List of Famous people who died at 79

Wolfgang Bötsch was a German politician, representative of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria. Between 1974 and 1976 he represented the Landtag of Bavaria. From 1976 to 2005 he was a member of the Bundestag, and between 1993 and 1997 he was the last Minister of Post and Telecommunications. Bötsch died on 14 October 2017 at the age of 79.

Emilio Botín-Sanz de Sautuola García de los Ríos, iure uxoris Marquess of O'Shea was a Spanish banker. He was the executive chairman of Spain's Grupo Santander. In 1993 his bank absorbed Banco Español de Crédito (Banesto), and in 1999 it merged with Banco Central Hispano creating Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH), which became Spain's largest bank, of which he was co-president with Central Hispano's José María Amusategui, until Amusategui retired in 2002. In 2004, BSCH acquired the British bank Abbey National, making BSCH the second largest bank in Europe by market capitalisation. He was known for his obsession with growth and performance as well as regularly visiting branches.

Vice Admiral Sir Alan Wedel Ramsay McNicoll, was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and a diplomat. Born in Melbourne, he entered the Royal Australian Naval College at the age of thirteen and graduated in 1926. Following training and staff appointments in Australia and the United Kingdom, he was attached to the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War. As torpedo officer of the 1st Submarine Flotilla in the Mediterranean theatre, McNicoll was decorated with the George Medal in 1941 for disarming enemy ordnance. He served aboard HMS King George V from 1942, sailing in support of several Arctic convoys and taking part in the Allied invasion of Sicily. McNicoll was posted for staff duties with the Admiralty from September 1943 and was involved in the planning of the Normandy landings. He returned to Australia in October 1944.

Werner Lambersy was a Belgian poet.

Olga Orozco was an Argentine poet. She was a recipient of the FIL Award.

Cid (Sidney) Corman was an American poet, translator and editor, most notably of Origin, who was a key figure in the history of American poetry in the second half of the 20th century.

Cosmé McMunn, who used the name Cosmé McMoon, was an Irish-Mexican-American pianist and composer, best known as the accompanist to notably tone-deaf soprano Florence Foster Jenkins.

John Jay O'Connor III was an American lawyer and the husband of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the court. O'Connor, a prominent lawyer in Arizona, suffered from Alzheimer's disease during his later life. His illness played a significant role in Sandra Day O'Connor's decision in 2005 to retire from the Supreme Court.

Camila Henríquez Ureña, was a writer, essayist, educator and literary critic from the Dominican Republic who became a naturalized Cuban citizen. She descended from a family of writers, thinkers and educators; both her parents, Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal and Salomé Ureña, as well as her brothers Pedro and Max, were literary luminaries. Her essays have been published in Instrucción Pública, Ultra, Archipiélago, Casa de las Américas, La Gaceta de Cuba, Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional, Revista de la Universidad de La Habana, and Revista Lyceum. A feminist and a humanist, she lectured during much of her career, advocating intellectual study for women.

Milford Graves was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, Professor Emeritus of Music, researcher/inventor, visual artist/sculptor, gardener/herbalist, and martial artist. Graves is noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the 1960s with Paul Bley, Albert Ayler, and the New York Art Quartet, and is considered to be a free jazz pioneer, liberating percussion from its timekeeping role. The composer and saxophonist John Zorn referred to Graves as "basically a 20th-century shaman."