Death Anniversary Thread

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4 hours ago, Drewsky1211 said:

Brian Clough died on this day 20 years ago, aged 69.

- The first football team Clough played for was Middlesborough, from 1951 to 1953. He would return to the team for his senior career beginning in 1955, remaining with them until 1961.

- Of the 274 games Clough played during his senior career, he scored 251 goals- among the highest of any footballer.

- After retirement as a player, Clough would become a team manager, coaching Hartlepool United, Derby County, Leeds United (this one for only six and a half weeks), and Nottingham Forest (his longest tenure, from 1975 to 1993). He was considered for a job as the manager of England's national team, but was never appointed.

- Throughout his life, Clough suffered from alcoholism, which was likely the reason he was put on the 1991 DeathList. It ended up being stomach cancer that did him in.

Clough also managed Brighton & Hove Albion after Derby, lasting less than a year, & left to take up the Leeds position (leaving Peter Taylor behind at Brighton, thus ending - temporarily - their successful partnership).

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American film and theatre actor Olin Howland died on this day 65 years ago, aged 73.

 

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Pope Conon died on this day 1337 years ago, aged 57.

- Conon was the son of a Byzantine soldier, who would take him from Greece to Sicily; it is there that Conon received his clerical education. When the Rashidun Caliphate began to lead raids on the island, Conon would move to Rome.

- Conon was made a cardinal in 683, and after Pope John V died in 686, Conon would be elected pope. It is believed this was due to a large influx of Greek and Syrian Christians emigrating to Rome, and therefore the cardinalate decided to choose someone they could identify with.

- Conon had a short papal reign of one year, but notably consecrated the Irish missionary (and future saint) Kilian, sending him off to preach in Germany. After his death, Conon would be succeeded as pope by Sergius I.

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American novelist and actress Jacqueline Susann died on this day 50 years ago, aged 56.

 

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Giorgio Napolitano died on this day a year ago, aged 98.

- During World War II, Napolitano would be part of the Italian antifascist movement, and would soon become a member of the Italian Communist Party; Napolitano would become the party chairman in the 1960s and remained a member until its dissolution in 1991.

- Napolitano was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1953, serving for 10 years, and would return to parliament in 1968- in total, he was an Italian MP for 38 years. He would only leave when he was appointed the Minister of the Interior in 1996.

- Napolitano was made a senator for life in 2005, and he would be elected president of Italy the following year. He would oversee a political crisis in 2008, he appointed Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister following the previous PM being ousted by a vote of no confidence, and would also appoint his successor Mario Monti after Berlusconi's resignation in 2011.

- After being reelected in 2013, Berlusconi would announce that he did not intend to serve the entire term, resigning in January of 2015. He would be made a senator for life once again immediately afterwards.

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American composer and songwriter Irving Berlin died on this day 35 years ago, aged 101.

 

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Louise Fletcher died on this day 2 years ago, aged 88.

- Fletcher's acting career began on TV, where she made guest appearances on notable shows such as Maverick, Perry Mason, and Wagon Train.

- Fletcher's first major film role was as Mattie in the 1974 movie Thieves Like Us, and after seeing the film, Milos Forman would cast her in her most famous role- Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, released the following year:

She would win the Oscar for Best Actress for this role.

- Cuckoo's Nest was considered the peak of her career, and Fletcher would star in films and shows of varying degrees of critical reception- among the more notable works include Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Lady in Red, Firestarter, and Virtuosity. Her last role before her death was as the character of Rosie on the 2017 Netflix series Girlboss.

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American professional golfer Jerry Barber died on this day 30 years ago, aged 78.

 

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Tupac Amaru died on this day 452 years ago, aged 27.

- Tupac was a grandson of the Incan emperor Huayna Capac, whose relatives would soon fight against the Spanish conquistadors by forming a neo-Incan state to rebel against them. "Tupac Amaru" was Quechua for 'shining snake'.

- Tupac would succeed his brother Titu Cusi as the leader of the neo-Incan state. The viceroy of Peru had declared war on them after an ambassador was killed on the border by an Incan border guard. Their city of Vilcabamba would end up being heavily damaged due to Spanish cannon fire, and Tupac Amaru would retreat with a group of about 100 before splitting up deeper into the rainforest.

- The Spanish would interrogate local indigenous people about Tupac's whereabouts, and found him about 55 miles from where he was last seen three months before.

- Tupac was subjected to a kangaroo court where he was found guilty of killing Spanish priests, and was ordered beheaded- despite the objections of Spanish king Philip II.

- Tupac's main legacy is his namesakes- one José Condorcanqui claimed to be a direct descendant of him and took the name 'Tupac Amaru II' when leading another indigenous rebellion in Peru in 1780; in turn Tupac Amaru II was the namesake of none other than the rapper Tupac Shakur.

