Drewsky1211

Beyonce is 41.

Self-help author W. Clement Stone died on this day 20 years ago, aged 100. Stone was closely associated with fellow self-help author Napoleon Hill. With Hill, Stone authored several books giving advice on how to become successful, and live a healthy and productive life, most notably 1960's Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. Stone and Hill had also previously founded the magazine Success Unlimited in 1954, which ran issues until 2001. Stone was also a businessman, founding Combined Insurance in 1922. Having a net worth of over $500 million, he donated over $275 million of his fortune to charity and religious groups. Stone was also a political lobbyist, advocating the inclusion of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and donating $10 million to Richard Nixon's campaigns- he wanted to become the latter's ambassador to the UK (possibly the reason he made it on the list). Stone's only appearance on the DeathList was in 2002 at the #28 spot, and was the tenth and final death of the year.

Stefan Gordy, better known as Redfoo, is 47. He's also the son of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr.

SETI scientist Frank Drake, of the Drake equation fame, dead at 92. Also designed the Arecibo message, beamed towards the M13 star cluster 22,000 light years away:

Bob Denver died on this day 17 years ago, aged 70. Denver's breakout role came in 1959 as the character of Maynard G. Krebs on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis opposite the late Dwayne Hickman. The character has been described as a precursor to the hippie movement that would emerge during the following decade. A year after Dobie Gillis ended, Denver got the title role of Gilligan's Island. The character of Gilligan is portrayed as the comic relief of the series, and after it ended in 1967, and in later years, Denver would often cameo as the character in other shows such as ALF and Baywatch. Denver often smoked, and his habit led to throat cancer. Denver died of complications from surgery treating said cancer.

Salma Hayek is 56.

King Louis XIV died on this day 307 years ago, aged 77. When Louis was 4, his father Louis XIII died. His reign started then, and he ruled for the next 72 and a half years- the second-longest verifiable reign of a monarch in history (Elizabeth II will succeed this if still reigning sometime during 2024). His reign would be defined by France's participation in several wars, such as the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678), the Nine Years' War (1688-1697), and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715). In 1661, construction began on the Palace of Versailles, which Louis would call home for the next 54 years, expanding it throughout the years. With 15 million annual visitors, the former royal palace is one of the most-visited tourist destinations in the world. Among some personal facts about Louis include that his favorite drink was hot chocolate (at that time, a nobility-only drink), he owned almost a thousand wigs, and loved to dance ballet. After Louis died, his 5-year old great-grandson became king Louis XV (Louis' grandfather and father died a year apart from each other, in 1711 and 1712). His remains were desecrated during the French Revolution, with his mummified heart eventually coming into possession of Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt. In 1848, one of Vernon-Harcourt's children showed the heart to their guest, paleontologist William Buckland- and Buckland ate part of it.

Lily Tomlin, of 9 to 5 and The Magic School Bus fame, is 83.

Laurent Fignon died on this day 12 years ago, aged 50. Fignon was a professional cyclist who got his start in 1981. After seeing how well he did, fellow cyclist Cyrille Guimard invited him onto his cycling team. Fignon would win the Tour de France two years in a row, in 1983 and 1984, and was the youngest winner since 1933 (26-year old Georges Speicher), aged 22 during the 1983 race. Fignon also came in second in the 1989 Tour de France, coming in eight seconds after American cyclist Greg LeMond. Fignon retired in 1993. In 2009, Fignon announced that he was diagnosed with metastatic cancer that had spread to his digestive system, securing him a spot in the 2010 DeathList at #24. In January, it was discovered that the cancer originated in the lungs. Fignon died after a sixteen month battle (almost 3 weeks after his 50th birthday), and was cremated. He was the fourth DeathList hit of 2010.

Voice actor Dee Bradley Baker is 60. Among his best known roles are as Klaus in American Dad, Squilliam Fancyson in SpongeBob SquarePants, and the vocal effects of Perry the Platypus in Phineas and Ferb.

He's not dead. It's just a "special departing operation".

1987: Ozzy Osbourne (1/31)  1989: Frank Bruno, Mike Ditka, Ozzy Osbourne, Brian Wilson, David Jenkins (5/32)  1990: Queen Elizabeth II, Mike Ditka, Rex Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Terry Waite (5/42)  1991: Leo Beenhakker (1/40)  1992: Shaun Ryder (1/37)  1993: Tony Bennett, Henry Kissinger, George Lineker, Jerry Lee Lewis (4/56) 1994: Edmund White, Holly Johnson, Peter Shilton (3/50)  1995: Holly Johnson (1/50)  1996: Mr T (1/50)  1997: (0/50)  1998: (0/50)  1999: Nick Leeson, Carly Simon (2/50)  2000: Louis Farrakhan (1/50)  2001: Liza Minnelli (1/50)  2002: (0/50) 2003: (0/50)  2004: Pervez Musharraf (1/50)  2005: Hamed Karzai (1/50) 2006: (0/50)  2007: Tim Johnson, Louis Farrakhan (2/50)  2008: Russell Watson, Hamed Karzai, Charles Taylor (3/50)  2009: (0/50)  2010: Angela Lansbury (1/50)  2011: Ali Khamenei, Dick Cheney, Michael Douglas (3/50)  2012: Nigel Lawson, Henry Kissinger, Dick Van Dyke, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (4/50) 2013: Henry Kissinger (1/50)  2014: Wilko Johnson, Dick Van Dyke, Tony Bennett (3/50)  2015: Leslie Phillips, Henry Kissinger, Jake Roberts (3/50)  2016: Prunella Scales, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Tommy Chong, Leslie Phillips, Sandy Gall, Paul Gascoigne (7/50)  2017: Jimmy Carter, Leslie Phillips, Queen Elizabeth ll, Bob Barker, Sandy Gall, Pope Benedict XVI, Emperor Akihito (7/50)  2018: Linda Nolan, Bob Barker, Prunella Scales, Jimmy Carter, Leslie Phillips, Henry Kissinger, Dick Van Dyke, Stanley Baxter, Mel Brooks, Pope Benedict XVI, Louis Farrakhan, Ronnie Wood, Joni Mitchell, Paul Gascoigne (14/50)  2019: Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Bob Barker, Emperor Akihito, Alan Greenspan, Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Walters, Harry Belafonte, Vanessa Redgrave, Cleo Laine, Loretta Lynn, Mikhail Gorbachev, Prunella Scales, Tina Turner, Shane MacGowan (14/50) 2020: Dick Van Dyke, Emperor Akihito, Angela Lansbury, Bob Barker, Alan Greenspan, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Leslie Phillips, Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, Prunella Scales, Jacques Delors, Willie Nelson, Shane MacGowan, Dick Cheney, Imelda Marcos, Joanne Woodward, David Crosby, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Pervez Musharraf, David Attenborough (21/50) 2021: Dick Van Dyke, Emperor Akihito, Loretta Lynn, Angela Lansbury, Bob Barker, Alan Greenspan, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Leslie Phillips, Jacques Delors, Ali Khamenei, David Crosby, Prunella Scales, Tony Bennett, Rosalynn Carter, Dick Cheney, Queen Elizabeth II, Harry Belafonte, Bob Newhart, Barbara Walters, Pope Benedict XVI, Imelda Marcos, Yoko Ono, Linda Nolan, Joanne Woodward, Mel Brooks, Willie Nelson, Betty Boothroyd, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Raul Castro, Burt Bacharach, Stanley Baxter, Vanessa Redgrave, Shane MacGowan, Shannen Doherty (35/50) Updated for Mikhail Gorbachev.

Abraham Zapruder died on this day 52 years ago, aged 65. Zapruder was Russian-born and emigrated to the US at the age of 15, working as a clothing designer in New York. Zapruder moved to Dallas in 1941. In the early 1960s, Zapruder was a supporter of President Kennedy, and upon hearing he would be passing by his workplace- just across the street from the Texas School Book Depository. Zapruder initially left his camera at home due to rain that morning, only retrieving it once the weather cleared up. As JFK's motorcade passed by, Zapruder inadvertently captured history: The Secret Service asked Zapruder for his footage for investigation into the assassination, and he handed it over. He later testified in the Warren Commission, stating that the direction of the shots came from behind Kennedy. Zapruder was noticeably and visibly distraught recalling the events.

Cameron Diaz is 50.

