Deaths Events

619 The Year of Grief: Abu Talib and Khadija die
In the year 619 A.D., not long after annulment of the social boycott, Muhammad suffered a great loss of Abu Talib and Khadija, who followed each other to meet their deaths within a short ...
632 Jun 8 Muhammad dies of illness in Medina
Muhammad returned to live in Medina. In March, 632, he returned to Mecca one last time to perform a pilgrimage, and tens of thousands of Muslims joined him. After the pilgrimage, he retu...
639 Plague of Emmaus
The Plague of Emmaus (طاعون عمواس in Arabic, ţā`ûn 'amwās transliterated), also known as the Plague of Amwas, was an outbreak of plague, possibly bubonic plague, that occurred in 639 AD (...
1030 Apr 30 Mahmud Ghaznavid dies
The last four years of Mahmud's life were spent contending with the influx of Oghuz Turkic horse tribes from Central Asia, the Buyid Dynasty and rebellions by Seljuqs. Initially the Selju...
1519 Leonardo da Vinci Dies in Amboise
From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time. In October 1515, ...
1521 Apr 27 Ferdinand Magellan dies
Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly towards Magellan and the Spaniards, both he and his queen Hara Amihan were baptized as Christians. Afterward, Rajah Humabon and his ally Datu Zula convi...
1791 Dec 5 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Dies at the Age of 35
The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 1:00 am on 5 December 1791 at the age of 35, following a short illness. Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the premiere on 6 September of ...
1799 Dec 14 George Washington Dies
At 10:00 p.m. on December 14, 1799, George Washington died at his Mt. Vernon home after five decades of service to his country. His last words reportedly were: "I feel myself going. I th...
1827 Mar 26 Beethoven Dies From Illness
The Death of Ludwig van Beethoven on 26 March 1827 followed a prolonged illness. It was witnessed by his sister-in-law and by his close friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who provided a vivid d...
1828 Dec 22 Rachel Donelson Dies
The campaign was very much a personal one. Although neither candidate personally campaigned, their political followers organized many campaign events. Both candidates were rhetorically at...
1849 Oct 7 Edgar Allan Poe dies
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker....
1851 Jan 27 John James Audubon Dies
John James Audubon, naturalist and artist famous for his drawings and paintings of North American birds, died on January 27, 1851, in New York City. He was sixty-five years old. Audubo...
1852 Jun 29 Henry Clay Dies
On June 29, 1852, statesman Henry Clay, known as "the Great Compromiser" for his feats of legislative reconciliation between the North and the South, died at the age of seventy-five at th...
1863 May 10 Death of Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson died in an outbuilding on the Chandler plantation in the rural community of Guinea Station. Today, the Jackson Shrine is part of Fredericksburg & Spots...
1882 Apr 3 Jesse James Is Assassinated
On April 3, 1882, after eating breakfast, the Fords and James prepared to depart for another robbery. They went in and out of the house to ready the horses. As it was an unusually hot day...
1883 Nov 26 Sojourner Truth Dies
Preacher, abolitionist, and women's rights advocate Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan on November 26, 1883. The date of Truth's birth is uncertain, but around 1797 she was b...
1884 Oct 27 Theodore Roosevelt Marries Alice Hathaway Lee
Alice Hathaway Lee (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts – February 14, 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their child, Alice. Ro...
1891 Jan 26 Nikolaus Otto dies
Nikolaus Otto worked as a traveling salesman until he became fascinated by his era's breakthroughs in gas and steam engines, especially Étienne Lenoir's development of an engine fueled by...
1891 Apr 7 P. T. Barnum Dies
One of the requests made by Mr. Barnum was that, when all hope was gone, sedatives which would make his passage to the next world more peaceful be administered. About 4 o'clock this morni...
1892 Jan 17 Alexandre Levy Dies
(November 10, 1864 Sao Paulo , † 17 January 1892) was a Brazilian Composer and Pianist . His Jewish family came from France and was musically active, his father founded the most importa...
1895 Sep 28 Louis Pasteur Dies
Prof. Pasteur's condition became seriously worse on the evening of Friday last. Albuminuria was observed, the heart became very weak, and painful and violent spasms became frequent. Abo...
1900 Mar 6 Gottlieb Daimler Dies
In a letter to his wife in the 1870s there was historically significant remark. On a panoramic postcard of Cologne, Gottieb Daimler traced a three pointed star, writing: "one day this sta...
1900 Aug 4 Étienne Lenoir dies
Self-taught chemist and inventor Étienne Lenoir built the first practical internal-combustion engine, with valves allowing both the intake of an air-fuel mixture and the outflow of exhaus...
1900 Nov 30 Oscar Wilde Dies
"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to for..." —Oscar Wilde
1903 Jan 3 Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, dies
In the town of Leonding, Austria, on the bitterly cold morning of Saturday, January 3, 1903, Alois Hitler, 65, went out for a walk, stopping at a favorite inn where he sat down and asked ...
1907 Jan 14 Adolf Hitler's mother, Klara, dies
On January 14, 1907, Adolf Hitler's mother went to see the family doctor about a pain in her chest, so bad it kept her awake at night. The doctor, Edward Bloch, who was Jewish, examined h...
