Historical Archives & Public Figures

Denton True Young

United States

1867 – 1955 (88 years old)

American Major League Baseball pitcher whose 511 career victories remain an unbreakable all-time record, namesake of the Cy Young Award.

Port Washington, Ohio, United States

7 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

9

🕯️ 955

Paul Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

Germany

6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955 (80 years old)

German literary patrician and 1929 Nobel laureate whose monumental novels—Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, and The Magic Mountain—dissected European bourgeois decadence and who broadcast fearless anti-Nazi speeches across wartime Germany.

Zurich, Switzerland

9 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

5

🕯️ 0

Cordell Hull

United States

1871 – 1955 (83 years old)

Secrétaire d'État américain sous Roosevelt, désigné « Père des Nations unies » pour son rôle central dans la charte de l'ONU, Nobel de la paix 1945.

Washington, D.C., United States

5 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

5

🕯️ 0

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian

Գալուստ Կիւլպէնկեան

Turkey

1869 – 1955 (86 years old)

Financier et pionnier du pétrole arménien, créateur par testament de la Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian à Lisbonne finançant l'art, la science et l'aide humanitaire.

Kensington, London, United Kingdom

5 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Max Pechstein

Hermann Max Pechstein

Germany

1881 – 1955 (73 years old)

German Expressionist painter and printmaker who brought Die Brücke to broad public acclaim with his luminous, decorative compositions of bathers and Pacific island landscapes.

West Berlin, Germany

3 Full Record →

Sports & Athletics

7

🕯️ 230

Alberto Ascari

Italy

1918 – 1955 (36 years old)

Italian racing driver and two-time Formula One World Champion for Ferrari, the first driver to successfully defend a World Drivers' Championship.

Monza, Italy

7 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

6

🕯️ 0

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune

United States

1875 – 1955 (79 years old)

Éducatrice et leader humanitaire afro-américaine, fondatrice de la Bethune-Cookman University et conseillère du président Roosevelt.

Daytona Beach, Florida, United States

6 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

17

🕯️ 589

Albert Einstein

Germany

1879 – 1955 (76 years old)

Revolutionary theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, forever transforming our understanding of space, time, gravity, and the universe. Recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Princeton, United States

17 Full Record →

Arts & Music

8

🕯️ 980

Charles Parker Jr.

Charlie Parker

United States

29 August 1920 – 12 March 1955 (34 years old)

Legendary alto saxophonist and co-inventor of Bebop with Dizzy Gillespie, whose blistering tempos, chromatic substitutions, and soaring improvisational logic revolutionized 20th-century music.

New York City, United States

8 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

10

🕯️ 995

Sir Alexander Fleming

United Kingdom

6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955 (73 years old)

Scottish bacteriologist whose discovery of penicillin from Penicillium mould in 1928 ignited the antibiotic revolution, saving hundreds of millions of lives from bacterial infections.

London, United Kingdom

10 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

6

🕯️ 0

John Raleigh Mott

John R. Mott

United States

1865 – 1955 (89 years old)

Dirigeant historique de la YMCA et de la Fédération universelle des associations chrétiennes d'étudiants, lauréat du prix Nobel de la paix 1946.

Washington, D.C., United States

6 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

2

🕯️ 0

Saadat Hasan Manto

سعادت حسن منٹو

British Raj

1912 – 1955 (42 years old)

Iconic Urdu short-story writer and essayist (1912–1955), author of 'Toba Tek Singh', 'Khol Do', and 'Thanda Gosht', renowned for his raw, courageous, and deeply compassionate portrayals of the human tragedy of Partition.

Lahore (Punjab), Pakistan

2 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

4

🕯️ 0

Didouche Mourad

ديدوش مراد

Algeria

1927 – 1955 (27 years old)

Pioneering Algerian revolutionary leader, founding member of the historic Group of 22, who commanded the outbreak of the armed liberation struggle in northern Constantinois until his heroic death at age twenty-seven.

Didouche Mourad (Constantine), Algeria

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Yves Tanguy

Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy

France

1900 – 1955 (55 years old)

French-American Surrealist painter acclaimed for his hallucinatory, boundless dreamscapes populated by enigmatic biomorphic forms, mineral stones, and infinite horizons.

Woodbury, United States

3 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,990

🕯️ 27

Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar

शांति स्वरूप भटनागर

British India (Pakistan)

1894 – 1955 (60 years old)

Indian physical chemist and institution-builder known as the 'father of research laboratories' in independent India.

New Delhi, India

3,990 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

9

🕯️ 970

Enrico Fermi

Italy

29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954 (53 years old)

Italian-American physicist who built the world's first artificial nuclear reactor (Chicago Pile-1), formulated Fermi-Dirac statistics, discovered slow-neutron radioactivity, and led the Manhattan Project.

Chicago (Illinois), United States

9 Full Record →

Arts & Music

14

🕯️ 985

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse

Henri Matisse

France

31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954 (84 years old)

Titan of 20th-century modern art and undisputed leader of the Fauves ('Wild Beasts') whose radiant decorative harmonies in The Dance (La Danse) and late gouache cut-outs revolutionized color and line.

Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), France

14 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

3

🕯️ 0

Seebohm Rowntree

Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree

United Kingdom

1871 – 1954 (83 years old)

Pioneering British sociologist and Quaker chocolate manufacturer whose scientific 1901 study 'Poverty: A Study of Town Life' established the concept of the 'poverty line' and formed the blueprint for the modern British welfare state.

Jordans (Buckinghamshire), United Kingdom

3 Full Record →

Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries