Notable 2017 Obituaries

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by waltky, Jan 12, 2017.

  1. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    The woman who broke the news of World War Two dies at 105...
    :confusion:
    Obituary: Clare Hollingworth
    Tue, 10 Jan 2017 - Celebrated war correspondent who broke the news of Germany's invasion of Poland.
     
  2. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    National leader of the Congress of Racial Equality passes away at 82...
    :confusion:
    Roy Innis, Black Activist With a Right-Wing Bent, Dies at 82
    JAN. 10, 2017 - Roy Innis, the autocratic national leader of the Congress of Racial Equality since 1968, whose right-wing views on affirmative action, law enforcement, desegregation and other issues put him at odds with many black Americans and other civil rights leaders, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 82.
     
  3. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Man who revolutionized Chinese writing system passes on...
    :confusion:
    China's Zhou Youguang, father of Pinyin writing system, dies aged 111
    Sat, 14 Jan 2017 - Zhou Youguang, who created a system to turn characters into words using Roman letters, dies aged 111.
     
  4. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Gene Cernan, last astronaut to walk on the moon passes away...
    :frown:
    Gene Cernan, last astronaut to walk on the moon, dies at 82
    Jan. 16, 2017 — Astronaut Gene Cernan traced his only child's initials in the dust of the lunar surface. Then he climbed into the lunar module for the ride home, becoming the last person to walk on the moon.
     
  5. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    One of last Pacific wave pilots passes on...
    :frown:
    Pacific ‘wave pilot’ kept ancient mariner skills alive
    Tue, Jan 17, 2017 - One of the Pacific’s last traditional navigators, or wave pilots, has died in Majuro, but not before passing many of his skills on to a younger generation of Marshallese.
     
  6. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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    http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/01/30/japanese-arcade-pioneer-and-father-pac-man-has-died.html

    VIDEO GAMES
    Japanese arcade pioneer and 'Father of Pac-Man' has died
    Published January 30, 2017 Associated Press
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    FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2004, file photo, Jake Gautney, 12, of Chappaqua, N.Y., tries a Ms. Pac-Man game at the Toy Industry Association holiday preview in New York. (AP)
    TOKYO – Masaya Nakamura, the "Father of Pac-Man" who founded the Japanese video game company behind the hit creature-gobbling game, has died. He was 91.

    Nakamura, who died on Jan. 22, founded Namco, part of Bandai Namco, in 1955. It started out as just two mechanical horse rides on a department store rooftop but went on to pioneer game arcades and amusement parks.

    Bandai Namco, formed in 2005 from a merger of two game companies, confirmed Monday that Nakamura had died.

    Pac-Man, designed by Namco engineer and video game maker Toru Iwatani, went on sale in 1980, at a time when there were few rival games, such as Space Invaders. The plucky yellow circle with the huge mouth was a huge hit.


    It's estimated to have been played more than 10 billion times: Guinness World Record has named it the world's most successful coin-operated arcade game.

    The game was non-violent but just challenging enough to hook players into steering the Pac-Man for hours through its mazes on the hunt for ghostly tidbits.

    The iconic Pac-Man adorns T-shirts and other merchandise and inspired animation shows, a breakfast cereal and even the nickname for Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao.

    The idea for Pac-Man's design came from the image of a pizza with a slice carved out. Nakamura reportedly chose the word "Pac," or "pakku" in Japanese, to represent the sound of the Pac-Man munching its prey.

    "Pac-Man is a gamer friendly game with tons of cute characters and that's why it was loved for such a long time," Iwatani said in 2015 at a New York red carpet premiere of "Pixels," that featured Pac-Man creatures and featured him in a cameo role.

    The game started out as an arcade item and then was at first played on the Nintendo Family Computer home console. It since has been adapted for cellphones, PlayStation and Xbox formats.

    Other hits from Namco include driving simulation games like "Ridge Racer" and a drumming game.

    Nakamura was a key player in Bandai Namco's global growth. His pet saying was that his company delivered varied and total entertainment. He took pride in having fun and games for his job.

