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July 11, 2025

R I P of the day

Brugsch Theodor (b. 1878-10-11 / d. 1963-07-11)

He was a German internist born in Graz. He became an associate professor in 1910, and practiced medicine at the Charité Hospital in Berlin prior to, and after World War I. In 1917-19 he served with distinction as a physician with the 9th Army in Romania. From 1927 to 1935 he was a professor at the University of Halle. In 1935 Brugsch resigned from the university due to the political climate in 1930s Germany, and opened a private practice in Berlin. After World War II, he returned to the Charité, where he remained for the remainder of his career. His father, Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827-1894) was a well-known Egyptologist. With Friedrich Kraus he published a 19-volume medical textbook titled Spezielle Pathologie und Therapie (1919-1929), and with Friedrich H. Lewy he published Die Biologie der Person (1926-1930). He was the 1954 recipient of the Goethe Prize, and in 1978 was depicted on the 25-pfennig postage stamp by the East German government. Brugsch's syndrome: a multi-symptom disorder that is similar to Touraine-Solente-Golé syndrome without acromegaly.

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Sad list (32)

Steinberger
Helmut (alias: Helmut Berger). 2023-05-18

78

Born 1944-05-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age

Helmut Berger (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈbɛʁɡɐ]; né Steinberger) was an Austrian actor, known for his portrayal of narcissistic and sexually ambiguous characters. He was one of the stars of European cinema in the late 1960s and 1970s, and is regarded as a sex symbol and pop icon of that period. He is most famous for his work with Luchino Visconti, particularly in his performance as King Ludwig II of Bavaria in Ludwig, for which he received a special David di Donatello award, and his performance in The Damned for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

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Colonna
Yvan. 2022-03-21

61

Born 1960-04-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

Yvan Colonna is a Corsican nationalist convicted for assassination. He is the son of Jean-Hugues Colonna, a former member of the National Assembly for the Socialist Party elected in the Alpes-Maritimes and a recipient of the French Légion d'honneur. On the 6th of February 1998 at 9:05 pm, the prefect of Corsica, Claude Érignac, was assassinated as he exited a theatre onto rue Colonna-d'Ornano in Ajaccio. He was shot receiving three 9 mm bullets in the neck, and died shortly thereafter. The weapon was shown to be one of the weapons stolen in the attack on the Gendarmerie Nationale station in Pietrosella on 6 September 1997. An enquiry followed, which resulted in the arrest of several militants. Interrogation pointed towards Yvan Colonna as the culprit. Police went to question him, but he had already fled. This sparked the biggest manhunt in French history, and Colonna was thought to have left the country, possibly for South America. However, an infrared camera set in the mountains of Corsica, near Vico as surveillance of a bergerie, a traditional Corsican stone hut, yielded evidence that Colonna was hiding here. He was arrested on the 4th of June 2003. Charged with assassination and being a member of a terrorist organisation, he was arraigned before the court of special cases in Paris from 12 November 2007. The court was in session until 12 December 2007. During his internment awaiting trial, he has repeatedly claimed innocence, and that he is the victim of unfair press coverage, convicting him before trial. On 13 December 2007, Colonna was pronounced guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. He has since appealed. On 20 June 2011, Colonna's conviction was upheld on appeal. He was serving his life sentence in the Toulon-La Farlède detention centre where he was assassinated by an other inmate. On 2 March 2022, Colonna was attacked in prison by Franck Elong Abé, an Islamist 36-year-old Cameroonian inmate, reportedly for "disrespecting Muhammad". In response, violent unrest broke out across Corsica. After spending three weeks in a coma at a hospital, he died of his wounds on 21 March 2022, at the age of 61.

