The year in review: Influential people who died in 2023

Yevgeny Prigozhin rose from an ex-con hot dog vendor to winning lucrative Kremlin contracts and heading a formidable mercenary army. But it came to a sudden end when his plane mysteriously exploded on Aug. 23. Prigozhin’s death put a final exclamation point on the brutal mercenary leader’s eventful year. But he was just one of many noteworthy people who died in 2023. The world also said goodbye to former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, entertainers Tina Turner and Harry Belafonte, writer Cormac McCarthy and many others.