XPost: alt.politics.socialism, alt.politics.economics, alt.politics.media   
   From: efreem2@alumni.umbc.edu   
      
   30 Strangest Deaths in History.   
      
   Death by Embracing the Reflection of the Moon   
      
   Chinese poet Li Po (701-706) is regarded as one of the two greatest poets   
   in   
   China's literary history. He was well known for his love of liquor and   
   often   
   spouted his greatest poems while drunk.   
      
   One night, Li Po fell from his boat and drowned in the Yangtze River while   
   trying to embrace the reflection of the moon in the water.   
      
   Death by Beard   
      
   Austrian Hans Steininger was famous for having the world's longest beard   
   (it   
   was 4.5 feet or nearly 1.4 m long) and for dying because of it.   
      
   One day in 1567, there was a fire in town and in his haste Hans forgot to   
   roll up his beard. He accidentally stepped on his beard, lost balance,   
   stumbled, broke his neck and died!   
      
   Death From Holding a Pee In   
      
   Danish nobleman and astronomer Tycho Brahe was one interesting   
   fellow. He kept a dwarf as a court jester who sat under the table during   
   dinner. He even had a tame pet moose.   
      
   Tycho also lost the tip of his nose in a duel with another Danish nobleman   
   and had to wear a "dummy" nose made from silver and gold, but that's   
   another   
   story.   
      
   It was said that Tycho had to hold his pee during one particularly long   
   banquet in 1601 (getting up in the middle of a dinner was considered   
   really   
   rude) that his bladder, strained to its limits, developed an infection   
   which   
   later killed him!   
      
   Later analyses suggested that Tycho died because of mercury poisoning but   
   that's not nearly as interesting as the original story.   
      
   Death by Conductor's Cane   
      
   While conducting the hymnal Te Deum for French King Louis XIV in 1687,   
   Jean-Baptiste Lully was so focused in keeping the rhythm by banging a   
   staff   
   against the floor (this was the method before conductor's baton came into   
   use), that he struck his toe hard but refused to stop.   
      
   The toe developed an abscess, which later turned gangrenous, but Lully   
   refused to have it amputated. The gangrene spread and killed the stubborn   
   musician.   
      
   Ironically, the hymn he was conducting was in celebration of the recovery   
   of   
   Louis XIV from an illness.   
      
   Death by Dessert   
      
   King Adolf Frederick [wiki] of Sweden loved to eat and died from it too!   
      
   The "King Who Ate Himself to Death" died in 1771 at the age of 61 from a   
   digestive problem after eating a giant meal consisting of lobster, caviar,   
   saurkraut, cabbage soup, smoked herring, champagne and 14 servings of his   
   favorite dessert: semla, a bun filled with marzipan and milk.   
      
   Death by Jury Demonstration   
      
   After the Civil War, controversial Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham   
   became a highly successful lawyer who rarely lost a case.   
      
   In 1871, he defended Thomas McGehan who was accused of shooting one Tom   
   Myers during a barroom brawl. Vallandigham's defense was that Myers had   
   accidentally shot himself while drawing his pistol from a kneeling   
   position.   
      
   To convince the jury, Vallandigham decided to demonstrate his theory.   
   Unfortunately, he grabbed a loaded gun by mistake and ended up shooting   
   himself!   
      
   By dying, Vallandigham succeeded in demonstrating the plausibility of the   
   accidental shooting and got his client acquitted.   
      
   Death from Biting One's Tongue   
      
   Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884, famous for creating the Pinkerton   
   detective agency and developing investigative techniques such as   
   surveilling   
   a suspect and doing undercover work, died of an infection after biting his   
   tongue when he slipped on a sidewalk!   
      
   Death from Stubbing One's Toe   
      
   Famous Tennessee whiskey distiller Jack Daniel decided to come in to   
   work early one morning in 1911. He wanted to open his safe but couldn't   
   remember the combination. In anger, Daniel kicked the safe and injured his   
   toe, which later developed an infection that killed him!   
      
   Moral of the story? Don't go to work early.   
      
   Death by Orange Peel   
      
   Bobby Leach wasn't afraid to court death: in 1911, he was the second   
   person in the world to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The daredevil   
   went   
   on to perform many other death-defying stunts, so his death is especially   
   ironic.   
      
   One day while walking down a street in New Zealand, Leach slipped on a   
   piece   
   of orange peel. He broke his leg so badly it had to be amputated. Leach   
   died   
   due to complications that developed afterwards.   
      
   Death by Overcoat Parachute Failure   
      
   In 1911, French tailor Franz Reichelt decided to test his invention, a   
   combination overcoat and parachute, by jumping off the Eiffel Tower.   
   Actually, he told the authorities that he would use a dummy, but at the   
   last   
   minute decided to test it himself. It was no surprise that he fell to his   
   death.   
      
   Death by 1) Poison, 2) Gunshot Wound (4x), 3) Beating by Clubs, 4)   
   Drowning.   
      
   According to legends, Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916) was   
   first   
   poisoned with enough cyanide to kill ten men, but he wasn't affected.   
      
   So his killers shot him in the back with a revolver. Rasputin fell but   
   later   
   revived. So, he was shot again three more times, but Rasputin still lived.   
   He was then clubbed, and for good measure thrown into the icy Neva River.   
      
   Rasputin was finally dead for good.   
      
   Death by Baseball   
      
   Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was the only man ever killed   
   by a baseball pitch.   
      
   At that time, baseball pitchers dirtied up a ball before it was thrown at   
   the batter to make it harder to see. On August 6, 1920 in a game against   
   the   
   New York Yankees, Carl Mays pitched such a ball towards Chapman that   
   fatally   
   hit his skull.   
      
   Death by Scarf   
      
   "Mother of modern dance" Isadora Duncan was killed in 1927 by her   
   trademark scarf she loved to wear:   
      
   As the New York Times noted in its obituary of the dancer on 15 September   
   1927, "The automobile was going at full speed when the scarf of strong   
   silk   
   began winding around the wheel and with terrific force dragged Miss   
   Duncan,   
   around whom it was securely wrapped, bodily over the side of the car,   
   precipitating her with violence against the cobblestone street. She was   
   dragged for several yards before the chauffeur halted, attracted by her   
   cries in the street. Medical aid was summoned, but it was stated that she   
   had been strangled and killed instantly."   
      
   Death by Garbage   
      
   Homer and Langley Collyer were compulsive hoarders. The two brothers   
   had a fear of throwing anything away and obsessively collected newspapers   
   and other junk in their house. They even set up booby-traps in corridors   
   and   
   doorways to protect against intruders.   
      
   In 1947, an anonymous tip called that there was a dead body in the Collyer   
   house, and after much initial difficulty getting in, the police found   
   Homer   
   Collyer dead and Langley no where to be found. About two weeks later,   
   after   
   removing nearly 100 tons of garbage from the house, workers found Langley   
   Collyer's partialy decomposed (and rat-chewed) body just 10 feet away from   
   where they had found his brother.   
      
   Apparently, Langley had been crawling through tunnels of newspapers to   
   bring   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)