We start off the list with Horace. He had a last name, but Roman names are too complex, so I'm not interested in using it here. He was a poet, and despite fighting against him initially, became a friend of Augustus. Oh, and he's best known as the author of the famous line "Carpe Diem", which translates as either "pluck the day", "seize the day" or "enjoy the day", presumably depending who you ask. After doing all that, he died. On this date.
Also dying today, in 511 A.D., was Clovis I, King of the Franks. He's significant because he was the first King of all the Franks, and he beat up on the late Romans to get there- or at least their allies. That was before he died. On this date.
Another interesting death today was Baby Face Nelson, who killed more on-duty FBI agents than any other American. Bet his parents didn't put that on their Christmas cards! In the end the FBI got him, though they were only able to kill him once, which doesn't seem fair.
Remember the movie "Milk" with professional A**hole Sean Penn? Well Harvey Milk was killed on this date. And not because he took a picture of Penn without staging it properly to make him look like a great hero and philanthropist. Though that's not a completely implausible scenario for other people.
2007 saw the deaths of two sports figures. The first was Robert Cade, who lived to a ripe old age and was pretty comfortable, due to his invention of Gatorade. The second was Sean Taylor, who was a football player. He did not live to a ripe old age, thanks to some punks who thought his house looked like a good place to rob. He had his issues, but had shown signs of maturity, thanks to becoming a father. The punks just thought it looked like a good place to rob, and presumably were surprised to discover somebody was home. They shot him in the thigh, but caught an artery. He lived for 24 hours afterwards.
That's a sad way to end it, but there it is.
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