AdamSmith Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 30 Weirdest Deaths You’ll Find On WikipediaJul. 23, 2013By Charlie Morrigan Many of us are afraid to die but perhaps hope that we will at least die of natural causes, at an advanced age, having recently seen those whom we love. Drift off into sleep and never wake up. The following list, culled from Wikipedia, describes unusual, strange, horrible deaths. Although, a death is a death is a death.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 heap3. 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 body29. 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 him30. 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. http://thoughtcatalog.com/charlie-morrigan/2013/07/30-weirdest-deaths-youll-find-on-wikipedia/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted December 14, 2013 Author Share Posted December 14, 2013 From the same delightful blog...10 Horrifying Methods Of Capital Punishment From Around The WorldJul. 18, 2013By Charlie Morrigan In Texas, they prefer the electric chair, but around the world and throughout history, there have been many awful, horrendous methods of killing criminals, enemies, or undesirables. Some methods are now banned, but to this day, people continue to sentence other people to death. And Wikipedia has lots of gory specifics. Read on!1. Slow slicing (China)a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until it was banned in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time.This was civilized torture and execution, though. Recipients of the slow slicing were sometimes given opium as an act of mercy, or to prevent them from fainting. Turns out getting your body lopped off bit by bit with a knife can overwhelm a person.2. Suffocation in ash (Ancient Persia)an execution method where a tower/room was filled with ash, into which the condemned person was plunged. Wheels were constantly turned while he was alive, making the ash whirl about, and the person died by gradual suffocation as he inhaled the ash.This is a pretty creative way to murder a person.3. Decapitation (Japan)In Japan, decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offences. Samurai were often allowed to decapitate soldiers who had fled from battle, as it was considered cowardly. Decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). After the victim had sliced his own abdomen open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a katana to hasten death and to reduce the suffering. The blow was expected to be precise enough to leave intact a small strip of skin at the front of the neck—to spare invited and honored guests the indelicacy of witnessing a severed head rolling about, or towards them; such an event would have been considered inelegant and in bad taste.…Oh, and then there’s this unsettling anecdote:One of the most brutal decapitations was that of Sugitani Zenjubō (ja:杉谷善住坊), who attempted to assassinate Oda Nobunaga, a prominent daimyo in 1570. After being caught, Zenjubō was buried alive in the ground with only his head out, and the head was slowly sawn off with a bamboo saw by passers-by for several days.4. Blowing from a gun (Great Britain)a method of execution in which the victim is typically tied to the mouth of a cannon and the cannon is fired.The British weren’t the only ones to do this — the Mughal emperors, the Ottoman Turks, and folks in Algiers and Sumatra also got in on the action. In Afghanistan, or as I like to call it, “almost Iraq,” this practice continued until 1930.5. Stoning Stoning people to death continues to occur in many countries around the world, whether officially sanctioned or not. The following are two excerpts from the Iran penal code for stoning adulterers:Article 102 – An adulterous man shall be buried in a ditch up to near his waist and an adulterous woman up to near her chest and then stoned to death.Article 104 – The size of the stone used in stoning shall not be too large to kill the convict by one or two throws and at the same time shall not be too small to be called a stone.Some nice clear rules to guide your barbarism!6. Dismemberment There have been many methods of removing limbs from prisoners as a form of capital punishment, but what follows is a Persian method from the 19th century called shekkeh, described by Robert Binning:the criminal is hung up by the heels, head downwards, from a ladder or between two posts, and the executioner hacks away with a sword, until the body is bisected lengthways, terminating at the head. The two several halves are then suspended on a camel, and paraded through the streets, for the edification of all beholders. When the shekkeh is to be inflicted in a merciful manner, the culprit’s head is struck off, previous to bisecting the trunk7. Crushing This form of execution, no longer sanctioned by any governing body, has occurred via various methods throughout history. It was used as a method of forcing a plea bargain in court by placing increasingly heavier stones on a person’s chest — in French, peine forte et dure (“hard and forceful