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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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82
Born 1942-06-20. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Brian Douglas Wilson was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition and mastery of recording techniques, he is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and significant songwriters of the 20th century. His best-known work is distinguished for its high production values, complex harmonies and orchestrations, vocal layering, and introspective or ingenuous themes. Wilson is also known for his once-high vocal range and lifelong struggles with mental illness. He is considered one of the greatest musicians of all time. In 2024, it was revealed that Wilson was suffering from dementia following the death of Ledbetter. Following this, he was placed in a conservatorship, with his long-time publicist Jean Sievers, and his manager, LeeAnn Hard, as his conservators. His death at the age of 82 was announced on June 11, 2025. His family declined to state a cause of death.
76
Born 1947-03-06. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Age
Richard Douglas Fosbury was an American high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. Besides winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics, he revolutionized the high jump event with a "back-first" technique, now known as the Fosbury Flop, adopted by almost all high jumpers today. His method was to sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backwards over the bar, which gave him a much lower center of mass in flight than traditional techniques. He continued to be involved in athletics after retirement and served on the executive board of the World Olympians Association. In 2014, Fosbury unsuccessfully challenged Steve Miller for a seat in the Idaho House of Representatives. Fosbury ran for Blaine County Commissioner against incumbent Larry Schoen in 2018, won the seat, and took office in January 2019. At the next Olympics in 1972 at Munich, 28 of the 40 competitors used Fosbury's technique, although gold medalist Jüri Tarmak used the straddle technique. By 1980, 13 of the 16 Olympic finalists used it. Of the 36 Olympic medalists in the event from 1972 through 2000, 34 used "the Flop". Today it is the most popular technique in modern high jumping. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Fosbury took the gold medal and set a new Olympic record at 2.24 m (7 ft 4+1⁄4 in), displaying the potential of the new technique. Despite the initial skeptical reactions from the high-jumping community, the "Fosbury Flop" quickly gained acceptance. In the Finals competition, only three jumpers cleared 2.20 m (7 ft 2+5⁄8 in), and Fosbury was in the lead by virtue of having cleared every height on his first attempt. At the next height, 2.22 m (7 ft 3+3⁄8 in), Fosbury again cleared the bar on his first jump. His teammate, Ed Caruthers, cleared on his second effort, while Valentin Gavrilov of the Soviet Union missed on all three attempts and earned the bronze medal (third place). The bar was raised to 2.24 m (7 ft 4+1⁄4 in), which would be new Olympic and United States records. Fosbury missed on his first two attempts, but cleared on his third, while Caruthers missed on all three of his attempts. Having won the gold medal and broken the American record, Fosbury asked the bar to be raised to 2.29 m (7 ft 6+1⁄8 in), hoping to break Valeriy Brumel's five-year-old world record of 2.28 m (7 ft 5+3⁄4 in). However, none of his attempts at 2.29 m came close to clearing. On March 13, 2023, his former agent, Ray Schulte, announced Fosbury's death the previous day after a short bout with a recurrence of lymphoma.
94
Born 1927-02-20. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Sir Sidney L. Poitier KBE was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and ambassador. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Black male and Bahamian actor to win the award. He received two further Academy Award nominations, ten Golden Globes nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, six BAFTA nominations, eight Laurel nominations, and one Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination. Poitier was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, and after the death of Kirk Douglas in 2020, was the oldest living and earliest surviving male Academy Award winner until his own death in 2022. From 1997 to 2007, Poitier served as Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.
103
Born 1916-12-09. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Kirk Douglas was an American actor, producer, director, philanthropist, and writer. After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films. Douglas was known for his explosive acting style, which he displayed as a criminal defense attorney in Town Without Pity (1961). After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and then suffering a stroke in 1996, he focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life. He lived with his second wife (of 66 years), Anne Buydens, a producer, until his death On January 28, 1996, Douglas suffered a severe stroke, which impaired his ability to speak. Doctors told his wife that unless there was rapid improvement, the loss of the ability to speak was likely permanent. After a regime of daily speech-language therapy that lasted several months, his ability to speak returned, although it was still limited. He was able to accept an honorary Academy Award two months later in March and thanked the audience. He wrote about this experience in his 2002 book, My Stroke of Luck, which he hoped would be an "operating manual" for others on how to handle a stroke victim in their own family.
30
Born 1987-06-26. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident
Daniel Richard Kneen was a professional motorcycle racer from Douglas, Isle of Man. Kneen was a race winner at the Manx Grand Prix (three times) and the Ulster Grand Prix, and finished on the podium at the 2017 Isle of Man TT, in the Superstock race. Kneen died of multiple injuries after an accident during qualifying for the 2018 Isle of Man TT, the 147th competitor to be killed at the Mountain Course during a TT meeting.
