1400: Geoffrey Chaucer, best known today for "The Canterbury Tales" and widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, is believed to have died at the age of either 56 or 57. Although his tomb is engraved with the Oct. 25 date, the exact date of his death, along with the cause, remains unknown, as the tomb was engraved 100 years after his death. Upon his death, Chaucer became the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey.