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Cowan George (b. 1920-02-15 / d. 2012-04-20)
He was an American physical chemist, a businessman and philanthropist. Cowan received a B.S. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1941. He did graduate studies at Princeton, where he worked under future Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, whose investigation of uranium confirmed the feasibility of the Fermi pile. He continued his nuclear research with the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago, Oak Ridge, Columbia University, and Los Alamos. Because he was transferred to various locations as a technological troubleshooter for the effort, he was among the very few people with knowledge of the separate components of the bomb, kept apart for security reasons. He joined the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1946. He earned a Ph.D. from the Mellon College of Science in 1950. Weeks after his arrival at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1949, he directed the detection of radioactive fallout from samples collected near the Russian border indicating the Soviets were in possession of a nuclear bomb. He later served on the Bethe Panel that convinced government decision makers the radiochemistry detected represented weapons uses rather than peaceful pursuits.
Lookup: name or firstname or alias or date (yyyy-mm-dd):
102
Born 1917-12-31. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Suzy Delair, born Suzanne Pierrette Delaire, was a French actress, dancer and singer. She turned 100 in December 2017, and died some two years later.
68
Born 1951-11-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer
Tonie Marshall was a French-American actress, screenwriter, and film director. Marshall was the daughter of American actor William Marshall and French actress Micheline Presle, the half-sister of actor Mike Marshall, and the aunt of model and actress Sarah Marshall.
74
Born 1946-02-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Didier Bezace was a French actor.
34
Born 1985-10-27. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident
Stefano Bianco was an Italian motorcycle racer. At international level, he competed in the 125cc World Championship, the 250cc World Championship and the European Superstock 1000 Championship. Bianco died in a road traffic accident.
103
Born 1916-09-30. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Richard Kenneth Guy was a British mathematician. He was a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary. He is known for his work in number theory, geometry, recreational mathematics, combinatorics, and graph theory. He published more than 300 scholarly articles.
39
Born 1980-03-29. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Suicide
She was an American poet, writer, and baker. She was the author of the poetry collection, A Little Middle of the Night (University of Iowa Press, 2010), and the memoir Bandit (Grove Press, 2016).
90
Born 1929-04-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
He was a Swedish actor who became a French citizen in his later years. He had a 70-year career in European and American cinema, television and theatre, appearing in more than 150 films and several television series in multiple languages. Von Sydow died at his home in Provence, France.
82
Born 1937-06-27. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
He was a French comic book artist. He is best known for creating Rahan in 1969 alongside Roger Lécureux. Chéret published his first comic book, Paulo et la furie du rodéo, on 24 May 1959. He published a comic strip in Cœurs Vaillants from 1959 to 1964. He also drew illustrations for the weekly magazine Radar and for the comic strip Rock l’invincible. From May 1962 until 1969, Chéret drew illustrations for Pif Gadget.
40
Born 1979-04-23. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Heart attack
He was a French directeur sportif and professional road bicycle racer. He was born in Auch, France. He missed much of the 2009 season because of problems with cardiac arrhythmia and retired as a professional cyclist following the 2010 season. He stayed with his final professional team, Team Sky, as a manager from the 2011 season. Following the retirement of Sean Yates, Portal was appointed lead directeur sportif of Team Sky for 2013. He died of a heart attack.
98
Born 1921-09-05. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
He was a German geneticist and physicist. He was a professor at the University of Freiburg at the Faculty of Biology. Working in Göttingen, Cologne, Dallas (U.S.) and Freiburg, he was a pioneer of genetics of bacteriophages, writing the standard Classical and Molecular Genetics.
96
Born 1923-12-15. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
Freeman John Dyson FRS was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He was professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. On 28 February 2020 Dyson died at a hospital near Princeton, New Jersey, from complications following a fall. He was 96.
26
Born 1993-09-08. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident
Braian Ezequiel Toledo was an Argentine javelin thrower who improved the World Youth Best in boys' javelin throw by more than six metres. Toledo died in a motorcycle accident.
91
Born 1928-05-04. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak was an Egyptian military and political leader who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011. On 13 April 2011, a prosecutor ordered Mubarak and both of his sons (Alaa and Gamal) to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power. Mubarak was then ordered to stand trial on charges of negligence for failing to halt the killing of peaceful protesters during the revolution. These trials began on 3 August 2011. On 2 June 2012, an Egyptian court sentenced Mubarak to life imprisonment. After sentencing, he was reported to have suffered a series of health crises. On 13 January 2013, Egypt's Court of Cassation (the nation's high court of appeal) overturned Mubarak's sentence and ordered a retrial. On retrial, Mubarak and his sons were convicted on 9 May 2015 of corruption and given prison sentences. Mubarak was detained in a military hospital and his sons were freed 12 October 2015 by a Cairo court. He was acquitted on 2 March 2017 by the Court of Cassation and released on 24 March 2017.
