List of Famous people who died in 2015

Eileen Essell was an English actress, noted in part for not beginning her screen acting career until the age of 79.

Sophie el Goulli was a Tunisian writer and art historian.

Marina Anatolyevna Pankova née Nikulina was a Russian volleyball player, who was a member of the Soviet team that won the gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Claude Dubar was a French sociologist.

Richard Schultz Schweiker was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 14th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1983. He previously served as a U.S. Representative (1961–1969) and a U.S. Senator (1969–1981) from Pennsylvania. In 1976, Schweiker was Reagan's vice presidential pick during his unsuccessful presidential campaign.

On 7 January 2015 at about 11:30 a.m. CET local time, two French Muslim brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which took responsibility for the attack. Several related attacks followed in the Île-de-France region on 7–9 January 2015, including the Hypercacher kosher supermarket siege where a terrorist-held 19 hostages, of whom he murdered four Jewish people.

Avijit Roy was a Bangladeshi-American engineer, online activist, writer and blogger known for creating and administrating the Mukto-Mona, an Internet community for Bangladeshi freethinkers, rationalists, skeptics, atheists and humanists. Roy was an advocate of free expression in Bangladesh, coordinating international protests against government censorship and imprisonment of atheist bloggers. He was hacked to death by machete-wielding assailants in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 26 February 2015; Islamic militant organization Ansarullah Bangla Team claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ignez Magdalena Aranha de Lima Barroso was a Brazilian sertanejo singer, guitarist, actress, TV presenter, librarian, folklorist and teacher.

Nedelcho Krumov Beronov was a Bulgarian jurist, right-wing politician and Constitutional Court chairman, as well as a presidential candidate in the 2006 presidential elections.

Ricardo de la Cierva y Hoces was a Spanish historian and politician.