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Harper
Robert Francis. 2020-01-23

68

Born 1951-05-19. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer

Robert Francis Harper was an American actor, perhaps most well known for his role as Sharkey in Once Upon a Time in America. He also portrayed Charlie Gereson in Creepshow and Bubba 'Si' Weisberger in the CBS sitcom Frank's Place. Other film credits include Wiseguy, Final Analysis, The Insider, Deconstructing Harry, and Molly. He also appeared on Broadway in Once in a Lifetime (directed by Tom Moore), The Inspector General and Arthur Miller's The American Clock. In May 2007, Harper delivered the Commencement Address at University College, Rutgers. He was married to a Dutch woman, Sascha Noorthoorn van der Kruyff, and died in Rotterdam.

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Gall
Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne (alias: France Gall). 2018-01-07

70

Born 1947-10-09. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer

She was a French yé-yé singer. In 1965, aged 17, she won the Eurovision Song Contest. Between 1973 and 1992, she collaborated with singer-songwriter Michel Berger. A long-term breast cancer survivor, Gall died, aged 70, of an infection after a two-year battle with a cancer of undisclosed primary origin, at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

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Berger
Marcel. 2016-10-15

89

Born 1927-04-14. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age

He was a French mathematician, doyen of French differential geometry, and a former director of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS), France. Formerly residing in Le Castera in Lasseube, Berger was instrumental in Mikhail Gromov's accepting positions both at the University of Paris and at the IHÉS.

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Bergeret
Jean. 2016-07-11

92

Born 1923-08-13. Domain:Science (Medical/Bio style). Cause of death:Age

Jean Bergeret was a French physician and psychiatrist.

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Engelberger
Joseph Frederick. 2015-12-01

90

Born 1925-07-26. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age

He was an American physicist, engineer and entrepreneur. Licensing the original patent awarded to inventor George Devol, Engelberger developed the first industrial robot in the United States, the Unimate, in the 1950s. Later, he worked as entrepreneur and vocal advocate of robotic technology beyond the manufacturing plant in a variety of fields, including service industries, health care, and space exploration. He has been called "the father of robotics" for his contributions to the field. Unimate was the first industrial robot, which worked on a General Motors assembly line at the Inland Fisher Guide Plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, in 1961. It was invented by George Devol in the 1950s using his original patent filed in 1954 and granted in 1961 (U.S. Patent 2,988,237). The patent begins: The present invention relates to the automatic operation of machinery, particularly the handling apparatus, and to automatic control apparatus suited for such machinery. Devol, together with Joseph Engelberger, his business associate, started the world's first robot manufacturing company, Unimation.

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Afanassieff
Jean. 2015-01-10

61

Born 1953-02-17. Domain:Society. Cause of death:cancer (pancreas)

he was a French mountaineer and director of Russian origin, considered one of the best climbers of his generation. On October 15, 1978, he was one of the first Frenchmen to reach the summit of Everest, with Pierre Mazeaud and Nicolas Jaeger accompanied by the Austrian Kurt Diemberger, cameraman of altitude.

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Bergeron
André. 2014-09-20

92

Born 1922-01-01. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age

From 1963 to 1989, he was chief of CGT-FO.

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Wallach
Eli Herschel. 2014-06-24

98

Born 1915-12-07. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age

He was an American film, television and stage actor whose career spanned more than six decades, beginning in the late 1940s. For his performance as Silva Vacarro in Baby Doll, he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. Among his most famous roles are Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Guido in The Misfits (1961), and Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Other notable portrayals include Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, Cotton Weinberger in The Two Jakes (both 1990), and Arthur Abbott in The Holiday (2006). One of America's most prolific screen actors, Wallach remained active well into his nineties, with roles as recently as 2010 in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and The Ghost Writer.

