#15101
Johann Georg von Eckhart
1664 - 1730 (66 years)
Johann Georg von Eckhart was a German historian and linguist. Biography Eckhart was born at Duingen in the Principality of Calenberg. After preparatory training at Schulpforta, he went to Leipzig, where at first, at the desire of his mother, he studied theology, but soon turned his attention to philology and history. On completing his course he became secretary to Field-Marshal Count Flemming, chief minister to the Elector of Saxony; after a short time, however, he went to Hannover to find a permanent position.
Go to Profile#15102
Rodolphus Agricola
1443 - 1485 (42 years)
Rodolphus Agricola was a Dutch humanist of the Northern Low Countries, famous for his knowledge of Latin and Greek. He was an educator, musician, builder of church organs, a poet in Latin and the vernacular, a diplomat, a boxer and a Hebrew scholar towards the end of his life. Today, he is best known as the author of De inventione dialectica, the father of Northern European humanism and as a zealous anti-scholastic in the late fifteenth century.
Go to Profile#15103
Buddy Holly
1936 - 1959 (23 years)
Charles Hardin Holley , known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas, during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his siblings. Holly's style was influenced by gospel music, country music, and rhythm and blues acts, which he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school.
Go to Profile#15104
Thomas Moore
1779 - 1852 (73 years)
Thomas Moore , also known as Tom Moore, was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his Irish Melodies. His setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish to English. Politically, Moore was recognised in England as a press, or "squib", writer for the aristocratic Whigs; in Ireland he was accounted a Catholic patriot.
Go to Profile#15105
Nat King Cole
1919 - 1965 (46 years)
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts.
Go to Profile#15106
Howard L. Chace
1897 - 1982 (85 years)
Howard Lambert Chace was a professor of Romance languages at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and is best known for writing poems and stories employing homophonic transformation. Biography Chace's prolonged undergraduate studies at Miami University lasted from 1915 until graduating in 1931 with his A.B. degree. During those years he was interested in music and recording on old wax cylinders, and for a time took leave from school to serve in the Merchant Marines. While later working as a French instructor at Miami University, he completed his master's degree in just four years, writing his thesis on 17th- and 18th-century French novels.
Go to Profile#15107
Mischa Elman
1891 - 1967 (76 years)
Mischa Elman was a Russian-American violinist famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality. Early life Moses or Moishe Elman was born to a Jewish family in Talnoye, Umansky Uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire .
Go to Profile#15108
Paul Dukas
1865 - 1935 (70 years)
Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, having abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions. His best-known work is the orchestral piece The Sorcerer's Apprentice , the fame of which has eclipsed that of his other surviving works. Among these are the opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, his Symphony in C and Piano Sonata in E-flat minor, the Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau , and a ballet, La Péri.
Go to Profile#15109
Alfred Bester
1913 - 1987 (74 years)
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books. He is best remembered for his science fiction, including The Demolished Man, winner of the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953.
Go to Profile#15110
Archibald Sayce
1845 - 1933 (88 years)
Archibald Henry Sayce was a pioneer British Assyriologist and linguist, who held a chair as Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford from 1891 to 1919. He was able to write in at least twenty ancient and modern languages, and was known for his emphasis on the importance of archaeological and monumental evidence in linguistic research. He was a contributor to articles in the 9th, 10th and 11th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Go to Profile#15111
George Nelson
1908 - 1986 (78 years)
George Nelson was an American industrial designer. While lead designer for the Herman Miller furniture company, Nelson and his design studio, George Nelson Associates, designed 20th-century modernist furniture. He is considered a founder of American modernist design.
Go to Profile#15112
Leopold Stokowski
1882 - 1977 (95 years)
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his free-hand conducting style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from the orchestras he directed.
Go to Profile#15113
Ira Gershwin
1896 - 1983 (87 years)
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century. With George, he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess.
Go to Profile#15114
Badiozzaman Forouzanfar
1904 - 1970 (66 years)
Badiozzaman Forouzanfar or Badi'ozzamān Forūzānfar was a scholar of Persian literature, Iranian linguistics and culture, and an expert on Rumi and his works. He was a distinguished professor of literature at Tehran University.
