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Overton Joseph Paul (b. 1960-01-04 / d. 2003-06-30)
He was a senior vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He held a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Overton is known for conceiving of the idea now known as the Overton window, the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream at a given time. He died at age 43 from injuries suffered in a crash while piloting an ultralight aircraft, soon after taking off from the Tuscola Area Airport near Caro, Michigan. Overton had just married a few weeks before the accident.
Lookup: name or firstname or alias or date (yyyy-mm-dd):
61
Born 1962-12-28. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder
Konstantin Evgenievich Smeshko (Константи́н Евге́ньевич Смешко́) was a Russian military commander who was deputy chief of the Engineer Troops (starting in 2017) and a major general. He previously commanded the engineering troops of the Far Eastern Military District and those of the Southern Military District from 2012 to 2017. In 2015, he was responsible for cleaning the area of explosive objects on the territory of the Chechnya and the Ingushetia. For that, he was awarded the honour "Mastery in clearing of (to the Party of) mines in the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia". He later also operated the demining near Deir ez-Zor, Syria in 2017. Killed in an unknown location allegedly due to the Himars strike in one of the multiple attacks carried out in December. His funeral ceremony was held in Moscow in last days of December 2024
74
Born 1949-04-19. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Patrick Buisson was a French right-wing essayist, journalist and political advisor. He was a journalist for Minute, Valeurs Actuelles and Le Crapouillot as well as La Chaîne Info. He wrote several books about Vichy France, the Algerian War and the Indochina War. The founder and co-owner of Publifact, a polling agency, he was a key advisor to former President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2006 to 2012, during which time he surreptitiously recorded private conversations he had with the president. He was the co-presenter of Historiquement show, a television program on Histoire, a subsidiary of the TF1 Group, which he chaired.
81
Born 1942-09-18. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Wolfgang Schäuble (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ ˈʃɔʏblə]) was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic German parliament. Schäuble served as the 13th president of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2021.
90
Born 1931-10-07. Domain:Religious. Cause of death:Age
Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH GCStJ was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology. As Tutu rose to prominence in the 1970s, white conservatives who supported apartheid despised him, while many white liberals regarded him as too radical; many black radicals accused him of being too moderate and focused on cultivating white goodwill, while Marxist–Leninists criticised his anti-communist stance. He was popular among South Africa's black majority and was internationally praised for his anti-apartheid activism, receiving a range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He also compiled several books of his speeches and sermons. Tutu died from cancer at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town.
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.
73
Born 1946-07-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Suellyn Lyon was an American actress. She joined the entertainment industry as a model at the age of 13, and later rose to prominence and won a Golden Globe for playing the title role in the film Lolita (1962). Her other film appearances included The Night of the Iguana (1964), 7 Women (1966), Tony Rome (1967), and Evel Knievel (1971). Lyon died in West Hollywood on the morning of December 26, 2019, at the age of 73. While no specific cause of death was given, she was reported to have been in poor health "for some time."
81
Born 1938-01-09. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
Gary Keith Starkweather was an American engineer and inventor most notable for the invention of the laser printer and color management.
91
Born 1927-08-02. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Sir Henry Peter Francis Swinnerton-Dyer, 16th Baronet, KBE, FRS was an English mathematician specialising in number theory at University of Cambridge. As a mathematician he was best known for his part in the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture relating algebraic properties of elliptic curves to special values of L-functions, which was developed with Bryan Birch during the first half of the 1960s with the help of machine computation, and for his work on the Titan operating system.
57
Born 1952-00-00. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Cancer (breast)
Ellie Nesler shot and killed her son's accused molester in a courtroom Sonora, California, during the trial. She served 3 years of a 10-year sentence, and was released after an appeal based on jury misconduct. She later went back to prison after a conviction on drug charges, for which she served more than 3 years. While in prison, she developed breast cancer.
Nesler made headlines when she killed Daniel Driver, the man accused of molesting four boys (including her then 6 year old son, William) in 1993, in the Tuolumne County courthouse. She fired five shots into Driver's head, killing him instantly. In 2002, she was convicted of selling and possessing methamphetamine. She was released from a woman's facility near Chowchilla, California in 2006.
Meanwhile, her son got into legal troubles of his own and was convicted of first-degree murder in 2005 for stomping to death a man hired to clean the family's property in Sonora. The 23-year-old said he believed David Davis was letting people pick through the family's belongings.
William Nesler killed Davis less than an hour after he was released from a 30-day sentence for an earlier assault on him. He is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence.
57
Born 1948-11-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
Schiavelli served as honorary co-chair of the National Marfan Foundation, an organization which serves those affected by Marfan syndrome, from which Schiavelli suffered.