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Moreno
Roland. 2012-04-29

66

Born 1945-06-11. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Infection (Lungs)

He is best remembered for having invented the concept of smart card in 1974. In 1968 German electrical engineer Helmut Gröttrup and his colleague Jürgen Dethloff invented the automated chip card, receiving a patent only in 1982, while working for German company Giesecke & Devrient. The first mass use of the cards was as a Télécarte for payment in French pay phones, starting in 1983. French inventor Roland Moreno patented the memory card concept in 1974. In 1977, Michel Ugon from Honeywell Bull invented the first microprocessor smart card. In 1978, Bull patented the SPOM (self programmable one-chip microcomputer) that defines the necessary architecture to program the chip. Three years later, Motorola used this patent in its "CP8". At that time, Bull had 1,200 patents related to smart cards. In 2001, Bull sold its CP8 division together with its patents to Schlumberger, who subsequently combined its own internal smart card department and CP8 to create Axalto. In 2006, Axalto and Gemplus, at the time the world's top two smart card manufacturers, merged and became Gemalto. In 2008 Dexa Systems spun off from Schlumberger and acquired Enterprise Security Services business, which included the smart card solutions division responsible for deploying the first large scale public key infrastructure (PKI) based smart card management systems.

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Devol
George. 2011-08-11

99

Born 1912-02-20. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age

He was an American inventor, best known for creating Unimate, the first industrial robot. Devol's invention earned him the title "Grandfather of Robotics". As recognized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, "Devol's patent for the first digitally operated programmable robotic arm represents the foundation of the modern robotics industry." Unimate was the first industrial robot, which worked on a General Motors assembly line at the Inland Fisher Guide Plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, in 1961. It was invented by George Devol in the 1950s using his original patent filed in 1954 and granted in 1961 (U.S. Patent 2,988,237). The patent begins: The present invention relates to the automatic operation of machinery, particularly the handling apparatus, and to automatic control apparatus suited for such machinery. Devol, together with Joseph Engelberger, his business associate, started the world's first robot manufacturing company, Unimation.

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Lewis
Teresa. 2010-09-23

41

Born 1969-04-26. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

She was an American murderer and the only woman on death row in Virginia prior to her execution.
Lewis was sentenced to death for hiring two men to kill her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis, Jr., and her stepson, Charles J. Lewis, in their Pittsylvania County home on the night of October 30, 2002. Her stepson had a $250,000 life insurance policy from his military service, with Julian Lewis as the primary beneficiary and Lewis as the secondary beneficiary. The motive for the murder on the eve of the stepson's deployment, according to a later interview, was to collect the life insurance money. Her two accomplices, Matthew Jessee Shallenberger, then 21, and his former roommate and friend Rodney Lamont Fuller, then 19, were sentenced to life terms at their separate trials. Schallenberger committed suicide in prison in 2006.
Lewis was executed on September 23, 2010, at 9 p.m. by lethal injection, at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.
Lewis' lawyer stated that “She’s not mentally retarded, but she is very, very close to it."

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Berger
Maurice-Jean (alias: Maurice Béjart). 2007-11-22

80

Born 1927-01-01. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age

Heart and kidney failure.
He was a French choreographer who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger.

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Schwartz
Melvin. 2006-08-28

73

Born 1932-11-02. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age

1988 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger for their development of the neutrino beam method and their demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino.

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Heimberger
Edward Albert (alias: Eddie Albert). 2005-05-26

99

Born 1906-04-22. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Pneumonia

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Truong Trong Thi
André. 2005-03-29

69

Born 1936-01-30. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Other

He died in Paris after being hospitalized for two and a half years. Trương Trọng Thi was born in Cholon (Saigon). When he was 14 years old, he arrived in France to study, and later studied at the École Française de Radioélectricité (now EFREI). After working for Schlumberger and Intertechnique for some time, he formed the company R2E (Réalisation d'Études Électroniques). In 1973, with François Gernelle and a team of engineers he created the Micral, the first non-kit, microprocessor based personal computer in the world. It was created two years before the MITS Altair of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems arrived on the market. In 1981, R2E was absorbed by Groupe Bull.