101
Born 1918-08-26. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
Creola Katherine Johnson (née Coleman) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".
86
Born 1933-05-02. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age
Hervé Bourges was a French journalist and audiovisual executive. He became the director of the École supérieure de journalisme de Lille in 1976. He directed the likes of Radio France internationale, TF1, and Radio Monte Carlo. It was under his leadership that Antenne 2 and FR3 were renamed as France 2 and France 3, thus forming the group France Télévisions. He was appointed Ambassador of France to UNESCO in 1993. In 1995, François Mitterrand appointed him Director of the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel, and in 2001 led the International Francophone Press Union.
78
Born 1941-07-08. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Michel Charasse was a member of the French Senate. He represented the Puy-de-Dôme department, and was a member of the Socialist Party. On 24 February 2010 French president Nicolas Sarkozy nominated him as a member of the Constitutional Council.
62
Born 1957-10-05. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:cancer (uterus)
Jeanne Colette Dubin (née Evert) was an American professional tennis player and the younger sister of Chris Evert. She was ranked as high as 28th by the WTA in 1978 and ninth within the United States in 1974. She reached the third round of the U.S. Open in 1973 and 1978. She won all four of her Fed Cup matches for the U.S. in 1974. Evert retired in 1978, and in later years, was a coach at the Delray Beach Tennis Center. Evert died from ovarian cancer. She was 62.
99
Born 1920-07-21. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age
Jean Daniel Bensaid was a French journalist and author. He was the founder and executive editor of Le Nouvel Observateur weekly now known as L'Obs.
72
Born 1947-09-25. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Peter Lawrence Montgomery was an American mathematician who worked at the System Development Corporation and Microsoft Research. He is best known for his contributions to computational number theory and mathematical aspects of cryptography, including the Montgomery multiplication method for arithmetic in finite fields, the use of Montgomery curves in applications of elliptic curves to integer factorization and other problems, and the Montgomery ladder, which is used to protect against side-channel attacks in elliptic curve cryptography. Montgomery is particularly known for his contributions to the elliptic curve method of factorization, which include a method for speeding up the second stage of algebraic-group factorization algorithms using FFT techniques for fast polynomial evaluation at equally spaced points. This was the subject of his dissertation, for which he received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He also invented the block Lanczos algorithm for finding nullspace of a matrix over a finite field, which is very widely used for the quadratic sieve and number field sieve methods of factorization; he has been involved in the computations which set a number of integer factorization records. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1967. In that year, he was one of only two contestants, along with child prodigy Don Zagier of MIT, to solve all twelve of the exam problems.
93
Born 1926-11-07. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Graeme Allwright was a New Zealand-born French singer and songwriter. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s as a French language interpreter of the songs of American and Canadian songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger, and remained active into his nineties. Graeme Allwright died aged 93 in the retirement home in Seine-et-Marne where he had been living for a year, according to his daughter Jeanne.
74
Born 1945-04-24. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
Lawrence Gordon Tesler was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo! While at PARC, Tesler's work included Smalltalk, the first dynamic object-oriented programming language, and Gypsy, the first word processor with a graphical user interface for the Xerox Alto. During this, along with colleague Tim Mott, Tesler developed the idea of copy and paste functionality and the idea of modeless software. While at Apple, Tesler worked on the Apple Lisa and the Apple Newton, and helped to develop Object Pascal and its use in application programming toolkits including MacApp. Tesler maintained his strong preference for modeless software well beyond his time at PARC. To promote his preference, as of 1995, Tesler equipped his automobile with a personalized California license plate reading "NOMODES". Along with others, he had also been using the phrase "Don't Mode Me In" for years, as a rallying cry to eliminate or reduce modes. His personal website was located at "nomodes.com" and on Twitter had used the handle "@nomodes".
83
Born 1936-08-21. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Stroke
Frances Cuka was an English actress, principally on television, whose career spanned over sixty years. In her later years, she was best known for playing Grandma Nelly Buller in the sitcom Friday Night Dinner from 2011–2018. Cuka (pronounced Chewka) was born in London, England, the daughter of Letitia Alice Annie (née Francis), a tailor, and Joseph Cuka, a process engraver. Cuka died after suffering a stroke at her home in Hampstead, London.