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American stage, film and television actor Neil Hamilton died on this day 40 years ago, aged 85.

 

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Billy Carter died on this day 36 years ago, aged 51.

- The fourth and youngest child of James and Lillian Carter, Billy would serve as a Marine before joining his family's peanut farming business. By 1970, he became the farm's manager, and would use the profits to buy a gas station, which he would operate it until the 1979 energy crisis.

- Carter would run for the mayor of his hometown of Plains, Georgia in 1976- but lost to a local air traffic controller in a vote of 97-71 despite his older brother running and winning a much more notable election that year.

- Carter was known to be an alcohol aficionado, and became the spokesman for Peanut Lolita whiskey before becoming the official sponsor of Billy Beer. His drinking would spiral out of control to the point where he peed in public places, and soon sought rehabilitation and became sober.

- Carter would accept bribe money from the Libyan government in 1978 and registered as a foreign agent, resulting in a government scandal due to being the brother of the current president at the time- known as "Billygate". He would testify at a Senate hearing that he had no influence on US foreign policy.

- In 1987, Carter was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died the following year. His father died from the disease in 1953, and his sisters Ruth and Gloria also died of pancreatic cancer in 1983 and 1990 respectively. On the other hand, his brother Jimmy is still around... set to turn 100 in less than a week (subject to change- I can't see the future).

[One shot Paddy 1,206]

8 hours ago, Drewsky1211 said:

Billy Carter died on this day 36 years ago, aged 51.

- The fourth and youngest child of James and Lillian Carter, Billy would serve as a Marine before joining his family's peanut farming business. By 1970, he became the farm's manager, and would use the profits to buy a gas station, which he would operate it until the 1979 energy crisis.

- Carter would run for the mayor of his hometown of Plains, Georgia in 1976- but lost to a local air traffic controller in a vote of 97-71 despite his older brother running and winning a much more notable election that year.

- Carter was known to be an alcohol aficionado, and became the spokesman for Peanut Lolita whiskey before becoming the official sponsor of Billy Beer. His drinking would spiral out of control to the point where he peed in public places, and soon sought rehabilitation and became sober.

- Carter would accept bribe money from the Libyan government in 1978 and registered as a foreign agent, resulting in a government scandal due to being the brother of the current president at the time- known as "Billygate". He would testify at a Senate hearing that he had no influence on US foreign policy.

- In 1987, Carter was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died the following year. His father died from the disease in 1953, and his sisters Ruth and Gloria also died of pancreatic cancer in 1983 and 1990 respectively. On the other hand, his brother Jimmy is still around... set to turn 100 in less than a week (subject to change- I can't see the future).

 

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Canadian-American actor Walter Pidgeon died on this day 40 years ago, aged 87.

 

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On this day 1 year ago, Scottish-born American actor David McCallum, who starred in the TV shows "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and NCIS, passed away at the age of 90.

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Levi Strauss died on this day 122 years ago, aged 73.

- Born in Germany, Strauss emigrated to the United States in 1847 with several other family members to join his brothers already there; they ran a dry goods store in New York. He would become a naturalized citizen in 1853.

- In 1854, Strauss would move to San Francisco to set up his own store there; he mostly manufactured tents, and would import goods from the New York store to the other side of the country. In 1871 he began working with tailor Jacob Davis, who had came up with a way to reinforce pants with rivets and wished to mass produce this product. The two of them were granted a patent in 1873:

While often credited as such, Strauss did not invent blue jeans- his business simply became the biggest blue jean supplier due to the reinforcements they added.

- At the time of his death in 1902, Strauss' net worth was $30 million- over $800 million adjusted for inflation. He was a philanthropist who donated to universities and charities.

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American tennis player Ellen Roosevelt died on this day 70 years ago, aged 86.

 

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Engelbert Humperdinck died on this day 103 years ago, aged 67.

- Humperdinck learned to play the piano at a young age, and wrote his first original song at the age of 7, before writing a musical aged 13. His parents disapproved of his career choice, wanting him to become an architect.

- Humperdinck was the first recipient of the Mendelssohn Award scholarship in 1879, and used the money to go to Italy. He met Richard Wagner in Naples, and worked with him on his final composition, Parsifal. Wagner would make him the mentor of his son, Siegfried.

- In 1890, Humperdinck began work on his magnum opus- Hansel und Gretel. This originated with him writing songs for a puppet show of the fairy tale for his nieces, and spiraled into an entire opera which premiered in 1893:

Humperdinck would make songs based on other Brothers Grimm tales, such as The Wolf and Seven Young Kids (1895) and Sleeping Beauty (1902).

