Fernando Alegria (87) Chilean-born author and former Stanford University professor who pioneered the study of Latin American literature in the US. Alegria once was Chile's cultural attaché in Washington, DC and was best known for his novels, literary criticism, and poetry. His books included the award-winning My Horse Gonzalez and Allende: A Novel, about overthrown Chilean president Salvador Allende. Alegria died of kidney failure in Walnut Creek, California on October 29, 2005.

Estelle Carlson (70) fiber artist best known as a weaver of tie-dyed thread, whose work has been displayed in the US, Canada, China, and India. Carlson had long-term affiliations with the Artists’ Studio at the Palos Verdes Art Center, Designing Weavers of Los Angeles, Southern California Handweavers Guild, and California Fibers in San Diego. She died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, in San Diego, California on October 27, 2005.

Raymond Hains (78) French artist of the New Realism movement best known for his shredded posters. Hains joined fellow artists Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, and Arman in 1960 to found the movement as Europe's response to Pop Art, in which they practiced what was called poetic recycling of everyday objects. Hains died in Paris, France on October 28, 2005.

Nirmal Verma (76) one of India's leading writers in the Hindi language and a noted literary critic, who, inspired by India's independence from British colonial rule in 1947, pioneered a movement to bring realism to short stories written in Hindi. Verma wrote five novels, eight collections of short stories, and nine volumes of essays, travelogues, and criticism. He died of a heart attack in New Delhi, India on October 25, 2005.

Dr. Alston Callahan (94) opthamologist who founded the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, which treats approximately 20,000 patients per year, has trained more than 200 opthamologists through its residency program, and houses the state's only 24-hour eye emergency room. Callahan started the International Retinal Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds research initiatives aimed at discovering the cause and cure of macular degeneration. He died in Montgomery, Alabama on October 28, 2005.

Tahsin Ozguc (89) Turkish archaeologist whose digs in Anatolia documented the intermingling of Bronze Age cultures and commerce in what is now central Turkey. Ozguc was a professor of archaeology and former dean and rector at Ankara University. He died in Ankara, Turkey on October 28, 2005.

Richard Southwood (74) eminent British zoologist and entomologist, a former vice chancellor of Oxford University and an adviser to governments on scientific aspects of health and environment policies. Southwood was a former chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in the '80s and a leading scientist in discovering bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; popularly known as Mad Cow Diease). He died in England on October 26, 2005.

Ruth Bond (101) educator and civic leader who, in the mid-'30s and in her first and only foray into quilt design, helped to transform the American quilt from a utilitarian bed covering into a work of avant-garde social commentary. Bond was later noted for designing a series of quilts known collectively as the Tennessee Valley Authority quilts, sewn in rural Alabama by the wives of black workers building dams there for the TVA and considered pivotal in the history of American quiltmaking. She died in New York City on October 24, 2005.

Benedikt S. J. Isserlin (89) philologist, archaeologist, and historian with an encyclopedic knowledge of the cultures and languages of the ancient Near East. Isserlin synthesized the social, historical, geographical, and archaeological evidence of ancient Israel from the earliest beginnings to the Babylonian exile in his popular but scholarly 2001 book Israelite. He supervised several Saudi Arabian doctoral students in Arabic archaeology, Islamic history, and Arab dialectology and was for a time president of the British Association of Jewish Studies. He died in London, England on October 23, 2005.

Lloyd Bochner (81) TV actor best known for his role as Cecil Colby on the primetime soap opera Dynasty and in the classic "To Serve Man" episode of The Twilight Zone (ranked No. 11 in "The 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time" by TV Guide). Bochner appeared in such other films and TV series as Naked Gun 33-1/3, Columbo, Mission: Impossible, The Golden Girls, and Designing Women during a career that spanned 50 years. He cofounded the Committee to End Violence to address the impact of violence in TV and movies on popular culture. He died of cancer in Santa Monica, California on October 29, 2005.

Fred S. Fox Sr. (90) comedy writer who started his career in radio and wrote for stars like Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Doris Day, and George Burns. Fox had a children's show, Freddie the Fox, on KSFO in San Francisco. He was a cowriter for many of the later Bob Hope TV specials and wrote many of Hope's Christmas specials as well. He died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on October 23, 2005.

Robert Gerle (81) concert violinist, teacher, and author of books on violin technique who helped to found the orchestra program at the University of Maryland in the early '70s. During World War II, Gerle was imprisoned in a labor camp because he was Jewish but escaped and hid in his teacher's apartment in Budapest. About 20 people were hiding in the apartment's crawl spaces when Soviet soldiers raided it in 1945. Suspected of being Nazi snipers, the group was ordered to stand before a firing squad. Gerle carried his violin with him; seeing the instrument, an officer told him to play a piece by Tchaikovsky, which Gerle did. It convinced the officer that Gerle and the others were not Nazis, and all were set free. He died of Parkinson's disease in Hyattsville, Maryland on October 29, 2005.

David Townsend (50) producer and member of the '80s rhythm and blues trio Surface, whose self-titled album produced two top 10 singles and whose hits included "Shower Me with Your Love." Townsend also produced hit songs for artists such as the Isley Brothers, Sister Sledge, New Edition, Jermaine Jackson, and Rebbie Jackson. Townsend was found dead in his Northridge, California home on October 26, 2005.

José Azcona Hoyo (78) former Honduran president best known for his harboring of US-backed contra rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinistian government. Azcona Hoyo was also known as an honest politician in a country where political corruption was rampant. He died of a heart attack in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on October 24, 2005.

Eugene K. Bird (79) former US warden who guarded deputy Nazi fuehrer Rudolf Hess in Spandau prison for more than 20 years. Bird was the first American guard at the Spandau prison (set up by the four World War II allies—the US, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—to confine those convicted of war crimes), and wrote a book about his relationship with Hess called The Loneliest Man in the World: The Inside Story of the 30-Year Imprisonment of Rudolf Hess (1974). Bird died on Berlin, Germany on October 28, 2005.

Earl Krugel (62) formal dental assistant and Jewish Defense League activist imprisoned in 2001 for his role in a plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman. Krugel was killed in an assault at a federal prison in Phoenix, Arizona on October 28, 2005.

Florastine Magee Creed-Jacobson (59) highest-ranking black woman in the history of the Boston Police Department (affectionately known as Flo). Magee Creed-Jacobson joined the department in 1979 and worked her way up through the ranks from patrol officer, detective, and sergeant before being appointed a deputy superintendent in charge of the Office of Labor Relations. She also became a lawyer to better understand the law and perform her police department duties even better. She was known for her sense of fairness and integrity, was considered an extraordinary role model for all police officers, and was deeply dedicated to her family. She died of cancer in Boston, Massachusetts on October 26, 2005.

John Monagan (93) seven-term US congressman (D-Conn.) who played a major role in getting a system of dams built in the Naugatuck River valley and was mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut (1943-47). Monagan was best known for chairing Cold War hearings that pointed out the failures of communism. He died of heart disease in Washington, DC on October 23, 2005.

Stella Obasanjo (59) wife of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who herself became a noted figure in the international human rights community and established a nongovernmental organization, Child Care Trust, to take care of the underprivileged, the motherless. and physically and mentally retarded children. Stella Obasanjo died after undergoing surgery at a hospital in the southern Spanish resort city of Marbella, where she had been on a private visit, on October 23, 2005.

Rosa Parks (92) former seamstress considered the mother of the civil rights movement after her refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala. public bus almost 50 years ago. Parks’s decision was the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, initiated in part by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Parks worked for more than 25 years on the staff of US Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). She died in Detroit, Michigan on October 25, 2005.

Edward R. Roybal (89) pioneering Hispanic leader who spent 30 years in Congress as an advocate for minorities, the poor, and the elderly. Roybal also served more than 10 years on the Los Angeles City Council and upon his election in 1962 became the first Hispanic from California to serve in congress since 1879. He was also a founding member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was credited with writing the first bilingual education bill to provide schools with assistance for special bilingual teaching programs. He died of respiratory failure complicated by pneumonia in Pasadena, California on October 24, 2005.

John H. ("Jack") Shellenberger (77) retired senior US Information Agency foreign service officer, a former director of programs at Voice of America and dean of area studies at the Foreign Service Institute. Shellenberger served tours as counselor of public affairs at US embassies in Tehran, Ottawa, Tokyo, and Lagos, Nigeria and as director of the Japan-America Student Conference in Washington, DC. His awards include the President's Meritorious Service Award from the USIA. He died of a stroke in Great Falls, Virginia on October 25, 2005.

Joan Kennedy Taylor (79) leading woman intellectual in the Libertarian movement for the last 20-plus years and a staunch advocate of individualist feminism. Taylor was associate editor of The Libertarian Review, publications director at the Manhattan Institute, and a regular current events commentator on the nationally syndicated daily radio program Byline. She wrote for such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the Stanford Law & Policy Review, and her own books on feminism, including Reclaiming the Mainstream: Individualist Feminism Rediscovered She was national coordinator of the Association of Libertarian Feminists for more than 15 years. Taylor died of cancer in New York City on October 29, 2005.

Mor Julius Yeshu Cicek (63) highest priest in Europe with the Syriac Orthodox Church. Cicek was Metropolitan for Middle Europe since the position was created by the church in 1979 and oversaw the establishment of 51 churches and three monasteries. He edited and published more than 100 books in Syriac. He died in Dusseldorf, Germany on October 29, 2005.

Marlin Gray (38) Missouri man convicted of killing two sisters by pushing them from an abandoned Mississippi River bridge. Gray still denied involvement in the murders in his final statement. He was executed by lethal injection in Bonne Terre, Missouri on October 26, 2005.

Grimes Poznikov (59) street performer known as The Automatic Human Jukebox who became one of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions before he was sidelined by mental illness. Poznikov died of alcohol poisoning and was discovered on a sidewalk near a freeway, in San Francisco, California on October 27, 2005.

Bob Broeg (87) legendary former sports editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who wrote for the paper for more than 60 years. Broeg's quirky and insightful accounts of the legends of sport made him one of the early inductees into the writers' wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in St. Louis, Missouri on October 28, 2005.

Harry Dalton (77) baseball executive who spent more than 40 years with the Baltimore Orioles, California Angels, and Milwaukee Brewers. Dalton's clubs reached the World Series five times. He died of Parkinson's disease in Carefree, Arizona on October 23, 2005

Tony Jackson (65) All-American in 1960 and one of the best basketball players in St. John's University history. Jackson averaged 21.1 points and 13 rebounds in his career, totals that still rank among school leaders, and was a first-team AP All-American on a squad that also featured Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, and Jerry Lucas. He died of cancer in New York City on October 28, 2005.

Wellington Mara (89) pro football Hall of Famer and former owner of the New York Giants. Mara was the last member of the NFL founding generation. He attended most practices and every Giants game and was fully involved in the Giants operation for almost 80 years. He died of cancer in Rye, New York on October 25, 2005.

George Swindin (90) former British soccer star who won three league championships in goal with Arsenal in three different decades. Swindin later returned to Highbury as manager but did not repeat the success he had enjoyed there as a player. He died of Alzheimer's disease in Kettering, England on October 27, 2005.