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Wiesel Elie (b. 1926-09-30 / d. 2016-07-02)
He was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Utah senator Orrin Hatch paid tribute to Wiesel in a speech on the Senate floor the following week, in which he said that, "With Elie's passing, we have lost a beacon of humanity and hope. We have lost a hero of human rights and a luminary of Holocaust literature.
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78
Born 1946-09-30. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Stroke
Jochen Richard Mass was a German racing driver and broadcaster, who competed in Formula One from 1973 to 1982. Mass won the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix with McLaren. In endurance racing, Mass won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1989 with Sauber. Mass died in Cannes, France on 4 May 2025 due to complications from a stroke that he suffered in February of the same year.
88
Born 1936-12-17. Domain:Religious. Cause of death:Age
Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until his death in 2025. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III. Francis's last public appearance was at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025, where he gave his final Easter address and called for a ceasefire in Gaza. He died at 07:35 local time (UTC+02:00) on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, aged 88, in his residence in Domus Sanctae Marthae. His death, announced by Cardinal Kevin Farrell on the Vatican's TV channel and in a video statement, was caused by a cerebral stroke, which led to a coma and irreversible cardiac arrest.
89
Born 1936-03-28. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa, more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (Spanish: [ˈmaɾjo ˈβaɾɣaz ˈʎosa]), was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the Spanish language and Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
76
Born 1948-03-30. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Cancer
Edmund Patrick Jordan was an Irish motorsport executive, broadcaster, racing driver and businessman. From 1991 to 2005, Jordan served as founder and team principal of Jordan in Formula One. In December 2024, Jordan announced that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate and bladder cancer earlier in the year. He died peacefully at his home in Cape Town at the age of 76.
79
Born 1945-09-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Pneumonia
Jocelyn Alice Wildenstein (née Jocelyne Périsset; 1940 or 7 September 1945 – 31 December 2024) was a Swiss socialite known for her extensive cosmetic surgery, which created a cat-like facial appearance; her 1999 high-profile divorce from billionaire art dealer and businessman Alec Wildenstein; and her extravagant lifestyle and subsequent bankruptcy filing. Jocelyn Wildenstein died from a pulmonary embolism at a hotel in Paris.
80
Born 1943-12-27. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Peter John Sinfield was an English poet and songwriter. He was best known as a co-founder and lyricist of King Crimson. Their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King is considered one of the first and most influential progressive rock albums ever released. He underwent heart surgery in 2005.
91
Born 1933-03-14. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was an American record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter, and bandleader. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.
87
Born 1937-03-16. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
John Hayden Woods FRSC was a Canadian logician and philosopher. He latterly held the position of Director of the Abductive Systems Group at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and was The UBC Honorary Professor of Logic. He was also affiliated with the Group on Logic, Information and Computation within the Department of Informatics at King's College London where he held the Charles S. Peirce Visiting Professorship of Logic position from 2001. Woods was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, life member of the Association of Fellows of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and President Emeritus of the University of Lethbridge.
82
Born 1940-10-19. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Sir Michael John Gambon CBE (/ˈɡæmbɒn/) was an Irish-English actor. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivier as one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Over his six-decade-long career, he received three Olivier Awards and four BAFTA TV Awards. In 1998, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama. He gained wide recognition through his role of Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series from 2004 to 2011, replacing Richard Harris following his death in 2002. Gambon was a qualified private pilot. His love of cars led to his appearance on the BBC series Top Gear. He raced the Suzuki Liana so aggressively that it went around the last corner of his lap on two wheels. The final corner of the Top Gear test track has been named "Gambon Corner" or simply "Gambon" in his honour.
81
Born 1941-12-12. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Age
Noël Tijou was a French long-distance runner. He competed in the men's 10,000 metres at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Tijou died in Les Sables-d'Olonne at the age of 81.
89
Born 1933-07-20. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.) was an American writer who authored twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western and postapocalyptic genres. He was known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique writing style, recognizable by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. McCarthy died at his home in Santa Fe at the age of 89. Stephen King said McCarthy was "maybe the greatest American novelist of my time ... He was full of years and created a fine body of work, but I still mourn his passing."
86
Born 1936-11-28. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Philippe Sollers (French: [sɔˈlɛʁs]; born Philippe Joyaux) was a French writer and critic. In 1960 he founded the avant garde literary journal Tel Quel (along with writer and art critic Marcelin Pleynet), which was published by Le Seuil and ran until 1982. Sollers then created the journal L'Infini, published first by Denoel, then by Gallimard with Sollers remaining as sole editor. Sollers was at the heart of the period of intellectual fervour in the Paris of the 1960s and 1970s. He contributed to the publication of critics and thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, and Roland Barthes. Some of them were later described in his novel Femmes (1983), alongside other figures of French intellectualism active before and after May 1968. His writings and approach to language were examined and praised by French critic Roland Barthes in his book Writer Sollers. In 1990, following a televised disagreement between Canadian novelist Denise Bombardier and the French writer Gabriel Matzneff over Matzneff's "recently published memoir, about his sexual conquests of very young women", a few days later, on the television channel France 3, Sollers referred to Bombardier as "a bitch".