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Berger
Yves. 2004-11-16

73

Born 1931-01-14. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age

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Getty
Eugene Paul (alias: Jean Paul Getty II). 2003-04-17

70

Born 1932-09-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs

He was a wealthy American-born British philanthropist and book collector. He was the son of Jean Paul Getty, Sr. (1892–1976), one of the richest men in the world at the time, and his wife Anne Rork. Paul Getty initially became reclusive after the death of his second wife in 1971. He moved to Rome as head of Getty Oil Italiana. In 1973, his eldest child and son, Paul III, was kidnapped in Rome by Calabrian mobsters and held in the Calabrian Mountains, chained to a stake in a cave. Getty did not have enough money to pay the $17 million ransom demand, and his father refused to help, saying "I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay one penny now, then I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren." However, when one of his son's ears was delivered by mail to a newspaper in Rome (delivery had been delayed by three weeks because of a postal strike), his father finally agreed to help out with the ransom payment by making the ransom payment a loan to his son. In 1976, Paul Getty's father died. Getty's money came from a family trust and his grandmother. After his father's death, he was able to stop using drugs. Getty's daughter Aileen was married to Elizabeth Taylor's son, Christopher Wilding (son of actor Michael Wilding). Aileen recently married Bartolomeo Ruspoli (son of European playboy Dado Ruspoli and actress Debra Berger). Over the next decade Getty suffered from depression and, in 1984 in a final attempt to end his drug addiction, checked himself into a London clinic. Whilst there he received a visit from the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher to thank him for large donations to the National Gallery. She reportedly helped speed his recovery by telling him, "My dear Mr. Getty, we mustn't let things get us down, must we? We'll have you out of here as soon as possible." During a low period in the 1970s Getty had been cheered up by the former England cricketer and later President of the M.C.C., Gubby Allen, having previously been introduced to the game by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.

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Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe. 2002-08-06

72

Born 1930-05-11. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age

He was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000. Despite having invented much of the technology of software, Dijkstra eschewed the use of computers in his own work for many decades. Almost all EWDs appearing after 1972 were hand-written. When lecturing, he would write proofs in chalk on a blackboard rather than using overhead foils, let alone Powerpoint slides. Even after he succumbed to his UT colleagues’ encouragement and acquired a Macintosh computer, he used it only for e-mail and for browsing the World Wide Web. He died in Nuenen on August 6, 2002 after a long struggle with cancer.

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Boxberger
Jacky. 2001-08-09

52

Born 1949-04-06. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident

He was grinded by an elephant during a photograph rallye in Kenya.

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Freudenberger
Herbert. 1999-11-29

73

Born 1926-11-26. Domain:Science (Medical/Bio style). Cause of death:Kidney failure

He was a German-born American psychologist. Though Freudenberger had many jobs in his life, including practitioner, editor, theoretician, and author, his most significant contribution is in the understanding and treatment of stress, burnout, and substance abuse. From 1994 to 1999, Freudenberger battled kidney disease along with failing physical health. He continued to work until he died in the New York City Hospital on November 29, 1999.

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Ratzenberger
Roland. 1994-04-30

33

Born 1960-07-04. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident

Roland Ratzenberger was killed during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola circuit on Saturday 30th April, 1994. He struck a wall at the Villeneuve corner at around 300 km/h. After the car carried on down the track, spinning around and stopping at the next corner, Ratzenberger's lolling head was revealed; he had clearly received massive head injuries. Data from the car suggested he had had an off-track excursion on the previous lap and it was widely suggested that a front wing failure linked to this caused the crash.
He was the first racing driver to die at a Grand Prix weekend since the 1982 season, when Riccardo Paletti was killed at the Canadian Grand Prix, coincidentally at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He was the first driver to die in an F1 car since Elio de Angelis during testing in 1986.
The day after Ratzenberger's death, three-times world champion Ayrton Senna was killed in another accident that brought the sport of Formula One under international scrutiny.

