List of unusual deaths

This is a list of unusual deaths, including unique or extremely rare causes of death recorded throughout history, as well as less rare but still unusual causes of death of prominent persons.

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• 456 BC: Aeschylus, Greek dramatist, according to legend, died when a vulture, mistaking his bald head for a stone, dropped a tortoise on it.
• 207 BC: Chrysippus, Greek stoic philosopher, believed to have died of laughter after seeing a donkey eating figs.
• 121 BC: Gaius Gracchus, Roman tribune, according to the ancient Roman historian Plutarch, Gaius was executed by assassins who were out to receive a bounty on the weight of his head in gold. One of the co-conspirators in his murder, Septimuleius, then decapitated Gaius, scooped the brains out of his severed head, and filled the cavity of his skull with molten lead. Once the lead hardened, the head was taken to the Senate and weighed in on the scale at over seventeen pounds. Septimuleius was paid in full. http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/gracchus.html
• 30 BC: Cleopatra, beautiful queen of Egypt, killed herself with a cobra snake bite to evade capture.
• 33 AD: Judas Ischariotes the traitor exploded when he hanged himself according to biblical account, which claims his mouth was sacred by kissing Jesus, so his sinner soul could not exit the body the usual way.
• 260: Roman emperor Valerian, after being defeated in battle and captured by the Persians is used as footstool by their king Shapur I. After a long period of brutal treatment and humiliation of this sort, he offered Shapur a huge ransom for his release. In reply, Shapur had molten gold poured down his throat. He then had the unfortunate Valerian skinned and his skin stuffed with straw and preserved as a trophy in the main Persian temple. Only after Persia's defeat in their last war with Rome three and a half centuries later was his skin given a cremation and burial.
• 453: Attila the Hun, suffered a severe nosebleed and choked to death on his wedding night.
• 895: Álmos, the top chieftain leading hungarian tribes towards the Carpathian basin, was excuted in a horse sacrifice on the border, not allowed to enter the haven for ritual reasons - a cruel reflection on the fate of Moses.
• 1063: Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, Mixtec ruler, served as a human sacrifice.
• 1063: King Béla I of Hungary died when his tall wooden throne collapsed due to sabotage.
• 1277: Pope John XXI was killed in the collapse of his scientific laboratory.
• 1327: King Edward II of England, after being deposed and imprisoned by his Queen consort Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, was murdered by having a red-hot iron shoved up his anus.
• 1490: Matthias Corvinus, the most successful king of Hungary died after eating poisoned figs.
• 1514: György Dózsa, leader of the Great Hungarian Peasant Uprising, was roasted alive on a white hot iron chair while his captured companions were forced to eat his meat.
• 1526: King Louis II of Hungary drowned in a stream under the weight of his own plate armour while fleeing the ottomans after the lost battle of Mohács.
• 1534: Pope Clement VII died after eating the death cap mushroom.
• 1541: George Friar, Governor of Transsylvania, was assasinated but his body was not discovered in his room until half a year later, as people thought he simply retracted to some months of hermit-hood.
• 1543: Pedro de Valdivia a dreaded conquistador was captured by native americans and executed by pouring molten gold down his throat to satisfy his thirst for treasures.
• 1559: King Henry II of France was killed during a stun knight's jousting match, when his helmet's soft golden grille gave way to a broken lancetip which hit him right through the eye. Nostradamus the astronomer is often believed to have forseen this tragic event.
• 1601: Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer, died of a bladder infection after refusing to leave for the bathroom during a banquet for the sake of good manners. However, newer research suggests that he died of mercury poisoning.
• 1626: Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman, and essayist, died of possible pneumonia after purchasing a chicken to see if cold could preserve meat, and becoming chilled while stuffing it with snow.
• 1671: François Vatel, chef to Louis XIV committed suicide because his seafood order was late and he couldn't stand the shame of a postponed meal. His body was discovered by an aide, sent to tell him of the arrival of the fish.
• 1687: Jean-Baptiste Lully, composer, died of a gangrenous abscess after piercing his foot with a staff while he was vigorously conducting a Te Deum.
• 1783: James Otis, American patriot, struck and killed by lightning.
• 1834: David Douglas, Scottish Botanist, who fell in a pit trap, and was crushed by a bull that fell in the same pit.
• 1841: William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States, gave the longest inaugural address in the history of the United States in heavy snow and caught a cold. It developed into pneumonia and killed him in a month.
• 1844: United States Secretary of State Upshur and the Secretary of the Navy Gilmer along with several other dignitaries were killed when the Peacemaker, a new experimental breech-loading 12-inch naval cannon on board the USS Princeton exploded while firing a salute. The Princeton's Captain Stockton, the press and the public blamed the great naval engineer John Ericsson, who had to flee to Europe, even though the faulty cannon was a product of one of his rivals.
• 1850: Zachary Taylor, twelfth President of the United States, following ceremonies on an exceptionally hot July 4, Taylor had eaten a large quantity of iced milk and cherries then fell ill with acute indigestion and died five days later, after only 16 months in office. This lead to speculation he might have been poisoned which in turn led to his body being exhumed and his rest disturbed in the early 1990s.
• 1867: William Bullock (inventor), accidentally killed by his own invention, the web rotary press.
• 1884: Allan Pinkerton, detective, died of gangrene resulting from having bitten his tongue after stumbling on the sidewalk.
• 1888: Charles-Valentin Alkan, composer and pianist, died when a bookcase collapsed on him when he was reaching for a copy of the Talmud from the top shelf.
• 1898: Austrian empress Elisabeth (affectionately known as Sissi) was assasinated with a nailfile while boarding a ship.