101
Born 1916-01-19. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
He was an American computer design pioneer. He visited the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom for a year and worked on the Pilot ACE computer with Alan Turing and others. He was also involved with the EDVAC and SEAC computer projects. Huskey appeared with a junk dealer as the third pair of contestants in the 10 May 1950 episode of Groucho Marx's radio show You Bet Your Life. He was described as the designer of an "electronic brain". They selected the "state category" and missed the final question when they failed to identify Iowa as the state north of Missouri
92
Born 1924-10-15. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
He was a British author who wrote many historical novels about the Royal Navy, mainly set during either World War II or the Napoleonic Wars. He wrote a total of 68 novels, selling 34 million copies in twenty languages. Reeman is most famous for his series of Napoleonic naval stories, whose central character is Richard Bolitho, and, later, his nephew, Adam Bolitho. He used the pseudonym Alexander Kent (the real name of a friend and naval officer who died during the Second World War) for his Bolitho novels and his real name for his other novels and non-fiction.
85
Born 1931-11-24. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
He was an American rockabilly and swing musician. The last surviving member of Buddy Holly's "touring" Crickets for the 1959 Winter Dance Party, Tommy Allsup died at 85 years old in a hospital in Springfield, Missouri after complications from hernia surgery.
73
Born 1941-12-14. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer
He was an American actor and criminal. He was known for trafficking heroin in his native Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1970s and 1980s. He appeared as an actor in the HBO series The Wire, which explores many Baltimore-related subjects, including narcotics trafficking, and served as an inspiration for the character of Avon Barksdale.
72
Born 1941-01-21. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Heart attack
Richard Pierce Havens was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul (both of which he frequently covered), and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar style (often in open tunings). He was the opening act at Woodstock, sang many jingles for television commercials, and was also the voice of the GeoSafari toys. In 2010, Havens underwent kidney surgery but did not recover fully enough to perform as he had before. In March 2012, he announced on his Facebook page that he would retire from touring after 45 years, due to health concerns. Havens died of a heart attack at the age of 72. The BBC referred to him as a "Woodstock icon", while Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young said Havens "could never be replicated". The Daily Telegraph stated Havens "made an indelible mark on contemporary music", while Douglas Martin of The New York Times reported that Havens had "riveted Woodstock". Pursuant to Havens's request, he was cremated, and his ashes were scattered from the air over the original site of the Woodstock Festival, in a ceremony held on August 18, 2013, the 44th anniversary of the festival's last day.
91
Born 1920-08-22. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
He was an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951), Bradbury was one of the most celebrated among 20th century American writers of speculative fiction. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films. "We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now." Bradbury chose a burial place at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery and a headstone that reads "Author of Fahrenheit 451".
89
Born 1922-10-12. Domain:Business. Cause of death:cancer (pancreas)
He was an American engineer, businessman and philanthropist. Former chairman and chief executive officer of McDonnell Douglas Corporation, he also served as national president of the Boy Scouts of America and as chairman of Character Education Partnership. He was "Man of the Year" in St. Louis in 1984
73
Born 1936-07-24. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Phyllis Douglas was an actress who played Yeoman Mears in Startrek: "The Galileo Seven". She also appeared as Girl #2 in Startrek: "The Way to Eden".
Douglas made her feature acting debut at the age of three in the epic classic Gone With the Wind, although she was not credited for her work. She later appeared (again, without credit) in the film Raintree County, which also featured DeForest Kelley. In 1959's Girls Town she played the character Eleanor alongside Elinor Donahue. She also appeared in two episodes of Batman.
Douglas retired from acting and sold recreational vehicle lots in Palm Springs, California.
Born as Phyllis Callow, the daughter of director Ridgeway Callow, she was one of the last surviving cast members of Gone with the Wind.
40
Born 1967-10-05. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Suicide
"Tim" Carter was a retired football goalkeeper. He was a goalkeeping coach at the time of his death.
As a goalkeeping coach he worked with the Sunderland first team and was also a part-time coach for the Estonian national team.
Carter's body was found by a passer-by in bushes in the Highfield Close area of Stretford, Greater Manchester. Emergency services were called, and he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics at midday. His death is not being treated as suspicious. Sources stated that Carter's body was found with a rope around the neck and it is believed he had committed suicide.
88
Born 1919-04-08. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
In early 2005 Smith travelled to South Africa for medical treatment. He stayed on to live with his widowed stepdaughter Jean in Cape Town, South Africa, where there is a significant Rhodesian expatriate community, until he died.
24
Born 1982-04-14. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Unknown
He was an American football player who was a running back for the NFL's Denver Broncos during the 2006-2007 season at the time of his death.
He was a track star in high school and ran the 100 meter dash in 10.3 seconds.