Marfan syndrome is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder of the connective tissue characterized by disproportionately long limbs, long thin fingers, a typically tall stature, and a predisposition to cardiovascular abnormalities, specifically those affecting the heart valves and aorta. The disorder may also affect numerous other structures and organs — including the lungs, eyes, dural sac surrounding the spinal cord, and hard palate. It is named after Antoine Marfan, the French pediatrician who first described it in 1899.
Schiavelli's role as a subway spirit in the 1990 drama Ghost won him much critical acclaim. In 1992, he played in Tim Burton's Batman Returns as the "Organ Grinder", one of the Penguin's henchmen. He appeared as another villain in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), as a silent monk in The Frisco Kid (1979), and as John O'Connor, one of the evil Red Lectroids in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
78
Born 1922-07-26. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
He made his film debut in the two-reel comedy Follow That Music (1947), but after his Broadway success, he was invited to make his feature debut in The Journey (1959). He became a familiar face to movie audiences throughout the 1960s, notably for his performances in A Thousand Clowns (1965) repeating his stage performance, Hour of the Gun as Doc Holliday (1967), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Robards was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hope Maxine (née Glanville; 1895–1992) and actor Jason Robards Sr. (1892–1963). He was of German, English, Welsh, Irish, and Swedish descent. The family moved to New York City when Jason Jr. was still a toddler, and then moved to Los Angeles when he was six years old. Later interviews with Robards suggested that the trauma of his parents' divorce, which occurred during his grade-school years, greatly affected his personality and world view. As a youth, Robards also witnessed first-hand the decline of his father's acting career. The elder Robards had enjoyed considerable success during the era of silent films, but he fell out of favor after the advent of "talkies" (sound film), leaving the younger Robards soured on the Hollywood film industry. The teenage Robards excelled in athletics, running a 4:18-mile during his junior year at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles. Although his prowess in sports attracted interest from several universities, Robards decided to enlist in the United States Navy upon his graduation in 1940. In 1972, he was seriously injured in an automobile accident when he drove his car into the side of a mountain on a winding California road, requiring extensive surgery and facial reconstruction. The accident may have been related to his longtime struggle with alcoholism. Robards overcame his addiction and went on to publicly campaign for alcoholism awareness. Robards had six children from his four marriages, including actor Sam Robards by his third wife, actress Lauren Bacall, whom he married in 1961 and from whom he was divorced in 1969.
33
Born 1957-07-20. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Accident
On January 11, 1983, she lost control of her old car that had no seat belts, was thrown from it and landed face down in a water-filled ditch. Paramedics found her with no vital signs, but they resuscitated her. After a couple weeks of remaining dormant within a coma, she was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Surgeons inserted a feeding tube for her long-term care. Her husband and parents waited for a more substantial recovery, but eventually, after four years, accepted that there was no hope. In 1987 her parents asked to have Cruzan's feeding tube removed, but the hospital demanded a court order to that effect.
Cruzan's feeding tube was taken out in December 1990. 15 members of Operation Rescue, including a nurse, appeared at the hospital to re-insert the feeding tube, but they were arrested. Cruzan died 11 days later. Her father committed suicide in 1996 and her mother died in 1999.
53
Born 1932-01-16. Domain:Science (Medical/Bio style). Cause of death:Murder
Fossey was found brutally murdered in the bedroom of her cabin on December 26, 1985. Her skull had been split by a native panga, a tool widely used by poachers, which she had confiscated years earlier and hung as a decoration on the wall of her living room adjacent to her bedroom. Fossey was found dead beside her bed and 2 meters away from the hole in the cabin that was cut on the day of her murder. Despite the violent nature of the wound, there was relatively little blood in her bedroom leading some to believe that she was killed before the wound was inflicted.
Farley Mowat's biography of Fossey, Woman in the Mists claims that it is very unlikely that she was killed by poachers. Mowat posits that she was killed by those who viewed her as an impediment to the touristic and financial exploitation of the gorillas. According to the book, which includes many of Fossey's own private letters, poachers would have been more likely to kill her in the forest, with little risk to themselves.
For a year after Fossey's death, until the conviction of one of her students for her murder, poachers dared not enter the forest for fear of being captured and interrogated for her murder. Many believe that the student convicted of murdering Dian was just a scapegoat and that the evidence against him was contrived. Immediately after the conviction, in late 1986, poaching began to rise again. Elephants and leopards are now completely extinct in the Virungas.
Dian Fossey is interred at a site in Rwanda that she herself had constructed for her dead gorilla friends. She believed that they were no different and that they needed the same rights as all of us.
30
Born 1950-05-23. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide
Richard Trenton Chase was an American serial killer, rapist, cannibal, and necrophile who killed six people in the span of a month in 1977 and 1978 in Sacramento, California. He was nicknamed The Vampire of Sacramento because he drank his victims' blood and cannibalized their remains. Chase was found dead in his prison cell. An autopsy revealed that he had committed suicide with an overdose of prescribed medications.
