Died on Christmas Day

James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, the hardest-working man in show business, died yesterday, December 25.

I recently wrote about people who were born on Christmas Day. In honor of James Brown, here's a partial list of people who died on that day.

Linus Yale, Jr. (d. 1868) perfected the cylinder lock

Karel Čapek (d. 1938), Czech writer, popularized the word "robot" with his play R.U.R.Rossum's Universal Robots)

Charlie Chaplin (d. 1977), cinematic genius

Joan Blondell (d. 1979), actress

Billy Martin (d. 1989), frequent Yankees manager

Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu (d. 1989), Mr. and Mrs. Romanian dictator

Dean Martin (d. 1995), singer/actor

Denver Pyle (d. 1997), actor