List of Famous people who died in 1996

Sun Yaoting was the last surviving imperial eunuch of Chinese history. He was castrated at the age of eight by his father with a single razor cut, mere months before the last emperor Pu Yi was deposed. He still became a palace eunuch and had become the attendant to the empress before the imperial family was expelled from the Forbidden City, following which he continued to serve in Manchukuo until the puppet state's collapse.

Junius Richard Jayewardene, commonly abbreviated in Sri Lanka as J. R., was the leader of Sri Lanka from 1977 to 1989, serving as Prime Minister from 1977 to 1978 and as the second President of Sri Lanka from 1978 till 1989. He was a leader of the nationalist movement in Ceylon who served in a variety of cabinet positions in the decades following independence. A longtime member of the United National Party, he led it to a landslide victory in 1977 and served as Prime Minister for half a year before becoming the country's first executive president under an amended constitution.

Philip Rapp was a film and television director and screenwriter. He wrote for Eddie Cantor and for a brief period, wrote film scripts for Danny Kaye. Rapp is perhaps best known as the creator of Baby Snooks and The Bickersons. Rapp died on January 23, 1996 in Beverly Hills, California.

Johannes Samuel Petrus "Johan" Kraag was a Surinamese politician who served as the President of Suriname from 29 December 1990, until 16 September 1991.

Maria Armanda Pires Falcão, better known by her pen name Vera Lagoa, was a Portuguese journalist and newspaper director. She was the first female television presenter in Portugal. She was also the first journalist to be prosecuted by a president of the Republic of Portugal.