punishment”). It was also commonly carried out via elephants in South and South-east Asia for over 4,000 years. The only recorded American instance of the stone method occurred during the Salem witch trials:Giles Corey [...] was pressed to death on September 19, 1692, during the Salem witch trials, after he refused to enter a plea in the judicial proceeding. According to legend, his last words as he was being crushed were “More weight”, and he was thought to be dead as the weight was applied.8. Sawing There are various methods, check it out:Different methods of death by sawing have been recorded. In cases related to the Roman Emperor Caligula, the sawing is said to be through the middle. In the cases of Morocco, it is stated that that the sawing was lengthwise, both from the groin and upwards, and from the skull and downwards. In only one case, in the story about Simon the Zealot, the person is explicitly described as being hung upside-down and sawn apart vertically through the middle, starting at the groin, with no mention of fastening or support boards around the person, in the manner depicted in illustrations. In other cases where details about the method, beyond the mere sawing act, are explicitly supplied, the condemned person was apparently fastened to either one or two boards prior to sawing.9. Scaphism, or “the boats” (Ancient Persia)The intended victim was stripped naked and then firmly fastened within the interior space of two narrow rowing boats (or hollowed-out tree trunks) joined together one on top of the other with the head, hands and feet protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing a severe bowel movement and diarrhoea, and more honey would be rubbed on his exposed appendages to attract insects. He would then be left to float on a stagnant pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenceless individual’s faeces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects which would eat and breed within his exposed flesh, which — pursuant to interruption of the blood supply by burrowing insects — became increasingly gangrenous. The feeding would be repeated each day in some cases to prolong the torture, so that fatal dehydration or starvation did not occur. Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock. Delirium would typically set in after a few days.I have to say, this doesn’t sound fun.10. Gas chamber There have been many recorded instances, but the most well-known of course was in Nazi Germany.Gas chambers were used in the Third Reich as part of the “public euthanasia program” aimed at eliminating physically and mentally retarded people and political undesirables in the 1930s and 1940s. In June 1942 many hundreds of prisoners of Neuengamme concentration camp, amongst which 45 Dutch communists, were gassed in Bernburg. At that time, the preferred gas was carbon monoxide, often provided by the exhaust gas of gasoline-powered cars, trucks or army tanks.During the Holocaust, gas chambers were designed to accept large groups as part of the Nazi policy of genocide against the Jews. Nazis also targeted the Romani people, homosexuals, physically and mentally disabled, intellectuals and the clergy.Gas chambers in vans, concentration camps, and extermination camps were used to kill several million people between 1941 and 1945. Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,000 people at once. http://thoughtcatalog.com/charlie-morrigan/2013/07/10-horrifying-methods-of-capital-punishment-from-around-the-world/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CharliePS Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 There was also the regular patron of the Met Opera who jumped or fell from a Family Circle box seat into the orchestra, during a broadcast Saturday matinee (I was listening when it happened). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted December 14, 2013 Author Share Posted December 14, 2013 Eek. But falling seems entirely possible. Last time I attended something in Carnegie main hall, my seat was front row, first balcony. It took me a while to stop thinking how easy it would be to trip, fall over the rather low wall, and bounce off the 2 box levels on the way down to a hard stop on somebody in the orchestra seating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CharliePS Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 Eek. But falling seems entirely possible. Last time I attended something in Carnegie main hall, my seat was front row, first balcony. It took me a while to stop thinking how easy it would be to trip, fall over the rather low wall, and bounce off the 2 box levels on the way down to a hard stop on somebody in the orchestra seating. Luckily, it happened during the intermission, and the person who would have been landed upon had just left his seat, or he would probably have been killed or seriously injured by the impact. The elderly man who fell was a regular in that box, and appeared, according to witnesses, to be dangerously sitting on the railing when he plunged backward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
