Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC)
Founder of the Qin dynasty and 1st emperor of a unified China (220 - 210 BC), dies reportedly from ingesting mercury pills meant to make him immortal at 49
- 827 Pope Valentine dies after 40 days in office [date approximate]
- 918 Baldwin II, Count of Flanders, dies at about 53
- 954 Louis IV [Louis of Overseas], King of France (936-54), dies at about 33
- 1167 Empress Matilda [Maud], claimant to the English throne, daughter of Henry I of England, wife of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1102)
- 1197 Henry II of Champagne (b. 1166)
- 1217 William de Reviers, 5th Earl of Devon
- 1279 Robert Kilwardby [Anglicus], English Archbishop of Canterbury (1272-78), philosopher and Cardinal, dies (b. 1215)
- 1305 Nicholas van Tolentino, Italian saint, dies
- 1308 Emperor Go-Nijō of Japan (b. 1285)
- 1382 Louis I, the Great, King of Hungary/Poland, dies
John the Fearless (1371-1419)
Duke of Burgundy (1404-19), assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France at 48
- 1482 Federico da Montefeltro, Italian Renaissance condottiero and arts patron
- 1519 John Colet, English churchman and educator
- 1547 Pierlugi Faraese, Italian son of Pope Paul III, murdered
- 1559 Anthony Denny, English knight of the shire and confidant of King Henry VIII of England, dies at 58
- 1600 John Bruhesius [Bruhesen], bishop of Groningen, dies
- 1604 William Morgan, Welsh Bible translator (b. 1545)
- 1623 John I Van de Velde the Elder, Dutch calligrapher (Mirror of Write-Konste), dies
- 1669 Henrietta Maria, French-born daughter of Henry IV of France and queen of Charles I of England (b. 1609)
- 1676 Gerrard Winstanley, English religious reformer (b. 1609)
- 1748 Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo, Filipino Religious Sister of the Roman Catholic Church, dies at 85
- 1749 Émilie du Châtelet, French mathematician and physicist (translation of Newton's Principia), dies in childbirth at 42
- 1759 Ferdinand Konščak, Croatian explorer and Jesuit missionary, dies at 55
- 1765 Jacob Gilles, Grand Pensionary of Holland, dies at about 74
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
English author and feminist (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman), mother of Mary Shelley, dies of septicaemia at 38
- 1801 Jason Fairbanks, American murderer (stabbed girlfriend Elizabeth Banks in famous case), hung at 20
- 1806 Johann Christoph Adelung, German linguist, librarian, translator and lexicographer, dies at 74
- 1828 Count d'Andreossi, French general and parliament leader, dies at 67
- 1839 Pieter Fontijn, Dutch painter, dies at 66
- 1842 Letitia Tyler, US President Tyler's (1841-45) wife, dies at 51
- 1845 Joseph Story, American lawyer and 19th Supreme Court justice (1812-45), dies at 65
- 1851 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, American pioneer of educating the deaf, dies at 63
- 1862 Carlos Antonio López, 1st President of Paraguay (1844-62), dies at 71
- 1898 Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, and wife of Franz Joseph I, dies from a stab wound at 60
- 1915 Charles Boucher de Boucherville, Premier of Quebec, dies at 93
- 1925 Henry Lincoln "Linc" Johnson, American attorney and politician, remembered as one of the most prominent early 20th century African-American Republicans, dies of a stroke at 55
- 1931 Dmitri Egorov, Russian mathematician (differential geometry and mathematical analysis), dies at 61
- 1937 Sergei Tretyakov, Russian constructivist writer, playwright and special correspondent for Pravda, executed by Stalinist regime at 47
- 1944 Jaap P. Musch, Dutch resistance fighter, murdered by Nazis
- 1952 Youssef Aftimus, Lebanese civil engineer and architect (b. 1866)
- 1955 Robert Blackburn, British aviation pioneer and the founder of Blackburn Aircraft, dies at 70
- 1960 Fjodor Panfjorov, Russian author (Volga - matushka-reka), dies at 63
Harold Gillies (1882-1960)
New Zealand father of modern plastic Surgery who pioneered skin graft techniques on injured soldiers in WWI, dies at 78 of a slight cerebral thrombosis gained while operating on the leg of an 18-year-old girl [1]
- 1963 Eugène Baie, Belgian author (Sub rosa et sub umbra), dies at 89
- 1965 Father Divine [Reverend Major Jealous Divine], "the Messenger", African American religious leader
- 1966 Emil Gumbel, German mathematician and pacifist (b. 1891)
- 1975 George Paget Thomson, English physicist who demonstrated electron diffraction (Nobel 1937), dies at 83 [1]
- 1975 Robert Gordon Sproul, American educator and college president (University of California), dies at 84
- 1976 Dalton Trumbo, American writer and film director (Johnny Got His Gun), dies at 70
- 1976 Mordecai Johnson, 1st African American president of Howard U, dies at 86
- 1977 Hamida Djandoubi, Tunisian convicted murderer who was the last person to be executed in Western Europe, is beheaded in Marseille by guillotine at 28
- 1979 Agostinho Neto, 1st President of Angola (1975-79), dies at 56
- 1982 Max Winders, Belgian architect (WWII), responsible for bringing the Belgian gold stock, dies at 100
- 1983 "John Vorster, South African Prime Minister (1966-78), dies at 67
- 1983 Felix Bloch, Swiss-American nuclear physicist (1st Director of CERN, Nobel Prize for Physics 1952), dies at 77
- 1983 Jon Brower Minnoch, American, world's heaviest recorded man at 1,400lb (635 kilograms; 100 stone), dies at 41
- 1983 Norah Lofts, British author (The Town House), dies at 79
- 1985 Ernest Julius Öpik, Estonian astronomer and astrophysicist known for his studies of meteors and the structure and evolution of the cosmos, dies at 91
- 1990 Samuel Kanyon Doe, president of Liberia (1980-90), assassinated
- 1993 Stuart Rose, British designer (British Post Office), dies at 81
- 1994 Amy Clampitt, American poet (Silence Opens), dies at 74
- 1996 Hans List, Austrian scientist and inventor, dies at 100
- 2000 Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah, Pakistani journalist and writer. (b. 1921)
- 2001 DJ Uncle Al [Albert Moss] American DJ, shot and killed at 32
- 2004 Brock Adams, American politician, dies at 77
- 2006 Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV, King of Tonga (1965-2006), dies at 88
- 2007 Anita Roddick, English businesswoman and cosmetic manufacturer (Body Shop), dies at 64 [1]
- 2007 Ted Stepien, American businessman and basketball team owner, dies at 82
- 2010 Edwin Charles Tubb, British sci-fi writer (Earth is Heaven, Earthfall), dies at 90
- 2013 Clay Shaw, American politician (Rep-R-FL, 1981-2007), dies from lung cancer at 74
- 2014 Richard Kiel, American actor, dies from a heart attack at 74
- 2016 Eddie Antar, founder and CEO (Crazy Eddie Electronics Store), dies at 68