Ted Rogers, 1933–2008

Ted Rogers—father of the massive Rogers empire—is dead from heart failure. Rogers laid the groundwork for his company by buying FM radio station CHFI for a little under $100,000 in 1960, forming Rogers Cable T.V. Ltd. in 1967, co-founding Cantel—which he'd later buy out and turn into Rogers Wireless—in 1985, and snatching up media company Maclean Hunter Ltd. in 1994. A shrewd and aggressive salesman, and as such not one universally loved (but, to borrow a line from Arthur Miller, "with his pockets on he was very well-liked"), Rogers for better or worse defined and ruled over the Canadian telecommunications landscape more than anyone else. He was 75.