Gene Wilder died on this day 6 years ago, aged 83. Wilder began his acting career in stage plays, with his most well-known of these being the role of Billy in the Broadway version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (with Kirk Douglas). While in a production of Mother Courage and Her Children with Anne Bancroft, Anne introduced her to her then-boyfriend Mel Brooks. Brooks and Wilder would closely work together, with Wilder starring in his films The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and the title role in Young Frankenstein (pronounced Fronk-en-steen). His most well-known role, however, is as the title character in the 1971 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Wilder was also known for his marriage to Gilda Radner, who divorced her first husband in 1982 just to marry him (they were co-stars of the film Hanky Panky, and fell in love). After Radner's premature death of ovarian cancer in 1989, Wilder became dedicated to spreading awareness of the disease. Wilder died after a three-year battle with Alzheimer's while listening to Ella Fitzgerald's cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", one of his favorite songs. His diagnosis was hidden from the public so as not to sadden his fans- quoth his nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman, "he simply couldn't bear the idea of one less smile in the world".

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is 63.

Lynching victim Emmett Till was murdered on this day 67 years ago, aged 14. Till, a Chicago native, was visiting his great uncle, Mose Wright, in Mississippi during summer vacation in 1955. On the morning of August 24, Till, his cousins Curtis Jones and Simeon Wright, and a group of boys went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy some candy. While outside the store, till was accused of wolf-whistling at one of the storeowners, Carolyn Bryant- according to Simeon, it was in a jocular manner, but it was mentioned in a newspaper article following his disappearance that he had a speech impediment where he had trouble making "b" sounds, and that he may have wanted bubble gum. Carolyn informed her husband and co-store owner Roy of the incident, and Roy later identified him as Till, and found out where he was staying. Roy and his half-brother JW Milam conspired kidnapping him, and in the midnight hours of August 28, they drove to the house of Mose Wright. They entered armed with a pistol, and forced Till out of the house while his mother offered them money to leave. After getting Till in their car, someone (possibly Carolyn herself) identified him as the person who whistled at Carolyn. They later pistol-whipped him unconscious, then shot him dead and threw Till's body over a bridge into the Tallahatchie River, then drove back home and burned his clothes. Till's body was discovered by two boys fishing on August 31, and his funeral was open-casket (there are pictures of it- go look it up yourselves if you dare). Roy Bryant and Milam were tried for murder, and the jury declared them not guilty in an injustice to society. Bryant and Milam would eventually confess to the murder, alienating themselves from their community. Milam died of spinal cancer in 1980, aged 61, having been tried in cases such as using a stolen credit card and assault. Roy later divorced Carolyn, and died in 1994 at the age of 63, having no remorse for the killing and backtracking on his admission. As for Carolyn Bryant, she later remarried and took the surname Donham. In June 2022, an unserved arrest warrant for Donham was found- a grand jury decided there was insufficient evidence to indict her, causing outrage. As a side note, Donham is reported to have some form of cancer and is in hospice care- a good choice for your 2023 lists if she makes it to January (don't know if she'll make it onto the main list or not).

Jack Black is 53.

W. E. B. Du Bois died on this day 59 years ago, aged 95. After graduating from Harvard with a PhD in 1895 (the first African-American to do so, with a degree in sociology), Du Bois got a job at the University of Pennsylvania, researching Philadelphia's African-American neighborhoods. His study, The Philadelphia Negro, was published in 1899, in which Du Bois attacked stereotypes against African-American neighborhoods by providing empirical evidence. In 1905, Du Bois was among the leaders of the Niagara Movement, an organization of anti-segregationists opposed to Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise (which stated Blacks should just deal with segregation as long as the government gives them education and justice in the legal system). After a race riot in Atlanta occurred in 1906, Du Bois encouraged African-Americans to leave the Republican Party, as president Roosevelt failed to condemn the events. In 1909, Du Bois became one of the founding members of the NAACP. During its first decade, Du Bois encouraged the woman's suffrage movement, and pushed for a nationwide outlawing of lynching. The group also called for the KKK-glorifying film The Birth of a Nation to be banned, to no avail. In 1935, Du Bois wrote Black Reconstruction in America, showcasing what post-Civil War America was like for African-Americans at the time and challenging the then-current view of that time period. By that point in time, Du Bois was also a supporter of Marxism. As the Red Scare began, the FBI began investigating him in 1949 as a "Concealed Communist", and was tried in 1951, with the case being dismissed when Albert Einstein offered to appear as a witness. In 1961, aged 93, Du Bois officially became a member of the Communist Party. Shortly after, Du Bois moved to Ghana when president Kwame Nkrumah offered him funding to complete his Encyclopedia Africana, discussing the diaspora of African-Americans around the world. The US did not renew his passport in 1963, so Du Bois decided to become a citizen. Du Bois died a few months later- the day before the March on Washington, in which a moment of silence was held in his honor.

