Final goodbye: Recalling influential people who died in 2020
The world also said goodbye to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement who died in July. Other former political figures who died this year include Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, New York Mayor David Dinkins, Arizona Gov. Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2020 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):___JANUARY___David Stern, 77. The guitarist who supplied the scratching, seething sound that fueled the highly influential British punk band Gang of Four. He fused African rhythms with funk to become one of the most influential musicians in world dance music.
Slade Gorton, former Washington US senator, dies at 92
FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2006, file photo, former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, center, is introduced at a fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick in Bellevue, Wash. Gorton, who served in the Washington Legislature, and as state attorney general before he became a three-term U.S. senator, has died. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)SEATTLE Slade Gorton, a patrician and cerebral politician who served as a U.S. Senate Republican leader before he was ousted by the growing Seattle-area liberal electorate in 2000, has died. Gorton died Wednesday in Seattle, said J. Vander Stoep, who served a Gorton's chief of staff in the Senate. In 1980, he won a coveted U.S. Senate seat by knocking off the legendary Maggie Warren G. Magnuson, appropriations committee chairman and Senate president. But within a year, Evans decided to vacate the other Senate seat, and Gorton launched his comeback.