Nash collapsed suddenly following a charity basketball game at Riverview Gardens High School on February 23, 2007. Nash was found unresponsive at a residence in suburban St. Louis and was later pronounced dead.
Sergeant Ed Douglas of the Ferguson, Missouri, police department said in a telephone interview that Nash was transported by ambulance to Christian Hospital Northeast. Douglas said the case was still under investigation. Nash was pronounced dead at 6:41 p.m. local time, hospital nursing supervisor Eileen Zwilling said in a telephone interview. She said no other information was available.
44
Born 1962-02-22. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:Accident
Irwin was fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray spine while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, at Batt Reef, which is located off the coast of Port Douglas in Queensland. Irwin was in the area filming his own documentary, Ocean's Deadliest, but weather had stalled filming. Irwin decided to take the opportunity to film some shallow water shots for a segment in the television program his daughter Bindi was hosting, when, according to his friend and colleague, John Stainton, he swam too close to one of the stingrays. "He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat the Croc One.
The events were caught on camera, and a copy of the footage was handed to the Queensland Police. After reviewing the footage of the incident and speaking to the cameraman who recorded it, marine documentary filmmaker and former spearfisherman Ben Cropp speculated that the stingray "felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead." In such a case, the stingray responds to danger by automatically flexing the serrated spine on its tail (which can measure up to 25 cm or about 10 inches in length) in an upward motion.
Ironically, the stingray was not the creature being filmed. It was deemed "not dangerous enough" to be featured in the documentary.
26
Born 1976-03-14. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Murder
He was an American television and film actor, of Dominican heritage, best known for his role as Romeo Santana on the WB series, The Steve Harvey Show.
Santana was sitting in a parked car when two men approached the car and shot him. Santana died before any help could arrive.
Damien Andre Gates was convicted of the first-degree murder of Santana and the attempted murder of another man in the car, and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences plus 70 years in prison. Brandon Douglas Bynes received a 23-year sentence after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. An officer involved in the case testified that Monique King, reportedly Gates' girlfriend and aged 15 at the time of Santana's death, falsely claimed that Santana had tried to rape her, which prompted Gates and Bynes to attack the car. King received eight years in juvenile custody.
50
Born 1951-09-18. Domain:Music. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
Douglas Glenn Colvin, known professionally as Dee Dee Ramone, was a German-American songwriter and musician, best known as founding member, songwriter and bassist for punk rock band the Ramones. Dee Dee struggled with drug addiction for much of his life, particularly heroin. He began using drugs as a teenager, and continued to use for the majority of his adult life. He appeared clean in the early 1990s but began using heroin again some time later. Dee Dee Ramone was found dead on the evening of June 5, 2002 by his wife Barbara at his apartment in Hollywood, California. An autopsy established heroin overdose as the official cause of death. He had been booked to perform at the Majestic Ventura Theater, which ended up being a memorial show in his honor.
49
Born 1948-09-24. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Murder
Hartman was murdered by his wife Brynn Hartman in his Encino, Los Angeles County, California home. While he slept, Brynn entered his bedroom with a revolver and fatally shot him multiple times in and around the mouth. Brynn was intoxicated at the time. She subsequently drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and, after confessing to the murder, fainted. After she regained consciousness, the pair drove back to Hartman's house in separate cars, where Douglas saw Hartman's body. Douglas then phoned emergency services and admitted to the call operator that he initially did not believe Brynn's story until he had seen Phil's body. On arrival, the police attempted to remove the Hartmans' two young children and Douglas from the premises. While this was happening, Brynn entered the bedroom and committed suicide by shooting herself once through the temple. At the time, an unnamed neighbor of the Hartmans' told a CNN reporter that the couple had been experiencing marital problems: "It's been building, but I didn't think it would lead to this." However, Steve Guttenberg commented that the pair were "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced." Phil Hartman directed in his will that his body be cremated, and his ashes were scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
The children are now being raised in Edina, Minnesota, by Brynn's sister Katharine Wright and her husband Mike, who have no children of their own.
Out of respect, the writers on The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters, rather than finding another voice actor. The episode "Bart the Mother" marked his final appearance on the show, and was dedicated to him.
90
Born 1906-09-30. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Mireille Hartuch was a French singer, composer, and actress. She was generally known by the stage name "Mireille," it being a common practice of the time to use a single name for the stage. Fluent in English, she spent two years in the United States, first in New York City where she performed on Broadway, then in Hollywood, where she appeared in films. In 1931, she appeared in L'aviateur with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Buster se marie with Buster Keaton. Meanwhile in France, contemporary stars Maurice Chevalier, Jean Sablon, and Charles Trenet (who credited Mireille with introducing "swing" to France), charted hits with her compositions, launching her songwriting career.