82
Born 1940-09-05. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Jo Raquel Welch (née Tejada) was an American actress and model. In 1995, Welch was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History". Playboy ranked Welch No. 3 on their "100 Sexiest Stars of the Twentieth Century" list. Welch died at her home in Los Angeles, following a brief illness. She was 82.
95
Born 1927-04-16. Domain:Religious. Cause of death:Age
Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: Benedictus XVI; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known as "Pope emeritus" upon his resignation, and he retained this title until his death in 2022.
74
Born 1948-02-22. Domain:Music. Cause of death:COVID
Teolinda Joaquina de Sousa Lança, better known as Linda de Suza, was a Portuguese Lusophone and Francophone singer, actress and best-selling author. She was described by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa as "a French icon of Portuguese migration".
73
Born 1948-09-26. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer (breast)
Dame Olivia Newton-John AC DBE was an Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included five number-one hits and another ten top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200; If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974) and Have You Never Been Mellow (1975). Eleven of her singles (including two Platinum) and 14 of her albums (including two Platinum and four 2× Platinum) have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With global sales of more than 100 million records, Newton-John is one of the best-selling music artists from the second half of the 20th century to the present. In 1978, Newton-John starred in the musical film Grease, whose soundtrack remains one of the world's best-selling albums of all time. In May 2017, it was announced that Newton-John's breast cancer had returned and metastasised to her lower back. Her back pains had initially been diagnosed as sciatica. She subsequently revealed this was actually her third bout with breast cancer, as she had a recurrence of the disease in 2013 in addition to her initial 1992 diagnosis. With the 2017 recurrence, the cancer had spread to her bones and progressed to stage IV. Newton-John experienced significant pain from the metastatic bone lesions and had spoken of using cannabis oil to ease her pain. She was an advocate for the use of medical cannabis; her daughter Chloe owns a cannabis farm in Oregon.
72
Born 1949-08-01. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Jose Luccioni was a French actor and artistic director. Primarily active in dubbing, he was notably the French voice of Al Pacino from 1985 to 2021. He also directed dubbing in numerous films, television series, and telefilms. José was the son of baritone Jacques Luccioni, who himself was the son of tenor José Luccioni (1903–1978). His mother was actress Micheline Luccioni. His daughter, Olivia, is also an actress and artistic director.
60
Born 1961-07-08. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Unknown
Andrew John Leonard Fletcher, also known as Fletch, was an English keyboard player, DJ, and founding member of the electronic band Depeche Mode. In 2020, he and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fletcher was married to Gráinne Fletcher (née Mullan) for almost 30 years. The couple had two children. While Depeche Mode were touring with the band Blancmange in the early 1980s, Fletcher was renowned for his skill at chess. Neil Arthur of Blancmange has mentioned in interviews "never winning a game of chess with Andy Fletcher!" During the 1990s, Fletcher owned a restaurant called Gascogne located on Blenheim Terrace in St. John's Wood, London. He made a series of bad investments in the mid-1990s that led to a number of financial settlements involving Lloyd's of London and Daniel Miller. Writing about the 1993 Devotional Tour, Glyn Brown of The Independent said: "... an epic 180-show affair, became the definition of hell. Depeche Mode – down to Gore, Gahan and Andrew Fletcher – were barely on speaking terms, using separate limos and dressing rooms. The smack-blasted vocalist required cortisone shots just to perform, borderline alcoholic Gore suffered two stress-induced seizures, and Andrew Fletcher's deepening depression resulted, in the summer of 1994, in a full nervous breakdown."
79
Born 1942-12-30. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Freddie Joe Ward was an American actor and producer. Starting with a role in an Italian television movie in 1973, he appeared in such diverse films as Escape from Alcatraz, Southern Comfort, The Right Stuff, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Tremors and Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Henry & June, The Player, Swing Shift, Short Cuts, and 30 Minutes or Less. Ward lived in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. His first marriage, to Carla Evonne Stewart in 1965, ended in divorce the following year. His second marriage was to Silvia Ward, with whom he had a son, Django. After they divorced, he married Marie-France Boisselle in 1995 and she filed for divorce in August 2013, but they reconciled later that year. Ward died aged 79. His family declined to cite a cause.
