Michael Sata (b. 1937) was the president of Zambia. He came from humble beginnings, studied to be a priest, and tried many different jobs as a young man, including police officer, taxidermist, pilot, and even a porter in London’s Victoria station. He participated in Zambia’s struggle for independence from Great Britain. After independence, he rose through the ranks of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), which was headed by Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda. Sata eventually became disillusioned with Kaunda’s dictatorial ways, and in 1991 he joined the opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). He eventually fell out with the MMD, and in 2001 he founded a new opposition party, the Patriotic Front. It took Sata three tries to win the Zambian presidency. He accomplished that feat in 2011, knocking the MMD out of power for the first time in two decades. Sata won the presidency in part because of his stinging criticism of Chinese involvement in Zambia’s copper mining industry. (Sata was known as “King Cobra” for his “abrasive manner and a sharp tongue.”) Once in office, his anti-Chinese attitude at times scared investors. Nonetheless, the Zambian economy grew under his leadership. Sata was succeeded in office by his vice president, Guy Scott, who became the first white president in the region since South African President F.W. de Klerk left office in 1994. Scott’s position is temporary. Zambia has elections scheduled for January 20.

Ariel Sharon (b. 1928) was a controversial Israeli general who as prime minister surprised both his critics and supporters by ordering the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Sharon was born to Russian Jewish immigrants and raised on a farm near Tel Aviv. Hedistinguished himself in Israel’s 1948 war of independence. He subsequently formed an elite commando team, Unit 101, which he led on an infamous 1953 reprisal raid on Qibya, Jordan that killed sixty-nine Jordanian civilians. The UN Security Councilcondemned the attack, which the Israeli government denied its forces had carried out. Sharon played a role in all of Israel’s subsequent major conflicts until his stroke, including the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Six-Day War. As defense minister in 1982, he orchestrated the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which failed to produce the quick victory he predicted and which was halted under intense pressure from the Reagan administration. A massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut by Israel’s Christian Lebanese militia allies in the wake of the war prompted international outrage; an official Israeli inquiry blamed Sharon for not anticipating the massacre and called for his resignation. He was reassigned to another Cabinet post, but remained an influential figure in Israeli politics. He was elected prime minister in 2001, in part on his promise to halt the second Palestinian intifada, an uprising that his own visit to Temple Mount had sparked. Despite having previously been a staunch supporter of Israel’s settlement policy, in 2005 he ordered all Israeli settlers and troops withdrawn from Gaza. Opposition within the Likud Party to his willingness to accept a Palestinian state prompted Sharon to form his own party, Kadima. In January 2006, however, before he could stand for election, he suffered a massive stroke. He spent the next eight years in what doctors called a minimally conscious state. Historians will long argue what might have been in Israeli-Palestinian relations had Sharon not become incapacitated.

Eduard Shevardnadze (b. 1928) was the Soviet foreign minister under Mikhail Gorbachev who later became president of the newly independent country of Georgia. Shevardnadze was born in Georgia. He joined the Soviet Communist youth organization,Komsomol, rising through the ranks and making friends with a young Gorbachev. Shevardnadze made a name for himself exposing corruption in the Georgian Communist Party. Then-Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev rewarded him for his efforts by making him first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. In 1985, Gorbachev tapped Shevardnadze to be foreign minister even though he had no foreign policy experience. Shevardnadze’s tenure as foreign minister saw the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, arms control agreements signed with the United States, and the reunification of Germany. He also persuaded Gorbachev to oppose Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, paving the way for Operation Desert Storm. Shevardnadze developed good relations with U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker, who later said of him: “Shevardnadze was tough; he was tenacious; above all, he was brave.” After resigning from the Soviet government, Shevardnadze returned to his native Georgia to help smooth things over after a coup. He was elected president of Georgia in 1995 and again in 2000. He survived two assassination attempts, which may have dimmed his enthusiasm for political reform. Unrest in Georgia in 2003 over a faltering economy and growing corruption produced the Rose Revolution, which pushed Shevardnadze from office. He spent the last decade of his life in retirement.

Other significant world figures who died this year include: Shulamit Aloni, an Israeli parliamentarian who was critical of mistreating Palestinians; Rostislav Belyakov, the chief designer of the Russian MiG fighter jets; Asher Ben-Natan, the Israeli diplomat who helped to establish post-WWII relations between Israel and Germany, and who led the search for Adolf Eichmann; Sir Arthur Bonsall, a British codebreaker who helped to crack German codes during the Battle of Britain; Chung Eun-yong, a South Korean policeman who pushed for half a century to get the U.S. Army to acknowledge the massacre of Korean War refugees at No Gun Ri; Gabriel García Márquez, the winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature and a left-win social critic who was a diehard supporter of Fidel Castro;Melba Hernandez, a Cuban revolutionary who was a loyal compatriot to Fidel Castro;Ignatius Zakka Iwas, the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church; Jaime Lusinchi, former president of Venezuela; Huber Matos Benitez, a leading figure of the Cuban Revolution who was imprisoned for twenty years after he turned against Fidel Castro and the Cuban Communist Party; Ian Player, a South African conservationist instrumental in saving the white rhinoceros; Adolfo Suarez, the first Spanish prime minister after the death of Francisco Franco; U Win Tin, a leading critic of military rule in Myanmar; and Metropolitan Volodymyr, head of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church.

This piece appears courtesy of CFR’s blog The Water’s Edge.