Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

popular name: Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney

date_of_death: August 4, 1859

age: 73

cause_of_death: Extended illness

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: The little town of Ars, France, about 20 miles north of Lyon, has become famous through the holy life and labors of St. John Vianney, its beloved Cure. The story of Jean Vianney emphasizes how God uses the simple and under-rated people to confound those who are regarded as wise by the world. A man who was considered only marginally fit to be a priest and became a saint. Saint Jean Vianney was a French Catholic priest who is venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint and as the patron saint of parish priests. He is often referred to as the "Curé d'Ars" (i.e. the parish priest of Ars), internationally known for his priestly and pastoral work in his parish in Ars, France, because of the radical spiritual transformation of the community and its surroundings.

popular name: Michael Kennedy

date_of_death: December 31, 1997

age: 39

cause_of_death: Blunt force trauma from skiing accident

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Michael LeMoyne Kennedy was born into a very public family as Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy's middle of 11 children. He graduated from Harvard in 1980 and then went to law school at the University of Virginia, where he earned a law degree in 1984. In 1988 he took over as chairman of Citizens Energy Corp., the nonprofit fuel company founded by his brother, Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, that discounts home heating fuel for the poor. He also chaired Citizens Conservation Corp., which provided energy consulting services to low-income, multi-family housing. Through Citizen's Energy subsidiaries, Kennedy also coordinated relief missions to West Africa in 1989 and 1992, founded the U.S.-Angola Chamber of Commerce and helped establish a Catholic university in that country. Kennedy also co-chaired the Walden Woods Project, an effort to preserve a forest near Walden Pond in Concord, and Stop Handgun Violence Inc., a group that works to raise awareness about handguns. All that work, however, was overshadowed when reports said he had a 3-year affair with his children's 14-year-old baby sitter. Robert F. Kennedy's 39-year-old son died on New Year’s Eve Day 1997, playing football while skiing Aspen Mountain’s Copper Bowl. It was a game that the Kennedy family had enjoyed for over three decades, and was considered daring, if not dangerous. This time, Kennedy was caught off-balance and too close to the treeline, lost an edge, and went into a tree head first. He had not been wearing a helmet. He was the second of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's sons to die young. In 1984 David Anthony Kennedy died of a drug overdose at age 24.

popular name: David A. Kennedy

date_of_death: April 25, 1984

age: 28

cause_of_death: Drug overdose - cocaine

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: David Kennedy was the was the fourth of eleven children to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy who had led a deeply troubled life since witnessing the assassination of his father on live TV as he was waiting for his father upstairs at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. In the spring of 1984, Kennedy completed a month-long stay at St. Mary's Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Minneapolis. He flew down to Palm Beach, Florida, on April 19 for Easter, where several members of the Kennedy family had gathered. Kennedy checked into room 107 of the Brazilian Court Hotel and spent the next few days partying. On April 25th, at the insistence of concerned family members, staff went to check on his welfare and found him dead on the floor of his suite. An autopsy determined he had died on April 25, 1984, of an overdose of cocaine, the tranquilizer Mellaril, and the painkiller Demerol.