I know they did a similar tribute for Edsgar Dijkstra in 2002. Are there any other times Google has done a home page tribute for a single person, like this?
Another one they linked to was Randy Pausch's last lecture.
Yes, but do you mean on their death, or "at all". I seem to recall Asimov and Turing both having tributes at one time or another for event other than their death (obviously).