In the Roman Age, the river has been connected with the Rhine. The river was cut off from the Rhine later. The area where the Rhine was connected to the Rotte changed into an area of bog. After all the bog was excavated, the area changed into a swamp, this swamp was the new source of the Rotte. In the 17th century the swamp area is empoldered, and the Rotte did not have a source anymore.
In the early medieval age, settlement was founded. But because of floods in the area, the people were not able to live in the area. Later in 1270, a 400 meter long dam was build along the river, people started to live on this dam, and that is where Rotterdam was founded. Today, this dam is the "Hoogstraat" in Rotterdam.
Roberto Sagastume Pinto
Roberto Obdulio Sagastume Pinto (24 November 1944 – 1 December 2014) was a Guatemalan politician and educator. He served as Mayor of Esquipulas from 1986 through 1988 and again from 1996 through 2000. Pinto also served as Governor of Chiquimula from 2001 through 2003. Pinto was born in Esquipulas, Guatemala.
Pinto died in a car crash in Esquipulas, Guatemala, aged 70.
Giorgio Ardisson
Giorgio Ardisson, also known as George Ardisson (31 December 1931 – 11 December 2014), was an Italian actor. He was known for his roles in "" and "Agent 3S3, Massacre in the Sun". Ardisson was born in Turin, Italy.
Ardisson died in Rome, Italy, aged 82.
Ivor Grattan-Guinness
Ivor Grattan-Guinness (23 June 1941 – 12 December 2014) was a English historian and mathematician. He was a historian of mathematics and logic.
Grattan-Guinness was born in Bakewell, Derbyshire. He gained his bachelor degree as a Mathematics Scholar at Wadham College, Oxford, and an MSc (Econ) in Mathematical Logic and the Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics in 1966. He died on 12 December 2014, aged 73.
John Persen
John Persen (9 November 1941 – 12 December 2014) was a Norwegian composer. He was born in Porsanger, Norway. He was the son-in-law of Finn Strømsted. He was awarded Lindemanprisen in 1999, and Edvardprisen twice, and was awarded honorary membership of the Norwegian Society of Composers.
Persen died in Oslo, Norway, aged 73.
Angalifu
Angalifu (pronounced "ang-uh-LEEF-oo"; 1970–2014) was a captive northern white rhinoceros. It was held at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. He was one of six living northern white rhinoceroses in the world, one of two living males in the world, and the only male on the American continents.
Angalifu was born in the wild ca. 1970 before being caught and sent to the Khartoum Zoo in Khartoum, Sudan. In 1990, he was transferred on loan to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, where he lived until his death in December 2014.
Lonesome George
Lonesome George (c. 1910  – June 24, 2012) was a male Pinta Island tortoise ("Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii") and the last known individual of the subspecies. In his last years, he was known as the rarest creature in the world. George served as a potent symbol for conservation efforts in the Galápagos Islands and throughout the world.
Theo Colborn
Theodora Emily Colborn (née Decker; March 28, 1927 – December 14, 2014) was an American zoologist. She was the founder and President Emeritus of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX). Colborn was also professor Emeritus of Zoology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She was best known for her studies on the health effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Plainfield, New Jersey
Plainfield is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of 2010, the population was 49,808.
Mustapha Maarof
Mustapha Azahari Maarof (1 January 1935 – 15 December 2014) was a Malaysian actor. He was known for his roles in "Hang Tuah" (1959), "" (2007) and "Chermin" (2007).
Maarof died in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from respiratory failure at the age of 79.
Tim Cochran
Thomas (Tim) Daniel Cochran (April 7, 1955 – December 16, 2014) was an American mathematician. He was professor of mathematics at Rice University. He worked in topology, especially low-dimensional topology, the theory of knots and links and associated algebra.
Martin Brasier
Martin David Brasier FGS, FLS (12 April 1947 – 16 December 2014) was an English palaeobiologist and astrobiologist. He was Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall.
Brasier died in a car accident near Burford, Oxfordshire, UK, on 16 December 2014.
Phillip Archuleta
Phillip M. "Felipe" Archuleta (May 12, 1949 – December 16, 2014) was an American politician. Archuleta was a Democratic member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, serving from 2013 until his death in 2014.
Archuleta died in Las Cruces, New Mexico from pneumonia, aged 65.
Dieter Grau
Dieter Grau (April 24, 1913 – December 17, 2014) was a German-American rocket scientist and member of the "von Braun rocket group", at Peenemünde (1939–1945) working on the V-2 rockets in World War II. He was among the scientists who surrendered to the United States and traveled there, providing rocketry expertise via Operation Paperclip, which took them first to Fort Bliss, Texas.
Grau died in Huntsville, Alabama, at the age of 101 on December 17, 2014.
Oscar Holderer
Oscar Holderer (November 4, 1919 – May 5, 2015) was an engineer who worked with Wernher von Braun in the United States and Germany beforehand. Holderer came to the United States as part of the second group of people brought from Germany during World War II as part of Operation Paperclip.
Georg von Tiesenhausen
Georg F. von Tiesenhausen (May 18, 1914 – June 3, 2018) was a retired German-American rocket scientist. After being brought to the United States in 1953 as part of Operation Paperclip, he was part of Wernher von Braun's team at the U.S. Army, and later, NASA. He is known to first complete design of the Lunar Rover and made a variety of other contributions to the space program.
Von Tiesenhausen died at his home in Huntsville, Alabama on June 3, 2018 at the age of 104.
Ivan Vekić
Ivan Vekić (18 October 1938 – 17 December 2014) was a Croatian politician and lawyer. He was one of the founders of the Croatian Democratic Union and served as the Croatian Minister of Interior during the Croatian War of Independence.
Richard C. Hottelet
Richard Curt Hottelet (September 22, 1917 – December 17, 2014) was a Brooklyn-born American broadcast journalist for the latter half of the twentieth century. Hottelet was the last surviving journalist from the original World War II-era group of Murrow's Boys lead by Edward R. Murrow.
Hottelet died at his home in Wilton, Connecticut, on December 17, 2014. He was 97 years old.
Wilton, Connecticut
Wilton is a town along the Norwalk River Valley in southwestern Connecticut in the United States. It is located in Fairfield County. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 18,062.
Oleh Lysheha
Oleh Lysheha (; 30 October 1949 – 17 December 2014) was a Ukrainian poet, playwright, translator and intellectual. During the period 1972-1988, he was banned from official publication, but in 1989 his first book "Great Bridge" ("Velykyi Mist") was published.
Virna Lisi
Virna Pieralisi (November 8, 1936 – December 18, 2014), better known as Virna Lisi, was an Italian actress. She was known for her roles in "How to Murder Your Wife" and in "La Reine Margot". Lisi died in Ancona, Italy.
On December 18, 2014, Lisi died of cancer in Rome, Italy at age 78.
Donald J. Albosta
Donald Joseph Albosta (December 5, 1925 – December 18, 2014) was an American politician. A Democrat, he was Saginaw County Commissioner from 1970 to 1974 and served in the Michigan State House of Representatives from 1974 to 1976, representing the 86th District.
Albosta died on December 18, 2014 in St. Charles, Michigan, aged 89.
St. Charles, Michigan
St. Charles is a village in Saginaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 2,054 at the 2010 census.
Ingvar Kjellson