Louis Braille

popular name: Paul Bocuse

date_of_death: January 20, 2018

age: 91

cause_of_death: Parkinson's disease

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Paul Bocuse was a French chef based in Lyon who was known for the high quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine. A student of Eugénie Brazier, he was one of the most prominent chefs associated with the nouvelle cuisine, which is less opulent and calorific than the traditional cuisine classique, and stresses the importance of fresh ingredients of the highest quality. Bocuse was the incarnation of French gastronomy, a colossus of haute cuisine. His signature dishes not only pleased the palate; they also seduced the eye and piqued the imagination. He stuffed sea bass with lobster mousse and encased it in pastry scales and fins. He poached a truffled Bresse chicken inside a pig’s bladder. Chef Bocuse most famous dish was truffle soup V.G.E., a heady mixture of truffles and foie gras in chicken broth, baked in a single-serving bowl covered in puff pastry. First served at a dinner at the Élysée Palace in 1975, the soup was named for the French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who had just awarded Mr. Bocuse the French Legion of Honor. Through the years Bocuse was among the first chefs to understand the value of publicity, and was a tireless promoter of French food and of his own restaurant, L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges, near Lyon. Upon his passing in the very room he was born in just above his signature restaurant, L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges had maintained their 3-star Michelin rating for over 50 years.

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: Germaine Tillion

date_of_death: April 18, 2008

age: 100

cause_of_death: Natural Causes

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Germaine Tillion was a French ethnologist, best known for her work in Algeria in the 1950s on behalf of the French government. She was member of the French resistance, she spent time in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Germaine Tillion is one of only five women buried in Le Panthéon.