Paul Reubens is 70.

Laura Branigan died on this day 18 years ago, aged 52. Branigan's eponymous debut album was released in 1982, and contained the single "Gloria"- a translated cover of a song by Umberto Tozzi. While radio stations did not play it much early on, it gained traction at dance clubs, and it peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November of that year, and stayed there for two weeks (Lionel Richie's "Truly" and Toni Basil's "Mickey" were the songs preventing it from getting to the top). It was, however, a number-one hit in Canada and Australia. Branigan would also see major success with the 1984 song "Self Control", but not much after. Her final album was released in 1993 to little fanfare. In 2002, she would star in the off-Broadway production of Love, Janis, but quit after two shows reportedly due to the producers failing to properly file with the Actors' Equity Association. Branigan died in her sleep of a brain aneurysm. Interest in her was renewed in 2019 when the St. Louis Blues NHL team played the song during each commercial break in the stadium after a club member kept requesting it be played. The team has since adopted "Gloria" as its unofficial victory song.

Macaulay Culkin is 42.

William Herschel died on this day 200 years ago, aged 83. Born in Hanover, Herschel and his brother Jakob were sent away by their father Isaac to seek refuge in the UK during the Seven Years' War. Herschel's early astronomical work in the 1770s largely focused on what he called "double stars"- not binary stars, but stars that were visually close to each other in the night sky, and tracked them to provide evidence for their motion and calculate their distance from Earth. During one such search in March of 1781, Herschel began tracking a previously unidentified celestial object he believed was a comet. Russian astronomer Anders Lexell was the one who calculated its orbit, determining it to be circular, and therefore planetary. By 1783, the object was universally considered a planet, and Herschel named his discovery "Georgium Sidus" (Latin for "George's Star") after King George III. Consensus on the name varied until 1850 when it was named "Uranus", after the Greek god of the heavens, and the father of Cronus (Saturn). During this time, his sister Caroline moved to the UK, and the siblings worked together- while Caroline usually wrote down her brother's notes, she also discovered several comets, and was given a salary from King George. In 1785, William asked the king for a loan to build a 40-foot (12 meter) telescope, which he completed in 1789. He used the telescope to observe Saturn, and discovered two of its moons (currently 83 known), Mimas and Enceladus, and also two of Uranus' beforehand in 1787- Titania and Oberon, all of which were named by his son John after his father's death. Herschel was also a staunch believer of extraterrestrial life- going so far as to say the interior of the sun could support life.

Elvis Costello is 68.

Peggy Shippen Arnold died on this day 218 years ago, aged 44. Peggy's family had Loyalist tendencies during the American Revolution, but were considered neutral. After the British captured Philadelphia in 1777, the Shippens invited soldiers to their home, including major John Andre, who kept close contact with Peggy after withdrawing in 1778. In that same year, Peggy met Benedict Arnold, and the two fell for each other. Peggy's father Edward was skeptical of him at first (Arnold was charged with embezzlement of government funds), but he allowed Peggy and Benedict to marry, with the wedding occurring on April 8, 1779. It is very likely that Peggy was what turned Benedict Arnold into a traitor, with her continued correspondence with Andre, and, according to an interview of her acquaintance Theodosia Provost (conducted by Aaron Burr- her future husband), Peggy "was disgusted with the American cause". Arnold resigned from his post shortly before his wedding and also began to communicate with Andre, whom he met in 1780. Arnold soon obtained the command of West Point in New York, weakening its defenses and giving Andre maps of the base. Andre was soon captured, the plan was exposed, and Benedict was outed as a traitor (Andre was hanged). George Washington planned to meet Arnold at his home- he fled. Peggy acted hysterical to convince Washington she had nothing to do with his betrayal, and this gave Benedict more time to make his escape to New York City, where she and their infant son Edward soon joined him. After the fighting ended in 1781, the Arnolds moved to London, with Peggy accepting a 350 pound reward from George III for her service. The Arnolds would move to New Brunswick in Canada later that decade, before moving back to England in 1791. After Benedict's death in 1801, Peggy auctioned off their house and many of her belongings to pay for their debt. Peggy reportedly died of cancer.