81
Born 1898-08-25. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
He was a German mathematician working in algebraic number theory, known for fundamental contributions to class field theory, the application of p-adic numbers to local classfield theory and diophantine geometry (Hasse principle), and to local zeta functions. Politically he was a right-wing nationalist, and applied for membership in the Nazi Party in 1937 but this was denied to him because he had Jewish ancestors. After war work he returned to Göttingen briefly in 1945 but was excluded by the British authorities. After brief appointments in Berlin from 1948 he settled permanently as professor in Hamburg.
81
Born 1896-05-30. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Accident
Died after a fall.
88
Born 1884-05-08. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Pneumonia
On December 5, 1972, he was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with lung congestion from pneumonia. He subsequently developed multiple organ failure and died.
69
Born 1899-06-12. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Other
Weegee was born Usher Fellig in Złoczew, near Lemberg, Austrian-Galicia (later known as Złoczów, Poland, and now Zolochiv, Ukraine). His name was changed to Arthur when he came with his family to live in New York in 1909, fleeing antisemitism.
Fellig's nickname was a phonetic rendering of Ouija, due to his frequent arrival at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities. He is variously said to have named himself Weegee, or to have been named by either the girls at Acme or by a police officer.
In the movie "road to perdition", The photos in Maguire's apartment (Jude Law) are real 1930s crime scene photos, some of which were taken by Weegee himself.
He died of complications of a brain tumor.
A ouija (often pronounced "wee-gee") is any flat surface printed with letters, numbers, and other symbols, to which a planchette or movable indicator points, supposedly in answer to questions from people at a séance. The fingers of the participants are placed on the planchette that then moves about the board to spell out messages. Ouija is a trademark for a talking board currently sold by Parker Brothers.
58
Born 1909-10-03. Domain:Personal. Cause of death:Heart attack
Father Infarctus
53
Born 1903-09-21. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
Preston Thomas Tucker was an American automobile entrepreneur. He is most remembered for his Tucker 48 sedan, initially nicknamed the "Tucker Torpedo", an automobile which introduced many features that have since become widely used in modern cars. Production of the Tucker '48 was shut down amidst scandal and controversial accusations of stock fraud on March 3, 1949. The 1988 movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream is based on Tucker's spirit and the saga surrounding the car's production. In 1949, Tucker surrendered his corporate records to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. United States Attorney Otto Kerner, Jr. began a grand jury investigation in February 1949. On March 3, 1949, a federal judge handed control of the Tucker Corporation over to Aaron J. Colnon and John H. Schatz. Soon thereafter on June 10, 1949, Tucker and six other Tucker Corporation executives were indicted on 25 counts of mail fraud, 5 counts of violations of SEC regulations and one count of conspiracy to defraud. The indictment included 46-year-old Tucker, Harold A. Karsten, 58, "alias Abe Karatz"; Floyd D. Cerf, 61 (whose firm had handled the stock offering); Robert Pierce, 63; Fred Rockelman, 64; Mitchell W. Dulian, 50, Tucker sales manager; Otis Radford, 42, Tucker Corporation comptroller; and Cliff Knoble, 42, Tucker advertising manager. On January 22, 1950, after 28 hours of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty" on all counts for all accused. Tucker had prevailed at the trial, but the Tucker Corporation, now without a factory, buried in debt, and faced with numerous lawsuits from Tucker dealers that were angry about the production delays, thus, was no more. Preston Tucker's reputation rebounded after the acquittal. His optimism was remarkable; after the trial was over, he was quoted as saying, "Even Henry Ford failed the first time out". Tucker Corporation assets were auctioned off publicly in Chicago. One remaining Tucker '48 car was given to Preston Tucker, and another to his mother. In the early 1950s, Tucker teamed up with investors from Brazil and auto designer Alexis de Sakhnoffsky to build a sports car called the Carioca. Tucker could not use the Tucker name for the car, as Peter Dun, of Dun and Bradstreet, had purchased the rights to the name. The Tucker Carioca was never developed. Tucker's travels to Brazil were plagued by fatigue and, upon his return to the United States, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Tucker died from pneumonia as a complication of lung cancer on December 26, 1956, at the age of 53. Tucker is buried at Michigan Memorial Park in Flat Rock, Michigan.
59
Born 1874-12-20. Domain:Society. Cause of death:orphan disease
Mary Ann Bevan (née Webster) was an English woman, who, after developing acromegaly, toured the sideshow circuit as "the ugliest woman in the world". In the early 2000s, Bevan's image was used on a birthday card in the United Kingdom made by Hallmark Cards. The card made reference to the dating show Blind Date. A complaint was made by a Dutch physician that it was disrespectful to a woman who had become deformed as the result of a disease. Hallmark agreed that it was inappropriate and stopped distribution of the card.