List of Famous people who died in 1996

Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge was an American physicist at Harvard University who did work on cyclotron research. His precise measurements of mass differences between nuclear isotopes allowed him to confirm Albert Einstein's mass–energy equivalence concept. He was the Director of the Manhattan Project's Trinity nuclear test, which took place July 16, 1945. Bainbridge described the Trinity explosion as a "foul and awesome display". He remarked to J. Robert Oppenheimer immediately after the test, "Now we are all sons of bitches." This marked the beginning of his dedication to ending the testing of nuclear weapons and to efforts to maintain civilian control of future developments in that field.

Gene Nelson was an American actor, dancer, screenwriter, and director.

Franco Angrisano was an Italian actor. He appeared in more than seventy films from 1965 to 1996.

Harold Everett Hughes was the 36th Governor of Iowa from 1963 until 1969, and a United States senator from Iowa from 1969 until 1975. He began his political career as a Republican but changed his affiliation to the Democratic Party in 1962.

Georg Heinrich Hermann Henneberg was a German physician, who served as President of the Robert Koch Institute from 1952 to 1969 and as President of the Federal Health Agency from 1969 to 1974. He was previously director of the Department of Bacteriology at the pharmaceutical company Schering AG.

Hideo Oguni was a Japanese writer who wrote over 100 screenplays. He is best known for co-writing screenplays for a number of films directed by Akira Kurosawa, including Ikiru, The Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and The Hidden Fortress. His first film with Kurosawa was Ikiru, and according to film professor Catherine Russell, it was Oguni who devised that film's two-part structure. Film critic Donald Richie regarded him as the "humanist" among Kurosawa's writers. In 2013, Oguni and frequent screenwriting collaborators Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Ryūzō Kikushima were awarded the Jean Renoir Award by the Writers Guild of America West.

John Joseph Krol was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1961 to 1988, having previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland (1953–1961). He was created a cardinal in 1967 by Pope Paul VI.