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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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96
Born 1925-10-16. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE was an Irish-British and American actress and singer who played various roles across film, stage, and television. Her career, much of it in the United States, spanned eight decades, and her work received much international attention. At the time of her death, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. She was the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award), six Golden Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, and the Academy Honorary Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, eighteen Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. Moving into television in 1984, she achieved worldwide fame as the fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunit series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running and most popular detective drama series in television history.
55
Born 1960-05-20. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Heart
He was an English racing driver and younger brother of 1976 Formula One world champion James Hunt. Hunt started racing at 15 and moved up to Formula Ford in 1981. He competed in the British Formula Three Championship for five seasons from 1983 to 1987 against the likes of Ayrton Senna, Martin Donnelly, Martin Brundle and Damon Hill. He raced in the International Formula 3000 championship in 1988 and in the same year tested for the Benetton Formula 1 team. He then quit racing. At the end of 1994 he sold his multi-level marketing business, selling water filters, and purchased the bankrupt Lotus team to try to save it, but had no success. He continued to work on getting Lotus back into the top echelons of motor sport until 2009, when he sold the rights to the Lotus name to the Litespeed Formula 3 team. Litespeed applied to compete in the 2010 Formula One season but was refused entry. However, a Lotus entry backed by the Malaysian government was later given an entry for 2010 after the selection process was re-opened following the announcement that BMW Sauber would withdraw from the sport at the conclusion of the 2009 season. The team was called Lotus Racing. In the summer of 2010, 1Malaysia which ran an F1 team as Lotus Racing under licence from Lotus Cars bought Team Lotus Ventures Ltd from David Hunt. After this 1Malaysia would run its team as Team Lotus from 2011 onwards.
100
Born 1913-07-29. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Erich Priebke was a German mid-level SS commander in the SS police force (SiPo) of Nazi Germany. In 1996, he was convicted of war crimes in Italy, for commanding the unit which was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on 24 March 1944 in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in retaliation for a partisan attack that killed 33 men of the German SS Police Regiment Bozen. Priebke was one of the men held responsible for this mass execution. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, he fled to Argentina where he lived for almost 50 years. In 1991, Priebke's participation in the Rome massacre was denounced in Esteban Buch's book El pintor de la Suiza Argentina. In 1994, 50 years after the massacre, Priebke felt he could then talk about the incident and was interviewed by American ABC news reporter Sam Donaldson. This caused outrage among people who had not forgotten the incident, and led to his extradition to Italy and a trial which lasted more than four years. Priebke died in Rome at the age of 100, from natural causes. His last request, that his remains be returned to Argentina so he could be buried alongside his wife, was denied by the Argentinian government. The Vatican issued an "unprecedented ban" on holding his funeral in any Catholic church in Rome. His hometown in Germany also refused to take his body, over fears that his place of burial could become "a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis". The Society of Saint Pius X offered to hold the funeral ceremony for Erich Priebke in the city of Albano Laziale. Don Florian Abrahamowicz, an ex-SSPX priest, told Italy's Radio 24: "Priebke was a friend of mine, a Christian, a faithful soldier." During the funeral service, the police prevented clashes from breaking out between fascist sympathizers and anti-fascist protesters. The SSPX's funeral ceremony for Erich Priebke eventually took place, albeit without the presence of any of his relatives, because his family was unable to enter the city where it was held due to the rioting. Eventually, the coffin containing Priebke's body was seized by the Italian authorities, taken to a military base near Rome and then buried "in a secret location", as his lawyer Paolo Giachini, stated. Giachini said the agreement "satisfie[d] the family and ethical and spiritual requirements".
70
Born 1941-10-12. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
He was a French Rock singer. He died of ALS. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – also referred to as motor neurone disease in some British Commonwealth countries and as Lou Gehrig's disease in North America – is a debilitating disease with varied etiology characterized by rapidly progressive weakness, muscle atrophy and fasciculations, muscle spasticity, difficulty speaking (dysarthria), difficulty swallowing (dysphagia), and decline in breathing ability. ALS is the most common of the five motor neuron diseases.
58
Born 1950-01-26. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Accident
Haider was killed in a car crash in Köttmannsdorf near Klagenfurt, in the state of Carinthia, in the early hours of 11 October 2008. Police reported that the Volkswagen Phaeton that Haider had been driving came off the road, rolled down an embankment and overturned, causing him "severe head and chest injuries".
He was drunk at wheel.
Haider, who was on his way to a family gathering in honour of his mother's 90th birthday, was alone in the government car and no other vehicles were involved. An initial investigation uncovered no signs of foul play.
81
Born 1927-10-12. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
He was an American photographer and author.
Claxton died of complications from congestive heart failure, one day before his 81st birthday.
85
Born 1922-10-29. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
he was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, tune writer, and arranger.
He wrote background and theme music for television shows, including Batman and The Odd Couple.
76
Born 1932-01-19. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
He was the first Liverpool artist to hit the United States music scene with his song "Rainbow" several years before The Beatles. In 1957, chart success in the U.S. was a very unusual feat for an English performer and so it made Hamilton a very hot property for a while. As a result, Hamilton had to commute from one side of the Atlantic to the other to meet the many demands for live performances.
His first hit in the United Kingdom was "We Will Make Love" which he recorded in 1957 for Oriole Records.
76
Born 1931-08-27. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Heart attack
Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, better known as Sri Chinmoy, was an Indian spiritual leader who taught meditation in the West after moving to New York City in 1964. Chinmoy established his first meditation center in Queens, New York, and eventually had 7,000 students in 60 countries. A prolific author, artist, poet, and musician, he also held public events such as concerts and meditations on the theme of inner peace. Chinmoy advocated a spiritual path to God through prayer and meditation. He advocated athleticism including distance running, swimming, and weightlifting. He organized marathons and other races, and was an active runner and, following a knee injury, weightlifter. Chinmoy died from a heart attack while at his home in Jamaica, Queens, New York. Mikhail Gorbachev wrote that his death was "a loss for the whole world" and that "in our hearts, he will forever remain a man who dedicated his whole life to peace.
89
Born 1907-04-18. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
One of the first recipients of the Fiels Medal.
74
Born 1889-07-05. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Heart attack
Cocteau died of a heart attack at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, only hours after hearing of the death of his friend, the French singer Édith Piaf. He is buried in the garden of his home in Milly La Foret. The epitaph reads "I stay among you".
In the 1930s, Cocteau had an unlikely affair with Princess Nathalie Paley, the beautiful daughter of a Romanov grand duke and herself a fashion-plate, sometimes actress, model, and former wife of couturier Lucien Lelong. She became pregnant. To Cocteau's distress and Paley's life-long regret, the fetus was aborted.
47
Born 1915-12-19. Domain:Music. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
Alcohol, drugs, etc...
74
Born 1887-03-22. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:cardiovascular disease
Chico Marx was a compulsive womanizer, and had a lifelong gambling habit, which usually kept him short of funds, and which compelled him to continue in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income.
The last two Marx Brothers movies were made for Chico's benefit; the other brothers twice returned to the screen to bail Chico out of debt. Because of his gambling, the brothers finally took the money as he earned it and put him on an allowance, which he stayed on until he died.
82
Born 1876-04-04. Domain:Painting. Cause of death:Age
As a youth he was a professional cyclist. His career was ended by a bout with Typhoid fever in 1896.
78
Born 1848-05-14. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Albert Robida was a French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist. He edited and published La Caricature magazine for 12 years. Through the 1880s, he wrote an acclaimed trilogy of futuristic novels. In the 1900s he created 520 illustrations for Pierre Giffard's weekly serial La Guerre Infernale.