Died On This Date

Wynette (Pugh), Tammy (Virginia Wynette)
b. May 5, 1942 d. April 6, 1998
Country Singer. Known as the “First Lady Of Country Music”, she recorded several number one hits, such as "Stand By Your Man" and "Divorce." In 1969 she married singer George Jones and began a partnership that was musically rewarding but often personally stormy. As a duo they would also record many top 10 hits as "Golden Ring" and "We're Gonna Hold On." They divorced in 1975. She was last married to songwriter-producer George Richey. During her 5 marriages she had 6 children. Cause of death: Blood Clot (Died in her sleep)

Garson, Greer
b. September 29, 1904 d. April 6, 1996
Actress. Greer Garson was beautiful, bright and most of all strong - strong enough to make Laurence Olivier wither in "Pride and Prejudice," and Walter Pidgeon to back down in their multiple, memorable pairings. Yet when she joined her strength to theirs and others, she became the symbol of a nation unconquered by Adolf Hitler. Born in London to father who died two years later, Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson received a fine education and gave up her dreams of becoming a teacher when the stage. Cause of death: Heart failure

Robinson Jr., James E.
b. July 10, 1918 d. April 6, 1945
World War II Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient. Born in in Toledo, Ohio, he served as a 1st Lieutenant in the 861st Field Artillery Battalion, 63rd Infantry Division, U S Army. On April 6, 1945, Lieutenant Robinson was a field artillery observer attached to Company A, 253rd Infantry, at Untergriesheim, Germany. After eight hours of fighting the company lost its commanding officer and nearly all of its enlisted men. Lieutenant Robinson took over command of the unit, led his men in a charge.

Asimov, Isaac
b. January 2, 1920 d. April 6, 1992
Author, Scientist. Born in Petrovichi, Russia, his family relocated to New York in 1923, where his father operated a series of candy stores in Brooklyn. He developed a deep fascination with the science fiction genre, and became a legend and a giant in the genre as an author. Beginning with stories sold to magazines by the late 1930s, he maintained an incredibly prolific writing career, publishing hundreds of books. Not content to merely write about science, he earned a doctorate in biochemistry.

Conroy, Frank
b. January 15, 1936 d. April 6, 2005
Author. His celebrated 1967 book, "Stop-Time," an unsentimental chronicle of his painfully nomadic, episodic childhood, became the basis for modern confessional memoirs. His work appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Harper's Magazine and Partisan Review; many of these stories were collected in "Dogs Bark, But the Caravan Rolls On." His final book, published in 2004, was "Time and Tide," a personal tour of the history and landscape of his cherished second home, Nantucket Island. Cause of death: Colon cancer.

Murphy, Raymond Gerald
b. January 14, 1930 d. April 6, 2007
Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. Second Lieutenant Murphy received the nations highest military honor for his actions during the Korean conflict on the night of February 2-3, 1953. His Citation reads: "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a Platoon Commander of Company A, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor forces in Korea on 3 February 1953.

Sheppard, Sam (Samuel Holmes)
b. December 29, 1923 d. April 6, 1970
Osteopath, Professional Wrestler. Sam Sheppard was tried and convicted of killing his wife Marilyn in a Cleveland suburb. It unleased a fifty year odyssey that shattered his prominent family and finally culminated in a foolhardy trial to force the State of Ohio to pay millions in compensation for false imprisonment. In a trial with world wide scrutiny and attention, he was convicted of second-degree murder and served ten..

Read, Theodore
b. April 11, 1835 d. April 6, 1865
Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General. An 1854 graduate of Indiana University, he practiced law prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. He entered the service as a private in the 12th Illinois Infantry but was soon commissioned and served in various staff positions finally becoming lieutenant colonel, assistant adjutant general and chief of staff of the Army of the James. Read was brevetted brigadier general September 29, 1864 "for gallantry before the enemy".

Peabody, Everret
b. 1828 d. April 6, 1862
Civil War Union Army Officer. On April 6 1862 the Battle of Shiloh began with the Confederate Forces of Gen. A.S. Johnston's Army of the Mississippi attacking Union General Ulysses S Grant's Army of the Tennessee. By 9am that morning General Benjamin Prentiss, a division commander in General Grant's Army, organized a defensive stand along a sunken road that became known as "The Hornets Nest".

Harris (Pastor), Laura Ellen
b. September 10, 1913 d. April 6, 2001
Versatile musician, classical violinist. Toured the world with "all girl" swing bands in the 1930s and 40s.

Berlitz, Maximilian (David Berlitzheimer)
b. April 14, 1852 d. April 6, 1921
Educator. He was the founder of the Berlitz Language Schools. Born David Berlitzheimer in the village of Mühringen at the edge of the Black Forest in southwest Germany. his father was a village cantor and Jewish religious teacher. In 1872, he came to Rhode Island where he worked for a while as a private language teacher in Westerly before accepting a permanent position as a teacher of French and German at the Warner Polytechnical College in Providence.

Fiske, Bradley Allen
b. June 13, 1854 d. April 6, 1942
United States Navy Admiral, Inventor. He graduated from Annapolis in 1874 and devoted his entire US Navy career to the invention of instruments for shipboard use. He served in the Spanish-American War, receiving many citations as navigating officer in the Battle of Manila Bay. For his technical innovations, he was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1911. He holds over sixty patents for Navy devices used world wide.

Skaggs Jr., Luther
b. March 3, 1923 d. April 6, 1976
World War II Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient. His citation reads: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as squad leader with a mortar section of a rifle company in the 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, 3d Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces on the Asan-Adelup beachhead, Guam, Marianas Islands, 21 -22 July 1944.