1959 births

Daniel Rozoum (20 May 1959 – 28 February 2013), known as Daniel Darc, was a French singer, who achieved success with his band Taxi Girl (together with Mirwais Ahmadzaï) between 1978 and 1986, and also as a solo artist.
After Taxi Girl was disbanded in 1986, he continued a solo career, releasing Sous influence divine in 1987. Produced by Jacno, this included a cover version of "Comment te dire adieu", a song with lyrics by Serge Gainsbourg that had been popularized by Françoise Hardy. In 1994 he released Nijinsky, followed by two albums in cooperation with composer, director and producer Frédéric Lo: Crève cœur in 2004 and then Amours suprêmes in 2008, with appearances by Alain Bashung, Robert Wyatt, Morgane (singer of Cocoon) and Steve Nieve. The title of the latter album is a reference to "A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane.
The last album released while he was alive was La Taille de mon âme in 2011. Darc died on 28 February 2013. He was 53.Some of his materials were released posthumously in 2013 under the title Chapelle Sixteen

Anne Lauvergeon (born 2 August 1959) is a French businesswoman who served as CEO of Areva from 2001 until 2011. According to The Wall Street Journal, she is known internationally as one of the most prominent defenders of nuclear power.

Louise Bessette, (born June 20, 1959) is a Canadian pianist. Born in Montreal, she trained at the Conservatoire de musique du Quebec a Montreal (CMQM).

John Orson Whitaker, Jr. (born December 13, 1959) is an American actor notable for several film and television performances during his childhood. The redheaded Whitaker played Jody Davis on Family Affair from 1966 to 1971. He also originated the role of Scotty Baldwin on General Hospital in 1965, and played the lead in Hallmark's 1969 The Littlest Angel, and portrayed the title character in the 1973 musical version of Tom Sawyer.

Timothy Patrick Cahill (born December 1, 1958) is an American former politician who served as Massachusetts Treasurer and Receiver-General and was an independent candidate in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

Charles Burchill (born 27 November 1959) is a Scottish musician and composer, best known as the guitarist of Simple Minds. He is one of the founders of the group.

Shannon Patricia Elizabeth O'Brien (born April 30, 1959) is an American politician and attorney who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1987 through 1993, in the Massachusetts Senate from 1993 through 1995, and was the Massachusetts state treasurer from 1999 through 2003. In that last position she became the first woman to be elected in Massachusetts to statewide office by her own accord. She was the Democratic Party nominee in the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, but lost in the general election to Mitt Romney.

Nancy Elaine Achin Sullivan (January 20, 1959 – February 25, 2022) was an American Republican politician from Lowell, Massachusetts. She represented the 1st Middlesex district in the Massachusetts Senate from 1991 to 1993 and was a Democrat. She retired after a single term because she was undergoing chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.Sullivan was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on January 20, 1959. A four-time cancer survivor, she served as executive director of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine from 1999 until 2008. Sullivan went to the Academy of Notre Dame in Lowell, Massachusetts and to Radcliffe College. She died in Andover, Massachusetts, on February 25, 2022, at the age of 63.

Gary Lee Sampson (September 29, 1959 – December 21, 2021) was an American bank robber and later spree killer who killed three people and was sentenced to death by a federal jury in Massachusetts.
During three days in 2001, Sampson killed three strangers – retiree Philip McCloskey in Marshfield, Massachusetts, college student Jonathan Rizzo in Abington, Massachusetts, and Robert Whitney in Meredith, New Hampshire. He also attempted to kill a fourth victim and stranger, William Gregory, in Plymouth, Vermont. Sampson killed McCloskey and Rizzo after they picked him up hitch-hiking, stabbing them to death. Shortly after that he strangled Whitney. Sampson pleaded guilty to the three killings on September 9, 2003, and was sentenced to death on December 23, 2003, by a federal jury in Massachusetts. He received the death penalty for the two Massachusetts killings, and a life sentence for the New Hampshire case.After Sampson pleaded guilty, a federal jury decided whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison. The defense introduced mental health experts to testify that Sampson had dyslexia as a child, had bipolar disorder, and "suffered from a significant mental impairment" during the killings. A psychiatrist called by the government testified that Sampson did not have any mitigating mental impairment; he was intelligent but violent and deeply antisocial, with antisocial personality disorder. The jury of 12 unanimously returned a sentence of death.
In 2011, Sampson's death sentence was thrown out due to juror misconduct, and he was scheduled for a second sentencing trial on September 16, 2015. He was again sentenced to death on January 9, 2017. He died in 2021 at the age of 62, presumably from end stage liver disease.

Caroline Knapp (November 8, 1959 – June 3/4, 2002) was an American writer and columnist whose candid best-selling memoir Drinking: A Love Story recounted her 20-year battle with alcoholism. She was the daughter of noted psychiatrist Peter H. Knapp, who was a researcher of psychosomatic medicine.