    The company reported Nakamura's death but would not comment on its cause or other personal details, citing his family's wishes. A private wake and funeral were held for the family, but a separate memorial is being planned, Bandai-Namco said.
     
  7. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/books/jerome-tuccille-dead.html?_r=0

    Jerome Tuccille, Libertarian Author and Trump Biographer, Dies at 79
    By WILLIAM GRIMESFEB. 24, 2017

    Jerome Tuccille, center, during his campaign for governor of New York in 1974. Credit Tyrone Dukes/The New York Times
    Jerome Tuccille, who wrote one of the first manifestoes of the American libertarian movement and the first biography of Donald J. Trump, died on Feb. 16 at his home in Severna Park, Md. He was 79.

    The cause was complications of multiple myeloma, his son, Jerome, said.

    As Mr. Tuccille (pronounced too-CHILLY) told the tale in “It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand: A Libertarian Odyssey” (1971), he was a disaffected Roman Catholic looking for a new faith when he discovered the writings of Ayn Rand and her radically individualist philosophy, which she called objectivism. “For the moment I considered myself unique, a lone and courageous individual who had found the Holy Grail after years of floundering,” he wrote.

    He never subscribed to the full objectivist program — Ms. Rand’s views on art and sex were too narrow for his taste — and he found most of the objectivist true believers humorless. But he embraced the political philosophy of minimal government and maximum personal freedom.

    Mr. Tuccille became heavily involved with the radical libertarians who, breaking with the William F. Buckley Jr. conservatives over the military draft and foreign intervention, staged a walkout at the Young Americans for Freedom convention in 1969.

    In “Radical Libertarianism: A Right Wing Alternative” (1970), he laid out a political program that envisioned an end to conscription, taxes and government control over education, health services, transportation and other areas. It also called for the legalization of drugs, prostitution and pornography.

    In an Op-Ed for The New York Times in 1971, Mr. Tuccille called on conservatives “who still care about such things as peace and justice and racial harmony” to vote for candidates “who really mean peace when they say peace; who understand and intend to promote the politics of decentralization, of pollution control, of economic and judicial reform, and so on all the way down the line.”

    In 1974, two years after the founding of the Free Libertarian Party, Mr. Tuccille ran for governor of New York. He hoped to win the 50,000 votes that would give the party a permanent place on the ballot, a first step toward becoming the third major political party in the United States.

    He fell short by about 20,000 votes, but not for lack of trying.

    On the campaign trail he distributed “Tuccille bills” — fake dollar bills that, he assured voters, would soon be worth more than the real thing, given the country’s ruinous economic policies. He arranged for a woman in a beige body stocking to ride through Central Park like Lady Godiva, on a horse named Taxpayer.

    Three years later, in an article for the conservative magazine National Review, he wrote the epitaph for libertarianism as a political movement. Although still committed to its ideals, he called it “hopelessly utopian” and “an intellectual exercise, not a serious political alternative.”

    Jerome Joseph Tuccille, known as Jerry, was born on May 30, 1937, in the Bronx and grew up in the Throgs Neck neighborhood. His father, Salvatore, was a cabdriver. His mother, the former Virginia Marano, was a homemaker.

    After graduating from Fordham Preparatory School, a Roman Catholic institution, he enrolled in Manhattan College, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, which was run by the Christian Brothers. He earned a psychology degree in 1959 and then entered the Marine Corps, having served in R.O.T.C. while at school.

    In 1965 he married Marie Winkler, who survives him. In addition to her and his son, who writes for the libertarian magazine Reason under the byline J. D. Tuccille, he is survived by a sister, Carol Tuccille; a daughter, Christine Merry; and three grandsons.

    Mr. Tuccille described his encounters with libertarianism and his intellectual development in “It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand” and a sequel, “It Still Begins With Ayn Rand: Part Two of a Libertarian Odyssey” (1999), as well as the memoir “Heretic: Confessions of an Ex-Catholic Rebel” (2006).

