July 5, 2012

2012Rob Goris, Belgian cyclist (born 1982)^[†]

Rob Goris was a Belgian professional road racing cyclist who rode for UCI Professional Continental Team team Accent.jobs–Willems Veranda's.

2012Gerrit Komrij, Dutch author, poet, and playwright (born 1944)^[†]

Gerrit Jan Komrij was a Dutch poet, novelist, translator, critic, polemic journalist and playwright. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s, writing poetry that sharply contrasted with the free-form poetry of his contemporaries. He acquired a reputation for his prose in the late 1970s, writing acerbic essays and columns often critical of writers, television programs, and politicians. As a literary critic and especially as an anthologist he had a formative influence on Dutch literature: his 1979 anthology of Dutch poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries, reformed the canon, and was followed by anthologies of Dutch poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, of Afrikaans poetry, and of children's poetry. Those anthologies and a steady stream of prose and poetry publications solidified his reputation as one of the country's leading writers and critics; he was awarded the highest literary awards including the P. C. Hooft Award (1993), and from 2000 to 2004, he was the Dutch Dichter des Vaderlands. Komrij died in 2012 at age 68.

2012Colin Marshall, Baron Marshall of Knightsbridge, English businessman and politician (born 1933)^[†]

Colin Marsh Marshall, Baron Marshall of Knightsbridge, was a British businessman and member of the House of Lords.

2012Ruud van Hemert, Dutch actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1938)^[†]

Ruud van Hemert was a Dutch film director known especially for (dark) comedy. In the 1970s he helped produce and direct TV shows on VPRO before starting a career as a film director.

2012The Shard in London is inaugurated as the tallest building in Europe, with a height of 310 metres (1,020 ft).^[†]

The Shard, also referred to as the Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a 72-storey mixed-use development supertall pyramid-shaped skyscraper, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, in Southwark, London, that forms part of The Shard Quarter development. Standing 309.6 metres high, The Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom, the seventh-tallest building in Europe, and the second-tallest outside Russia behind the Varso Tower in Warsaw, which beats the Shard by less than half a metre. The Shard replaced Southwark Towers, a 24-storey office block built on the site in 1975.