List of Famous people who died at 59

Ali Maow Maalin was a Somali hospital cook and health worker from Merca who is the last person known to be infected with naturally occurring Variola minor smallpox. He was diagnosed with the disease in October 1977 and made a full recovery. Although he had many contacts, none of them developed the disease, and an aggressive containment campaign was successful in preventing an outbreak. Smallpox was declared to have been eradicated globally by the World Health Organization (WHO) two years later. Maalin was subsequently involved in the successful poliomyelitis eradication campaign in Somalia, and he died of malaria while carrying out polio vaccinations after the re-emergence of the poliovirus in 2013.

Eugène Berger was a politician from Luxembourg. Berger studied to become a teacher, and worked in this profession from 1988 to 1994. In 1994, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Democratic Party. He was State Secretary of the Environment from 1999 to 2004.

Alfredo Lardelli, alias Alfredo Borgatte dos Santos, was a Swiss entrepreneur, who – according to himself - worked “30 percent as a legal adviser, 30 percent as an estate agent and 40 percent as an adviser for the red light-scene”. He gained his knowledge about jurisprudence autodidactically.

Frank Edwin "Tug" McGraw Jr. was an American professional baseball relief pitcher and long-time Major League Baseball (MLB) player, often remembered for coining the phrase "Ya Gotta Believe", which became the rallying cry for the 1973 New York Mets. He recorded the final out of the 1980 World Series against the Kansas City Royals, via a strikeout of Willie Wilson, thereby bringing the Philadelphia Phillies their first such championship and ending a 97-year drought. He was the last active big league player to have played under legendary manager Casey Stengel.

Drew Bundini Brown was an assistant trainer and cornerman of the American 20th Century boxer Muhammad Ali.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Sery was a Soviet and Russian film director, known for directing the 1971 comedy film Gentlemen of Fortune.

Isabel Carrasco Lorenzo was a Spanish politician of the People's Party. Carrasco served in the Senate of Spain between 2003 and 2007. At the time of her death, Carrasco was the head of the government in the northwestern Province of León, and the head of the People's Party in the province. She was murdered in May 2014 as she walked from her home to a political party meeting.

Linda Haglund was a Swedish Olympic sprinter.

Jurek Becker was a Polish-born German writer, film-author and GDR dissident. His most famous novel is Jacob the Liar, which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during World War II for about two years and survived the Holocaust.

Rob Hiaasen was an American journalist and assistant editor at The Capital, a newspaper published in Annapolis, Maryland. He also taught at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. A native of Plantation, then a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Hiaasen began his career at The Palm Beach Post before joining The Baltimore Sun as a feature writer and where he later wrote a regular column. He was shot and killed at work at The Capital during the Capital Gazette shooting.