• 1911: Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee whiskey distillery, died of blood poisoning due to a toe injury he received after kicking his safe in anger when he could not remember its combination code.
• 1915: François Faber, Luxembourgean Tour de France winner, died in a trench on the western front of World War I. He received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. He cheered, giving away his position, and was shot by a German sniper.
• 1916: Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, died of hypothermia while swimming to shore after having been poisoned, shot multiple times in the head and torso, bludgeoned, mutilated (severed penis), wrapped in a sheet and dropped into the river Neva through a hole in the winter ice.
• 1923: Frank Hayes, jockey, suffered a heart attack during a horse race. The horse, Sweet Kiss, went on to finish first, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race.
• 1927: Isadora Duncan, dancer, died of accidental strangulation and broken neck when her scarf caught on the wheel of a car in which she was a passenger.
• 1933: Michael Malloy, a homeless man, was murdered by gassing after surviving multiple poisonings, intentional exposure, and being struck by a car. Malloy was murdered by five men in a plot to collect on life insurance policies they'd purchased.
• 1937: Harold Davidson, a defrocked Church of England Rector, died after being gored by a lion.
• 1940: Trotsky, the soviet revolutionary leader in exile, was assasinated with an icepick in his Mexico home.
• 1941: Sherwood Anderson, writer, swallowed a toothpick at a party and then died of peritonitis.
• 1960: Movie legend Clark Gable died of long term heart disease hours before his daughter was born. The public accused his film partner Marilyn Monroe for the fatal exhaustion, contributing to her worsening mental condition and eventual suicide.
• 1967: The crew of three astronauts onboard the Apollo 1 spacecraft died in a fierce flash fire due to the cabin's pure oxygen atmosphere.
• 1968: Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, author, accidentally electrocuted to death while taking a bath.
• 1971: Jerome Irving Rodale, an American pioneer of organic farming, died of a heart attack while being interviewed on the Dick Cavett Show. When he appeared to fall asleep, Cavett quipped "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?".http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/onstage.htm The show was never broadcast.
• 1973: Péter Vályi finance minister of Hungary fell into a blast furnace on visit to a steelworks factory at Miskolc.
• 1974: Christine Chubbuck, an American television news reporter committed suicide during a live broadcast on July 15th. At 9:38 AM, 8 minutes into her talk show, on WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, she drew out a revolver and shot herself in the head.
• 1977: Tom Pryce, a Formula One driver, and a 19-year-old track marshal both died at the 1977 South African Grand Prix after the marshal ran across the track beyond a blind brow to attend to another car and was struck by Pryce's car. Pryce was hit in the face by the marshal's fire extinguisher and killed instantly.
• 1978: Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was assassinated by poisoning in London by an unknown assailant who jabbed him in the leg with a specially designed umbrella that injected a pellet of ricin poison into the victim.
• 1982: Vic Morrow, actor, was decapitated by helicopter blade during filming of ' and was killed instantly, along with two child actors.
• 1982: Vladimir Smirnov, an Olympic champion fencer, died of brain damage nine days after his opponent's foil snapped during a match, pierced his eyeball and entered his brain.
• 1983: Sergei Chalibashvili, a professional diver, died after a diving accident during World University Games. When he attempted a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position, he smashed his head on the board and was knocked unconscious. He died after being in a coma for a week.
• 1984: Jon-Erik Hexum, an American television actor, died after he shot himself in the head with a prop gun during a break in filming. Whether he deliberately committed suicide or was simply unaware of the potentially deadly effects of the blank round was not determined.
• 1986: Jane Dornacker, a musician, actress and comedienne turned radio station traffic reporter, died after a helicopter owned by New York's WNBC 660AM in which she was a passenger crashed into the Hudson River. The fatal crash occurred as Dornacker was delivering a traffic report, and was broadcast live on air.
• 1987: R. Budd Dwyer, a Republican politician, committed suicide during a televised press conference. Facing a potential 55-year jail sentence for alleged involvement in a conspiracy, Dwyer shot himself in the head with a revolver.
• 1989: A belgian teenager was killed by a crashing soviet MiG-23 fighter jet, which escaped from East Germany on autopilot after the crew ejected over a false engine failure alarm.
• 1992: Isaac Asimov the famous SF author died of AIDS which he contracted from a blood transfusion during a 1980s surgery.
• 1993: Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed by a prop 44 Magnum while filming the movie The Crow. Unknown to the film crew, the tip of a dummy round broke off in the chamber of the weapon during practice. When a blank round was later fired in the gun, the tip shot out and fatally wounded Lee.
• 1996: A man know as "The Engineer", chief palestinian bombmaker of Hamas and responsible for over 60 isreali civilian casualties, was assasinated by way of a Mossad-rigged mobile phone, which blew his head off when answering a call.
• 1999: Owen Hart, WWF wrestler, died when he fell 78 feet while being lowered into the ring by a cable from the stadium rafters before an upcoming match.
• 1999: Golf champion Payne Stewart and his support staff died aboard their business jet, when the craft suddenly lost all pressurization at high altitude. The Learjet then became a flying coffin, continuing on autopilot for several hours. Its almost total destruction on eventual impact made full investigation of the mystery impossible.
• 2001: Several government employees and US Post Office workers were killed by anthrax spores after opening envelopes full of a suspicious white powder in a mysterious case of post-0911 domestic terrorism which has not yet been solved.
• 2003: Brian Wells, pizza deliveryman, was killed by a time bomb fastened to his neck after he was apprehended by the police for robbing a bank - purportedly under duress from the maker of the bomb.