• Harrison Smith

​Zhou Youguang, a onetime Wall Street banker from China who developed Pinyin, a Romanized writing system that has helped more than 1 billion Chinese and countless foreigners learn to read and write Mandarin, died Jan. 14 in Beijing, one day after celebrating his 111th birthday.

• David Langsam

Yosl Bergner was arguably Australia's most important painter.

• Gerald O'Collins

Sister Janette Gray had a passionate concern to educate herself and others.

On December 13, 1972, Gene Cernan climbed the ladder of the lunar module of Apollo 17 and finally got his opportunity to explore the moon.

• Matt Schudel

William Peter Blatty was a senior at Georgetown University in 1949 when he heard the extraordinary story that, more than two decades later, would change his life — and scare the devil out of everyone else.

Graham Taylor, who has died aged 72, was the manager of the England football team from 1990 to 1993.

Justice Adrian Smithers was a pioneer in family law reform.

The 1st Earl of Snowdon, who died on January 13 aged 86, was an outstanding photographer, an implacable champion of the disabled, and a designer and filmmaker of note.

• MARGALIT FOX

​From a single gust of wind, Clare Hollingworth reaped the journalistic scoop of the century.

Richard Gee was well-qualified to take his place as a judge of the Family Court of Australia in 1980. It was a difficult time.

Ben Hall was an architect and also a recognised painter who could make and play musical instruments, teach classical guitar and design and make houses, furniture and jewellery. In fact Ben Hall's life was packed with creative pursuits. Some might say he attempted too much.

• Valerie Lawson

Two murals on the walls of James Fairfax' Bowral home encapsulated his two lives: one of duty, the other of adventure and artistic expression.

Her prized koi carp at her Sydney home famously died during a short-term rental by George Lucas.

• Harrison Smith

Sarstedt began writing his own songs and performing across Europe in 1966.

• Malcolm Brown

On the night of Friday, October 29, 1982, Michael Chamberlain tossed and turned all night in  bed in Darwin, in a frenzy of thought, his wife Lindy having been taken to Berrimah Gaol to begin her life sentence for the murder of daughter Azaria.

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafasanjani, who has died aged 82, was president of Iran from 1989 to 1997; he ran for the presidency again in 2005 but lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of whom he became openly critical, and later began to side with reformers, calling for more political freedoms in Iran.

Tony Sonneveld

Georges Prêtre, a French conductor who for seven decades led some of the world's finest orchestras, found a second home in Vienna and forged close relationships with singer Maria Callas and composer Francis Poulenc, has died at his chateau in Naves, in southern France aged 92.

Gregory Shortis was a poet and university teacher of German language and literature and a spectacular performer of his and others' work.

William Christopher, Sister Frances Ann Carr, Lavinia Keppel

Judge gave the defendants tougher sentences for the burglary than for the rape.

Interest in medicine emerged at the age of five when his father removed his tonsils and adenoids on the kitchen table under a chloroform anaesthetic.

John Berger, who has died aged 90, was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, art critic, painter, poet, playwright, actor, activist and presenter of television programs including the BBC series Ways of Seeing (1972); from the mid-1970s on, however, he preferred the term "storyteller", which better suited the Marxist spirit of his work.

William Salice, who has died aged 83, played a leading role at the confectionery giant Ferrero for four decades, helping to launch the Kinder Surprise chocolate egg in 1974; in the decades since, more than 30 billion of the treats have been sold around the world.

The first thing she did on coming round from her coma was to ask for a cigarette.

Moore among crew of a Catalina flying boat involved in spotting and shadowing the German battleship Bismarck prior to its sinking.

Joynes was awarded a Medal in the Order of Australia for her needlework.

Wong joined Disney as an "in-betweener," creating the thousands of intermediate drawings that bring animated sequences to life.

Allan Williams complained of night-time torments when "my teeth make a gritty noise in my skull as I think of how I let the band and a million quid slip through my fingers".