90
Born 1897-04-26. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age
Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis. In the 1950s, he achieved his greatest commercial success with film melodramas like Imitation of Life, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, Magnificent Obsession and A Time to Love and a Time to Die. While those films were initially panned by critics as sentimental women's pictures, they are today widely regarded by film directors, critics and scholars as masterpieces. His work is seen as "critique of the bourgeoisie in general and of 1950s America in particular", while painting a "compassionate portrait of characters trapped by social conditions". Beyond the surface of the film, Sirk worked with complex mises-en-scčne and lush Technicolor colors to subtly underline his statements.
68
Born 1897-07-03. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Jesse Douglas was an American mathematician and Fields Medalist known for his general solution to Plateau's problem. Douglas was one of two winners of the first Fields Medals, awarded in 1936. He was honored for solving, in 1930, the problem of Plateau, which asks whether a minimal surface exists for a given boundary. The problem, open since 1760 when Lagrange raised it, is part of the calculus of variations and is also known as the soap bubble problem. Douglas also made significant contributions to the inverse problem of the calculus of variations. The American Mathematical Society awarded him the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 1943. Douglas later became a full professor at the City College of New York (CCNY), where he taught until his death. At the time CCNY only offered undergraduate degrees and Professor Douglas taught the advanced calculus course. Sophomores (and freshmen with advanced placement) were privileged to get their introduction to real analysis from a Fields medalist.
37
Born 1915-09-28. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder
The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and on April 5 were sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman under Section 2 of the 1917 Espionage Act, 50 U.S. Code 32 (now 18 U.S. Code 794), which prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information "relating to the national defense." The conviction helped to fuel Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into anti-American activities by U.S. citizens. While their devotion to the Communist cause was well documented, the Rosenbergs denied the espionage charges even as they faced the electric chair.
The couple was executed at sundown in the electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. This was delayed from the originally scheduled date of June 18 because, on June 17, Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas had granted a stay of execution. That stay resulted from the intervention in the case of Fyke Farmer, a Tennessee lawyer whose efforts had previously met with scorn from the Rosenbergs' attorney.
On June 18, the Court was called back into special session to dispose of Douglas' stay rather than let the execution be delayed for months while the appeal that was the basis of the stay wended its way through the lower courts. The Court did not vacate Douglas's stay until noon on June 19. Thus, the execution then was scheduled for later in the evening after the start of the Jewish Sabbath. Desperately playing for more time, their lawyer, Emanuel Bloch, filed a complaint that this offended their Jewish heritage—so the execution was scheduled before sunset. Reports of the execution state that Julius died after the first application of electricity, but Ethel did not succumb immediately and was subjected to two more electrical charges before being pronounced dead. The chair was designed for a man of average size; and Ethel Rosenberg was a petite woman: this discrepancy resulted, it is claimed, in the electrodes fitting poorly and making poor electrical contact. Eyewitness testimony (as given by a newsreel report featured in the 1982 documentary film The Atomic Cafe) describes smoke rising from her head.
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are buried at Wellwood Cemetery in Pinelawn (Suffolk County), New York.
The Rosenbergs' two sons, Robert and Michael, were orphaned by the executions, and no relatives dared adopt them for fear of ostracism or worse. They were finally adopted by the songwriter Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, and they assumed the Meeropol surname. Abel Meeropol (under the pen name of Lewis Allan) wrote the classic anti-lynching anthem "Strange Fruit", made famous by singer Billie Holiday. Robert and Michael co-wrote a book about the experience, We are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975), and Robert wrote another book in 2004, An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey. In 1990, Robert founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a non-profit foundation that provides support for children whose parents are leftist activists involved in court cases.
46
Born 1854-10-16. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Infection
Wilde made a complaint of criminal libel against Lord Alfred Douglas's father, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry, for leaving him a calling card at his club. The offending card read "For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite [sic]". The Marquess was arrested and later freed on bail.
The Marqueese decided to counter-attack.
On May 25, 1895 Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labour. His conviction angered some observers, one of whom demanded, in a published letter, "Why does not the Crown prosecute every boy at a public or private school or half the men in the Universities?" in reference to the presumed pederastic proclivities of English upper class men.
Prison was unkind to Wilde's health and after he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the famously "penetrated" Saint Sebastian and the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.
Wilde died of cerebral meningitis. Different opinions are given on the cause of the meningitis; Richard Ellmann claimed it was syphilitic; Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, thought this to be a misconception, noting that Wilde's meningitis followed a surgical intervention, perhaps a mastoidectomy; Wilde's physicians, Dr. Paul Cleiss and A'Court Tucker, reported that the condition stemmed from an old suppuration of the right ear (une ancienne suppuration de l'oreille droite d'ailleurs en traitement depuis plusieurs années) and did not allude to syphilis. Most modern scholars and doctors agree that syphilis was unlikely to have been the cause of his death.