Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Journalism

2

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Babatunde Jose

Ismail Babatunde Jose

Nigeria

1925-12-13 – 2008-08-02 (82 years old)

Doyen of modern Nigerian journalism who transformed the 'Daily Times' into Africa's most successful and influential newspaper empire and trained a generation of investigative reporters.

Lagos, Nigeria

2 Full Record →

Sports & Athletics

8

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Mohamed Khedis

محمد خديس

Algeria

1952 – 2008 (56 years old)

Steadfast defender of NA Hussein Dey and the national team, gold medalist at the 1978 All-Africa Games, and quarterfinalist at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Algiers, Algeria

8 Full Record →

Music

0

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Wendo Kolosoy

Antoine Wendo Kolosoy

Congo

1925-04-25 – 2008-07-28 (83 years old)

Pioneering musical patriarch celebrated as the 'Father of Congolese Rumba' whose iconic 1948 recording 'Marie-Louise' ignited the Central African popular music revolution across the Congo River.

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Arts & Music

31

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Youssef Chahine

يوسف شاهين

Egypt

1926 – 2008 (82 years old)

World-renowned Egyptian filmmaker whose cinematic masterpieces—including 'Cairo Station' (1958), 'The Land' (1969), and 'Destiny' (1997)—defined modern Arab cinema, discovered Omar Sharif, and won the Cannes 50th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award.

Cairo, Egypt

31 Full Record →

Statesmanship & Statesmen

14

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Ahmed Bensouda

أحمد بن سودة

Morocco

1920 – 2008 (88 years old)

Longtime chief counselor and confidant to King Hassan II and King Mohammed VI, diplomat, and statesman who helped craft modern Moroccan institutional diplomacy for four decades.

Rabat, Morocco

14 Full Record →

History

1

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Arthur Chung

Arthur Chung

Guyana

1918 – 2008 (90 years old)

First President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, serving from 1970 to 1980.

Georgetown, Guyana

1 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

6

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Suleiman Mousa

سليمان موسى

Jordan

11 June 1919 – 9 June 2008 (88 years old)

Premier modern historian of Jordan whose landmark 1966 book 'T.E. Lawrence: An Arab View' provided the first Arab perspective on Lawrence of Arabia.

Amman, Jordan

6 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

16

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Ali Fahmi Khousham

علي فهمي خشيم

Libya

1936 – 2008 (72 years old)

Distinguished Libyan linguist, philologist, and lexicographer who served as President of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Tripoli and authored over thirty comparative linguistic dictionaries.

Tripoli, Libya

16 Full Record →

Social

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Jean-Marc Ela

Jean-Marc Ela

Cameroon

1936-09-27 – 2008-05-26 (71 years old)

Internationally renowned sociologist and Catholic priest who founded African Liberation Theology, living for fourteen years among impoverished Kirdi peasants and authoring 'African Cry' (1980).

Ebolowa, Cameroon

0 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

52

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Irena Sendler

Irena Stanisława Sendlerowa

Poland

15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008 (98 years old)

Polish social worker and resistance operative who headed the Children's Bureau of Żegota, smuggling approximately 2,500 Jewish infants and children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and hiding their true identities in buried jars.

Warsaw, Poland

52 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

50

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Germaine Tillion

Germaine Tillion

France

30 May 1907 – 19 April 2008 (100 years old)

French ethnologist and resistance fighter who co-founded the Musée de l'Homme network, secretly composed a satirical operetta while imprisoned in Ravensbrück, and campaigned against torture in the Algerian War.

Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France

50 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

34

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Aimé Césaire

Aimé Fernand David Césaire

Martinique

1913 – 2008 (94 years old)

Martinican poet, playwright, and statesman who coined the term 'Négritude' in his masterpiece Cahier d'un retour au pays natal and authored Discours sur le colonialisme.

Fort-de-France, Martinique

34 Full Record →

Music

4

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Choubeila Rached

شبيلا راشد

Tunisia

1933 AD – 2008 (75 years old)

Revered diva of Tunisian classical and popular song, daughter of the legendary songstress Saliha, who honored and carried forward her mother's musical legacy for over four decades.

La Marsa, Tunisia

4 Full Record →

Journalism

0

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Ludu Daw Amar

လူထုဒေါ်အမာ

Myanmar

1915-11-29 – 2008-04-07 (92 years old)

Fearless dissident journalist, publisher of the renowned 'Ludu Daily', and cultural matriarch of Mandalay who defied military censorship for decades and preserved traditional Burmese music and theatre.

Amarapura, Mandalay, Myanmar

0 Full Record →

Journalism

0

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Dith Pran

ឌិត ប្រ៉ង់

Cambodia

1942-09-27 – 2008-03-30 (65 years old)

Legendary photojournalist and survivor whose heroic partnership with Sydney Schanberg and perilous escape from Khmer Rouge labor camps inspired the phrase and film 'The Killing Fields'.

North Brunswick, New Jersey, United States

0 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

6

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Hugo Claus

Hugo Maurice Julien Claus

Belgium

1929 – 2008 (78 years old)

The undisputed titan of modern Flemish literature whose monumental 1983 novel Het verdriet van België (The Sorrow of Belgium) laid bare wartime collaboration, Catholic dogma, and Flemish family pathology.

Ostend, Belgium

6 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4,686

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Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke

Great Britain

1917 – 2008 (90 years old)

British science and aerospace visionary who conceptualized geostationary satellite communications and co-created 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Borella, Colombo, Sri Lanka

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Science

2

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Chike Obi

Chike Obi

Nigeria

1921-04-07 – 2008-03-13 (86 years old)

Celebrated Nigerian mathematician, astronomer, and politician who became the first Nigerian to earn a PhD in mathematics and solved Fermat's Last Theorem for semi-primes.

Onitsha, Nigeria

2 Full Record →