Louis Braille

popular name: Rosemary Kennedy

date_of_death: January 7, 2005

age: 86

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Rosemary Kennedy was the third child and eldest daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy and her brothers included future president John F. Kennedy. She was slower to crawl, slower to walk and to speak than her brothers and she reportedly displayed developmental delays from an early age after a bungled delivery led to oxygen deprivation. Despite her apparent intellectual disabilities, Rosemary participated in most family activities. In the diary she kept as a teenager she described people she met, dances and concerts she attended, and a visit to the Roosevelt White House. When her father was appointed US Ambassador to Britain in 1938, Rosemary went to live in London and was presented at court along with her mother and sister Kathleen. Upon return to the states she allegedly exhibited mood swings and disruptive behavior. Fearing Rosemary would be an embarrassment and roadblock for his male offspring to achieve great power at all political levels, without telling anyone Joseph instructed Dr. James W. Watts to perform a frontal lobotomy. The horrifying surgical procedure – which involved severing the connection between the frontal lobe and other parts of the brain – became popular in the 1940s and 1950s with American and British doctors who claimed to be seeking a ‘cure’ for patients with certain mental health conditions that were deemed socially unacceptable. When they completed the surgical procedure, It quickly became apparent that the procedure had caused immense harm. Kennedy's mental capacity diminished to that of a two-year-old child. She could not walk or speak intelligibly and was incontinent. For the next six decades she was housed at a facility in Ohio, hidden from view and rarely spoken of until she died at the age of 86.

popular name: Leonardo da Vinci

date_of_death: May 2, 1452

age: 67

cause_of_death: Stroke

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Leonardo da Vinci (Italian for “Leonardo from Vinci”) was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98), Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time. The world's most expensive painting to sell at auction is Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450.3 million on November 15, 2017 at Christie's auction house.

popular name: Turenne

date_of_death: July 27, 1675

age: 63

cause_of_death: Killed by a cannonball at the battle of Salzbach

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne , commonly known as Turenne, was a French general and one of only six Marshals to have been promoted Marshal General of France. The most illustrious member of the La Tour d'Auvergne family, his military exploits over his five-decade career earned him a reputation as one of the greatest military commanders in modern history. Turenne's genius best represents the art of war in the 17th century. For the small, costly, and highly trained regular armies, and for the dynastic warfare of the age of Louis XIV, Turenne functioned as the ideal army leader. He showed little more than the nature of a simple and honorable soldier, endowed with much tact; but in the world of politics and intellect he seemed almost helpless in the hands of a skillful intriguer or casuist. His morals, if not beyond reproach, were at least more austere than those prevalent in the age in which he lived. He operated essentially as a commander of regular armies. He spent his life with the troops; he knew how to win their affection.