Go to Profile#15115
Natalie Duddington
1886 - 1972 (86 years)
Natalie Duddington was a philosopher and a translator of Russian literature into English. Her first name sometimes appears as Nathalie . Biography Nataliya Aleksandrovna Ertel was born in Voronezh on 14 November 1886, to the author Alexander Ertel. She was Ertel's oldest daughter and considered intelligent as a child. When the English translator Constance Garnett visited Ertel in the summer of 1904, she was much impressed by Natalie, who began studying at Saint Petersburg University the following year. When the university was temporarily closed due to student unrest in the 1905 revolution, Garnett encouraged Natalie to come to England.
Go to Profile#15116
Georgios Hatzidakis
1848 - 1941 (93 years)
Georgios Nicolaou Hatzidakis, aka Georgios Nikolaou Chatzidakis was a Greek philologist, who is regarded as the father of linguistics in Greece. He was the first chair of Linguistics and Indian Philology at the University of Athens in 1890–1923.
Go to Profile#15117
Billie Holiday
1915 - 1959 (44 years)
Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
Go to Profile#15118
Elbert Hubbard
1856 - 1915 (59 years)
Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he had early success as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Soap Company. Hubbard is known best as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Go to Profile#15119
John Bonham
1948 - 1980 (32 years)
John Henry Bonham was an English musician who was the drummer of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Noted for his speed, power, fast single-footed kick drumming, distinctive sound, and feel for groove, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential drummers in music history.
Go to Profile#15120
Syed Mujtaba Ali
1904 - 1974 (70 years)
Syed Mujtaba Ali was a Bengali writer, journalist, travel enthusiast, academic, scholar and linguist. He lived in Bangladesh, India, Germany, Afghanistan and Egypt. Early life and education Ali was born on 13 September 1904 to a Bengali Muslim family in Karimganj, Sylhet district, British Raj. His father, Khan Bahadur Syed Sikander Ali, was a sub-registrar. He traced his paternal descent to Shah Ahmed Mutawakkil, a local holy man and a Syed of Taraf, though apparently unrelated to Taraf's ruling Syed dynasty. Ali's mother, Amatul Mannan Khatun, belonged to the Chowdhuries of Kala and Bahadurpur, an Islamised branch of the Pal family of Panchakhanda.
Go to Profile#15121
Luigi Cherubini
1760 - 1842 (82 years)
Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries. His operas were heavily praised and interpreted by Rossini.
Go to Profile#15122
Friedrich Maurer
1898 - 1984 (86 years)
Friedrich Maurer was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. Biography Maurer started to study classical philology and comparative linguistics at the University of Frankfurt in 1916. The same year, he was drafted, and in 1917, he was gravely injured while he was fighting at the Western Front of World War I, causing him to spend the following period recovering in a military hospital at Heidelberg. After the end of the war, Maurer commenced full-time studies of Germanistics at Heidelberg University and Giessen , where he also took courses in classical philology and Indo-European studies.
Go to Profile#15123
Axel Stordahl
1913 - 1963 (50 years)
Axel Stordahl was an American arranger who was active from the late 1930s through the 1950s. He is perhaps best known for his work with Frank Sinatra in the 1940s at Columbia Records. With his sophisticated orchestrations, Stordahl is credited with helping to bring pop arranging into the modern age.
Go to Profile#15124
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
1643 - 1704 (61 years)
Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his Te Deum, Marche en rondeau. This theme is still used today as a fanfare during television broadcasts of the Eurovision Network and the European Broadcasting Union.
Go to Profile#15125
Vladimir Müller
1880 - 1941 (61 years)
Vladimir Karlovich Myuller was a Russian linguist and lexicographer. Müller held a professorial degree and compiled the most popular English–Russian dictionary, which saw numerous reeditions . Müller was also an expert on medieval dramaturgy, particularly on William Shakespeare. He published The Drama and Theatre of Shakespear's Epoch and lectured Shakespeariana to Dmitry Likhachov.
Go to Profile#15126
Pavel Jozef Šafárik
1795 - 1861 (66 years)
Pavel Jozef Šafárik was an ethnic Slovak philologist, poet, literary historian, historian and ethnographer in the Kingdom of Hungary. He was one of the first scientific Slavists. Family His father Pavol Šafárik was a Protestant clergyman in Kobeliarovo and before that a teacher in Štítnik, where he was also born. His mother, Katarína Káresová was born in a poor lower gentry family in Hanková and had several jobs in order to help the family in the poor region of Kobeliarovo.
