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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.
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71
Born 1906-04-28. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Other
In later life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and illness. He had an obsessive fear of being poisoned; he would eat only food that his wife, Adele, prepared for him. Late in 1977, Adele was hospitalized for six months and could no longer prepare Gödel's food. In her absence, he refused to eat, eventually starving to death. He weighed 65 pounds (approximately 30 kg) when he died. His death certificate reported that he died of "malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance" in Princeton Hospital.
64
Born 1913-02-10. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Murder
Marcel Bascoulard was a French designer, photographer and poet. A “tramp artist” and transvestite, he is renowned for his urban landscapes drawn in India ink or pastel. On January 12, 1978, he was assassinated in Asnières-lès-Bourges, at a place called Les Gargaudières, strangled by a 23-year-old marginal, who was sentenced to fifteen years in prison the following year.
81
Born 1896-05-30. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Accident
Died after a fall.
51
Born 1926-08-14. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Heart attack
En faisant un test d'effort
63
Born 1914-03-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Heart attack
Jailer in "le cercle rouge".
Recurrent policeman in "les 5 dernières minutes".
62
Born 1915-05-01. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Murder
Schleyer was kidnapped on September 5, 1977 by the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as Baader-Meinhof Gang, in Cologne. The RAF tried to blackmail the German government in order to release imprisoned members of their group. Two police officers and Schleyer's driver Heinz Marcicz as well as his body guard were killed in the kidnapping.
Schleyer was hidden in a highrise in Erftstadt (Liblar) near Cologne. Later, he was brought across the border into the Netherlands, and later moved to Brussels, where he spent the majority of his time in captivity. The German police came very close to finding Schleyer, but due to lack of internal communication could not rescue him. Several local police officers were convinced that Schleyer was held in the aforementioned highrise close to the Autobahn. One investigator had even rung the bell of the apartment in question, but nobody had conveyed this information to the crisis center of the federal police.
After 43 days, the German government had not given in to the demands of the kidnappers. Hours after the German anti-terror unit GSG 9 ended the Palestinian hijack of Lufthansa Flight 181, the imprisoned RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in their prison cells. Irmgard Möller was found seriously injured.
After Schleyer's kidnappers received the news of the death of their imprisoned comrades, Schleyer was taken from Brussels on October 18, 1977, and shot dead en route to Mulhouse, France, where his body was left in the trunk of a green Audi 100 on the rue Charles Péguy. After the kidnappers phoned the location of the Audi to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur office in Stuttgart, Schleyer's body was recovered on October 19.
Very early in his life he became a follower of National Socialism. After a stint in the Hitler Youth, the youth organization of the National Socialist Party, he joined the SS in 1933 and was an Untersturmführer. During his studies, he was engaged in the Nazi student movement.
34
Born 1943-05-06. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Unknown
With the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer on 5 September 1977 and the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 in mid-October, terrorists tried to force the release of Baader and ten other imprisoned RAF members. At the conclusion of a period of several weeks that came to be called the German Autumn, the passengers of the Boeing 737 named Landshut were freed in an assault carried out by German GSG 9 special forces in the early hours of 18 October 1977.
In the morning, Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe were found in their prison cells, having died from gunshot wounds, while Gudrun Ensslin was found hanging. RAF member Irmgard Möller was found with four stab wounds to her chest, but survived.
All official inquiries on the matter concluded that Baader and his two accomplices committed collective suicide while Möller still insists that the deaths and her injury were extrajudicial executions.
33
Born 1944-07-24. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Unknown
He was a member of the German militant group, the Red Army Faction.
Raspe was convicted on 28 April 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 18 October 1977, Raspe was found with a gunshot wound in his cell in Stammheim Prison, Stuttgart. He died shortly after being admitted to a hospital. Fellow RAF members and inmates, Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, were found dead in their cells the same morning. Irmgard Möller was found in her cell, wounded after supposedly stabbing herself in the chest, but survived. Though all official inquiries on the matter concluded that Baader, Raspe and Ensslin all committed suicide, sympathizers and Irmgard Möller persist that the deaths had been extrajudicial executions.
37
Born 1940-08-15. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Unknown
She was a member of the German militant group, the Red Army Faction.
Several attempts to free her from prison, through hostage-taking by sympathizers and so-called members of the 2nd generation of the RAF, failed. One was the abduction of Hanns-Martin Schleyer on September 5, 1977, and when this failed to work, the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner on October 17. When the airplane was stormed by a German anti-terrorist unit, Schleyer was killed, and Ensslin was found hanging in her cell early in the morning of October 18. Officially, her death was ruled a suicide. However, sympathizers and Irmgard Möller, the only surviving RAF member imprisoned at Stammheim Prison, insist that the deaths had been extrajudicial executions.
Ensslin's life story was fictionalized into the film Marianne and Juliane.
