On This Day

Deaths in History on June 15

  • 923 Robert I, King of France (922-23), dies in battle
  • 948 Romanus I Lecapenus, Armenian emperor of Byzantium (919-44), dies
  • 991 Theophanu, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto II and regent of Otto III, dies (b. 960)
  • 1073 Go-Sanjō, 71st Emperor of Japan (1068-73), dies at 38
  • 1246 Frederik II "the Strijdbare", duke of Austria, dies in battle at 25
  • 1337 Angelus Clarenus/da Cingoli, Italian leader, dies
  • 1341 Andronicus III Paleologus, Byzantine emperor (1328-41), dies
  • 1381 John Cavendish, Lord Chief Justice of England
  • 1381 Wat Tyler, leader of English Peasants' Revolt is beheaded in London
  • 1383 John VI Cantacuzenus, Byzantine Emperor
  • 1397 Count of Eu, French knight, dies in Turkish captivity

Philip the GoodPhilip the Good (1396-1467)

Duke of Burgundy (1419-67), dies at 70

Philip the Good
  • 1521 Tamás Bakócz, Hungarian Catholic cardinal and statesman (b. 1442)
  • 1557 Sebastiaan Van Noyen, military master builder, dies
  • 1580 Nicolaas van Nieuwland, corrupt 1st bishop of Haarlem, dies at 70
  • 1614 Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, English politician (b. 1540)
  • 1666 Pieter de Bitter, Dutch admiral (Colombo, Goa), dies
  • 1679 Guillaume Courtois, French painter (b. 1628)
  • 1702 Georg E Rumphius, German nature explorer, dies
  • 1703 Gillis Schey, Dutch admiral (battle at Lowestoft), dies at 58
  • 1708 Romeyn de Hooghe, Dutch painter and goldsmith, buried at 62
  • 1724 Henry Sacheverell, English churchman and politician (b. 1674)
  • 1750 Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal, French writer (b. 1684)
  • 1768 James Short, Scottish mathematician and manufacturer of telescopes, dies at 57
  • 1814 Charles Palissot de Montenoy, French playwright (Les Tuteurs) satirist and politician, dies at 84
  • 1844 Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet (Ye Mariners of England), dies at 66
  • 1845 Francesco Capaccini, Italian cardinal and diplomat, dies at 60

James Knox PolkJames Knox Polk (1795-1849)

11th US President (Democrat: 1845-49), dies in Nashville of cholera at 53

James Knox Polk
  • 1858 Ary Scheffer, Dutch-French Romantic painter, etcher and sculptor, dies at 63
  • 1864 Haller Nutt, American rich Southern Plantation owner (Longwood house - largest octagonal house in the US), dies at 48
  • 1865 Edmun Ruffin, US secessionist/writer, commits suicide
  • 1888 Frederick III, German Emperor (1888), dies of cancer at 56
  • 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 and 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)
  • 1991 William Arthur Lewis, Saint Lucian economist (1979 Nobel Prize in Economics for economic development research), dies at 76 [1]
  • 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
  • 1993 Mahfoud Boucebi, Algerian psychiatrist, murdered
  • 1993 Vera, scarf/linen designer, dies of cardiac arrest at 87
  • 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 Jean Doré, Canadian politician (39th Mayor of Montreal), dies at 70
  • 2015 Kirk Kerkorian, American CEO and "father of the mega-resort" (MGM, UA), dies at 98
  • 2016 Lois Duncan, American young adult novelist (I Know What You Did Last Summer), dies at 82
  • 2017 James W. McCord Jr., American CIA officer who led the Watergate break-in, dies of pancreatic cancer at 93
  • 2017 John Robert Jones [John Dalmas], American sci-fi author (White Regiment, Lizard War), dies at 90


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