Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Shen Congwen

沈从文

Qing Empire

1902 – 1988 (85 years old)

Chinese writer celebrated for his lyrical pastoral novella Border Town, who captured the traditional culture and Miao indigenous harmony of rural western Hunan.

Fenghuang (Hunan), China

1 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

6

Colin W. Bell

Colin Bell

United Kingdom

1903 – 1988 (85 years old)

Dirigeant humanitaire quaker anglo-américain, directeur de la Friends Ambulance Unit en Chine et secrétaire exécutif de l'AFSC pendant la guerre froide.

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States

6 Full Record →

Sewall Wright

Sewall Green Wright

United States

1889 – 1988 (98 years old)

American geneticist who co-founded theoretical population genetics alongside Fisher and Haldane, discovered genetic drift (the Sewall Wright Effect), invented the inbreeding coefficient, and developed the Shifting Balance Theory of evolution.

Madison (Wisconsin), United States

1 Full Record →

1,306

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Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman

United States

1918 – 1988 (69 years old)

Iconic American theoretical physicist who pioneered quantum electrodynamics, Feynman diagrams, and nanotechnology.

Altadena, California, United States

1,306 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

10

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

خان عبدالغفار خان

Pakistan

1890 – 1988 (97 years old)

Leader spirituel et politique pachtoune surnommé le « Gandhi de la frontière », fondateur de la première armée de non-violence au monde, les Khudai Khidmatgar.

Jalalabad, Nangarhar, Afghanistan

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Humanitarian & Peace

6

Seán MacBride

Seán Mac Giolla Bhríde

France

1904 – 1988 (83 years old)

Homme d'État irlandais, cofondateur d'Amnesty International et juriste défenseur universel des droits de l'homme, prix Nobel de la paix 1974.

Dublin, Ireland

6 Full Record →

Sports & Athletics

7

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Pete Maravich

Peter Press Maravich

United States

22 June 1947 – 5 January 1988 (40 years old)

Peter Press 'Pistol Pete' Maravich was a visionary American basketball showman whose dazzling between-the-legs dribbling, no-look behind-the-back passes, and unlimited shooting range revolutionized offensive basketball decades ahead of his time. Playing for his father Press Maravich at LSU, he scored 3,667 points, maintaining an unbreakable all-time NCAA record of 44.2 points per game without the three-point line.

Pasadena, California, United States

7 Full Record →

Luis Federico Leloir

France (Argentine parents)

1906 – 1987 (81 years old)

Argentine biochemist who discovered sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates, earning the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry as Latin America's first chemistry laureate.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1 Full Record →

Sports & Athletics

9

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Jacques Anquetil

France

1934 – 1987 (53 years old)

French road racing cyclist who was the first rider to win the Tour de France five times (1957, 1961–1964), famed for his metronomic time-trial perfection.

Quincampoix, France

9 Full Record →

Arts & Music

5

André Masson

André-Aimé-René Masson

France

1896 – 1987 (91 years old)

French painter and graphic artist who pioneered automatic drawing in Surrealism and whose sand paintings and expressive gestures directly inspired American Abstract Expressionism.

Paris, France

5 Full Record →

2

Statesmanship & Statesmen

Andrey Kolmogorov

Андрей Николаевич Колмогоров

Russian Empire

1903 – 1987 (84 years old)

Soviet mathematician who established the axiomatic foundations of modern probability theory and made monumental breakthroughs in turbulence, topology, algorithmic complexity, and celestial mechanics.

Moscow, Russia

2 Full Record →

10

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Thomas Sankara

Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara

🌐 Burkina Faso

1949-12-21 – 1987-10-15 (37 years old)

Icon of incorruptible ethical leadership, environmental reforestation, female emancipation, and defiance against Third World foreign debt subjugation.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

10 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

10

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Bayard Rustin

United States

17 March 1912 – 24 August 1987 (75 years old)

Brilliant American civil rights strategist and pacifist who introduced Gandhian nonviolent resistance techniques to Martin Luther King Jr. and served as the chief logistics architect of the 1963 March on Washington.

Manhattan, New York City, United States

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Sports & Athletics

2

Didier Pironi

Didier Joseph-Louis Pironi

France

1952 – 1987 (35 years old)

French racing driver who won the 1978 24 Hours of Le Mans for Renault, three Formula One Grands Prix for Tyrrell, Ligier, and Ferrari, and was on the brink of the 1982 World Championship before a career-ending crash.

Grimaud (Var), France

2 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

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

1 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

5