1. Arius (336)…
said to have died of sudden diarrhea followed by copious hemorrhaging and anal expulsion of the intestines while he walked across the imperial forum in Constantinople. He may have been poisoned.
2. Crown Prince Philip of France (1131)…
died while riding through Paris, when his horse tripped over a black pig running out of a dung heap
3. Al-Musta’sim, the last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad (1258)…
executed by his Mongol captors by being rolled up in a rug and then trampled by horses.
4. Martin of Aragon (1410)…
died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing.
5. George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (1478)…
executed by drowning in a barrel of Malmsey wine at his own request.
6. Hans Steininger, the burgomaster of Brunau, Austria (1567)…
died when he broke his neck by tripping over his own beard. The beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.
7. Gouverneur Morris, an American statesman (1816)…
died after sticking a piece of whale bone through his urinary tract to relieve a blockage.
8. Sherwood Anderson (1941)…
died of peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick at a party.
9. The Collyer Brothers, extreme cases of compulsive hoarders (1947)…
found dead in their home in New York. The younger brother, Langley, was crushed to death when he accidentally triggered one of his own booby traps that had consisted of a large pile of objects, books, and newspapers. His blind and paralyzed brother Homer, who had depended on Langley for care, died of starvation some days later.
10. Basil Brown (1974)…
a 48-year-old health food advocate from Croydon, drank himself to death with carrot juice.
11. Boris Sagal, a film director (1981)…
died while shooting the TV miniseries World War III when he walked into the tail rotor blade of a helicopter and was nearly decapitated.
12. Kenji Urada, a Japanese factory worker (1981)…
killed by a malfunctioning robot he was working on at a Kawasaki plant in Japan. The robot’s arm pushed him into a grinding machine, killing him.
13. Tennessee Williams, American author (1983)…
died when he choked on an eyedrop bottle-cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye.
14. Garry Hoy (1993)…
a 38-year-old lawyer in Toronto, fell to his death on July 9, 1993, after he threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre in an attempt to prove to a group of visitors that the glass was “unbreakable,” a demonstration he had done many times before. The glass did not break, but popped out of the window frame.
15. Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, from Germany (2001)…
voluntarily stabbed repeatedly and then partly eaten by Armin Meiwes (who was later called the Cannibal of Rotenburg). Brandes had answered an internet advertisement by Meiwes looking for someone for this purpose. Brandes explicitly stated in his will that he wished to be killed and eaten.
16. Richard Sumner (2002)…
a British artist suffering from schizophrenia, went into a remote section of Clocaenog Forest in Denbighshire, Wales, handcuffed himself to a tree and threw the keys out of his reach. His skeleton was discovered three years later. There were signs that he may have later changed his mind.
17. Francis “Franky” Brohm, 23, of Marietta, Georgia (2004)…
was leaning out of a car window and decapitated by a telephone pole support wire. The car’s intoxicated driver, John Hutcherson, 21, drove nearly 12 miles (19 km) to his home with the headless body in the passenger seat, parked the car in his driveway, then went to bed. A neighbour saw the bloody corpse still in the car and notified police. Brohm’s head was later discovered at the accident scene.
18. Kenneth Pinyan from Seattle, Washington (2005)…
died of acute peritonitis after receiving anal intercourse from a stallion. The case led to the criminalization of bestiality in Washington state.
19. Lee Seung Seop, a 28-year-old from South Korea (2005)…
collapsed of fatigue and died after playing the videogame StarCraft online for almost 50 consecutive hours.
20. Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old woman from Sacramento, California (2007)…
died of water intoxication while trying to win a Nintendo Wii console in a KDND 107.9 “The End” radio station’s “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest, which involved drinking large quantities of water without urinating.
21. Humberto Hernandez, a 24-year-old Oakland, California resident (2007)…
killed after being struck in the face by an airborne fire hydrant while walking.
22. Kevin Whitrick, a 42-year-old British man (2007)…
committed suicide by hanging himself live in front of a webcam during an Internet chat session.
23. Surinder Singh Bajwa, the Deputy Mayor of Delhi, India (2007)…
died after falling from his building’s terrace while trying to fight off attacking Rhesus macaque monkeys.
24. David Phyall, 50 (2008)…
the last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, Hampshire, England, decapitated himself with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out.
25. Uroko Onoja, a Nigerian polygamist businessman (2012)…
died after being forced by five of his six wives to have sex with each of them. Onoja was caught having sex with his youngest wife by the remaining five, who were jealous of him paying her more attention. The remaining wives demanded that he also have sex with each of them, threatening him with knives and sticks. He had intercourse with four of them in succession, but stopped breathing before having sex with the fifth.
26. João Maria de Souza, 45 (2013)…
died when a cow, believed to have escaped from a nearby farm, went onto his roof during his sleep, causing the room to cave in and the 3000-pound cow landing on him in Brazil. He died soon afterwards due to internal bleeding.
27. Li Po (Li Bai), Chinese poet and courtier (762)…
supposedly tried to kiss the reflection of the Moon beside the boat in which he was travelling, fell overboard and drowned.
28. Edward II of England (1327)…
after being deposed and imprisoned by his wife Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, was rumoured to have been murdered by having a horn pushed into his anus through which a red-hot iron was inserted, burning out his internal organs without marking his body
29. Frank Hayes, a jockey at Belmont Park, New York (1923)…
died of a heart attack during his first race. His mount finished first with his body still attached to the saddle, and he was only discovered to be dead when the horse’s owner went to congratulate him
30. Gareth Jones, actor (1958)…
collapsed and died between scenes of a live television play, Underground, at the studios of Associated British Corporation in Manchester. Director Ted Kotcheff continued the play to its conclusion, improvising around Jones’ absence.
