Historical Archives & Public Figures

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Brazil

1902 – 1987 (84 years old)

Brazilian poet widely considered the most influential Brazilian poet of the twentieth century, whose modernist verses blended introspective irony, social conscience, and linguistic simplicity.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

30 Full Record →

Music

1

🕯️ 0

Travadinha

António Vicente Lopes

Cape Verde

1932-01-05 – 1987-08-09 (55 years old)

Legendary self-taught violin virtuoso from Santo Antão whose lightning speed, improvisation, and recordings in Lisbon and Paris brought Cape Verde's traditional string folk music to international prestige.

Mindelo, São Vicente, Cape Verde

1 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

32

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Tawfiq al-Hakim

توفيق الحكيم

Egypt

1898 – 1987 (88 years old)

Pioneering Egyptian dramatist, novelist, and essayist who founded modern Arabic theater with The Sleepers of Ephesus and created the modern novel Return of the Spirit.

Cairo, Egypt

32 Full Record →

Politics

1

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Rashid Karami

رشيد كرامي

Lebanon

30 December 1921 – 1 June 1987 (65 years old)

Distinguished ten-time Prime Minister of Lebanon from Tripoli who spent his career fighting to preserve national unity during the civil war.

Tripoli, Lebanon

1 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

38

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Errol Walton Barrow

Errol Barrow

Barbados

1920 – 1987 (67 years old)

Premier Premier ministre de la Barbade indépendante (1966) et réformateur humaniste, créateur de l'école gratuite pour tous et du programme de repas scolaires.

Bridgetown, Barbados

38 Full Record →

Politics

1

🕯️ 0

Camille Chamoun

كميل شمعون

Lebanon

3 April 1900 – 21 May 1987 (87 years old)

President of Lebanon (1952-1958) during the nation's post-war economic golden age, founder of the Baalbeck International Festival.

Deir el Qamar, Lebanon

1 Full Record →

Science

1

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Gunnar Myrdal

Karl Gunnar Myrdal

Sweden

1898-12-06 – 1987-05-17 (88 years old)

Eminent Swedish economist and sociologist awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics, celebrated for his monumental 1944 study on American racial segregation, 'An American Dilemma'.

Solna, Sweden

1 Full Record →

Politics

1

🕯️ 0

Obafemi Awolowo

Obafemi Jeremiah Awolowo

Nigeria

1909-03-06 – 1987-05-09 (78 years old)

Eminent Nigerian nationalist and statesman who served as the first Premier of Western Nigeria, establishing universal free primary education and Africa's first television service.

Ikenne, Nigeria

1 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

40

🕯️ 950

Primo Levi

Primo Michele Levi

Italy

31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987 (67 years old)

Italian chemist, anti-fascist partisan, and Auschwitz survivor whose lucidity in If This Is a Man and The Drowned and the Saved provided humanity's supreme philosophical and moral analysis of the concentration camp universe.

Turin, Italy

40 Full Record →

Sports & Athletics

39

🕯️ 250

Henri Jean Cochet

France

1901 – 1987 (85 years old)

French tennis player, world No. 1 from 1928 to 1931, seven-time Grand Slam singles champion celebrated for his effortless half-volley mastery.

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France

39 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,954

🕯️ 176

Louis de Broglie

Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie

France

1892 – 1987 (94 years old)

French aristocratic physicist who discovered the wave nature of matter, founding wave mechanics.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France

2,954 Full Record →

Arts & Music

18

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Ammar Farhat

عمار فرحات

Tunisia

1911 – March 2, 1987 (76 years old)

Self-taught Tunisian master painter of the École de Tunis whose deeply empathetic, vibrant canvases documented the celebrations, labor, and spiritual traditions of Tunisia's working classes and bedouin communities.

Tunis, Tunisia

18 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3,500

🕯️ 104

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola

United States

1928 – 1987 (58 years old)

American Pop Art icon whose silk-screens of Campbell's soup cans, Marilyn Monroe, and consumer culture redefined the boundaries of art.

Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, United States

3,500 Full Record →

Art

1

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Norman McLaren

Great Britain

11 April 1914 – 27 January 1987 (72 years old)

Visionary National Film Board animator whose innovations in cameraless animation, graphical sound, and pixilation culminated in the Oscar-winning anti-war masterpiece Neighbours.

Montreal, Canada

1 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

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Edgar P. Jacobs

Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs

Belgium

1904 – 1987 (82 years old)

Belgian comic strip master and operatic baritone who collaborated with Hergé on Tintin and created the landmark science-fiction series Blake and Mortimer, author of The Yellow 'M'.

Lasne (Walloon Brabant), Belgium

3 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

3

🕯️ 0

Margaret Laurence

Jean Margaret Wemyss Laurence

Canada

1926 – 1987 (60 years old)

Preeminent novelist of the Canadian literary renaissance whose iconic Manawaka sequence, culminating in The Stone Angel and The Diviners, powerfully voiced female resilience and prairie heritage.

Neepawa (Manitoba), Canada

3 Full Record →

Statesmanship & Statesmen

39

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Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton

Maurice Harold Macmillan

Great Britain

1894 – 1986 (92 years old)

British Conservative Prime Minister who restored British prosperity ('You've never had it so good'), delivered the 'Wind of Change' speech, and rebuilt the Special Relationship with the US.

Horsted Keynes (West Sussex), United Kingdom

39 Full Record →

Prophets & Divine Messengers

8

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Sylvanus Melea Otieno

Kenya

1931-01-01 – 1986-12-20 (55 years old)

Eminent Nairobi criminal defense advocate whose sudden death sparked Kenya's most famous constitutional trial: Virginia Wambui Otieno vs. the Umira Kager clan on customary versus common law.

Alego, Kenya

8 Full Record →

Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries