by James Proud
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
UNIDENTIFIED TERRORISTS
D.O.D. 5 September 1999
In 1999, a gang of Palestinian terrorists were planning twin bomb attacks on buses in two Israeli cities. One group would build the bombs in Palestinian territory, and another group was tasked with planting them on buses in Israel. What neither realised was that while the timed devices were set to Palestinian summertime, clocks in Israel – and the courier's watches – had already been switched to standard time. The bombs exploded as programmed, but an hour too early for the terrorists. They were still en route to the bus stations, and three out of the four plotters were killed.
BEWARE OF THE BIRD
PHILLIP MCCLEAN
D.O.D. 6 April 1926
The cassowary is a large flightless bird of Australasia – with a fearsome reputation. It will use its powerful legs and razor-sharp talons to kick at anything it considers a threat, including humans. In 1926 in North Queensland, 16-year-old Phillip McClean came across a cassowary in his garden and decided to attack it with a club. The bird lashed out and Phillip tripped and fell, whereupon the cassowary kicked him in the neck and severed an artery. He bled to death, becoming one of the few people ever to be killed by a bird.
FAULTY LOGIC
KURT GÖDEL
D.O.D. 14 JANUARY 1978
Austrian American Kurt Gödel was a world-famous mathematician and logical philosopher. As he grew older, he began to suffer from paranoid delusions and developed an illogical fear of being poisoned, only eating food that had been prepared by his wife, Adele. When, in his seventies, his wife was hospitalised, Gödel refused to eat anything provided by anybody else. Unfortunately, Adele was in hospital for so long that by the time she returned, Gödel weighed only 30 kilograms. He was admitted to hospital, but died two weeks later of malnutrition and exhaustion.
DIE DIVE
IVAN LESTER MCGUIRE
D.O.D. 2 April 1988
He was an experienced skydiver with hundreds of jumps under his belt, but Ivan Lester McGuire made one jump too many. On the day in question, he was videoing a student, with a helmet camera and recording equipment in his backpack – this was way back in 1988. The recovered footage shows McGuire jumping from the plane, but his parachute never opens… because there was no parachute – he had forgotten to pack one. It's speculated that a combination of tiredness and confusion caused by the weight of the camera equipment in his backpack led to the fatal error.
HEAVY METAL
FREDERICK I
D.O.D. 10 June 1190
In the twelfth century, during the Third Crusade, the King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I led an army to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslim leader Saladin. His mighty forces swept aside all before them, until they came to the River Saleph (in presentday Turkey). As his horse waded across, Frederick I fell into the water and drowned, weighed down by his armour. His troops' participation in the Crusade ended with his death and the Third Crusade failed to capture the holy city.
TENNIS FALL
DICK WERTHEIM
D.O.D. 15 September 1983
During the boys' final at the 1983 US Open, a young Stefan Edberg of Sweden sent down a serve that struck line judge Dick Wertheim so hard in the groin that he fell from his chair and struck his head on the hard court surface. He suffered brain damage and died a week later. Edberg would go on to win the men's championships twice.
LOST HIS HEAD
TERRY KATH
D.O.D. 23 JANUARY 1978
Terry Kath, the guitarist with rock band Chicago, was at a friend's party in Los Angeles. At the end of the evening, gun nut Kath started to play with a couple of firearms he had with him, putting an empty pistol to his head and playing Russian roulette. When he picked up a 9-mm automatic, his friend told him to be careful. 'Don't worry, it's not loaded,' he said, showing an empty magazine. Kath put the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, there was a bullet already in the chamber and he died instantly.
YOU SWING ME RIGHT ROUND…
WILLIAM SNYDER
D.O.D. January 1854
If you suffer from coulrophobia (an irrational fear of clowns), look away now. According to his intriguing death certificate, 13-year-old William Snyder of Cincinnati, Ohio, died in 1854 after 'being swung around by the heels by a circus clown'. The exact cause of death – whether he died of sheer fright, or when the clown let go mid-swing – is not recorded.
CRIMINAL DAMAGE
SANTIAGO ALVARADO
D.O.D. 3 February 1997
Twenty-five-year-old Santiago Alvarado died in the process of burgling a bike shop in Lompoc, California. It appeared that he fell as he tried to enter the shop through the roof at night. As he hit the floor, the torch held in his mouth was driven back into his throat with such force that it broke his neck.
ALCOHOL ABUSE
GEORGE PLANTAGENET
D.O.D. 18 February 1478
George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence, took part in more than one rebellion against his brother, King Edward IV, and was eventually convicted of treason. He was executed, but in a more imaginative – and expensive – fashion than was normal at the time. He was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine, reportedly at his own request.
