List of Famous people who died in 1987

Wan Chun Cheng or Zheng Wanjun was a Chinese botanist. Initially one of the Chinese plant collectors who followed in the wake of the Europeans after 1920, he became one of the world's leading authorities on the taxonomy of gymnosperms. Working at the National Central University in Nanjing, he was instrumental in the identification in 1944 of the dawn redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides previously known only from fossils. The plant Juniperus chengii is named in his honour.

Alois Pfeiffer was a German trade unionist who served as a European Commissioner in the 1980s.

Harold Joseph Dimmerling was the Roman Catholic bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota. Born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, Dimmerling was ordained to the priesthood for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Cloud, Minnesota. On September 11, 1969, Pope Paul VI appointed him bishop and he was ordained bishop on October 30, 1969. Dimmerling died in office.