- Humperdinck had a severe stroke in 1912 which permanently paralyzed his left hand. While attending a performance of Der Freischütz in 1921, Humperdinck suffered a heart attack, and died of a second one the next day.

- In 1965, singer Arnold Dorsey would take Humperdinck's name as his own stage name- and was probably who you were thinking of while you read this.

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English actress Violet Farebrother died on this day 55 years ago, aged 81.

 

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Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor died on this day 827 years ago, aged 31.

- Henry was a son of Frederick I Barbarossa, and his father had him crowned as co-king of Germany when he was just 4 years old. He was greatly educated and developed a hobby in poetry, with one of his poems notably describing how his love for one woman was greater than his power and wealth.

- In 1184, Henry nearly died in the Erfurt latrine disaster, where at least 60 nobles drowned in feces after the wooden floor above a cesspit broke due to their combined weight. Henry survived because he was seated in a part of the building that had a stone floor.

- Henry was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in April of 1191, ten months after the death of his father. In 1193, duke Leopold V of Austria would turn the captured Richard I of England over to him, and Henry set a ransom of 150,000 pieces of silver; Richard was released the following year.

- Henry would successfully invade Sicily in 1194 to ensure his wife Constance inherited the throne (as promised by her nephew William II of Sicily); the two would co-rule Sicily for the next three years.

- Henry died of what historians believe to have been chronic malaria, and his young son Frederick II succeeded him as king in the territories he controlled.

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Filipino politician, dictator and kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos died on this day 35 years ago, aged 72.

 

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Dianne Feinstein died on this day a year ago, aged 90.

- Feinstein was first elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1969, becoming the board's first female president the following year. During her tenure, she was a known target of the anticapitalist terrorist organization the New World Liberation Front, which failed to bomb her house, and shot at the windows of her beach home. And speaking of assassinations...

- Feinstein became the mayor of San Francisco in 1978 after the assassination of then-mayor George Moscone (and Harvey Milk). She was known for revitalizing the city's trolley system and developing high-rise buildings, and was reportedly on Walter Mondale's shortlist for VP choices in the 1984 election.

- Feinstein was the Democratic nominee for California's 1990 gubernatorial election, but lost to Pete Wilson by less than 300,000 votes. Wilson resigned from the US Senate to take his new job- and Feinstein would run in the 1992 special election to complete his term, defeating Republican incumbent John Seymour. She would be re-elected five times between 1994 and 2018.

- By 2020, Feinstein began experiencing a decline in cognition, with increased calls for her to resign in 2022 after it was reported she was unable to remember things such as the names of her Senate colleagues and the meetings she attended, leading some to believe she had dementia or Alzheimer's. She was hospitalized with shingles in March of 2023 and returned to the Senate 10 weeks later. Feinstein died in office about a month after a fall, but it was unrelated to that- her final act in the Senate was the day before, with her voting to help avoid a government shutdown.

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American brewing magnate Gussie Busch died on this day 35 years ago, aged 90.

 

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Edgar Bergen died on this day 46 years ago, aged 75.

- Bergen learned how to perform ventriloquism when he was 11, and ended up getting the attention of contemporary ventriloquist Harry Lester, who would further teach him how to perfect the act.

- In 1919, Bergen had his first original puppet made- Charlie McCarthy, a well-dressed puppet with the personality of a mischievous child. He would soon make appearances on the radio show The Chase and Sanborn Hour, where his performances with Charlie made people think the puppet was another person (as it was on radio, and TV had yet to become nationalized). It is here where he created his second most-notable dummy, Mortimer Snerd:

- Bergen had a few notable film and TV roles- these included the live-action part of the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment in Disney's Fun and Fancy Free, and in 1978 he would make an endeavor into the new generation of puppetry as a guest star on The Muppet Show (his daughter Candice had previously been a guest star on the show):

He also cameoed in The Muppet Movie, posthumously released in 1979 and dedicated in his memory.

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American actress Lina Basquette died on this day 30 years ago, aged 87.

 

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EB White died on this day 39 years ago, aged 86.

- White's initials stood for 'Elwyn Brooks'. He was also known as 'Andy White' while attending Cornell University (a tradition there for other people with his last name).

- White worked as an editor for The New Yorker beginning shortly after its founding in 1925, working for it until 1938 when he became employed at Harper's Magazine (which he worked at until 1943).

- In 1945, White published Stuart Little, followed in 1952 with his most famous work, Charlotte's Web. Both books have since been adapted into successful movies:

A not-so-successful film adaptation was made from his 1970 book The Trumpet of the Swan (his final original work before his death)- it was a 2001 animated musical that grossed less than $700,000 in the box office.

- White would die after battling Alzheimer's disease.