January 13, 2012

2012Rauf Denktaş, Turkish-Cypriot lawyer and politician, 1st President of Northern Cyprus (born 1924)^[†]

Rauf Raif Denktaş was a Turkish Cypriot politician, barrister and jurist who served as the founding president of Northern Cyprus. He occupied this position as the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus between the declaration of the de facto state by Denktaş in 1983 and 2005, as the president of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus between 1975 and 1983 and as the president of the Autonomous Turkish Cypriot Administration between 1974 and 1975. He was also elected in 1973 as the Vice President of the Republic of Cyprus.

2012Guido Dessauer, German physicist and engineer (born 1915)^[†]

Guido Dessauer was a German physicist, pioneer in paper engineering, business executive, writer, art collector, patron of the arts, and academic. Born into a family of paper industrialists, he worked as an aerospace engineer during World War II and was an executive of the family's coloured paper factory in Aschaffenburg from 1945. He was an honorary citizen of Austria for saving 300 jobs in Styria in the 1960s. He earned a Ph.D. from the Graz University of Technology in his late 50s and became an honorary professor there. Interested in art, he collected bozzetti for 50 years and initiated the career of Horst Janssen as a lithographer.

2012Miljan Miljanić, Serbian footballer and manager (born 1930)^[†]

Miljan Miljanić was a Yugoslav and Serbian football administrator, coach and player who played as a defender. He was the all-powerful President of the Football Association of Yugoslavia (FSJ) from 1981 to 2001.

2012The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino's negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.^[†]

Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on tours known as "shore excursions".