Found a simple way to test... IMDB allows us to query against death year. 2016 = 3,636 people with IMDB pages to date have died (http://www.imdb.com/search/nam

Found a simple way to test... IMDB allows us to query against death year. 2016 = 3,636 people with IMDB pages to date have died (http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2016&ref_=nm_ov_dth_year http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2016&ref_=nm_ov_d... -- doesn't include all politicians or other famous folks, but certainly some of those people had IMDB pages at this point.) 2015 = 4,064 (My guess is the higher numbers were due to more time for data entry / updates.) 2014 = 3,793 2013 = 3,764 2012 = 3,917 2011 = 3,780 2010 = 3,676 (Someone can do math on this, but I don't see a huge swing in the last 7 years.) 2000 = 2,395 1990 = 1,856 1980 = 1,555 (Possibly due to some data not being entered once we start getting "way far" back.) Another view... http://www.imdb.com/search/name http://www.imdb.com/search/name 1920s = 2,185 http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=1920-01-01,1929-12-31 http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=1920-01-01,1929-1... 1930s = 3,608 1940s = 5,805 vs 2,556,000,053 total world population in 1950 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html 1950s = 7,381 vs 3,039,451,023 (+6.92% growth in deaths of famous people / all people vs previous decade) 1960s = 10,977 vs 3,706,618,163 (+21.95%) 1970s = 14,044 vs 4,453,831,714 (+6.48%) 1980s = 17,662 vs 5,278,639,789 (+6.11%) 1990s = 21,722 vs 6,082,966,429 (+6.73%) 2000s = 30,883 vs 6,848,932,929 (+26.27% -- an especially brutal decade for celebrities) http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2000-01-01,2009-12-31 http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2000-01-01,2009-1... 2010s to date = 26,823 (2010s normalized at current rate = 38,319 vs 7,584,821,144 projected... or +12.04% vs previous decade) Lots of things going on here... IMDB in the past didn't record a lot of international movies -- certainly part of the lower numbers compared to modern records. But there is a growth in celebrity over time. Celebrity death rates seem to vary quite a bit though. Welcome anyone checking my math... I haven't had coffee yet and this is far from scientific. (=