    Martin Morse Wooster, looking back on “It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand” in The American Enterprise, a public policy magazine, in 1998, wrote: “There are two reasons why Tuccille’s account remains fresh and valuable. First, he is an excellent stylist, who has superb control of the techniques of the New Journalism period. Second, Tuccille knows that political debates are often comic, and he has a great deal of fun lampooning the nuts and flakes who enjoy screaming at political meetings.”

    Flat broke after running for governor, Mr. Tuccille put on the only suit he owned and walked into the offices of Merrill Lynch, presenting himself as a wealthy prospective client. When the manager agreed to see him, he begged for a job. Thus began his long career as a stockbroker, spent at Merrill Lynch, Shearson/American Express and other companies. In the 1990s he became a financial writer for T. Rowe Price.

    When not trading stocks, Mr. Tuccille wrote how-to books on investing and a series of biographies, beginning in 1985 with “Trump: The Saga of America’s Most Powerful Real Estate Baron.”

    Denied access to his subject, members of his family and most of his associates, Mr. Tuccille relied heavily on newspaper and magazine accounts to produce what Michael Sterne, writing in The New York Times Book Review, called “a gee-whizzer of a biography” that “points to a key to Mr. Trump’s career — his ability to turn political friendships, tax abatements and government loans into opportunities for profit.”

    Mr. Tuccille’s financial books included “Everything the Beginner Needs to Know to Invest Shrewdly: A Step-By-Step Guide to the Basics of Financial Growth” and “The Optimist’s Guide to Making Money in the 1980s: A Complete Program for Investing in the American Economic Miracle of the Next Decade.” Both books were published in 1978.

    After his Trump biography, he wrote “Rupert Murdoch” (1989), “Barry Diller: The Life and Times of a Media Mogul” (1998) and “Alan Shrugged: Alan Greenspan, the World’s Most Powerful Banker” (2002).

    In “The Roughest Riders: The Untold Story of the Black Soldiers in the Spanish-American War” (2015), he turned to a forgotten chapter in American history. He had recently completed a history of the Bonus Army, the World War I veterans who gathered in Washington in 1932 to demand immediate payment of promised benefits. It is to be published in 2018 by Potomac Press.
     
  8. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Author-columnist Jimmy Breslin passes on...
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    Jimmy Breslin, chronicler of wise guys and underdogs, dies
    Mar. 19, 2017 — Author-columnist Jimmy Breslin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of wise guys and underdogs who became the brash embodiment of the old-time, street smart New Yorker, dies Sunday. He was 87. Breslin died at his Manhattan home of complications from pneumonia, his stepdaughter, Emily Eldridge, said.
     
  9. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Grandson of Standard Oil Co-Founder, Dies at 101...
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    David Rockefeller, Grandson of Standard Oil Co-Founder, Dies at 101
    Mar 20 2017 - David Rockefeller, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist who was the last in his generation of one of the country's most famously philanthropic families, died Monday. He was 101.
     
  10. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I met Jay Rockefeller once. That dude could have played in the NBA.
     
  11. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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    Since David Rockefeller was involved with the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and Bilderbergers, what conspiracy theories will develop around his death and his successors?

    It turns out Youtube already has conspiracy videos about his death. Here's one:

     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
  12. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Babi Yar poet dies at age 83...
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    ‘Babi Yar’ poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko dies at age 83
    Mon, Apr 03, 2017 - Yevgeny Yevtushenko, an internationally acclaimed poet with the charisma of an actor and the instincts of a politician whose defiant verse inspired a generation of young Russians in their fight against Stalinism during the Cold War, died on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had been teaching for many years. He was 83.
     
  13. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Don Rickles passes away...
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    Comic Don Rickles Dead at Age 90
    April 06, 2017 — Don Rickles, the master insult comic who created laughs with ridicule and sarcasm in a decades-long career that earned him the facetious nickname "Mr. Warmth," died on Thursday at his Los Angeles home from kidney failure, his publicist said. He was 90.
     
