List of Famous people who died in 1979

Gabriella Giacobbe (1923–1979) was an Italian stage, film and television actress.

William Stephen Finsen FRAS was a South African astronomer. He discovered a number of double stars and took many photographs of Mars. He developed the Finsen eyepiece interferometer to measure very close double stars. He was the final director of Union Observatory in South Africa from 1957 to 1965.

Alfredo Ottaviani was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII named him cardinal in 1953. He served as Secretary of the Holy Office in the Roman Curia from 1959 to 1966 when that dicastery was reorganised as the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, of which he was Pro-Prefect until 1968.

Alexander Aleksandrovich Morozov was a Soviet designer of tanks, general, major-engineer (1945), and doctor of technical sciences (1972), twice Hero of the Socialist Labour. The member of the CPSU since 1943. Ended engineering technical school (1930). In 1931–1938 the head of group of CB of the plant, since 1938 the deputy head of CB, then head of CB and the deputy of the main designer of the construction factory, from 1940 he became main designer. The Morozov took part of the participation in development of the first domestic, T-24 (1930) medium tank, and also the wheel-caterpillar BT-2 (1931), BT-5 (1932), BT-7 (1935) and BT-7M (1939)light tanks. BT tanks along with T-26 constituted the basis of the tank arm of Soviet Armies. As the technical lead of the project together with M. I. Koshkin and N. A. Kucherenko headed development of the medium T-34 tank in 1940. During the Great Patriotic War, he was the chief designer of upgrades of the T-34 tank, which was recognized as the best tank of the period of the Second World War. After the war, under the direction of Morozov, a number of new types of tanks, etc. was created. The Deputy of Supreme Council of the USSR of the 5th convocation awarded state awards of the USSR and Lenin's award (1967) to Morozov. He was awarded 3 Orders of Lenin, an award of the October Revolution, the Orders of Kutuzov of the 1st degree, Order of Suvorov of the 2nd degree, 3 awards of the Labour Red Banner, an award of the Red Star, and other medals.

Amedeo "Amédée" Gordini was an Italian-born race car driver and sports car manufacturer in France.

Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van Buitenen was a Dutch Indologist at the University of Chicago where he was the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor of Sanskrit in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. He was one of the world's leading Sanskrit scholars. His interests ranged widely over literature, philosophy and philology, but toward the end of his career he focused primarily on the Mahābhārata.