List of Famous people who died at 78

Halime Çavuş (1898–1976) was a Turkish woman, who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in a militia during the Turkish War of Independence.

Edappakath Ahamed was an Indian politician who served as Minister of State for External Affairs in the Manmohan Singh government (2004–14). He represented the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency of Kerala and was the National President of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was an American television personality, radio personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, which was the first late night television talk show.

Johann Reichhart was a German state-appointed judicial executioner in Bavaria from 1924–1946. During the Hitler era, he executed numerous people who were sentenced to death for resisting National Socialism.

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who served a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner in Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Klavdiya Ivanovna Shulzhenko was a Soviet popular female singer and actress.

Marcos Alonso Imaz, nicknamed Marquitos, was a Spanish footballer who played as a defender. He was best known for his participation in Real Madrid's five European Cup conquests, mainly in the 1950s.

Ruth Drexel was a German actress, director, and theatre director/manager. Her best-known role was as "Resi Berghammer" in the German television series, Der Bulle von Tölz, in which she played the mother of the eponymous cop. As of January 2006, she played the role in 58 episodes.

Jaki Liebezeit was a German drummer, best known as a founding member of experimental rock band Can. He was called "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral".

Mohammed Racim was an Algerian artist who founded the Algerian School for Miniature Painting with his brother, Omar. It still exists to this day.