- 274 St Felix I, dies and ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1218 Richard de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford, English politician (b. 1162)
- 1460 Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, claimant to the English throne killed in Battle of Wakefield at 49 (b. 1411)
- 1525 Jacob Fugger, German banker/merchant, dies at 66
- 1572 Galeazzo Alessi, Italian architect (Palazza Marino, Milan), dies at 60
- 1573 Giovanni Battista Giraldi, Italian writer (b. 1504)
- 1591 Pope Innocent IX [Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti], 230th Catholic pope (1591), dies at 72
- 1621 Saint Job of Maniava, Ukrainian Orthodox Saint (b. 1550)
- 1644 Jan Baptist van Helmont, Flemish chemist (found boiling point temperature). dies at 65
- 1662 Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria and Regent of the Tyrol, dies at 34
- 1691 Robert Boyle, Irish scientist (b. 1627)
- 1769 Nicholas Taaffe, 6th Viscount Taaffe, Austrian soldier (b. 1685)
- 1777 Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bayern (1745-77), dies at 50
- 1788 Francesco Zuccarelli, Italian rococo painter and etcher, dies at 86
- 1832 Abijah Hammond, owned large portion of Greenwich Village, dies
- 1865 Henry Winter Davis, American politician and unionist, dies at 48
- 1870 Juan Prim, Spanish general and politician (Prime Minister, 1869-70), assassinated at 56
- 1886 William Wing "Old Blizzards" Loring, American Major General (Confederate Army), dies at 68
- 1893 Samuel White Baker, English explorer (Ceylon & Egypt), dies at 72
- 1894 Amelia Jenks Bloomer, American reformer who campaigned for temperance and women’s rights, dies at 76
- 1895 LP Hartley, British writer, dies
José Rizal (1861-1896)
Filipino nationalist and novelist ('Noli Me Tángere', 'El Filibusterismo'), executed by firing squad at 35
- 1899 James Paget, English surgeon (disease of Paget), dies at 85
- 1906 Angela Burdett-Coutts, English philanthropist extrordinaire and "the richest heiress in England", dies at 92
- 1906 Josephine Butler, English feminist and social reformer (campaigned against human trafficking), dies at 78
- 1908 Thomas-Alfred Bernier, Canadian lawyer, journalist and senator (b. 1844)
- 1912 Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter, German foreign minister, dies at 60
Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916)
Russian monk and confidant of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, assassinated by conservative Russian aristocrats at 47
- 1941 El Lissitzky, Russian artist and architect (b. 1890)
- 1942 Neville Henderson, British diplomat and Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Nazi Germany (1937-39), dies at 60
- 1944 Romain Roland, French writer/pacifist (Nobel 1915), dies at 78
- 1947 Alfred North Whitehead, British mathematician and philosopher (Adventures of Ideas), dies at 86
- 1947 Han [Henricus Antonius] van Meegeren, Dutch painter and art forger (Vermeer), dies at 58
- 1952 Ivan Olbracht, writer, dies
- 1955 Rex Ingamells, Australian poet (b. 1913)
- 1959 Maria Baers, Flemish social worker and founder of the Christian Workers' Women's Movement (KAV), dies at 76
- 1964 Andrés Soriano, Spanish Filipino industrialist (San Miguel Brewery, Philippine Airlines), dies of pancreatic cancer at 66
- 1966 Christian Herter, American Republican politician, 59th Governor of Massachusetts (1953-57) and US Secretary of State (1959-61), dies at 71
Vincent Massey (1887-1967)
Canadian diplomat and 1st Canadian-born Governor General of Canada (1952-59), dies at 80
Trygve Lie (1896-1968)
Norwegian politician and 1st Secretary-General of the United Nations (1946-52), dies at 72
- 1982 Alberto Vargas, Peruvian-American painter, primarily of "pin-up girls", dies at 86
- 1984 Massa, oldest gorilla on record (b. 1930)
- 1986 Era Bell Thompson, American journalist (b. 1905)
- 1988 Isamu Noguchi, Japanese-American sculptor (1963 Fine Arts Medal, Noguchi table), dies at 84
- 1988 Yuli Daniel, Russian writer (b. 1925)
- 1989 Etienne Leroux, Afrikaans author (Een vir Azazel), dies at 67
- 1989 Lenore Lemmon, girlfriend of "Superman" George Reeves (b. 1923)
- 1992 Caesar [Caesar] Domela, painter/son of Ferdinand D Nieuwenhuis, dies
- 1992 Ling-Ling, 1st panda China gave US, dies at 23
- 1993 Giuseppe Occhialini, Italian physicist (Contribution to the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay), dies at 86
- 1993 Irving Paul Lazar, American talent agent, dies of kidney failure at 86
- 1994 Lloyd James Austin, Australian linguist and literary scholar, dies at 79
- 1995 Heiner Müller, German dramatist (Ten Days That Shook The World; The Battle), and theater director, dies of throat cancer at 66
- 1995 Roger W Suddards, solicitor, dies at 65
- 1996 Robert Grant Ferris, British politician, dies at 89
- 1997 Shinichi Hoshi, Japanese novelist (b. 1926)
- 1999 Fritz Leonhardt, German structural engineer, dies at 90
- 1999 Sarah Knauss, American, once considered the world's oldest living person (b. 1880)
- 2002 Mary Wesley, English novelist (b. 1912)
- 2003 David Bale, South African-born activist (b. 1941)
- 2003 John Gregory Dunne, American writer, dies of a heart attack at 71
- 2005 Rona Jaffe, American novelist (Mazes & Monsters), dies at 74
Saddam Hussein (1937-2006)
President of Iraq (1979-2003), hanged in Baghdad at 69
- 2006 Terry Peck, Falkland Islander (b. 1938) who acted as a scout for 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment in the Falklands War
- 2009 Abdurrahman Wahid, 4th President of Indonesia, dies at 69
- 2010 Ellis Clarke, First President of Trinidad & Tobago (1976-87), dies at 93
- 2010 Roger Milliken, American millionaire (CEO of Milliken & Company), dies at 95
- 2011 Eva Zeisel, Hungarian-born ceramic designer, dies at 105
- 2011 Mirko Tremaglia, fiercely nationalist Italian politician, dies at 85
- 2011 Robert Horton, British businessman and CEO (BP), dies at 72
- 2012 Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italian neurologist (Nobel 1986), dies at 103
- 2014 Deborah Bone, English mental health nurse who was the inspiration for the song "Disco 2000" by Jarvis Cocker, dies of multiple myeloma cancer at 51
- 2015 Donald Barron, Scottish accountant and CEO (Midland Bank), dies at 94
- 2020 Samuel Little, American serial killer (who confessed to 93 murders), dies at 80 [1]
Barbara Walters (1929-2022)
American broadcast journalist and 1st female nightly network news anchor (Today; 20/20; ABC-TV; The View), dies at 93 [1]
- 2022 Don West, American professional wrestling announcer, dies of lymphoma at 59