List of Famous people who died at 87

Américo Castro y Quesada was a Spanish cultural historian, philologist, and literary critic who challenged some of the prevailing notions of Spanish identity, raising controversy with his conclusions that (1) Spaniards didn't become the distinct group they are today until after the Islamic conquest of Hispania of 711, an event that turned them into an Iberian caste coexisting among Moors and Jews; and (2) the history of Spain and Portugal was adversely affected with the success in the eleventh to fifteenth centuries of the "Reconquista" or Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula and with the Spanish expulsion of the Jews (1492).

Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards FLSW FRS, "universally known as 'Sam'," was a Welsh physicist. The Sam Edwards Medal and Prize is named in his honour.

Harald Deilmann was a German architect.

Fred Basolo was an American inorganic chemist. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1943, under Prof. John C. Bailar, Jr.. Basolo spent his professional career at Northwestern University. He was a prolific contributor to the fields of coordination chemistry, organometallic, and bioinorganic chemistry, publishing over 400 papers. He supervised many Ph.D. students. With colleague Ralph Pearson, he co-authored the influential monograph "Mechanisms of Inorganic Reactions", which illuminated the importance of mechanisms involving coordination compounds. This work, which integrated concepts from ligand field theory and physical organic chemistry, signaled a shift from a highly descriptive nature of coordination chemistry to a more quantitative science.

Leon Schlumpf was a Swiss politician and a former member of the Swiss Federal Council (1979-1987).

Cesare Zavattini was an Italian screenwriter and one of the first theorists and proponents of the Neorealist movement in Italian cinema.