurderLeon Trotsky

Aug 21 Leon Trotsky, Russian Marxist revolutionary, political theorist and founder of the Red Army, assassinated at 62 by an ice-pick wielding Ramón Mercader

Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky
Russian Revolutionary
Leon Trotsky
  • Aug 21 Paul Juon, Russian-Swiss violinist and composer, dies at 68
  • Aug 21 Ernest Thayer, American poet who wrote the famous baseball poem "Casey", dies at 77
  • Aug 21 Hermann Obrecht, Swiss jurist, member of the Swiss Federal Council, dies at 58
  • Aug 22 Oliver Joseph Lodge, English physicist, early radio pioneer, dies at 89
  • Aug 24 Paul G. Nipkow, German TV pioneer (Nipkow disk), dies at 80
  • Aug 29 Arthur De Greef, Belgian composer, dies at 77

Person of interestJ. J. Thomson

Aug 30 J. J. Thomson, English physicist who discovered the electron (Nobel 1906), dies at 83

Physicist J. J. Thomson
Physicist
J. J. Thomson
  • Aug 31 Johanna "Annie" Bakker, revue-artists/singer/actress, dies at 58
  • Aug 31 George Gauthier, French-Canadian Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal and rector of the Université de Montréal, dies at 68

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