Pretty much exactly the same thing with Stalin and Mao put forth by others up thread. By the time they died they had pretty much already done all the evil shit they did and they were winding down, so their deaths didn’t really benefit society that much except to have them finally get their just rewards. The only way their deaths would have greatly benefited society would be if someone whacked them when they were kids or prevented their mommy and daddy from doing the horizontal bop in the first place.
I’m thinking that for people whose actual deaths benefited society, you’d have to look towards martyrs - not necessarily in the religious sense, but people whose murder make their cause stronger. There are probably better examples, but what about Jan Hus? He was an early attempter at Church reform pre-Protestantism, and was burned at the stake for heresy (ah, the good ol’ 1400s). His death sparked off outrage and may have lended some legitimacy to the Reformation that came later.
Of course, that asks the question of whether the Reformation benefited society, but I’m not touching that one with a 10 foot pole . . .
Anyone else for James Smithson?
As I said in an earlier post, I agree with you on Mao. But I feel Stalin still had plenty of evil left in him and he would have gone on to kill a lot more people if he hadn’t died in 1953. Stalin was still fully in power when he died.
Although I agree Henrietta Lacks is probably the best choice, I’m going to float (if you’ll forgive the expression) The Man Who Never Was.
The body of Major William Martin washed ashore in northern Spain. On his person he had the usual identity card, ticket stubs and other personal items. Chained to his wrist was a briefcase which, among other things, contained a letter marked Personal And Most Secret which identified Greece as the target for the Allied invasion from North Africa, with Sardinia as a secondary target. The local Nazi agent, Adolf Clauss, succeeded after several attempts in getting access to these documents, and passed them on to his superiors. Nazi High Command was convinced, and transferred divisions to Greece - some from Sicily, some from the Eastern front.
The Allies promptly invaded Sicily. Major Martin never existed. The backstory, and the letter, was created by British Intelligence. The body was (probably) that of a Welsh tramp, Glyndyr Michael: a mentally ill man who died, jobless and homeless, after consuming rat poison. His body was spirited out of the morgue, shipped to northern Spain and, suitably kitted out, dropped overboard to bait an agent British Intelligence already knew to be somewhat gullible.
It’s hard to measure exactly what impact this deception made. Some will argue it changed the course of the war, although this seems a little dramatic. Certainly, Axis opposition on Sicily - tough enough in the event - was less than it could have been, so some number of lives were saved. The removal of divisions from the Eastern Front to Greece will have contributed in some measure to the stopping of the German offensive by Russia. An interesting knock-on effect was that the Nazis were later reluctant to believe genuine found documents.
What about Ogedai Khan’s death which stopped Batu Khan’s invasion of Europe?
I wouldn’t put down HeLa since her death didn’t really do anything. Instead it was the cancer that caused her death which is not the same thing. If her cancer did not metasize and her doctors did a hysterectomy and she survived, how would things be any different?
The dude was 74…how much evil could he have done in the time remaining? 
And unless we posit some sort of alternative universe, we simply have to go with the actual history…and in the actual history, his death didn’t really benefit society very much at all.
Oh, it just occured to me - what about Thích Quảng Đức, the monk whose self-immolation in protest of South Vietnam produced the famed photograph? Again, the question of whether it benefited society is arguable, but it was certainly extremely influential.
I’m postponing my response 'til Rupert Murdoch is eligible.
I would argue that in the time and place that Henrietta lived, the cancer pretty much had to have been fatal to have come to the attention of researchers in the first place. Cancer treatment was very much in its infancy then, and while screening for cervical cancer existed, it’s very likely it was not easily accessible, especially for an African-American woman. For the cancer to cause sufficient symptoms to drive Henrietta to visit a doctor, it would already be extremely advanced, and almost certainly metastasized.
If Huey Long hadn’t been assassinated in 1935, he might have obtained enough power to destabilize American democracy. He was a senator and a governor at the same time, and his movement was still gaining momentum when he died.
That said, I think Ogedei Khan is the best answer. If the Mongols depopulated Europe the way they depopulated Asia, the world would be a far worse place.
No, Long was Governor from 1928 to 1932 and then he resigned as Governor when took the Senate seat he won in 1931. I don’t think he could have legally held both offices at the same time.
There was an argument in Louisiana over whether Long was able to stay on as Governor between the time he was elected to the Senate in November 1931 and the time he took office in January 1932. Long’s opponents argued he should resign his current office as soon as he was elected to the new one but he held on to the office so he could go directly from Governor to Senator and never officially be out of office.
Who knows what misery may have happened if Lenin hadn’t popped his clogs? Okay, Stalin got in but Trotsky would have been arguably worse.
I keep looking at Pol Pot etc but they had done their worst- same as Hitler.
I wonder though if Laventiy Beria might be a candidate although it seems the Soviets had already worked out he was going no where.
Mao was just about finished when he died- he hadn’t done much for a long period so I keep coming back to Stalin.
He was a corrupt figure, certainly, but are you sure his movement gaining even more traction would have been a bad thing?
With Huey Long, I think the key is do we really think he would have been in a position of national power such as President or Majority Leader. If not then he’s not even worth considering.
What if the benefit comes not from the death, but from other peoples reaction to it?
The death of Cari Lightner prompted her Mother to form MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) an incredibly successful organization which has subsequently catalyzed a near complete change in attitude toward drunk driving throughout the North America and Europe.
It has arguably saved millions of lives through legislative lobbying and public education campaigns.
Just FYI, Cecil points out this is probably not true:
**“Third, there is no historical record of the condemnation of Jesus other than the New Testament. The different books of the New Testament give five slightly different accounts. Although the versions agree on the main points, the emphasis and details vary. Each author had his own biases and agenda. The authors of the gospels weren’t writing objective history; they were trying to convert a particular audience, and their words reflect that.” **
The reason HeLa took off was because the tumor she had was so virulent. It was one hell of a hearty cancer cell - therefore they were able to reproduce it (and pretty much only it for the next twenty years). I don’t think that there was anyway that it wouldn’t have metastasized by the time it was big enough to find - that was the wonder (and terror) of those cells.