76
Born 1901-05-02. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Heart attack
53
Born 1923-12-02. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Heart attack
Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris and died on September 16, 1977, of a heart attack, at the age of 53. A funerary liturgy was held at Agios Stephanos (St. Stephen's) Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Rue Georges-Bizet, Paris, on September 20, 1977, and her ashes were interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered over the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece, according to her wish.
29
Born 1947-09-30. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Accident
He was an English singer, songwriter and guitarist whose hit singles, fashion sensibilities and stage presence with T.Rex in the early 1970s helped cultivate the glam rock era and made him one of the most recognisable stars in British music of the time.
Bolan died two weeks before his 30th birthday. He was a passenger in a purple Mini 1275GT (registration FOX 661L) driven by Gloria Jones as they headed home from Mortons drinking club and restaurant in Berkeley Square. Jones lost control of the speeding car and it struck a sycamore tree after failing to negotiate a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride, Barnes, southwest London. Bolan died instantly, while Jones suffered a broken arm and broken jaw and spent a short time in hospital. Neither were wearing seat belts. Bolan's home, which was less than a mile away at 142 Upper Richmond Road West in East Sheen, was immediately looted.
28
Born 1949-00-00. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder
He was the last person to be guillotined in France, at Baumettes Prison in Marseille. He was a Tunisian immigrant who had been convicted of the torture and murder of 21-year-old Elisabeth Bousquet, his former girlfriend, in Marseille. Marcel Chevalier served as chief executioner.
Born in Tunisia around 1949, Djandoubi started living and working in Marseille, France in 1968, as a packer. He lost his job in 1971 after a workplace accident removed two-thirds of his right leg.
In 1973, a 21-year-old woman named Elisabeth Bousquet filed a complaint against Djandoubi, who was her lover, for illegal confinement and cruelty, claiming that he had tried to force her into prostitution.
After his arrest and eventual release from custody during the spring of 1973, Djandoubi drew two other young girls into his confidence and then forced them to "work" for him. The idea of taking revenge on his accuser never left his mind, however, and in July 1974 he kidnapped Bousquet and took her into his home where, in full view of the terrified girls, he beat the unfortunate woman mercilessly before stubbing a lit cigarette all over her breasts and genital area. Despite this Bousquet survived the ordeal, so Djandoubi took her by car to an outskirt of Marseille and there strangled her.
On his return Djandoubi warned the two girls to say nothing of what they had seen, and it was not until Bousquet's body was identified one month after its discovery in a shed by two children on 7 July 1974 that the girls finally found the courage to take their story to the authorities.
After a lengthy pre-trial process, Djandoubi eventually appeared in court in Aix-en-Provence on charges of torture-murder, rape and premeditated violence on 24 February 1977. His main defence revolved around the supposed effects of the amputation of his leg six years earlier which his lawyer claimed had driven him to a paroxysm of alcohol and violence, turning him into a "different" man. It was all to no avail, however: on 25 February he was condemned to death. An appeal against his sentence was rejected on 9 June, and in the early morning of 10 September 1977, Djandoubi was woken to be informed that all hope of a presidential reprieve had failed. Shortly afterwards, at 4:40 a.m., he was executed.
30
Born 1946-09-18. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Other
Alexis started working for Pilote in 1968, providing illustrations and gags. In 1969, he began a collaboration with Fred on the series Timoléon, and started his working relationship with Gotlib on the film parody series Cinémastok in 1970. The partnership with Gotlib continued for several years, leading to the creation of the magazine Fluide Glacial in 1975 where the advertising parody series La Publicité dans la Joie was published. In 1976, Alexis started the humorous western series Al Crane, in collaboration with Gérard Lauzier, and in 1977 he succeeded Gotlib as artist of the series Superdupont, written by Jacques Lob.
While working on the post-apocalyptic work Le Transperceneige, Alexis died as a result of a ruptured aneurysm on September 7, 1977. His final work was later completed by Jean-Marc Rochette.
92
Born 1885-06-09. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
He was a British mathematician, best known for the results achieved in collaboration with G. H. Hardy. There is a story (related in the Miscellany) that at a conference Littlewood met a German mathematician who said he was most interested to discover that Littlewood really existed, as he had always assumed that Littlewood was a name used by Hardy for lesser work which he did not want to put out under his own name; Littlewood apparently roared with laughter. There are versions of this story involving both Norbert Wiener and Edmund Landau, who, it is claimed, "so doubted the existence of Littlewood that he made a special trip to Great Britain to see the man with his own eyes".
83
Born 1894-10-30. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Active as an experimental biologist, Rostand became famous for his work as a science writer, as well as a philosopher and an activist. His scientific work covered a variety of biological fields such as amphibian embryology, parthenogenesis and teratogeny, while his literary output extended into popular science, history of science and philosophy.
