Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Sciences & Discovery

4,628

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Arthur Eddington

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Great Britain

1882 – 1944 (61 years old)

British astrophysicist who led the historic 1919 solar eclipse expedition confirming Einstein's General Relativity.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

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Humanitarian & Peace

33

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Tsunesaburo Makiguchi

牧口 常三郎

Japan

1871 – 1944 (73 years old)

Pédagogue et philosophe humaniste japonais, fondateur de la Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, mort martyr en prison pour son refus du militarisme shinto d'État.

Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, Japan

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Resistance & Human Rights

36

🕯️ 930

Hannah Szenes

Szenes Anikó / חנה סנש

Hungary

17 July 1921 – 7 November 1944 (23 years old)

Hungarian-Jewish poet and British Special Operations Executive paratrooper who parachuted into Yugoslavia to rescue Allied airmen and Hungarian Jews, executed by firing squad after refusing to reveal military codes under torture.

Budapest, Hungary

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Art

4

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Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint

Sweden

1862-10-26 – 1944-10-21 (81 years old)

Revolutionary Swedish artist now recognized as the true pioneer of abstract art in Western history, who created purely non-objective geometric spiritual paintings years before Kandinsky or Mondrian.

Stockholm, Sweden

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Military Leaders & Strategists

42

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Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (The Desert Fox)

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel

Germany

1891 – 1944 (52 years old)

Field Marshal hailed as 'The Desert Fox' whose tactical brilliance leading the Afrika Korps and mobile armored warfare won Tobruk and Gazala.

Blaustein (Baden-Württemberg), Germany

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

31

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Al Smith

Alfred Emanuel Smith

United States

1873 – 1944 (70 years old)

Four-term Governor of New York, leader of Tammany Hall reform, and the first Roman Catholic major-party presidential nominee (1928) who built the Empire State Building.

Queens, New York, United States

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

29

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Abdelaziz Thâalbi

عبد العزيز الثعالبي

Tunisia

September 5, 1874 – October 1, 1944 (70 years old)

Visionary Tunisian political leader and Islamic modernist who founded the Constitutional Liberal Party (Destour) in 1920, articulating the earliest systematic demands for national sovereignty and constitutional emancipation from French colonial rule.

Tunis, Tunisia

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Sculpture

4

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Aristide Maillol

Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol

France

1861 – 1944 (82 years old)

Master French sculptor from the Catalan Roussillon who rejected Auguste Rodin's tormented drama in favor of serene, monumental classical female nudes, acclaimed for his 1905 masterpiece La Méditerranée.

Banyuls-sur-Mer (Pyrénées-Orientales), France

4 Full Record →

History

0

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Jacques Roumain

Jacques Roumain

Haiti

1907 – 1944 (37 years old)

Acclaimed Haitian novelist, poet, ethnologist, and founder of the Haitian Communist Party, author of 'Masters of the Dew'.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

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Music

4

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Aino Ackté

Aino Ackté

Finland

1876-04-23 – 1944-08-08 (68 years old)

Finland's first international operatic superstar who triumphed at the Paris Opéra and Metropolitan Opera, sang the London premiere of Richard Strauss's Salome, and founded Savonlinna Opera Festival.

Helsinki, Finland

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

34

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Manuel L. Quezon

Manuel Luis Quezón y Molina

Philippine

1878 – 1944 (65 years old)

First President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines who championed the Tydings-McDuffie Act securing Philippine independence, created the national language (Filipino), and rescued over 1,200 European Jews.

Quezon City (Metro Manila), Philippines

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Resistance & Human Rights

40

🕯️ 940

Claus von Stauffenberg

Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

Germany

15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944 (36 years old)

German army colonel who was the central leader of the military resistance against Hitler, planting the bomb at the Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944 in an attempt to overthrow the Nazi regime and end the war.

Bendlerblock, Berlin, Germany

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Arts & Music

16

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Rachid Ksentini

رشيد قسنطيني

Algeria

1887 – 1944 (56 years old)

Trailblazing pioneer of Algerian musical comedy and chansonnier who composed over 600 satirical songs in Algerian Darija, performing across the Maghreb and Europe.

Algiers, Algeria

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Arts & Music

33

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Asmahan

أسمهان (آمال الأطرش)

Syria

1912 – 1944 (31 years old)

Legendary Syrian-Egyptian singer and actress, sister of Farid al-Atrash, whose soaring, operatic vocal range and glamorous cinema roles made her one of the supreme divas of the Arab Golden Age before her mysterious death at age thirty-one.

Cairo, Egypt

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Religious Figures & Theologians

54

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Sergius Nikolaevich Bulgakov

Сергий Булгаков

Russia

1871 – 1944 (72 years old)

Russian Orthodox priest, philosopher, and economist who fled Marxist Russia to lead the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris, developing the theology of divine Wisdom (Sophiology).

Paris, France

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Resistance & Human Rights

32

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Marianne Cohn

Marianne Cohn

Germany

1922 – 1944 (21 years old)

German-born Jewish resistance fighter in the Mouvement de Jeunesse Sioniste who smuggled hundreds of Jewish children into neutral Switzerland, refusing rescue to protect them.

Annemasse, France

32 Full Record →

History

0

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María Chinchilla Recinos

María Chinchilla Recinos

Guatemala

1909 – 1944 (34 years old)

Guatemalan schoolteacher and national martyr of the 1944 Revolution whose death brought down the Jorge Ubico dictatorship.

Guatemala City, Guatemala

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Resistance & Human Rights

42

🕯️ 930

Marc Bloch

Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch

France

6 July 1886 – 16 June 1944 (57 years old)

Preeminent French medievalist and co-founder of the Annales School who volunteered for the French army at age 53, joined the underground resistance in Lyon, was tortured by Klaus Barbie, and was executed by firing squad shouting 'Vive la France!'.

Saint-Didier-de-Formans, Ain, France

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