List of Famous people who died at 78

Henry George Victor John Crichton, 6th Earl Erne, KCVO, was an Anglo-Irish peer and a Lord Lieutenant of Fermanagh. He was known to his family and friends as Harry Erne.

Jürgen Hinzpeter was a German journalist best known for his coverage of South Korean topics.

Jörg Streli was an Austrian architect and academic teacher at the Innsbruck University. With two colleagues, as the firm Heinz & Mathoi & Streli, he built private homes in the alpine landscape of Tyrol, schools, offices and public buildings, among others. He was also president of the architecture section of the Ingenieur- und Architektenkammer für Tirol und Vorarlberg.

Manuel Sandoval Vallarta was a Mexican physicist. He was a Physics professor at both MIT and the Institute of Physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Günter Kochan was a German composer. He studied with Boris Blacher and was a master student for composition with Hanns Eisler. From 1967 until his retirement in 1991, he worked as professor for musical composition at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". He taught master classes in composition at the Academy of Music and the Academy of Arts, Berlin. He was also secretary of the Music Section of the Academy of Arts from 1972 to 1974 and vice-president of the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR from 1977 to 1982. Kochan is one of eleven laureates to have been awarded the National Prize of the GDR four times. In addition, he received composition prizes in the US and Eastern Europe. He became internationally known in particular for his Symphonies as well as the cantata Die Asche von Birkenau (1965) and his Music for Orchestra No. 2 (1987). His versatile oeuvre included orchestral works, chamber music, choral works, mass songs and film music and is situated between socialist realism and avant-garde.

Kunio Maruyama was a Japanese businessman, adventurer, and college professor of English and economics. He was one of the three Japanese men who were secretly sent from Hsinking's Japanese Society, that led to the successful repatriation of most of the 1.6 million Japanese who had been trapped in the former Manchukuo at the end of World War II.

Clara Lucila Campos Marcial was a Peruvian singer known as "la Morena Espectáculo" and "Reina de las Polladas".

Franz Oberwinkler was a German mycologist, specialising in the fungal morphology, ecology and phylogeny of basidiomycetes.

Francisco Luis Bernárdez was an Argentine poet, born in Buenos Aires.

Samuel Julian Ard was an American professional stock car racing driver. He won two NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series championships, in 1983 and 1984. Ard also made one NASCAR Winston Cup start. He retired from driving after being injured in late 1984 and became a car owner. He battled Parkinson's in the later stages of his life and died in April 2017 at age 78.