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Hamburger
Michel-Jean (alias: Michel Berger). 1992-08-02

44

Born 1947-11-28. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Heart attack

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Kastenberger
Johann (alias: Pumpgun Ronnie). 1988-11-15

30

Born 1958-10-01. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide

He was an Austrian bank robberer and a murderer. He was also a marathonian, who set a record time of 3:16:07 to the Kainacher mount marathon. He shot himself to the head while trying to run away from the police.

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de Angelis
Elio. 1986-05-15

28

Born 1958-03-26. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident

During tests at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, the rear wing of the BT55 came off at high speed, making the car lose downforce on the rear wheels, cartwheel over a barrier and catch fire. The impact did not kill de Angelis but, tragically, he could not get out of the car unassisted. The situation was exacerbated by the lack of marshals on the French circuit, or indeed anyone who could have assisted. A 30 minute delay ensued before an emergency helicopter arrived. De Angelis died 29 hours later in the hospital in Marseille to which he had been taken, from injuries caused by the smoke inhaled during the accident. His only other injuries were a broken collar bone and light burns on his back
De Angelis was the last driver to die in an F1 car until Roland Ratzenberger at Imola eight years later. His place in the Brabham team was taken, ironically, by Derek Warwick - allegedly because Warwick was the only unemployed F1 driver who did not contact Ecclestone immediately afterwards asking about the drive.

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Gouspeyre
Nicole (alias: Nicole Berger). 1967-04-13

31

Born 1935-06-12. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Accident

Car crash.

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McManus
George. 1954-10-22

70

Born 1884-01-23. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age

George McManus was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Irish immigrant Jiggs and his wife Maggie, the main characters of his syndicated comic strip, Bringing Up Father. (La famille Illico in France) Syndicated internationally by King Features Syndicate, Bringing Up Father achieved great success and was produced by McManus from 1913 until his death, when Vernon Greene and Frank Fletcher replaced him. McManus was inspired by The Rising Generation, a musical comedy by William Gill that he had seen as a boy in St. Louis, Missouri's Grand Opera House, where his father was manager. In The Rising Generation, Irish-American bricklayer Martin McShayne (played by the fat Irish comedian Billy Barry in the stage production McManus saw) becomes a wealthy contractor, yet his society-minded wife and daughter were ashamed of him and his buddies, prompting McShayne to sneak out to join his pals for poker. McManus knew Barry and used him as the basis for his drawings of Jiggs. Two years before his death, McManus said that Bringing Up Father had earned him $12,000,000 during his lifetime. McManus' wife, the former Florence Bergere, was the model for daughter Nora in Bringing Up Father. Zeke Zekley was his assistant on the comic strip from 1935 to 1954.

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Schlumberger
Marcel. 1953-08-19

69

Born 1884-06-21. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Age

In 1912, Conrad conceived the revolutionary idea of using electrical measurements to map subsurface rock bodies in order to acquire information about the nature of the rock (chalk, sandstone, granite,etc.) and the presence of hydrocarbons. In 1919, Marcel began working with his brother and in 1920 they opened their first office in Paris. In 1927, the Schlumberger brothers produced the first measurements (Electric Log) of an oil well in France. These ideas were very successful, and they founded the Société de Prospection Électrique in 1926 and Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation (now Schlumberger Well Services) in 1934.

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Schlumberger
Conrad. 1936-05-09

58

Born 1878-10-02. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Heart attack

In 1912, Conrad conceived the revolutionary idea of using electrical measurements to map subsurface rock bodies in order to acquire information about the nature of the rock (chalk, sandstone, granite,etc.) and the presence of hydrocarbons. In 1919, Marcel began working with his brother and in 1920 they opened their first office in Paris. In 1927, the Schlumberger brothers produced the first measurements (Electric Log) of an oil well in France. These ideas were very successful, and they founded the Société de Prospection Électrique in 1926 and Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation (now Schlumberger Well Services) in 1934.

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