72
Born 1949-05-19. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Joseph Michael "Dusty" Hill was an American musician who was the bassist of the rock band ZZ Top. He also sang lead and backing vocals, and played keyboards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of ZZ Top in 2004. Hill played with ZZ Top for over 50 years; after his death, he was replaced by the band's longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis, in line with Hill's wishes.
46
Born 1975-04-26. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Unknown
Nathan Jonas Jordison was an American musician who was the drummer and co-founder of metal band Slipknot as well as guitarist for horror punk band Murderdolls. In 2016, Jordison talked about suffering from acute transverse myelitis in a Metal Hammer interview. Its symptoms started in 2010 while touring with Murderdolls, but the disease was diagnosed long after. This progressed to the loss of use of his left leg. The neurological disease had temporarily cost him the use of his legs and caused him to be unable to play the drums before rehabilitation. He recovered with the aid of medical help and intensive work in the gym. Jordison died in his sleep at the age of 46.
31
Born 1990-05-07. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:cancer (brain)
Jolien Verschueren was a Belgian cyclo-cross cyclist, who rode for UCI Cyclo-cross team Pauwels Sauzen–Bingoal. She represented her nation in the women's elite event at the 2016 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Heusden-Zolder. She won the Koppenbergcross in 2015 and repeated this at the 2016 DVV Verzekeringen Trofee Koppenbergcross 2016, besting world champion Thalita de Jong. On 12 April 2018, it was announced that earlier that week Verschueren was operated on to remove a malignant brain tumor. Verschueren tried a comeback in 2019 and 2020 but her health did not allow for good results. Verschueren died of brain cancer.
75
Born 1945-09-18. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide
John David McAfee (/ˈmækəfiː/ MAK-ə-fee) was a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate. In 1987 he wrote the first commercial anti-virus software, founding McAfee Associates to sell his creation. McAfee resigned in 1994 and sold his remaining stake in the company. McAfee was found dead due to an apparent suicide by hanging in a prison cell near Barcelona shortly after his extradition to the U.S. was authorized by Spain. On April 30, 2012, McAfee's property in Orange Walk Town, Belize, was raided by the Gang Suppression Unit of the Belize Police Department. At that time, McAfee was in bed with a girlfriend. A GSU press release stated that McAfee was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon. He was released without charge. In 2012, Belize police spokesman, Raphael Martinez, confirmed that McAfee was neither convicted nor charged, only suspected. In January 2014, McAfee in Canada claimed that when the Belizean government raided his property, it seized his assets, and that his house later burned down under suspicious circumstances. On August 2, 2015, McAfee was arrested in Henderson County, Tennessee, on one count of driving under the influence and one count of possession of a firearm while intoxicated. In July 2019, McAfee and members of his entourage were arrested while his yacht was docked at Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, on suspicion of carrying high-caliber weapons and ammunition. They were held for four days before being released. On August 11, 2020, McAfee fabricated a hoax that he was arrested in Norway during the COVID-19 pandemic, after refusing to replace a lace thong with a more effective face mask. McAfee later posted a picture of himself to Twitter with a bruised eye, claiming that it occurred during this arrest. However, the photo of the alleged arrest shows an officer with the German word for "police" on their uniform, so it could not have been an arrest in Norway. The Augsburg Police later confirmed McAfee unsuccessfully attempted to enter Germany on that day, but was not arrested. On November 12, 2012, Belize police began to search for McAfee as a "person of interest" in connection to the murder of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull. Faull was found dead of a gunshot wound on November 11, 2012, at his home on the island of Ambergris Caye, the largest island in Belize. Faull was a neighbor of McAfee's. In a November 2012 interview with Wired, McAfee said that he had always been afraid police would kill him and refused their routine questions; he evaded the Belizean authorities. Belize's prime minister, Dean Barrow, called McAfee "extremely paranoid, even bonkers." McAfee fled Belize when he was sought for questioning concerning the murder. The magazine Vice accidentally gave away McAfee's location at a Guatemalan resort in early December 2012, when a photo taken by one of its journalists accompanying McAfee was posted with the EXIF geolocation metadata still attached. While in Guatemala, McAfee asked Chad Essley, an American cartoonist and animator, to set up a blog so that McAfee could write about his experience while on the run. McAfee then appeared publicly in Guatemala City, where he unsuccessfully sought political asylum. On December 5, 2012, McAfee was arrested for illegally entering Guatemala. Shortly afterward, he was placed under arrest, and a board to review McAfee's plea for asylum was formed. The committee denied his asylum, so he was taken from his holding facility to a detention center in order to await deportation to Belize. On December 6, 2012, Reuters and ABC News reported that McAfee had two minor heart attacks in a Guatemalan detention center and was hospitalized. McAfee's lawyer stated that his client had not suffered heart attacks, but had instead suffered from high blood pressure and anxiety attacks. McAfee later said he had faked the heart attacks while being