As 2016 passed into the annals of history, we saw the traditional retrospectives of all the celebrities who died, and to many people, the losses of the past year seemed to be worse than usual. As we mark the somber anniversary of Roe v. Wade today and throughout the week, it bears remembering that in the past 44 years since the Supreme Court dictated one of the most liberal and brutal abortion laws in the civilized world–more akin to that of China than of Western Europe–we have lost many more talents and geniuses who will never be known to us.
The term “icon” is tossed about to describe many of the pop culture superstars who passed away, although it’s a strange term to describe people whose fame is of this world, when an icon, properly so called, is meant to be a focus of meditation on the life of the next world. As important as the impact of people like David Bowie, Prince, and the others has been to our contemporary popular culture, consider the accomplishments of the following 44 figures from history who made lasting contributions to Western Civilization in their respective spheres by age 44 or younger. The names of those who died before their 44th birthday are in bold.
The population of the United States is 318 million. Since 1973, something like 60 million babies have been murdered in the womb. That is nearly one fifth of today’s population who didn’t even see their first birthday, much less their 44th. Any death is cause for sorrow, and the many famous names who left this world in 2016 are no exception, but the greatest tragedy is those who left this world without even receiving a name at all. Sadly, we will never know the dreamers, thinkers, visionaries, and revolutionaries who were snatched from life at their most vulnerable. Who among them might have changed the world in ways we can’t even imagine?
Dante – born c. 1265
Began writing the Divine Comedy in 1308 – age c. 43
St. Joan of Arc – born 1412
Inspired the French to victory in the Hundred Years War before her martyrdom – age 19
Christopher Columbus – born 1451
First European to make permanent contact with Western Hemisphere in 1492 – age 41
Michelangelo – born 1475
Completed Sistine Chapel in 1512 – age 37
Ferdinand Magellan – born c. 1480
First person to nearly circumnavigate the earth before his death in 1521 – age c. 40
Raphael – born 1483
His entire artistic output prior to his death in 1520 – age 37
Christopher Marlowe – born 1564
His literary and dramatic works influenced Shakespeare after his death in 1593 – age 29
Caravaggio – born in 1571
His entire artistic output before his death in 1610 – age 38
Isaac Newton – born 1642
Published the Principia in 1687 – age 44
Thomas Jefferson – born 1743
Wrote Declaration of Independence in 1776 – age 33
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – born 1756
His entire artistic output prior to his untimely death in 1791 – age 35
Robert Fulton – born 1765
Built first working submarine in 1800 – age 34
Jane Austen – born 1775
Her entire literary output before her death in 1817 – age 41
Sophie Germain – born 1776
Won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Science in 1816 – age 39
Humphry Davy – born 1778
Isolated several elements for the first time in 1807 and 1808 – age c. 29
Lord Byron – born 1788
His entire literary output prior to his untimely death in 1824 – age 36
Michael Faraday – born 1791
Invented the first dynamo in 1831 – age 40
John Keats – born 1795
His entire literary output prior to his untimely death in 1821 – age 25
Franz Schubert – born 1797
His entire artistic output prior to his death in 1828 – age 31
Edgar Allan Poe – born 1809
His entire literary output prior to his death in 1849 – age 40
Frédéric Chopin – born 1810
His entire artistic output prior to his death in 1849 – age 39
Harriet Beecher Stowe – born 1811
Published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 – age 40
Elizabeth Cady Stanton – born 1815
Organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 – age 32
Ada Lovelace – born 1815
Developed first computer program before her untimely death in 1852 – age 31
Frederick Douglass – born 1818
Published his autobiography describing the conditions of slavery in 1845 – age 27
Louis Pasteur – born 1822
Patented his eponymous process to sanitize milk in 1865 – age 42
James Clerk Maxwell – born 1831
Published his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873 – age 41
Claude Monet – born 1840
Began the impressionist movement with first independent exhibition in 1874 – age 33
Alexander Graham Bell – born 1847
Patented the electromagnetic telephone in 1876 – age 29
Thomas Edison – born 1847
Patented incandescent electric light bulb in 1879 – age 32
Vincent Van Gogh – born 1853
His entire artistic output prior to his tragic death in 1890 – age 37
Marie Curie – born 1867
Won her first Nobel prize for work on radiation in 1903 – age 36
Wilbur and Orville Wright – born 1867 and 1871
First flight in 1903 – ages 36 and 32
Wilbur died in a test flight at age 45
Roald Amundsen – born 1872
Reached the South Pole in 1911 – age 41
St. Therese of Lisieux – born 1873
Doctor of the Church, died in 1897 – age 24
Albert Einstein – born 1879
Published four revolutionary physics papers in his “miracle year” of 1905 – age c. 26
Henry Moseley – born 1887
Used X-ray spectrography to prove atomic structure before his death in 1915 in the First World War – age 27
Brattain, Bardeen, and Shockley – born 1902, 1908, and 1910
Invented the transistor in 1947 – ages 45, 39, and 37
Rosalind Franklin – born 1920
Pioneered X-ray techniques which enabled discovery of the helical structure of DNA before her death in 1958 – age 37
Anne Frank – born 1929
Documented the Holocaust in her diary before her death in 1945 – age 15
Martin Luther King, Jr. – born 1929
Led the Civil Rights Movement before his tragic death in 1968 – age 39