List of Famous people who died in 1971

Otto Laporte was a German-born American physicist who made contributions to quantum mechanics, electromagnetic wave propagation theory, spectroscopy, and fluid dynamics. His name is lent to the Laporte rule in spectroscopy and to the Otto Laporte Award of the American Physical Society.

Ralph Johnson Bunche was an American political scientist, academic, and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel. He was the first African American to be so honored. He was involved in the formation and administration of the United Nations and played a major role in numerous peacekeeping operations sponsored by the UN. In 1963, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy.

Jan Greshoff was a Dutch journalist, poet, and literary critic. He was the 1967 recipient of the Constantijn Huygens Prize.

Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, known as H. A. R. Gibb, was a Scottish historian on Orientalism.