87
Born 1890-10-02. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Pneumonia
In the 1977 Best Picture-winning Woody Allen film, Annie Hall, Woody opens the movie with a famous quotation, which he, reservedly, attributed to Groucho: "I refuse to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." The quotation was the end of an anecdote in Groucho's autobiography, "Groucho and Me."
42
Born 1935-01-08. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Other
Elvis had thrown up after being stricken, apparently while seated on the toilet. It looked to the medical investigator as if he had 'stumbled or crawled several feet before he died'. He was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital, where at 3:30 P.M. doctors pronounced him dead. When he died, "he weighed 159 kilograms" (350 pounds).
At a press conference following his death, one of the medical examiners declared that he had died of a cardiac arrhythmia from an intake of a large amount of drugs.
62
Born 1915-07-10. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Milt Buckner was an American jazz pianist and organist, originally from St. Louis, Missouri. He was orphaned as a child, but an uncle in Detroit taught him to play. Buckner pioneered the parallel chords style which influenced Red Garland, George Shearing, and Oscar Peterson. In 1941 he joined Lionel Hampton's big band ,and for the next seven years served as its pianist and staff arranger. He led a short-lived band of his own for two years, but then returned to Hampton's. Buckner pioneered the use of the electric organ. He died in Chicago, Illinois at the age of sixty-two. Buckner's brother, Ted Buckner, was a noted jazz saxophonist.
84
Born 1893-08-15. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Age
Eugène Criqui was a French boxer who held the World Featherweight title in 1923. After his death, he was added to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Eugène was the 2015 Inductee for the Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame International category. He died blind in a nursing home in 1977.
78
Born 1899-04-22. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
In 1922, Nabokov's father was assassinated in Berlin by Russian monarchists as he tried to shelter their real target, Pavel Milyukov, a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party-in-exile. This episode of mistaken, violent death would echo again and again in the author's fiction, where characters would meet their deaths under mistaken terms. In Pale Fire, for example, the poet Shade is mistaken for a judge who resembles him and is murdered.
Nabokov was born on April 10, 1899 according to the Julian calendar in use in Russia at that time. The Gregorian equivalent is April 22, which is achieved by adding 12 days to the Julian date. Some sources have incorrectly calculated a date of April 23, by inappropriately using the 13-day difference in the calendars that applied only after February 28, 1900. In 'Speak, Memory' Nabokov explains the cause of the error and confirms the correct date of April 22. But he himself celebrated his birthday on April 23, and stated in an interview with The New York Times, "That is also Shakespeare’s and Shirley Temple’s, so I have nothing to lose by saying I was born on the 23d."
38
Born 1939-00-00. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder
He was born in 1939.
He is the penultimate person to be guillotined in France.
68
Born 1908-09-25. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Accident
car crash
"les malheurs de Sophie"
65
Born 1912-03-23. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Other
In 1976, von Braun learned he had a tumor in his intestines and the disease had already spread. Despite surgery, the disease progressed, forcing him to retire from Fairchild on December 31, 1976. Von Braun sustained an injury from a crash and unknown to him, started to bleed internally.
21
Born 1956-03-25. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Other
Matthew Adam Garber was a British child actor who played Michael Banks in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. He appeared in only two other films, The Three Lives of Thomasina and The Gnome-Mobile, all three times appearing alongside actress Karen Dotrice. All three appearances were in movies by Walt Disney Pictures. Ten years after his retirement, Garber contracted hepatitis, which later affected his pancreas. He died of pancreatitis at the age of 21.
71
Born 1906-05-08. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Heart attack
Dear Mr. Rossellini,
I saw your films Open City and Paisan, and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only "ti amo", I am ready to come and make a film with you.
Ingrid Bergman
72
Born 1905-03-23. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:cancer (pancreas)
According to her daughter Christina, Crawford's alleged last words were "Damn it...Don't you dare ask God to help me," which were directed at her housekeeper, who had begun to pray out loud. However, other sources indicate that Crawford was found dead on the bedroom floor by her housemaid.
85
Born 1892-10-23. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
In the Woody Allen film Stardust Memories, a woman at a film festival is referred to as having written the definitive filmography of Gummo Marx. As another enthusiast then observes, this is strange, as Gummo never appeared in a single film.
When Gummo joined the army he was replaced on stage by Zeppo. After the war Gummo went into business selling dresses and cloth and continued at it until he was lured back to show business. Not as a performer but as a partner in a talent agency. He managed his brothers for years and made a good name for himself as an agent.
Gummo held a patent for a box he invented. In "The Marx Brothers Scrapbook" he describes it: "I invented a [laundry] box that has only four side instead of eight. In the normal laudry box you'd put the laundry in one-half and cover it with the other. This one saved a lot of paper and the laudry would slide into it." He also tells of the product failing because of rising cardboard prices. Gummo wasn't the only inventor in the family, Zeppo also held three patents.