List of Famous people who died in 1989

Hüseyin Akbaş (1933–1989) was a Turkish wrestler. He competed in freestyle wrestling at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won a bronze medal in 1956 and a silver in 1964. Akbaş won the world freestyle title in 1954, 1957, 1959 and 1962, placing third in 1955 and 1961 and fourth in 1965. In 2011 he was inducted into the United World Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Lt. Col. Masahiko Takeshita was the head of the domestic affairs section of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. In August 1945, he helped plan a coup, the Kyūjō incident, along with Major Kenji Hatanaka and a handful of others. The intent of the attempted coup was to prevent the Emperor's announcement of Japan's surrender from being broadcast.

I. F. Stone was a politically progressive American investigative journalist, writer, and author.

Kenneth McMillan was an American actor. McMillan was usually cast as gruff, hostile and unfriendly characters due to his rough image. However, he was sometimes cast in some lighter comic roles that highlighted his gentler side.

Chan I-hua was a Taiwanese pro-democracy activist and graduate of Lunghwa University of Science and Technology. He performed self-immolation on May 19, 1989 when the funeral procession of fellow activist Cheng Nan-jung was blocked by the police in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on what is now called Ketagalan Boulevard.

Ignacio Ellacuría was a Spanish-Salvadoran Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian who did important work as a professor and rector at the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA), a Jesuit university in El Salvador founded in 1965. He and several other Jesuits and two others were assassinated by Salvadoran soldiers in the closing years of the Salvadoran Civil War. His work was defining for the shape UCA took in its first years of existence and the years to come. Ellacuría was also responsible for the development of formation programs for priests in the Jesuit Central American province.

Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS was an English aviation pioneer, business executive and yachtsman.

Prince Wolfgang of Hesse-Kassel was the designated Hereditary Prince of the monarchy of Finland, and as such, already called the Crown Prince of Finland officially until 14 December 1918, and also afterwards by some monarchists.

Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen, ; was the tenth Panchen Lama, officially the 10th Panchen Erdeni, of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Tibetan Buddhism, Panchen Lamas are living emanations of the buddha Amitaba. He was often referred to simply as Choekyi Gyaltsen.

Boris Mikhailovich Skossyreff was a Russian adventurer, international swindler and pretender who attempted to seize the monarchy of the Principality of Andorra during the early 1930s, styling himself Boris I of Andorra.