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July 05, 2025

R I P of the day

Baire René-Louis (b. 1874-01-21 / d. 1932-07-05)

René-Louis Baire was a French mathematician most famous for his Baire category theorem, which helped to generalize and prove future theorems. His theory was published originally in his dissertation Sur les fonctions de variable réelles ("On the Functions of Real Variables") in 1899. Since he was young, Baire always had "delicate" health. He had developed problems with his esophagus before he attended school and he would occasionally experience severe attacks of agoraphobia. From time to time, his health would prevent him from working or studying. The bad spells became more frequent, immobilizing him for long periods of time. Over time, he had developed a kind of psychological disorder that made him unable to undertake work that required long periods of concentration. At times this would make his ability to research mathematics impossible. Between 1909 and 1914 this problem continually plagued him and his teaching duties became more and more difficult. He was given a leave of absence from the University of Dijon due to all these breakdowns. He retired from Dijon in 1925 and spent his last years living in multiple hotels that he could afford with his meager pension.

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Sad list (2)

Honecker
Margot. 2016-05-06

89

Born 1927-04-17. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age

Margot Honecker was an East German politician who was an influential member of that country's Communist regime until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education (Ministerin für Volksbildung) of the GDR. She was married to Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state. Margot Honecker was widely known as the "Purple Witch" for her tinted hair and hardline Stalinist views, and was described as "the most hated person" in East Germany next to Stasi chief Erich Mielke by former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse. Margot Honecker died in Santiago at the age of 89. On her death the historian Hubertus Knabe, director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, said that "she never critically reflected on what she had done. Up until her death she was an evil, unrepentant woman.

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Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil. 2000-05-21

92

Born 1907-12-28. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age

Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (German: [ˈeːʁɪç ˈmiːlkə]) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatsicherheit – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In addition to his role as head of the Stasi, Mielke was also an Army General in the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee), and a member of the SED's ruling Politburo. Dubbed "The Master of Fear" (German: der Meister der Angst) by the West German press, Mielke was one of the most powerful and most hated men in East Germany. After German reunification in 1990, Mielke was arrested (1991), prosecuted (1992), convicted, and incarcerated (1993) for the 1931 murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. Released from prison early due to ill health in 1995, he died in a Berlin nursing home in 2000. The Stasi under Mielke has been called by historian Edward Peterson the "most pervasive police state apparatus ever to exist on German soil". In a 1993 interview, Holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal said that, if one considers only the oppression of their own people, the Stasi under Mielke was "much, much worse than the Gestapo".

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