Go to Profile#15127
Herman Kahn
1922 - 1983 (61 years)
Herman Kahn was an American physicist and a founding member of the Hudson Institute, regarded as one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems theorist while employed at the RAND Corporation. He analyzed the likely consequences of nuclear war and recommended ways to improve survivability during the Cold War. Kahn posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War for which he was one of the historical inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy film satire Dr.
Go to Profile#15128
Alfred Cortot
1877 - 1962 (85 years)
Alfred Denis Cortot was a French pianist, conductor, and teacher who was one of the most renowned classical musicians of the 20th century. A pianist of massive repertory, he was especially valued for his poetic insight into Romantic piano works, particularly those of Chopin, Franck, Saint-Saëns and Schumann. For Éditions Durand, he edited editions of almost all piano music by Chopin, Liszt and Schumann.
Go to Profile#15129
Henri-Georges Clouzot
1907 - 1977 (70 years)
Henri-Georges Clouzot was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques , which are critically recognized as among the greatest films of the 1950s. He also directed documentary films, including The Mystery of Picasso , which was declared a national treasure by the government of France.
Go to Profile#15130
Rasmus Bartholin
1625 - 1698 (73 years)
Rasmus Bartholin was a Danish physician and grammarian. Biography Bartholin was born in Roskilde. He was the son of Caspar Bartholin the Elder and Anna Fincke, daughter of the mathematician Thomas Fincke.
Go to Profile#15131
Marc Bolan
1947 - 1977 (30 years)
Marc Bolan was an English guitarist, singer-songwriter and poet. He was a pioneer of the glam rock movement in the early 1970s with his band T. Rex. Bolan strongly influenced artists of many genres, including glam rock, punk, post-punk, new wave, indie rock, Britpop and alternative rock. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of T. Rex.
Go to Profile#15132
Kazimieras Būga
1879 - 1924 (45 years)
Kazimieras Būga was a Lithuanian linguist and philologist. He was a professor of linguistics, who mainly worked on the Lithuanian language. He was born at Pažiegė, near Dusetos, then part of the Russian Empire. Appointed as personal secretary to Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Jaunius he showed great interest in the subject, and during the period 1905-12 studied at Saint Petersburg State University. After that, he continued his work on Indo-European language under the supervision of Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay. He later moved to Königsberg to continue his studies under the direction of Adalbert Bezzenberger.
Go to Profile#15133
Frederick Delius
1862 - 1934 (72 years)
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. He soon neglected his managerial duties, and in 1886 returned to Europe.
Go to Profile#15134
Bohuslav Havránek
1893 - 1978 (85 years)
Bohuslav Havránek was a Czech philologist, Bohemist, Slavist, literary historian and professor who was a prominent member of the Prague Linguistic Circle. Life and career He was born in to the family of a teacher. After his graduation, he worked as a secondary school teacher, before completing his studies in 1928, with his work 'The Genera Verbi in the Slavic languages' .
Go to Profile#15135
Sergio Leone
1929 - 1989 (60 years)
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema.
Go to Profile#15136
Finnur Jónsson
1858 - 1934 (76 years)
Finnur Jónsson was an Icelandic-Danish philologist and Professor of Nordic Philology at the University of Copenhagen. He made extensive contributions to the study of Old Norse literature. Finnur Jónsson was born at Akureyri in northern Iceland. He graduated from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1878 and went to Denmark for further studies at the University of Copenhagen. He received a doctorate in philology in 1884 with a dissertation on skaldic poetry. He became a docent at the university in 1887 and a professor in 1898, serving until 1928. After retiring he continued work on his subject with n...
Go to Profile#15138
Sergei Eisenstein
1898 - 1948 (50 years)
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. He was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike , Battleship Potemkin and October , as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible . In its 2012 decennial poll, the magazine Sight & Sound named his Battleship Potemkin the 11th-greatest film of all time.