UNUSUAL METHODS OF EXECUTION
* * *
Crushed by elephant (southern Asia) – a practice that continued until the nineteenth century.
The brazen bull (ancient Greece) – victims were cooked alive inside a bronze bull, their screams issuing from its mouth.
Rat torture (Europe) – during the sixteenth century, hungry rats were placed on the victim's belly, under an upturned bucket upon which red-hot coals were piled (to force the rats to gnaw their way away from the heat).
Death by a thousand cuts (China) – victims were tied up in public and sliced up slowly until they died, a custom that was finally outlawed in 1905.
DANCE MACABRE
JEAN-BAPTISTE LULLY
D.O.D. 22 MARCH 1687
Lully was a renowned composer and ballet dancer at the court of the French King Louis XIV. He was leading a performance in a Paris church when enthusiastic conducting led him to crush his toe with the long stick he used to keep rhythm with the music. He contracted gangrene of the foot, possibly because he refused to give up dancing, and court doctors recommended amputation. The keen dancer refused treatment, and it proved to be the death of him.
FROZEN CHICKEN
FRANCIS BACON
D.O.D. 9 April 1626
The renowned Elizabethan polymath, writer and philosopher of science liked to carry out his own experiments. One winter, Bacon was travelling through a snowy London when he had an idea: why not use the cold white stuff to preserve meat? He broke from his journey, found a chicken and stuffed the carcass full of snow in an early attempt at refrigeration. Unfortunately, his chilly mission led him to contract a fatal bout of pneumonia.
UNLUCKY STARS
MARC AARONSON
D.O.D. 30 April 1987
Aaronson was a noted astronomer who observed the night sky through a giant telescope with a rotating dome in Tucson, Arizona. The revolving roof would automatically come to a stop when workers opened the door to check the weather. Aaronson died after popping outside one night just as the 500-ton dome was coasting to a halt. A ladder hanging from it smashed into the open door, which crushed him to death.
DENTAL HEALTH
AGATHOCLES
D.O.D. 289 BCE
Agathocles was an ambitious potter who became a soldier, married into wealth and then seized power by force after several attempts. The self-styled King of Sicily was a cruel ruler who was not well liked, and he met his end after using a toothpick that one of his enemies had dipped in poison. The toxin rendered him paralysed but alive, and it was in that state that he was laid on his burning funeral pyre.
BROLLY UNLUCKY
GEORGI MARKOV
D.O.D. 11 SEPTEMBER 1978
Georgi Markov w
as a dissident writer from communist Bulgaria who defected to the West in the late 1960s. Ten years later, he was waiting for a bus on London's Waterloo Bridge when he felt a sharp pain in his leg. He looked around and saw a man running away with an umbrella. Later that day Markov developed a fever, and four days later he was dead. Investigations concluded that the assassin had used a modified umbrella to inject a tiny pellet containing the deadly poison ricin, for which there is no known antidote.
BEARING A GRUDGE
JÖRG JENATSCH
D.O.D. 24 January 1639
Jörg Jenatsch was a Swiss politician who made many enemies during the Thirty Years War. His deeds came back to haunt him when he attended a party during carnival season in the town of Chur. A group of men disguised in costumes entered the event, and a mysterious assassin dressed as a bear hacked Jenatsch to death with an axe.
REBEL ROBOT
ROBERT WILLIAMS
D.O.D. 25 January 1979
Robert Williams was working at a Ford Motor factory in Michigan when he was fatally struck in the head by the arm of a one-ton robot carrying car parts. Williams was hit while climbing a rack of metal castings after the machine had malfunctioned. His was the first recorded death by robot – and it would not be the last…
SWEET KISS OF...
FRANK HAYES
D.O.D. 4 JUNE 1923
Part-time jockey Frank Hayes was riding a 20–1-shot horse called Sweet Kiss in a steeplechase in New York state when he slumped over in the middle of the race. He had suffered a fatal heart attack but somehow remained in the saddle as Sweet Kiss jumped the remaining fences undeterred and won the race by a head. Hayes had secured his first-ever victory, but he was dead before he crossed the finish line, becoming the only known jockey to win a race after death.
EASY TIGER
HANNAH TWYNNOY
D.O.D. 23 October 1703
Hannah Twynnoy was a barmaid at the White Lion pub in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, when a travelling zoo featuring a caged tiger came to town. She was fascinated by the tiger and kept teasing it, despite being repeatedly warned of the danger. One day while she was taunting it, it escaped its enclosure and mauled her to death. Twynnoy was surely the first person to be killed by a tiger in Britain. The incident is recorded on her gravestone:
In bloom of life
She's snatch'd from hence,
She had not room
To make defence;
For Tyger fierce
Took life away,
And here she lies
In a bed of Clay,
Until the Resurrection Day.
