List of Famous people who died in 2016

Brigitte Hamann was a German-Austrian author and historian based in Vienna.

Melvin Robert Laird was an American politician, writer and statesman. He was a U.S. congressman from Wisconsin from 1953 to 1969 before serving as Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon. Laird was instrumental in forming the administration's policy of withdrawing U.S. soldiers from the Vietnam War; he coined the expression "Vietnamization," referring to the process of transferring more responsibility for combat to the South Vietnamese forces. First elected in 1952, Laird was the last surviving Representative elected to the 83rd Congress at the time of his death.

Kemal Unakıtan was the Minister of Finance of Turkey from November 2002 to May 2009 and a Member of Parliament for Istanbul of the Justice and Development Party. He was born in Edirne.

Yevgeny Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili was a Soviet Air Force colonel. He was the son of Yakov Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and gained notice as a defender of his grandfather's reputation. In the 1999 elections of the Russian State Duma, he was one of the faces of the Stalin Bloc – For the USSR, a league of communist parties. He resided in Georgia, his grandfather's homeland. He was found dead close to his home in Moscow in December 2016.

Sir Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble, was a British theoretical physicist, senior research investigator at the Blackett Laboratory and Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London. His research interests were in quantum field theory, especially the interface between high-energy particle physics and cosmology. He is best known as one of the first to describe the Higgs mechanism, and for his research on topological defects. From the 1950s he was concerned about the nuclear arms race and from 1970 took leading roles in promoting the social responsibility of the scientist.

Bruce Allan Burrell was an Australian convicted kidnapper and double murderer, who in 2006 was sentenced to serve life imprisonment plus 44 years for the 1995 murder of 74-year-old Dorothy Davis and the 1997 murder of 39-year-old Kerry Whelan, neither of whom was ever found, with Burrell not revealing the location of his victims' bodies. Burrell died at the Prince of Wales Hospital at Randwick, whilst still in prison custody on 4 August 2016, aged 63, from lung and liver cancer.

Jean-Claude Decaux was a French entrepreneur who earned his fortune in advertising. He was the founder and honorary chair of the advertising firm JCDecaux, which is now run by his sons, Jean-François Decaux and Jean-Charles Decaux.

Allan Richard Williams was a british businessman and promoter, who was the original booking agent and first manager of the Beatles. He personally drove the van to take the young band to Hamburg, Germany, in 1960, where they gained the vital show business experience that led to their emergence on the world stage

Marinko Madžgalj was a Serbian actor, singer and television presenter.

Garrett Keith Gomez was an American Thoroughbred jockey who won two Eclipse Awards and thirteen Breeders' Cup races during his career.