Deaths in History on June 15

James Knox Polk

1849 James Knox Polk, 11th US President (1845-1849), dies in Nashville Tenn at 53

1858 Ary Scheffer, painter/etcher/sculptor, dies at 63
1865 Edmun Ruffin, US secessionist/writer, commits suicide
1888 Emperor Friedrich III of Germany (b. 1831)
1889 Mihail Eminesco, Romanian poet (Luceafarul), dies at 39
1905 Hermann Wissmann, German African explorer and governor of East-Africa,, dies at 51
1907 William Le Baron Jenney, American architect (father of skyscraper), dies at 74
1917 Kristian Birkeland, Norwegian explorer and physicist (nominated 7 times for Nobel Prize), dies at 49
1923 Alexander Stamboeliski, premier Bulgaria (1919-23), dies
1938 Ernst L Kirchner, German painter, dies at 58
1941 Evelyn Underhill, British Anglo-Catholic poet, dies at 65
1941 Otfrid Foerster, German neurologist, dies at 67

1942 Vera Figner, writer, dies
1952 Jakob Jud, Swiss linguist/etymologist, dies at 70
1958 François de Vries, Dutch economist, dies at 74
1965 E. A. Speiser, American Bible scholar (b. 1902
1971 Wendell Meredith Stanley, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904)
1978 Anton Roosjen, Dutch politician and NCRV-chairman, dies at 83
1979 Ernst Meister, writer, dies at 67
1981 Philip Toynbee, British journalist and writer (Savage Days, Barricade), dies at 64
1983 Srirangam Srinivasarao [Sri Sri], Indian Telugu poet, dies at 73
1985 Robert Stethem, U.S. Navy Seabee diver murdered by terrorists on TWA Flight 847 (b. 1961)
1987 Walter Heller, American economist (Old Myths & New Realities), dies at 71
1989 Maurice Bellemare, Canadian politician (b. 1912)
1993 Mahfoud Boucebi, Algerian psychiatrist, murdered
1993 Vera, scarf/linen designer, dies of cardiac arrest at 87
1993 John Connally Jr, American politician, 39th Governor of Texas, and federal treasurer who was critically wounded during the assassination of Kennedy, dies of pulmonary fibrosis at 76
1994 David Lawson, executed in NC (wanted execution shown on Donahue)
1996 Jean Gimpel, French author and medievalist, dies at 77
1999 Ernst van Altena, Dutch author and interpreter (Chansons van Earnest), dies at 65
2000 Jules Roy, French writer (b. 1907)
2002 Choi Hong Hi, South Korean army general and Founder of Taekwon-Do, dies at 83
2006 Alireza Shapour Shahbazi, Iranian archaeologist and a world expert on Achaemenid archeology, dies of cancer at 63
2007 Claudia Cohen, American gossip columnist and socialite (b. 1950)
2011 Bill Haast, American Herpetologist (b. 1910)
2013 Kenneth G. Wilson, American physicist (Nobel 1982), dies from lymphoma at 77
2014 Daniel Keyes, American author (Flowers for Algernon), dies from complications from pneumonia at 86
2015 Kirk Kerkorian, American CEO and "father of the mega-resort" (MGM, UA), dies at 98
2015 Jean Doré, Canadian politician (39th Mayor of Montreal), dies at 70
2016 Lois Duncan, American young adult novelist (I Know What You Did Last Summer), dies at 82
2017 John Robert Jones [John Dalmas], American sci-fi author (White Regiment, Lizard War), dies at 90
2017 James W. McCord Jr., American CIA officer who led the Watergate break-in, dies of pancreatic cancer at 93