William the Conqueror (c. 1028-1087)
the first Norman king of England (1066-1087) and Duke of Normandy (1035-1087), dies at about 59
James IV (1473-1513)
King of Scotland (1488-1513), killed in the Battle of Flodden at 40
- 1573 Andre de Resende, Portuguese dominican/humanist, dies
- 1596 Anna Jagiellon, Polish Queen
- 1612 Nakagawa Hidenari, Japanese warlord (b. 1570)
- 1676 Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, French army officer (b. 1612)
- 1680 Henry Marten, English regicide (b. 1602)
- 1683 Algernon Sidney, English Whig politician/plotter, beheaded
- 1713 Giovanni Antonio Viscardi, Swiss architect, dies at 67
- 1755 Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, German historian (b. 1694)
- 1770 Bernard S Albinus [Weiss], German surgeon/anatomist, dies at 73
- 1770 Georg Dionysius Ehret, German-English botanist and cartoonist, dies at 62
- 1806 William Paterson, American jurist and statesman (b. 1745)
- 1810 Johann Baptiste Hagenauer, Austrian sculptor, dies at 78
- 1815 John Singleton Copley, American painter of portraits and historical objects, dies at 77
- 1817 Paul Cuffe, African American civil rights activist (helped settle Sierra Leone), dies at 58
- 1841 Augustin P de Candolle, Swiss botanist, dies at 63
- 1866 Gergely Czuczor, Hungarian-Czech poet and translator (Great Hung dictionary), dies at 65
- 1876 American Horse, Sioux chief, dies in battle
- 1888 Jan van Swieten, Dutch governor of West-Sumatra, dies at 71
- 1891 Jules Grévy, 2nd President of the French Third Republic, dies at 84
- 1898 Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet (b. 1842)
- 1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter and printmaker (At the Moulin Rouge), dies from the effects of alcoholism and syphilis at 36
- 1901 Willem baron of Goltstein of Oldenaller, minister of Cologne dies
- 1902 Titus AJ van Asch van Wijck, Governor of Suriname (1891-97), dies at 53
- 1907 Ernest Roland Wilberforce, English bishop (b. 1840)
- 1909 Edward Henry Harriman, American railroad entrepreneur (b. 1848)
- 1913 Paul Smet de Naeyer, Belgian politician and count (Prime Minister of Belgium 1896-99, 1899-1907), dies at 70
- 1926 William S. Scarborough, American linguist and author (Birds of Aristophanes), dies at 74
- 1931 Lujo Brentano, German economist and social reformer, dies at 86
- 1934 Roger Fry, English artist and art critic, dies at 67
- 1941 Gustav Ehrismann, German author and expert on the German language, dies at 85
- 1941 Hans Spemann, German embryologist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1935), dies at 72
- 1946 Mynona, Polish writer (The Creator), dies at 74
- 1962 Geoffrey Mander, English industrialist (Mander Brothers Ltd.), dies at 80
- 1962 Pat Rooney, American vaudevillian (Night club), dies at 82
- 1963 Ernst Kantorowicz, German-American historian (Laudes regiae), dies at 68
- 1963 Jan Schouten, Dutch founder (illegal Trouw)/chairman (ARP), dies
- 1966 Leon de Smet, Flemish painter, dies at 85
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
Chinese revolutionary and Chairman of the Communist Party of China (1949-76), dies of a heart attack at 82
- 1978 Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet (b. 1892)
- 1978 Jack L Warner [Jacob Warner], Canadian-American film executive and president of the Warner Bros. Studios, dies at 86
- 1980 John Howard Griffin, American photographer, journalist and author (Black Like Me), dies from complications of diabetes at 60
- 1981 Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst and semanticist, dies at 80
- 1982 Frederic Dannay [Ellery Queen], American detective writer, dies at 76
- 1985 Paul Flory, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
- 1987 Gerrit John Heijn, senior executive (Ahold), kidnapped/murdered
- 1990 Rimantas Stankevičius, Lithuanian cosmonaut, dies at 46
- 1990 Samuel Doe, Liberian politician (b. 1951)
- 1991 Edwin M. McMillan, American physicist and discoverer of plutonium (Nobel 1951), dies at 83
- 1991 John Lawrence, doctor, dies
- 1991 Joop Zwart, Dutch political activist and resistance fighter, dies at 78
- 1994 Keith Davis, voice Tutor/Author, dies at 85
- 1995 Jamie Whitten, American politician (Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi), dies at 85
- 1996 Jack Pepys, immunologist, dies at 82
- 1999 Chan Parker, American author; wife of Charlie Parker and Phil Woods (b. 1925)
- 1999 David Stafford-Clark, English psychiatrist, dies at 83
- 2000 Julian Critchley, British journalist and politician, dies at 69
Ahmad Shah Massoud (1953-2001)
Afghan political and military leader who fought the Soviet Union and led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, assassinated at 48 in northeastern Afghanistan by al Qaeda-linked suicide bombers disguised as journalists
- 2002 Geoffrey Dummer, British electronics engineer, built first integrated circuit and work in radar, dies at 93
Edward Teller (1908-2003)
Hungarian-American physicist, father of the Hydrogen bomb (Manhattan Project), dies at 95
- 2003 Thomas Allibone, English physicist (Manhattan Project, high-voltage particle acceleration), dies at 99
- 2005 John Wayne Glover, English-born Australian serial killer, commits suicide in prison at 72
- 2005 Stanley Dancer, American harness racer (4 Hambletonians, 3 Trot Triple Crown), dies at 78
- 2006 William B. Ziff Jr., American magazine publishing executive, (Modern Bride; Popular Electronics, PC Magazine), dies of cancer at 76
- 2008 Warith Deen Muhammad, American religious leader (b. 1933)
- 2012 Verghese Kurien, Indian engineer (billion-litre idea), dies from kidney failure at 90
- 2014 Denny Miller, American actor, dies from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 80
- 2020 Shere Hite [Shirley Diana Gregory], American-German sex therapist (The Hite Report), dies at 77 [1]