Louis Braille

popular name: Simone Veil

date_of_death: June 30, 2017

age: 89

cause_of_death: Natural Causes

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Simone Veil was a Holocaust survivor, magistrate, minister, and the first woman President of the European Parliament. She was also the first woman to preside over the directly elected European Parliament.

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: Eddie Rickenbacker

date_of_death: July 23, 1973

age: 82

cause_of_death: Pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker was called America’s Ace of Aces during World War I, the highest scorer of American aerial victories over the Germans. He could just as easily have been labeled the ‘luckiest man alive,’ however, since he survived — by his own count — 135 brushes with death during his exciting lifetime. With 26 aerial victories, he was the United States' most successful fighter ace in the war and is considered to have received the most awards for valor by an American during the war. He was also a race car driver, an automotive designer, a government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation, particularly as the long-time head of Eastern Air Lines. At one time he even owned and raced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Towards the end of his life as CEO of Eastern Air Lines, the company was the most profitable airline in the postwar era. However during the late 1950s Eastern Air Lines' fortunes declined, and Rickenbacker was forced out of his position as CEO in 1959. Rickenbacker also resigned as the chairman of the board in 1963, at the age of 73. After that, Captain and Mrs. Rickenbacker traveled extensively for a number of years and in the 1960s, Rickenbacker became a well-known speaker, sharing shared his vision for the future of technology and commerce. Upon his death, he was buried at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.