  14. btthegreat

    btthegreat Well-Known Member

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    he was 'not my style' but I sure could appreciate his talent and his legacy. Nothing quite like Rickles has ever stepped on a stage.
     
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  15. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    He will be greatly missed by many.”...
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    Hugh Hefner, Founder Of Playboy, Dead At 91
    September 27, 2017 - Playboy founder and legendary ladies’ man Hugh Hefner has died at the age of 91, according to Playboy Enterprises.
     
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  16. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    An all around good guy and loving father passes on...
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    Chris Rosati, who spread happiness while battling ALS, dies at 46
    October 18, 2017, This obituary was written on three days' notice.
    See also:



    https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-videos/3-the-butterfly-effect-of-chris
     
  17. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Commander of 1st Flight of Space Shuttle Challenger Dies...
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    Commander of 1st Flight of Space Shuttle Challenger Dies
    24 Oct 2017 — Paul Weitz, a retired NASA astronaut who also piloted the Skylab in the early 1970s, has died. He was 85.
    See also:

    Paul Weitz, commander of 1st flight of space shuttle Challenger, dies
    Oct. 24, 2017 — Paul Weitz, a retired NASA astronaut who commanded the first flight of the space shuttle Challenger and also piloted the Skylab in the early 1970s, has died. He was 85.
     
  18. bigfella

    bigfella Well-Known Member

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    Add George Young to the list. One of the most important figures in Australian rock music & a figure of world importance.

    I'll put some of this with some additional music on the music thread.

    George was a middle child of eight (seven of them boys) born in Glasgow in 1946. In 1963 he & most of the family moved to Australia. A very musical family, older brother Alex stayed behind to pursue music. In 1967 his band was signed to the Beatle's Apple Publishing and given the name Grapefruit by John Lennon. As soon as they arrived in the migrant hostel in Sydney George began playing in bands with other kids.

    In 1964 George & his good mate Johannes Vandenberg (aka Harry Vanda) formed a band with other British & Dutch migrants. The Easybeats were Australia's Beatles. For 5 years they dominated the local music scene. They combined a charismatic front man - Stevie Wright - with talented songwriters in Wright, Young & Vanda. Though their international success fell short of expectations, they did leave behind one absolute classic, a song subsequently recorded by the Shadows, David Bowie, Gary Moore, Blue Oyster Cult & others.



    When the Easybeats broke up George & Harry decided to become songwriters & producers. They wrote & produced a number of hits (including an epic for Stevie Wright) and briefly formed a band with brothers Alex, Malcolm & the baby of the family, Angus. George was one of the driving forces behind the formation of AC/DC. He played bass on early recordings and he & Harry Vanda produced the first 5 AC/DC albums. George helped take AC/DC to the brink of world domination. He also wrote & produced hits for a string of successful Australian acts and even recorded a couple of albums with Harry. One of their most enduring songs was this John Paul Young (no relation) hit.



    Angus Young said of him this week:
    Always a very private person, in the late 1990s he retired from the music business & moved to Portugal. He died this week aged 70.
     
  19. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Distinguished Greek Biologist, Malaria Researcher, Dies at 77...
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    Kafatos, Distinguished Greek Biologist, Malaria Researcher, Dies at 77
    November 18, 2017 — Fotis Kafatos, a Greek molecular biologist who had a distinguished academic career in both the United States and Europe and became the founding president of the European Research Council, has died. He was 77.
     
  20. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Cardinal Bernard Law linked to Boston's church sex abuse scandal, dead at 86...
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    Bernard Law, former cardinal linked to Boston's church sex abuse scandal, dead at 86
    20 Dec.`17 - Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston whose failures to stop child molesters in the priesthood sparked the worst crisis in American Catholicism, has died at 86, a church official said Tuesday.
     
  21. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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  22. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    She was a native of Louisville, Ky....
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    Mystery Writer Grafton Dies in California
    December 29, 2017 — Mystery writer Sue Grafton has died in Santa Barbara, California. She was 77.
     

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