- 312 Lucian of Antioch, theologist and martyr, dies of torture and starvation
- 1130 Baldri de Bourgueil, French abbot, poet and historian, dies at about 83
- 1285 Charles I of Anjou, King of Naples, brother of King Louis IX, dies at 58
- 1325 Denis of Portugal, King of Portugal (1279-1325), dies at 63
- 1355 Inês de Castro, Galician noblewoman, lover and posthumously-recognized wife of King Peter I of Portugal, is murdered on the orders of King Afonso IV at 29 or 30
- 1400 Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey, English politician (b. 1374)
- 1451 Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoye and last antipope (Felix V, 1439-48), dies at 67
- 1529 Peter Vischer, the Old, German count of Sebaldus, dies
Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536)
1st wife of England's King Henry VIII (mother of Mary I), dies at 50
- 1537 Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, Italian ruler of Florence (1532-37), assassinated by his friend and cousin at 26
- 1566 Louis de Blois "Dacrianus", French Benedictine writer and poet, dies at about 60
- 1590 Jacob Andreae, German theologist (Formulae Concordiae), dies at 61
- 1598 Feodor I (Fyodor/Theodore Ivanovich), Tsar of Russia (1584-98), dies at 40
- 1619 Nicholas Hilliard, English painter of miniature portraits, dies at about 71
Innocent X (1574-1655)
236th Pope (1644-55), dies at 80
- 1658 Theophilus Eaton, American colonist and Puritan (co-founder of New Haven and Massachusetts Bay colonies) (b. 1590)
- 1694 Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, English general (bc. 1618)
- 1695 Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, wife of William III, dies of smallpox at 32 [OS=Dec 28 1694]
- 1700 Raffaello Fabretti, Italian antiquarian (b. 1618)
- 1715 François Fénelon, French Roman Catholic theologian and writer (Playing for Time), dies at 63
- 1721 Rochus Aerts, Flemish sculptor, dies [or 1739]
- 1722 Antoine Coypel, French painter and poet, dies at 60
- 1730 Árni Magnússon, Icelandic scholar and collector of manuscripts (Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection), dies at 66
- 1743 Anne Sophie Reventlow, Queen of Denmark and Norway (1721-30), dies at 49
- 1758 Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet (Gentle Shepherd), dies at 71
- 1767 Thomas Clap, American academic, 1st president of Yale University, dies at 63
- 1770 Carl Gustaf Tessin, Swedish politician, dies at 74
- 1786 Jean-Étienne Guettard, French physician and scientist (b. 1715)
- 1830 Infanta Carlota Joaquina, daughter of Charles IV of Spain and wife of John VI of Portugal, dies at 53
- 1830 Thomas Lawrence, English portrait painter, dies at 60
- 1858 Willem Broes, Dutch vicar and theologist (Textenrol), dies at 91
- 1864 Caleb Blood Smith, American journalist and politician, 6th U.S. Secretary of the Interior, dies at 55
- 1872 James Fisk, American financier “Barnum of Wall Street”, dies at 38
- 1876 Juste Olivier, Swiss poet (b. 1807)
- 1878 François-Vincent Raspail, French chemist (b. 1794)
Ignacy Łukasiewicz (1822-1882)
Polish engineer, businessman and inventor who built the 1st modern oil refinery and invented the kerosene lamp, dies at 59
- 1887 Abraham van Lier, Dutch theater director (Grand Théâtre des Variétés), dies at 73
- 1890 Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, wife of German Emperor William I, dies at 78
- 1892 Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, German physician and physiologist, dies at 72
- 1892 Muḥammad Tawfīq Pasha, Khedive of Egypt (1879-92), dies at 39
- 1893 Jožef Stefan, Slovenian physicist and mathematician (b. 1835)
- 1901 James Dunwoody Bulloch, Confederacy's chief foreign agent in Great Britain during the American Civil War, dies at 77
- 1912 Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake, English physician and feminist who was one of the first female medical students at a British university, dies at 71
- 1918 Julius Wellhausen, German biblical scholar (analysis of the structure and dating of the Pentateuch), dies at 73
- 1919 Henry Ware Eliot, American industrialist, philanthropist and the father of T. S. Eliot, dies at 75
- 1920 Edmund Barton, Australian politician, 1st Prime Minister of Australia (1901-03), dies at 70
- 1921 Benno Erdmann, German philosopher (Logik I), dies at 69
- 1922 Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole, Prince of the Kingdom of Hawaii, dies at 50
- 1929 Henry Arthur Jones, English playwright (Silver King), dies at 77
- 1933 Herbert "Bert" Hinkler, Australian aviator who made first solo flight from England to Australia (1928), dies in a plane crash at 40
- 1935 Alfred Ewing, Scottish Physicist (magnetic properties of metals, hysteresis), dies at 79
- 1943 George Washington Crile, American surgeon (conducted the first direct blood transfusion and studied the effects of surgical shock), dies at 78
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)
Serbian-American physicist, electrical engineer and inventor who developed alternating current and the Tesla Coil, dies at 86
- 1944 J. Verleun, Dutch resistance fighter, executed
- 1944 Lou Henry Hoover, US First Lady (1929-33) and wife of the 31st President, Herbert Hoover, dies at 69
- 1944 Napoleon Lapathiotis, Greek poet, dies at 56
- 1948 Raoul Auernheimer, Austrian American writer, dies at 71
- 1951 Johanna "Nelly" Bodenheim, Dutch illustrator and painter (Luilekkerland), dies at 76
- 1951 René Guénon, French-Egyptian author (b. 1886)
- 1955 Arthur Keith, Scottish anthropologist (human evolution), dies at 88
- 1958 Petru Groza, Austro-Hungarian born Romanian communist and President of Romania (1945-58), dies at 74
- 1961 Clarice Baright, 1st woman admitted to American Bar Association, dies at 74
- 1963 Arthur Edward Moore, Australian politician (Premier of Queensland 1929-32), dies at 86
- 1967 David Goodis, American writer (b. 1917)
- 1968 James Smith, South African ichthyologist (b. 1897)
- 1972 John Berryman, American poet (The Dream Songs), dies at 57
- 1974 Charles Alfred Coulson, British chemist (theoretical), dies at 63
- 1981 Alvar Lidell, UK radio broadcaster (b. 1908)
- 1981 Eric Robinson, Australian politician (b. 1926)
- 1982 Eugene Wegmann, Swiss geologist (Le Jura plisse), dies at 85
- 1983 August Cool, Belgian trade union leader, dies at 79
- 1984 Alfred Kastler, French physicist (Nobel 1966 - Hertzian resonances within atoms), dies at 81
- 1986 Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer (Pedro Páramo), dies at 68
- 1986 Philip D. Eastman, American children's book writer and illustrator (b. 1909)
Hirohito (1901-1989)
124th Emperor of Japan (1926-89), dies at 87 after a 62-year reign
- 1990 Gail Lucas, American entertainer, dies at 37
- 1992 Jhean Burton, American entertainer, dies at 63
- 1993 Robert Cowan, Scottish CEO (Highlands & Islands Enterprises), dies at 60
- 1994 Lewis Boddington, Welsh aerospace Engineer (RAE), dies at 85
- 1994 Lynn Blessing, American vibes player, dies at 65
- 1994 Phoumi Vongvichit, President of Laos (1986-91), dies at 84
- 1995 Murray Rothbard, American economist (b. 1926)
- 1995 Viktor Vorobyov, Russian general-major, dies in battle during war in Chechnya
- 1996 James Holland, English artist and exhibition organiser, dies at 90
- 1996 Károly Grósz, Hungarian communist politician, dies at 65
- 1996 Robley D. Evans, American nuclear physicist (one of the founders nuclear Medicine), dies at 88
- 1996 Seton Howard Frederick Lloyd, English Archaeologist, dies at 93
- 1996 Tarō Okamoto, Japanese avant-garde artist (b. 1911)
- 1997 Desmond Flower, English publisher, dies at 89
- 1998 Richard Hamming, American Mathematician and Computer Scientist (Hamming code), dies of a heat attack at 82
- 1998 Vladimir Prelog, Croatian-Swiss organic chemist (Nobel 1975), dies at 91
- 2001 Frederick Baldwin Adams Jr., American librarian and director of the Pierpont Morgan Library, dies at 90
- 2002 René Étiemble, French scholar, novelist and translator (work on Rimbaud), dies at 93
- 2004 Oswald Garrison Villard Jr., American Engineer (over-the-horizon radar), dies of pneumonia at 87
- 2005 Eileen Desmond, Irish politician (b. 1932)
- 2005 Pierre Daninos, French novelist (b. 1913)
- 2006 Heinrich Harrer, Austrian mountaineer and author (Seven Years in Tibet), dies at 93
- 2008 Alwyn Schlebusch, South African vice state president (b. 1917)
- 2012 Ibrahim Aslan, Egyptian author, dies from heart failure at 77
- 2013 Fred L. Turner, American businessman (CEO of McDonalds, 1977-2004), dies from complications of pneumonia at 80
- 2015 Jean Cabut [Cabu], French caricaturist (Charlie Hebdo), killed in terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris at 76
Stéphane Charbonnier (1967-2015)
French cartoonist and editor of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, dies in a terrorist attack at 47
- 2016 André Courrèges, French fashion designer, dies at 92
Mário Soares (1924-2017)
17th President of Portugal (1986-96) and Prime Minister (1976-78 and 1983-85), dies after falling into a coma at 92
- 2017 Nat Hentoff, American columnist and novelist (Village Voice, The Cold Society), dies at 91
- 2018 Anna Mae Hays [McCabe], American military officer and US military's 1st female General, dies from a heart attack at 97
- 2018 Peter Sutherland, Irish businessman (Allied Irish Banks) and politician (Fine Gael), dies at 71
- 2020 Elizabeth Wurtzel, American author (Prozac Nation), dies of metastatic breast cancer at 52