List of Famous people who died in 2004

Ernst Tiburzy was a German Volkssturm member during World War II who received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his performance fighting alone and the destruction of five T-34s with Panzerfausts during the defense of Königsberg on February 10, 1945. He is one of only four Volkssturm members to have been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

David Boris Pall, founder of Pall Corporation, was the chemist who invented the Pall filter used in blood transfusions.

Hugh Lawson Shearer ON OJ PC was a Jamaican trade unionist and politician, who served as the 3rd Prime Minister of Jamaica, from 1967 to 1972.

Fathi Arafat, born in Cairo, was a Palestinian physician and a founder and long-term chairman of the Palestine Red Crescent Society. He studied medicine at Cairo University from 1950 until 1957 and thereafter practiced as a pediatrician in Cairo, Kuwait and Jordan. He was a younger brother of Palestinian president Yasser Arafat.

Spalding Gray was an American actor and writer. He is best known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as for his film adaptations of these works, beginning in 1987. He wrote and starred in several, working with different directors.

Larry Buchanan, born Marcus Larry Seale Jr., was a film director, producer and writer, who proclaimed himself a "schlockmeister". Many of his titles have landed on "worst movie" lists or in the public domain, but all at least broke even and many made a profit. He is perhaps most famous for the films In the Year 2889, The Eye Creatures, Zontar, the Thing from Venus, Curse of the Swamp Creature, It's Alive!, and Mars Needs Women.

Norberto Bobbio was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa. Bobbio was a liberal socialist in the tradition of Piero Gobetti, Carlo Rosselli, Guido Calogero, and Aldo Capitini. He was also strongly influenced by Hans Kelsen and Vilfredo Pareto.

Fred Lawrence Whipple was an American astronomer, who worked at the Harvard College Observatory for over 70 years. Amongst his achievements were asteroid and comet discoveries, the "dirty snowball" hypothesis of comets, and the invention of the Whipple shield.