Deaths
- 1437 – King James I of Scotland (b. 1394)
- 1471 – John of Rokycan, Czech Hussite theologian
- 1513 – Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
- 1543 – Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal
- 1554 – Hieronymus Bock, German botanist (b. 1498)
- 1595 – Robert Southwell, English Jesuit priest and poet
- 1668 – John Thurloe, English Puritan spy (b. 1616)
- 1677 – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (b. 1632)
- 1715 – Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Governor of the Province of Maryland (b. 1637)
- 1730 – Pope Benedict XIII (b. 1649)
- 1788 – Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (b. 1723)
- 1821 – Georg Friedrich von Martens, German diplomat (b. 1756)
- 1824 – Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)
- 1846 – Emperor Ninko of Japan (b. 1800)
- 1862 – Justinus Kerner, German poet (b. 1786)
- 1891 – James Timberlake, American lawman (b. 1846)
- 1900 – Marthinus Nikolaas Ras, South African Gunmaker (b. 1853)
- 1901 – George Francis Fitzgerald, Irish mathematician (b. 1851)
- 1919 – Kurt Eisner, German socialist (assassinated), leader of socialist revolution of 1918 in Bavaria (b. 1867)
- 1920 – Jacinta Marto, witness of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima (b. 1910)
- 1926 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)
- 1934 – Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino, Nicaraguan revolutionary (b. 1895)
- 1938 – George Ellery Hale, American astronomer (b. 1868)
- 1941 – Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1891)
- 1944 – Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born race car driver (b. 1873)
- 1945 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (b. 1902)
- 1946 – José Streel, Belgian World War II collaborator (b. 1911)
- 1949 – Tan Malaka, Indonesian nationalist activist and communist leader (b. 1894)
- 1958 – Duncan Edwards, English footballer (b. 1936)
- 1960 – Jacques Becker, French film director and screenwriter (b. 1906)
- 1965 – Malcolm X, Black American civil rights leader (b. 1925)
- 1966 – Paul Comtois, French Canadian politician (b. 1895)
- 1967 – Charles Beaumont, American writer (b. 1929)
- 1968 – Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898)
- 1972 – Zhang Guohua, Chinese general and politician (b. 1914)
- 1972 – Bronislava Nijinska, Polish-Russian ballet dancer (b. 1891)
- 1972 – Eugène Tisserant, French Catholic Cardinal (b. 1884)
- 1974 – Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1930)
- 1977 – Nolan Strong, a Detroit doo-wop singer with The Diablos (b. 1934)
- 1978 – Mieczysław Żywczyński, Polish historian and priest (b. 1901)
- 1980 – Alfred Andersch, German writer (b. 1914)
- 1981 – Erika Köth, German coloratura soprano (b. 1927)
- 1982 – Murray the K, American impresario and disc jockey (b. 1922)
- 1982 – Gershom Scholem, German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian (b. 1897)
- 1984 – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
- 1985 – Louis Hayward, British actor (b. 1909)
- 1986 – Helen Hooven Santmyer, American writer (b. 1895)
- 1987 – Noel Odell, English mountaineer, last person to see Mallory and Irvine alive (b. 1890)
- 1989 – Alex Thépot, French footballer (b. 1906)
- 1991 – Dorothy Auchterlonie, Australian academic, literary critic and poet (b. 1915)
- 1991 – Nutan Behl, Indian actress (b. 1936)
- 1991 – Dame Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer (b. 1919)
- 1994 – Johannes Steinhoff, German fighter pilot & NATO commander (b. 1913)
- 1995 – Jorge José Emiliano dos Santos, Brazilian Football Referee (b. 1954)
- 1996 – Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)
- 1999 – Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)
- 1999 – Ilmari Juutilainen, Finnish fighter pilot (b. 1914)
- 1999 – Wilmer David Mizell, baseball player (b. 1930)
- 2000 – Antonio Díaz-Miguel, Spanish basketball coach (b. 1933)
- 2002 – Harold Furth, Austrian-born physicist (b. 1939)
- 2002 – John Thaw, English actor (b. 1942)
- 2003 – Eddie Thomson, Scottish football player and coach (b. 1947)
- 2004 – John Charles, Welsh footballer (b. 1931)
- 2004 – Albert Chartier, Canadian cartoonist (b. 1912)
- 2004 – Guido Molinari, Canadian artist (b. 1933)
- 2005 – Ara Berberian, American opera singer (b. 1930)
- 2005 – Gérard Bessette, French-Canadian novelist and poet (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Cuban novelist (b. 1929)
- 2005 – Eugene Scott, American religious broadcaster (b. 1929)
- 2008 – Ben Chapman, American actor (b. 1928)
- 2008 – Neil Chotem, Canadien conductor, composer and arranger (b. 1920)
- 2008 – Sunny Lowry, first British woman to swim the English Channel (b. 1911)
- 2011 – Abdulredha Buhmaid, Bahraini protester killed by army (b. 1982)
- 2011 – Bernard Nathanson, American abortionist turned pro-life activist (b. 1926)
- 2011 – Dwayne McDuffie, American writer of comic books and television (b. 1962)
- 2012 – Benjamin Romualdez, Filipino politician (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Colin Ireland, British serial killer (b. 1954)
Read more about this topic: February 21
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet deaththat is, they attempt suicidetwice as often as men, though men are more successful because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (19141953)