PAIN IN THE LEG
SIGURD THE MIGHTY
D.O.D. ninth century
Sigurd the Mighty, the Earl of Orkney, was killed by an enemy from beyond the grave. After defeating fellow nobleman Máel Brigte in battle, he tied his foe's decapitated head to his horse as a trophy of war. While Sigurd was riding home victorious, he grazed his leg on Brigte's teeth as he spurred his horse, inflicting a minor wound that eventually caused a fatal infection.
DID YOU KNOW?
* * *
When William the Conqueror died in 1087, his obese body became bloated with gas because the burial was delayed. His body burst when monks tried to fit the swollen corpse into a coffin, filling the church with a putrid stench.
In 1567, Hans Steininger, the mayor of Braunau, Austria, died after tripping over his magnificent six-foot beard. He usually rolled it up to keep it out of the way, but one day a fire broke out, and in his hurry to escape he tripped over his facial hair and broke his neck. Steininger's beard is still on display in the town today.
In January 1570, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, was killed with a carbine (a type of early rifle) in the first successful assassination by firearm.
In 1771, the renowned glutton King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died after eating a royal feast consisting of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut and herring, washed down with champagne and topped off with 14 Swedish pastries. He is thought to have died from a stroke.
FASHION VICTIM
MARTHA MANSFIELD
D.O.D. 30 NOVEMBER 1923
Martha Mansfield, a promising young film actress, retired to a car with friends during a break in filming the American Civil War drama The Warrens of Virginia. Someone in the vehicle lit a match, and the heavy period dress Mansfield was wearing went up in flames. Cast and crew tried to save her, but they could not put the fire out in time and she suffered substantial burns, dying less than 24 hours later.
MONKEY BUSINESS
ALEXANDER OF GREECE
D.O.D. 25 October 1920
A healthy 27-year-old monarch, King Alexander of Greece had only reigned for three years when he was fatally injured by a pet monkey in the gardens of the royal palace in Athens. While trying to save one monkey from the jaws of his pet wolfhound, Alexander was bitten on the calf by another. The wound became infected and he contracted blood poisoning, which resulted in his death three weeks after the attack.
BALL BOY
ALAN FISH
D.O.D. 20 May 1970
Fourteen-year-old baseball fan Alan Fish was at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles watching the home team play the San Francisco Giants, when the Dodgers' Manny Mota hit the ball into the stands, something that normally happens a few times every game. The ball caught Fish unawares and he was struck hard on the temple, but he appeared to be OK after some aspirin and he went home with his family. Four days later he died from the injury, becoming the first and the only spectator to die after being hit by the ball at a Major League Baseball game.
DID YOU KNOW?
Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is the only player to have been killed by the ball during a Major League Baseball game. In 1920, pitcher Carl Mays of the New York Yankees threw a deliberate 'beanball' at Chapman's head so hard that his skull was fractured.
UDDER TERROR
JOÃO MARIA DE SOUZA
D.O.D. 11 July 2013
João Maria de Souza was in bed with his wife in the Brazilian town of Caratinga when a cow fell through their bedroom ceiling, landing on top of him and narrowly missing his wife. The one-ton animal had wandered on to the house from the hill behind and proved too heavy for the asbestos roof. De Souza was taken to hospital with serious internal injuries and died a day later.
THE FIRST OF MANY
MARY WARD
D.O.D. 31 August 1869
The Irish astronomer Mary Ward was riding in an early steam-powered car (built by her cousins) when she was thrown from the unwieldy contraption as it navigated a corner and crushed under the wheels. The 42-year-old's untimely demise was the first recorded death from an automobile accident.
DID YOU KNOW?
Henry H. Bliss was the first person to be killed by a car in the USA. He was struck by an electric taxi in New York City in 1899.
LOOK BOTH WAYS
BRIDGET DRISCOLL
D.O.D. 17 AUGUST 1896
Bridget Driscoll, 43, became the first pedestrian to die in a motor accident in the UK when she was knocked down by a car from the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company while crossing the road in Crystal Palace, London. The early car was travelling at no more than 5 miles per hour, because that was as fast as it could go. The coroner said that he hoped such a thing would never happen again.
DEATH FROM ABOVE
AESCHYLUS
D.O.D. c.450 BCE