page_title: 1979
section_title: January
hierarchical_section_title: 1979 / Deaths / January
caption_attribution_description: The official photograph of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller released by the White House.
context_page_description: 1979 was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1979th year of the Common Era and Anno Domini designations, the 979th year of the 2nd millennium, the 79th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1970s decade.
context_section_description: January 1 – Dumitru Coliu, Romanian communist activist and politician (b. 1907)
  January 3 – Conrad Hilton, American hotelier (b. 1887)
  January 4 – Vincent Korda, Hungarian art director (b. 1897)
  January 5
  Billy Bletcher, American actor (b. 1894)
  Charles Mingus, American musician (b. 1922)
  January 11 – Jack Soo, Japanese-born American actor (b. 1917)
  January 13 – Donny Hathaway, American musician (b. 1945)
  January 14 – Thomas DeSimone, American gangster (b. 1950)
  January 15 – Charles W. Morris,  American philosopher and semiotician (b. 1901)
  January 16 – Ted Cassidy, American actor (b. 1932)
  January 22 – Ali Hassan Salameh, Palestinian Leader of Black September and mastermind of the 1972 Munich Massacre (b. 1940)
  January 26 – Nelson Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States (b. 1908)
caption: Nelson Rockefeller
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