held in Guatemala, to buy time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that ultimately prevented his deportation to Belize, thus hastening the government's decision to send him back to the United States. On December 12, 2012, McAfee was released from detention in Guatemala, and deported to the United States. On November 14, 2018, the Circuit Court in Orlando, Florida, refused to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit against McAfee for Faull's death. In January 2019, McAfee announced that he was on the run from U.S. authorities, and living internationally on a boat following the convening of a Grand Jury to indict him, his wife, and four of his 2020 Presidential campaign workers on tax-related charges. At the time the IRS had not independently confirmed the existence of these charges. On October 5, 2020, McAfee was arrested in Spain at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice for tax evasion. The June indictment, which was unsealed upon his arrest, alleged he earned millions of dollars from 2014 to 2018, but failed to file income tax returns. On October 6, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint that further alleged that McAfee and his bodyguard promoted certain initial coin offerings in a fraudulent cryptocurrencies pump-and-dump scheme. According to the SEC, McAfee presented himself as an impartial investor when he promoted the ICOs, despite the fact that he was allegedly paid $23 million in digital assets in exchange for the promotions. On March 5, 2021, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York formally indicted McAfee and an executive adviser on these charges. McAfee was incarcerated in Spain, pending extradition to the United States. On June 23, 2021, the Spanish National Court authorized the extradition of McAfee to the United States, for criminal charges in Tennessee. McAfee died a few hours later. The New York extradition case was still pending in a lower Spanish court.
65
Born 1956-04-05. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:Age
Juan Joya Borja was a Spanish comedian and actor known by the stage name El Risitas. He gained widespread popularity in 2015 thanks to a series of memes based on a television interview he did from 2001 on Jesús Quintero's show Ratones coloraos. In September 2020, Joya was admitted to the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville, where he underwent an intervention for a vascular problem and had a leg amputated. At noon on 28 April 2021, Joya was transferred from the Hospital de la Caridad to the Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, after a sudden relapse. He died from complications from his illness later that afternoon at the age of 65.
42
Born 1978-09-04. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Cancer
Joseph Ponthus was a French writer. He was best known for writing the book À la ligne, which received the Grand prix RTL-Lire and the Prix Eugène-Dabit du roman populiste. Ponthus earned his khâgne in Reims and Nancy. He first worked in the town hall of Nanterre as a special education teacher. He co-authored a book with four of his students in 2012, titled Nous ... la cité and published by La Découverte. In 2015, he moved to Lorient to live with his wife, where he first worked in a fish cannery and a slaughterhouse. For two years, Ponthus recorded his impressions and feelings as well as those of his colleagues. These recordings were published in January 2019 under the title À la ligne by Éditions de la Table ronde. The book followed a flow of free verse poetry. He explained that "the plant [...] has set the pace: on a production line, everything is linked very quickly. There is no time for pretty subordinates. The gestures are mechanical and the thoughts go to line".
86
Born 1934-11-11. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
John Henry Matthew Reilly was an American film and television actor who appeared on soap operas including General Hospital, Sunset Beach, and Passions.
41
Born 1979-12-16. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Pneumonia
Jonathan Huber was an American professional wrestler known under the ring name of Brodie Lee. He worked in WWE, as Luke Harper or Harper from 2012 to 2019, and in All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he performed under the ring name Mr. Brodie Lee in 2020.
89
Born 1931-10-19. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré (/ləˈkæreɪ/), was a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works. John le Carré died of pneumonia.
88
Born 1932-07-17. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, better known by his pen name Quino was an Argentine cartoonist. His comic strip Mafalda (which ran from 1964 to 1973) is popular in many parts of the Americas and Europe and has been praised for its use of social satire as a commentary on real-life issues
80
Born 1939-08-29. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Cancer
Joel T. Schumacher was an American filmmaker. Schumacher rose to fame after directing three hit films: St. Elmo's Fire (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), and Flatliners (1990). He later went on to direct the John Grisham adaptations The Client (1994) and A Time to Kill (1996). His films Falling Down (1993) and 8mm (1999) competed for the Palme d'Or and Golden Bear, respectively. In 1993, he signed on to direct the next installments of the Batman film series, Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997). After the Batman films, Schumacher pulled back from blockbusters and returned to making minimalist films such as Tigerland (2000) and Phone Booth (2002), both earning positive reviews. He also directed The Phantom of the Opera (2004), The Number 23 (2007), and two episodes of House of Cards. Known for casting young perfomers, Schumacher helped several actors including Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Matthew McConaughey advance their careers.