1908 Mar 26 Louis Chauvin Dies
Louis Chauvin (March 13, 1881 — March 26, 1908, aged 27) was an African American ragtime musician. Born in St. Louis, Missouri of a Mexican Spanish-Indian father and an African America...
1908 Jun 13 Blind Tom Wiggins dies
Tom died at age fifty-nine on June 13, 1908 at Eliza's home in Hoboken. A few days later The New York Times headline read "BLIND TOM, PIANIST, DIES OF A STROKE -- A CHILD ALL HIS LIFE." N...
1922 Aug 2 Alexander Graham Bell Dies
"[The Government expresses] to you our sense of the world's loss in the death of your distinguished husband. It will ever be a source of pride to our country that the great invention, with..." —Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King
1926 Oct 31 Harry Houdini Dies
Harry Houdini died of peritonitis secondary to a ruptured appendix. It has been speculated that Houdini was killed accidentally by a McGill University student, J. Gordon Whitehead, who de...
1929 Aug Western Wall/Buraq Uprising
The 1929 Palestine riots (also known as the Western Wall Uprising or the Buraq Uprising) refers to a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 when a long-running dispute bet...
1932 Nov 9 Nadezhda Alliluyeva Dies
It was customary to bury not only rulers, but their wives, too, at the Novodevichy cemetery. At this point we would like to recall the wife of Joseph Stalin, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. This wom...
1934 Apr 22 Little Bohemia Lodge shootout
In April, the gang settled at a lodge hideout called Little Bohemia Lodge, owned by Emil Wanatka, in the northern Wisconsin town of Manitowish Waters. The gang assured the owners that the...
1934 May 23 Bonnie and Clyde Shot and Killed
Before dawn on May 23, 1934, a posse composed of police officers from Louisiana and Texas, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, concealed themselves in bushes along the highway near Sailes...
1934 Jul 22 John Dillinger Gunned Down at Biograph Theater
Dillinger attended the film Manhattan Melodrama at the Biograph Theater in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Dillinger was with his girlfriend, Polly Hamilton, and Ana Cumpănaş. O...
1934 Aug 2 Death of Paul von Hindenburg
Hindenburg remained in office until his death at the age of 86 from lung cancer at his home in Neudeck, East Prussia on 2 August 1934 (exactly two months short of his 87th birthday). O...
1934 Dec 1 Sergey Kirov is Killed
Sergey Kirov, a leader of the Russian Revolution and a high-ranking member of the Politburo, is shot to death at his Leningrad office by Communist Party member Leonid Nikolayev, likely at...
1938 Aug 16 Robert Johnson Dies
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician, among the most famous of Delta blues musicians. His landmark recordings from 1936–1937 display a remar...
1939 Sep 23 Death of Sigmund Freud
A heavy cigar smoker, Freud smoked 20 cigars a day despite health warnings from colleagues. Because of his frequent references to phallic symbolism, colleagues challenged Freud on the "ph...
1943 Jan 7 Nikola Tesla Dies
Tesla died of heart failure alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, on 7 January 1943. Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla died with significant debts. Later that ye...
1945 Aug 5 Nat Jaffe Dies
Nat Jaffe (January 1, 1918-August 5, 1945) was an American swing jazz pianist and was married to singer Shirley Lloyd. Jaffe lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1932, where he received classi...
1946 Dec 10 Walter Johnson Dies
On December 10, 1946, baseball great Walter Johnson died at the age of fifty-nine. Nicknamed "The Big Train," Johnson pitched his way to fame during twenty-one seasons with the Washingto...
1947 Jan 25 Al Capone Dies
After his release, Capone spent a short time in the hospital. He returned to his home in Palm Island where the rest of his life was relaxed and quiet. His mind and body continued to deter...
1948 Apr 9 Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun and Lehi Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab ...
1948 Aug 16 Babe Ruth dies
Shortly after he attended the Yankee Stadium anniversary event, Ruth was back in the hospital. He received hundreds of well-wishing letters and messages. This included a phone call from P...
1954 Jul 13 Frida Kahlo Dies
"I hope the exit is joyful- and I hope never to return- Frida" —Frida Kahlo
1959 Feb 3 The Day the Music Died: Buddy Holly Richie Valens and the Big Bopper J.P. Richardson die in plane crash
Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) died in a plane crash in Iowa. Don McClean called this "The Day the Music Died" in his 1971 song "American Pie."
1960 Feb 6 Jesse Belvin Dies
Jesse Lorenzo Belvin (December 15, 1932 – February 6, 1960) was an American R&B singer, pianist and songwriter popular in the 1950s, whose success was cut short by his death in a car cras...
1961 Jul 2 Ernest Hemingway Commits Suicide
Three months later, at home in Ketchum, Mary "found Hemingway holding a shotgun". When his personal physician Dr. Saviers arrived, he was sedated and admitted to the Sun Valley hospital; ...
1962 Jul 6 William Faulkner Dies
Faulkner died on July 6, 1962, of a heart attack in Byhalia, Mississippi. He willed the major manuscripts and personal papers in his possession to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Col...