Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

popular name: Patrick J. Kennedy

date_of_death: May 18, 1929

age: 71

cause_of_death: Liver disease

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Patrick Joseph Kennedy (P.J. to his friends and grandfather to President John F. Kennedy) was the son of Irish immigrants. His father, Patrick Kennedy, died of cholera ten months after he was born while his mother, Bridget Kennedy, who also had three daughters, found work as a clerk in a shop. Working in the shipyards after high school, Kennedy borrowed money from his mother and sisters to purchase a run-down saloon in a poor area of Boston. Although he was himself a teetotaler, the business venture was a success and he was soon able to obtain a second saloon. Kennedy purchased a third bar in an upscale East Boston hotel, the Maverick House. Before he was thirty, his growing prosperity allowed him to buy a whiskey and fine liquors importing business, P.J. Kennedy and Company. In 1887 Kennedy married Mary Augusta Hickey, the daughter of a prosperous businessman in the city. A member of the Democratic Party Kennedy was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1892 where he worked behind the scenes as a party boss. After leaving state politics, Kennedy held various appointed positions in the city including elections commissioner, fire commissioner, and wire (electricity) commissioner. He continued his business career by helping to incorporate two Boston financial institutions, the Columbia Trust Company and the Sumner Savings Bank.

popular name: Malcolm X

date_of_death: February 21, 1965

age: 39

cause_of_death: Assassination - 15 gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Malcolm X was a Muslim minister and controversial human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his time spent as a vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was also a widely celebrated figure within African-American and popular during the civil rights era. A year before his murder, Malcolm X had split with the Nation of Islam, and began getting death threats from Nation of Islam followers. On February 21, 1965, he was assassinated in front of his wife and children at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. Three Nation members were charged with the murder and given indeterminate life sentences. Speculation about the assassination and whether it was conceived or aided by leading or additional members of the Nation, or with law enforcement agencies, have persisted for decades after the shooting.

popular name: Patricia Lake

date_of_death: October 3, 1993

age: 74

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: American socialite, actress, and radio comedian, and suspected of being the illegitimate child of William Randolph Hearst Sr. and Marion Davies. Patricia Lake confirmed this shortly before she died.