On This Day

Deaths in History on December 4

  • 749 Saint John of Damascus, Syrian monk, priest and theologian, dies
  • 765 Jafar al-Sadiq, Muslim scholar and scientist, dies at 63
  • 811 Charles The Younger, King the of Franks, son of the Emperor Charlemagne, dies at about 39
  • 1075 Archbishop Anno II of Cologne
  • 1131 Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician (cubic equations), astronomer (Jalali calendar, basis of the Persian calendar), poet (quatrains), and philosopher, dies at 83
  • 1182 Henry, earl of Gelre/Zutphen (1141/79-82), dies
  • 1214 William I "the Lion", King of Scotland (1165-1214)
  • 1270 Theobald V of Champagne, King of Navarre
  • 1334 Pope John XXII (1316-1334), dies at about 90
  • 1340 Henry Burghersh, English bishop and chancellor (b. 1292)
  • 1371 Reinald III, the Fat Duke, duke of Gelre (1343-61), dies at 38
  • 1371 Stefanus X Uros V, king of Serbia (1355-71), dies
  • 1459 Adolf VIII, Duke of Southern Jutland (b. 1401)
  • 1514 Richard Hunne, English "heretic", commits suicide(?)
  • 1576 Rheticus, mathematician, dies
  • 1585 John Willock, Scottish reformer
  • 1603 Maarten de Vos, Flemish painter, dies at about 71
  • 1642 Armand-Jean Duplessis Richelieu, bishop of Lucon, dies at about 57
  • 1649 Outgert Arisz Akersloot, Dutch silversmith, dies at about 73
  • 1649 William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet, dies at 63

Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

English philosopher (Leviathan), dies of a stroke at 91

Thomas Hobbes
  • 1680 Thomas Bartholin, Danish physician, mathematician, and theologian (b. 1616)
  • 1696 Empress Meishō, Japan (b. 1624)
  • 1798 Luigi Galvani, Italian anatomist and physicist ("animal electricity", gave the term "galvanize"), dies at 61
  • 1807 Prince Hall, activist/Masonic leader, dies in Boston

Robert JenkinsonRobert Jenkinson (1770-1828)

2nd Earl of Liverpool, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Tory: 1812-27), dies of a stroke at 58

Robert Jenkinson
  • 1893 Allan Wilson, British/Rhodesian Major, dies in battle against the Ndebeles during First Matabele War
  • 1893 Heinrich Göbel, German-born mechanic and inventor, dies at 75
  • 1893 John Tyndall, Irish physicist who demonstrated why the sky is blue and proved that the Earth's atmosphere has a greenhouse effect, dies at 73
  • 1902 Charles Dow, American journalist and economist (co-founded Dow Jones and 1st editor of Wall St Journal), dies at 51
  • 1909 Paul-Albert Besnard, French painter and graphic artist (Elle), dies at 60
  • 1926 Ivana Kobilca, Slovenian-born painter (b. 1861)
  • 1932 Gustav Meyrink, writer, dies at 64
  • 1933 Stefan George, German poet (Das neue Reich), dies at 65
  • 1935 Charles Richet, French physiologist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1913 for work on anaphylaxis), dies at 85
  • 1943 Carlo Mierendorff, German politician and anti-fascist, dies at 46
  • 1945 Thomas Hunt Morgan, American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist (Nobel Prize 1933), dies at 79
  • 1948 Karl Bonhoeffer, German psychiatrist/neurologist, dies
  • 1951 Pedro Salinas, Spanish writer (Generation of 1927), dies at 61
  • 1952 Karen Horney, German-American neo freudian psycho analyst, dies at 67
  • 1956 Alexander Rodchenko, Russian painter and photographer, dies at 64
  • 1969 Fred Hampton, American activist (Black Panther Party leader; Rainbow Coalition co-founder) shot and killed by the FBI and Chicago police at 21
  • 1971 Shunryu Suzuki, Zen teacher, founder of San Francisco Zen Center, dies

Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt (1906-1975)

German-American political theorist and historian (Origins of Totalitarianism), dies of a heart attack at 69

Hannah Arendt
  • 1976 W. F. McCoy, Northern Irish politician (b. 1886)
  • 1978 Samuel Abraham Goldsmith, Neth/US phycists, dies at 76
  • 1980 Francisco Sá Carneiro, 109th Prime Minister of Portugal, dies at 46
  • 1984 John Rock, American obstetrician and gynecologist who co-developed the 1st birth control pill, dies at 94
  • 1986 Reuben Nakian, US sculptor, dies at 89
  • 1988 Osman Achmatowicz, Polish chemist, dies at 89
  • 1993 Frank Sturgis, watergate burglar, dies at 68
  • 1993 Hetty de Boer-Jongkind, Dutch medical astrologist and founder (Vakvereniging Medical Astrology), dies at 42
  • 1993 Margaret Landon, American author (Anna & the King of Siam), dies at 90
  • 1994 Geoffery Rudolph Elton, historiographer, dies at 73
  • 1994 Jacob Kaplan, French Grand Rabbi (1955-81), dies at 99
  • 1994 Julio Ramon Ribeyro, Peruvian playwright, dies at 66
  • 1994 Robert Jesse Charleston, museum curator, dies at 78
  • 1994 Thomas Roy Garrett, museum curator, dies at 63
  • 1995 Adrianne Jones, killed by David Graham & Diane Zamora, at 16
  • 1996 Basil Nield, British judge and politician (Conservative Party), dies at 83
  • 1996 Muriel Monkhouse, Red Cross worker, dies at 86
  • 1997 Joseph Wolpe, South African psychotherapist, dies at 82
  • 1999 Rose Elizabeth Bird, California Supreme Court Justice (1977-87), dies at 63
  • 2000 H. C. Artmann, Austrian writer, dies at 79
  • 2005 Errol Brathwaite, New Zealand author (b. 1924)
  • 2007 Chip Reese, American poker player (3 x World Series of Poker bracelets), dies from pneumonia at 56
  • 2007 Norval Morrisseau, Canadian artist (b. 1932)
  • 2008 Forrest J. Ackerman, American literary agent and writer who invented the term "sci-fi (Famous Monsters of Filmland), dies at 92
  • 2012 Besse Cooper, American supercentenarian and world's oldest living person (June 21, 2011 - December 4, 2012)
  • 2012 Jack Brooks, American politician, dies at 89
  • 2012 Vasily Belov, Russian author, dies at 80
  • 2017 Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemeni politician and 1st President of Yemen (1990-2012), is killed during the Battle of Sana'a at 75
  • 2017 Mary Louise Hancock, American politician and activist, dies at 97


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