Dying to know this

halloween

Halloween - all Hallows Eve or the day before the Day of the dead in many countries - is still a little way off, but to get you in the mood here is a fascinating list of people and the strange ways they died.

For instance c. 620 BC: Draco, Athenian law-maker, was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina.

Then there was King William III of England who died in 1702 because of a mole, whose burrow caused his horse to stumble and him to fall, breaking his collar bone, leading to fatal pneumonia.

Many, of course, were from eating or food-related accidents such as:

1974: Basil Brown, a 48-year-old health food advocate from Croydon, who supposedly drank himself to death with carrot juice.

1978: Kurt Gödel, the Austrian/American logician and mathematician, died of starvation when his wife was hospitalized. Gödel suffered from extreme paranoia and refused to eat food prepared by anyone else.

1771: Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, who died of digestion problems on 12 February 1771 after having consumed a meal of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: hetvagg served in a bowl of hot milk. He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as "the king who ate himself to death."

1975: Band Mitsugor VIII, a Japanese kabuki actor, died of severe poisoning when he ate four fugu (puffer-fish) livers. Mitsugor claimed to be immune to the poison and the fugu chef felt he could not refuse him.

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