List of Famous people who died at 79

Kurt Werner Lischka was an SS official, Gestapo chief and commandant of the Security police (SiPo) and Security Service (SD) in Paris during the German occupation of France in World War II.

William Larimer "Larry" Mellon Jr. (1910–1989) was an American philanthropist and physician.

Ye Yonglie was a Chinese writer of science fiction and biographies. A few of his stories have been translated into English in The Road to Science Fiction series and elsewhere. During the "Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign" his works were attacked and a story he wrote in 1985 was suppressed for suggesting AIDS had entered the country. As a biographer he wrote on early figures in the People's Republic of China. He also visited North Korea, and wrote a book The Real DPRK (真实的朝鲜) which was banned in that country and China.

Muhammad Yunus Jaunpuri was an Indian Islamic hadith scholar and former Shaykh al-Hadith of Mazahir Uloom, Saharanpur. He was among the senior students and disciples of Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlawi.

David Guy Barnabas Kindersley MBE was a British stone letter-carver and typeface designer, and the founder of the Kindersley Workshop. His carved plaques and inscriptions in stone and slate can be seen on many churches and public buildings in the United Kingdom. Kindersley was a designer of the Octavian font for Monotype Imaging in 1961, and he and his third wife Lida Lopes Cardozo designed the main gates for the British Library.

Jean Delay was a French psychiatrist, neurologist, writer, and a member of the Académie française.