Cecilia Danieli, 56, who built her family's steel tool company into a major company doing business with the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, died Thursday in Udine, Italy, of cancer. Ms. Danieli was nicknamed Italy's "Iron Lady" by the foreign press, who reported on her deals with Iran, Central America and the former Soviet Union.

Under her direction, the family business expanded to include bases in the United States and Italy as well as in Buttrio, near Udine. It also began selling completely furnished steel plants.

Henri d'Orleans, 90, the Count of Paris and pretender to the French throne, died Saturday at age 90 in Paris, family members said.

The count, whose full name was Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis-Philippe d'Orleans, was a direct descendant of Louis-Phillipe, the last king of France who abdicated in 1848.

President Jacques Chirac called him a "man of duty" who "all his life remained loyal to the heritage of the royal family of France, while still respecting the institutions of the Republic."

Lawrence Stone,79, a social historian and founding director of a historical studies center at Princeton University, died in Princeton, N.J., Wednesday of Parkinson's disease. Mr. Stone's research spanned a broad period of English history, or, in his words, "from the War of the Roses through the Tudor regime to the Cromwellian Revolution and beyond into the 18th century."

Pub Date: 6/21/99