Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Jean Genet

جان جينيه

France

1910 – 1986 (75 years old)

Celebrated French avant-garde playwright and political activist who spent his final decades in Morocco, requesting in his will to be buried forever in the cliffside Spanish cemetery of Larache overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Larache, Morocco

2 Full Record →

Arts & Music

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Georgia Totto O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe

United States

15 November 1887 – 6 March 1986 (98 years old)

Iconic American modernist painter renowned for her revolutionary close-up paintings of enlarged flowers, soaring New York skyscrapers, and evocative desert landscapes of Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.

Santa Fe (New Mexico), United States

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Literature & Poetry

32

Ding Ling

丁玲

China

1904 – 1986 (81 years old)

Chinese modernist and feminist writer who shocked readers with Miss Sophia's Diary in 1928 and won the 1951 Stalin Prize for The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River.

Beijing, China

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Olof Palme

Sven Olof Joachim Palme

Sweden

1927-01-30 – 1986-02-28 (59 years old)

Global moral champion of international peace, nuclear disarmament, and self-determination for developing nations; expanded the world-famous Swedish welfare state.

Stockholm, Sweden

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Music

Gholam-Hossein Banan

غلام‌حسین بنان

Iran

1 May 1911 – 27 February 1986 (74 years old)

Supreme master vocalist of Iranian classical music whose velvety baritone and exquisite tahrir trills defined the golden era of Radio Iran's 'Golha'.

Karaj, Iran

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Sports & Athletics

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Joseph Jacques Omer Plante

Canada

1929 – 1986 (57 years old)

Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender who revolutionized the game by introducing the full goalie face mask and pioneering aggressive puck-handling.

Sierre, Switzerland

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Politics

Slimane Ben Slimane

سليمان بن سليمان

Tunisia

1905 – 1986 (81 years old)

Pioneering physician and founding member of the Neo-Destour Political Bureau who was repeatedly exiled to Sahara prison camps, later founding the Tunisian Peace Committee.

Tunis, Tunisia

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Politics

Tommy Douglas

Thomas Clement Douglas

Great Britain

1904 – 1986 (81 years old)

Revered Baptist minister and democratic socialist leader who headed the first social democratic government in North America in Saskatchewan and established universal, publicly funded healthcare (Medicare).

Ottawa, Canada

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Arts & Music

12

Mahieddine Bachtarzi

محي الدين باشتارزي

Algeria

1897 – 1986 (88 years old)

Towering father of modern Algerian theater and lyric tenor who founded the first Arab dramatic troupe in Algeria in 1923, directing over 400 theatrical productions.

Algiers, Algeria

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Humanitarian & Peace

37

Alva Myrdal

Alva Myrdal (née Reimer)

Sweden

1902 – 1986 (84 years old)

Sociologue, diplomate et ministre suédoise, cheffe de file mondiale du désarmement nucléaire et lauréate du prix Nobel de la paix en 1982.

Solna, Stockholm, Sweden

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Literature & Poetry

Jaroslav Seifert

Kingdom of Bohemia

1901-09-23 – 1986-01-10 (84 years old)

Beloved lyric poet of Prague and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate (1984) who championed artistic freedom, co-founded Poetism, and signed Charter 77 in defiance of totalitarian censorship.

Kralupy nad Vltavou, Czech Republic

2 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

28

Juan Rulfo

Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno

Mexico

1917 – 1986 (68 years old)

Mexican author whose sparse output of one novel, Pedro Paramo, and one short-story collection, The Burning Plain, stands among the greatest achievements of twentieth-century world literature.

Mexico City, Mexico

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Philosophy & Thought

4

Ebrahim Al-Urayyed

إبراهيم بن حسن العريض

Bahrain

1902-01-01 – 1986-01-01 (84 years old)

Distinguished Bahraini jurist and scholar who served on the Joint Judicial Courts, modernized commercial and civil jurisprudence in Manama, and advocated judicial codification.

Manama, Bahrain

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Military

1

Abderrahmane Senhaji

عبد الرحمن الصنهاجي

Morocco

c. 1920 – 1986 (~66 years old)

Key operational commander in the northern sector of the Moroccan Army of Liberation (Jaysh al-Tahrir al-Maghribi) who coordinated the armed uprising of October 1955 across the Rif and Middle Atlas.

Rabat, Morocco

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Ferhat Abbas

فرحات عباس

Algeria

1899 – 1985 (86 years old)

Eminent Algerian statesman, pharmacist, and author who drafted the historic 1943 Manifesto of the Algerian People and served as the first President of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) from 1958 to 1961.

Algiers, Algeria

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35

Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam

Seewoosagur Ramgoolam

🌐 Mauritius

1900 – 1985 (85 years old)

Founding Father and first Prime Minister of Mauritius who led the island to independence in 1968, established free public education and healthcare, and built a stable multi-ethnic democracy.

Pamplemousses, Mauritius

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