Go to Profile#15139
Carl Seashore
1866 - 1949 (83 years)
Carl Emil Seashore, born Sjöstrand was a prominent American psychologist and educator. He was the author of numerous books and articles principally regarding the fields of speech–language pathology, music education, and the psychology of music and art. He served as Dean of the Graduate College of University of Iowa from 1908–1937. He is most commonly associated with the development of the Seashore Tests of Musical Ability.
Go to Profile#15140
Nikolai Bachtin
1894 - 1950 (56 years)
Nikolai Bachtin was a lecturer in classics and linguistics at the University of Birmingham, England. Bachtin was a friend of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bachtin's papers are held at the University of Birgminham archive.
Go to Profile#15141
William Dieterle
1893 - 1972 (79 years)
William Dieterle was a German-born actor and film director who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Hollywood primarily as a director for much of his career, becoming a United States citizen in 1937. He moved back to Germany in the late 1950s.
Go to Profile#15142
Aaron Florian
1805 - 1887 (82 years)
Aaron Florian was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian historian, journalist and revolutionary. Biography Early years and teaching The son of Romanian Orthodox priest Ioan Florian, he was born in Rod, a village located in the Mărginimea Sibiului region which at the time belonged to the Austrian Empire’s Principality of Transylvania and is now in Romania. After attending primary school in Sibiu, he studied at the gymnasium in Blaj. He then enrolled at the Royal University of Pest. In 1826, the Wallachian boyar intellectual Dinicu Golescu invited Florian to teach Latin at the school in Golești, where he remained until 1830.
Go to Profile#15143
Giacomo Devoto
1897 - 1974 (77 years)
Giacomo Devoto was an Italian historical linguist and one of the greatest exponents of the twentieth century of the discipline. He was born in Genoa and died in Florence. Career In 1939 he founded with Bruno Migliorini the magazine Lingua Nostra.
Go to Profile#15144
George Stevens
1904 - 1975 (71 years)
George Cooper Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. He received two Academy Awards and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1953. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for A Place in the Sun , and Giant . He was also Oscar-nominated for The Talk of the Town, The More the Merrier , Shane , and The Diary of Anne Frank . Among his most notable films are Swing Time , Gunga Din , Woman of the Year , and The Greatest Story Ever Told .
Go to Profile#15145
Nicephorus Gregoras
1295 - 1360 (65 years)
Nicephorus Gregoras was a Byzantine Greek astronomer, historian, and theologian. His 37-volume Byzantine History, a work of erudition, constitutes a primary documentary source for the 14th century. Life Gregoras was born at Heraclea Pontica, where he was raised and educated by his uncle, John, who was the Bishop of Heraclea. At an early age he settled at Constantinople, where his uncle introduced him to Andronicus II Palaeologus, by whom he was appointed chartophylax . In 1326 Gregoras proposed certain reforms in the calendar, which the emperor refused to carry out for fear of disturbances; ...
Go to Profile#15146
Emlyn Williams
1905 - 1987 (82 years)
George Emlyn Williams, CBE was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor. Early life Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flintshire. He was the eldest of the three surviving sons of Mary a former maid-servant and Richard Williams, a greengrocer. He spoke only Welsh until the age of eight. Later, he said he would probably have begun working in the mines at age 12 if he had not caught the attention of Sarah Grace Cooke, the model for Miss Moffat in The Corn Is Green. She was a teacher of French at the grammar school in Holywell, Flintshire in 1915, where Williams had gone on a scholarship.
Go to Profile#15147
Robert Johnson
1911 - 1938 (27 years)
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generations of musicians. Although his recording career spanned only seven months, he is recognized as a master of the blues, particularly the Delta blues style, and one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as maybe "the first ever rock star".
Go to Profile#15148
Harold Arlen
1905 - 1986 (81 years)
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz , including "Over the Rainbow", Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the Great American Songbook. "Over the Rainbow" was voted the 20th century's No. 1 song by the RIAA and the NEA.
Go to Profile#15149
Edmond Hamilton
1904 - 1977 (73 years)
Edmond Moore Hamilton was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. Early life Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and entered Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania at the age of 14, but dropped out at 17.
Go to Profile#15150
Phil Ochs
1940 - 1976 (36 years)
Philip David Ochs was an American songwriter and protest singer . Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs from the 1960s to early 1970s and released eight albums.
Go to Profile