57
Born 1962-04-24. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer
He was a French violist and specialist in contemporary music.
89
Born 1930-03-07. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Tatiana Fabergé was a secretary, a Fabergé scholar and jeweler from Switzerland. Tatiana Fabergé joined CERN—the European Organization for Particle Physics Research—as a secretary when the CERN Theory Group was moved from Copenhagen to Geneva. She retired from CERN in 1995. Fabergé was always interested in the House of Fabergé. After retirement she worked researching the family history and promoting its heritage. In 1974 she launched her own jewelry and product line Tatiana Fabergé which is marketed through her own web site. During her career she created several products under different trademarks, in 2005 Fabergé Ltd purchased from the Tatiana Fabergé SA one of the trademarks, Tatiana Fabergé SA then continued developing products under the Tsars Collection trademark. Since 2007 she was actively involved in giving advice and guidance via the Fabergé Heritage Council, a division of Fabergé Ltd, regarding the relaunch of the brand. She worked closely with the creative team and advised on heritage matters.
91
Born 1928-10-06. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age
Liliane de Kermadec was a French film director and screenwriter. She directed more than twenty films and documentaries between 1965 and 2016. Filmography Le Murmure des ruines (2008) La Très chère indépendance du Haut Karabagh (2005) La Piste du télégraphe (1994) Un moment d'inattention (1986) Mersonne ne m'aime (1982) Le Petit Pommier (1981) Aloïse (1975) Home Sweet Home (1972) Qui donc a rêvé? (1965)
71
Born 1948-04-18. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Yasumasa Kanada was a Japanese computer scientist most known for his numerous world records over the past three decades for calculating digits of π. He set the record 11 of the past 21 times. Kanada was a professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan until 2015. From 2002 until 2009, Kanada held the world record calculating the number of digits in the decimal expansion of pi – exactly 1.2411 trillion digits. The calculation took more than 600 hours on 64 nodes of a HITACHI SR8000/MPP supercomputer. Some of his competitors in recent years include Jonathan and Peter Borwein and the Chudnovsky brothers.
79
Born 1940-04-17. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Claire Bretécher was a French cartoonist, known particularly for her portrayals of women and gender issues. Her creations included Les Frustrés, and the unimpressed teenager Agrippine. Claire Bretécher was the widow of French constitutionalist Guy Carcassonne with whom she had a son.
88
Born 1931-04-28. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Robert C. Hermann was an American mathematician and mathematical physicist. In the 1960s Hermann worked on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory, and published books which revealed the interconnections between vector bundles on Riemannian manifolds and gauge theory in physics, before these interconnections became "common knowledge" among physicists in the 1970s.
62
Born 1957-07-06. Domain:Science (Medical/Bio style). Cause of death:COVID
Lin Zhengbin was a Chinese physician and organ transplant expert at Wuhan Tongji Hospital. Lin graduated from Tongji Medical College in 1987, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in medicine. After graduation, he started his career at Wuhan Tongji Hospital, engaged in organ transplants for more than 30 years. He was chief physician of the Institute of Organ Transplantation of Tongji Hospital. He retired in July 2017, but was rehired by Wuhan Tongji Hospital. During the COVID-19 pandemic in China, Lin was infected with the coronavirus. He died on 10 February 2020 due to complications caused by the disease. Falun Gong supporters accused him of harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners.
96
Born 1923-10-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
When the actor Patrick Jordan was in Star Wars he had a choice. Did he want a guaranteed fee for his part as an Imperial Officer, or a tiny share of the royalties? He got the part through his friend Alec Guinness with whom he had worked in the Old Vic theatre company in the 1940s. Jordan shared Guinness’s contempt for Star Wars, and was dubious about the film’s prospects, so he took the one-off fee. He regretted the decision ever after with rueful humour, claiming that had he chosen a cut he would never have had to work again. He was born and raised in Harrow, Middlesex, the son of Margaret, a cook, and Albert Jordan, a regimental sergeant major. An accident while playing bows and arrows with his two brothers left him with a distinctive scar on his right cheek. He made his stage debut in a 1946 Old Vic production of Richard II at the New Theatre, which was directed by Ralph Richardson and featured Harry Andrews and Alec Guinness. With Old Vic he went on to perform in other Shakespearean plays, including Coriolanus and The Taming of the Shrew, in the last of which also appeared Renée Asherson. Jordan remained friends with Asherson and Guinness.