Famous People Who Died in April a to z

Bud Abbott was a comedian best known for playing the "straight man" of the Abbott and Costello comedy duo.

Ralph D. Abernathy was a Baptist minister who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr.

Ansel Adams was an American photographer best known for his iconic images of the American West, including Yosemite National Park.

Jazz trumpeter Henry Allen belonged to Fletcher Henderson’s big band, was in Mills Blue Rhythm band and accompanied Louis Armstrong in Luis Russell’s band.

Marian Anderson was an African American singer, one of the finest contraltos of her time, and recipient of the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Thomas Andrews was the principle architect for the infamous RMS Titanic. He died in the sinking, on April 15, 1912.

Bea Arthur was an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress who starred in the television shows Maude and The Golden Girls.

Scholar Isaac Asimov was one of the 20th century's most prolific writers, writing in many genres. He was known for sci-fi works like Foundation and I, Robot.

Financier John Jacob Astor IV was the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor. He helped build the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Francis Bacon was an English Renaissance statesman and philosopher, best known for his promotion the scientific method.

Josephine Baker was a dancer and singer who became wildly popular in France during the 1920s. She also devoted much of her life to fighting racism.

One of America's most beloved comedians, Lucille Ball is particularly known for her iconic TV show I Love Lucy.

Clara Barton was an educator, nurse and founder of the American Red Cross.

Considered one of history's most influential jazz musicians, Count Basie was known for his piano style and command of big bands such as the Count Basie Orchestra, and for songs like "Jumpin' at the Woodside," "Taxi War Dance" and "Miss Thing."

English Restoration author, playwright and poet Aphra Behn wrote the short work of fiction Oroonoko, a love story about an African slave in Surinam.

Saul Bellow was a celebrated novelist who won the Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Book Award for Fiction three times.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, president and prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s and father to Benazir Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People’s Party and was executed.

Thomas Blanchard was an American inventor whose patents contributed to the development of the mass production system.

Humorist, writer, columnist and journalist Erma Bombeck found the humor in the everyday experiences of being a wife and mother and shared it with her readers.

On April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln while he was watching Our American Cousin at Ford Theater in Washington, D.C.

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, and choral compositions.

Eva Braun was the mistress and later the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun and Hitler killed themselves on April 30, 1945, the day after their wedding—an decided alternative to falling into the hands of enemy troops.

A leader of the Puritan Separatist movement, William Brewster was one of the pilgrims who traveled aboard the Mayflower to America.

Since the end of the 1960s, Actor Roscoe Lee Browne made steady television appearances, including on Barney Miller, The Cosby Show, ER and Will & Grace.

Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the leading architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance, and is best known for his work on the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence.

Thomas Byles, a Catholic priest, was a victim of the RMS Titanic disaster.

Lord Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and is best known for his amorous lifestyle and his brilliant use of the English language.

Annie Jump Cannon was a pioneering astronomer responsible for the classification of hundreds of thousands of stars.

Actress, singer, television personality and arts advocate Kitty Carlisle is best known for her long run as a panelist on the television show To Tell The Truth.

A chemist, W.H. Carothers worked for DuPont and with his research laid the foundation for the synthetic fiber industry.

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist, environmentalist and writer who alerted the world to the environmental impact of fertilizers and pesticides.

Dixie Carter was an actress who most TV viewers remember from the hit series Designing Women.

Willa Cather was a writer of poetry and novels known for such works as O Pioneers! and My Antonia.

Artist Elizabeth Catlett celebrates African-American workers in sculptures and prints. She's known for works like "Negro Woman," "Sharecropper" and "Survivor."

Jacques Alexandre César Charles was a French scientist and inventor who, along with Nicholas Robert, was the first to take flight in a hydrogen balloon.

Charles I was a monarch of the Hapsburg line who was the last emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. He lost his throne at the end of World War I.

Union leader and labor organizer Cesar Chavez dedicated his life to improving treatment, pay and working conditions for farm workers.

Student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 30 people on Virginia Tech's campus in 2007. The mass murder ended when he turned the gun and shot himself in the head.

Journalist and editor Francis P. Church is remembered best for his 1897 editorial reply to Virginia O'Hanlon, in which he declares Santa Claus is real.

Dick Clark was a TV personality known for the shows American Bandstand, $25,000 Pyramid and TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes, among others.

A talented, troubled grunge performer, Kurt Cobain became a rock legend with his band Nirvana in the 1990s and committed suicide at his Seattle home in 1994.

In 1922, aviator Bessie Coleman became the first African American woman to stage a public flight in America. Her high-flying skills always wowed her audience.

Howard Cosell was a sports broadcaster who had a distinctive and influential on-air personality.

French physicist Pierre Curie was of founding fathers of modern physics and is best known for being a pioneer in radioactive studies.

Aimé Césaire was a cofounder (with Léopold Sédar Senghor) of Negritude, an influential movement to restore the cultural identity of black Africans.

Charles Darwin is best known for his work as a naturalist, developing a theory of evolution to explain biological change.

Charles G. Dawes was a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who became the 30th U.S. vice president under Calvin Coolidge.

French writer Simone de Beauvoir laid the foundation for the modern feminist movement. Also an existentialist philosopher, she had a romance with Sartre.

One of Spain's most famous writers, Miguel de Cervantes created one of the world's greatest literary masterpieces, Don Quixote, in the early 1600s.

Sometimes called the father of modern art, Spanish artist Francisco de Goya painted royal portraits as well as more subversive works in late 1700s and early 1800s.

Miguel de la Madrid was president of Mexico from 1982 to 1988. He was a political conservative and his administration was characterized by an economic crisis.

Madame de Pompadour became the mistress of French King Louis XV in the mid-1700s. She greatly influenced French culture during this time, including decorative arts, architecture and statecraft.

English novelist, pamphleteer and journalist Daniel Defoe is best known for his novels Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.

Jane A. Delano was a nurse, administrator and leader who was a pioneer in her field, overseeing the mobilization of U.S. nurses overseas during World War I.

I.A.L. Diamond was a Romanian-born American screenwriter who worked extensively with director Bill Wilder.

Charles Drew was an African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma for transfusion and organized the first large-scale blood bank in the U.S.

Dame Daphne du Maurier was a novelist and playwright whose famous works Rebecca and The Birds were made into films by Alfred Hitchcock.

Andrea Dworkin was an American feminist and author, an outspoken critic of sexual politics, particularly of the victimizing effects of pornography on women.

Roger Ebert is an American film critic best known as one half of the popular Siskel and Ebert film critic television show.

Annie Edson Taylor was a teacher and daredevil who was the first person to ride down Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the theory of relativity. He is considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.

El Greco was a Greek artist whose painting and sculpture helped define the Spanish Renaissance and influence various movements to come.

Ralph Ellison was a 20th century African-American writer and scholar best known for his renowned, award-winning novel Invisible Man.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American Transcendentalist poet, philosopher and essayist during the 19th century. One of his best-known essays is "Self-Reliance.”

Barney Ewell was one of the leading sprinters of the 1940s, and won three medals at the 1948 Olympics.

Jessie Fauset was a teacher and writer who worked as editor for The Crisis magazine, and penned the novels Comedy: American Style and Plum Bun.

William Findley's long political career began after the Revolutionary War. He believed in limiting the power of government in order to protect people's rights.

John Ambrose Fleming was an English scientist who made groundbreaking innovations in electrical engineering.