Here are the notable deaths on August 15 throughout the years:

William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) - A Cherokee-American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, and actor.  Known as Oklahoma’s favorite son, he was born to a prominent Indian Territory family and learned to ride horses and use a lariat so well that he was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing three ropes at once…one around the neck of a horse, another around the horse’s rider, and a third around all four legs of the horse.  He ultimately traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies (50 silent films and 21 “talkies”), wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, and became a world-famous figure.  By the mid-1930s, he was adored by the American people, and was the top-paid movie star in Hollywood at the time.  He was famous for the line, “I never yet met a man that I didn’t like.”  On an around-the-world trip with aviator Wiley Post, he died when their small airplane crashed near Barrow, Alaska Territory in 1935. (more…)