León Febres Cordero, 35th president of Ecuador (b. 1931) December 18 Majel Barrett, American actress (b. 1932) Mark Felt, American FBI agent (b. 1913) December 19 – James Bevel, Civil Rights Movement strategist (b. 1936) December 20 Joseph Conombo, third prime minister of Burkina Faso (b. 1917) Olga Lepeshinskaya, Russian ballerina (b. 1916) Robert Mulligan, American director (b. 1925) December 22 – Lansana Conté, 2nd president of Guinea (b. 1934) December 24 Samuel P. Huntington, American political scientist (b. 1927) Harold Pinter, English playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor (b. 1930) December 25 – Eartha Kitt, American singer, actress, activist, and author (b. 1927) December 29 – Freddie Hubbard, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1938) Date unknown Wilfred Andrew Rose, Trinidad and Tobago diplomat and politician (b. 1922) Victor Ruzo, Swiss painter (b. 1913) Nobel Prizes Chemistry – Martin Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura, and Roger Y. Tsien Economics – Paul Krugman Literature – J. M. G. Le Clézio Peace – Martti Ahtisaari Physics – Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa, and Yoichiro Nambu Physiology or Medicine – Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Harald zur Hausen, and Luc Montagnier New English words References External links 2008 Calendar at Internet Accuracy Project Leap years in the Gregorian calendar