There's going out with a fade and there's going out with a bang. And then there's just... I don't even know what to say.
1. Brazilian Joao Maria de Souza was killed in 2013 when a cow fell through his roof onto him as he slept.
2. Clement Vallandigham, a 19th century US lawyer, accidentally shot himself dead while defending a murder suspect because he was trying to demonstrate that a supposed victim could have accidentally shot himself dead. (It worked, because his client was acquitted.)
3. Canadian lawyer Garry Hoy died while trying to prove that the glass in the windows of a 24th floor office was unbreakable, by throwing himself against it. It didnt break - but it did pop out of its frame and he plunged to his death.
4. In 2007 the deputy mayor of Delhi, Surinder Singh Bajwa, died falling off a balcony while trying to fend off a troupe of attacking monkeys.
5. Monica Meyer, the mayor of Betterton, Maryland, died while checking her towns sewage tanks she fell in and drowned in 15 feet of human waste.
6. Sigurd the Mighty, a ninth-century Norse earl of Orkney, was killed by an enemy he had beheaded several hours earlier. Hed tied the mans head to his horses saddle, but while riding home one of its protruding teeth grazed his leg. He died from the infection.
7. The owner of the company that makes Segways died in 2010 after accidentally... (Continued)
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driving his Segway off a cliff.
8. Robert Williams, a Ford assembly line worker, is the first human in history to have been killed by a robot. He was hit by a robot arm in 1979.
9. In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes won a race at Belmont Park in New York despite being dead he suffered a heart attack mid-race, but his body stayed in the saddle until his horse crossed the line for a 201 outsider victory.
10. US congressman Michael F. Farley died in 1921 as a result of shaving because his shaving brush was infected with anthrax.
11. Several people danced themselves to death during the month-long Dance Fever of 1518 in Strasbourg, during which hundreds of people danced for about a month for no clear reason.
12. Paul G. Thomas, the owner of a wool mill, fell into one of his machines in 1987 and died after being wrapped in 800 yards of wool.
13. Edward Harrison was playing golf in Washington state in 1951 when his driver snapped, and the shaft lodged in his groin. He staggered about 100 yards before bleeding to death.
14. In 1900, American physician Jesse William Lazear tried to prove that Yellow Fever was transmitted by mosquitoes by letting infected mosquitoes bite him. He then (Continued)
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died of the disease. Proving himself right.
15. Russian physician Alexander Bogdanov performed pioneering blood transfusions on himself, believing they would give him long life. They actually killed him after he suffered an adverse reaction.
16. Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt thought hed invented a device that could make men fly. He tested this by jumping off the Eiffel Tower wearing it. It didnt work. He died.
17. In 1567, the man said to have the longest beard in the world died after he tripped over his beard running away from a fire.
18. The Greek philosopher Chrysippus of Soli is said to have died of laughterafter watching a donkey trying to eat his figs.
19. British actor Gareth Jones died of a heart attack while performing in a live televised play in 1958 in which his character was scripted to have a heart attack. The rest of the cast improvised around his death and finished the play.
20. Mary Ward was a pioneering Irish female scientist who is sadly better known as the first person in history to ever be killed in a car accident while driving with her family in their experimental road locomotive steam engine.
21. And the first pedestrian ever killed by a car was Bridget Driscoll of Croydon, London, in 1896.
22. Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a brilliant Swedish chemist who had an unwise habit of (Continued)
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tasting all the chemicals he discovered. He died in 1786 as a result of his exposure to lead, hydrofluoric acid, arsenic and various other poisons.
23. Engineer Horace Lawson Hunley pioneered submarine design in the American Civil War although most of them sank. He died when his final model, named after himself, sank while he was in command of it.
24. General John Sedgwick was killed by a sniper in the American Civil War shortly after uttering the words They couldnt hit an elephant at this distance. (Contrary to popular belief, though, they werent his last words. They were his second-last. His last words were agreeing that dodging was in fact a good idea.)
25. Health fanatic Basil Brown managed to kill himself by drinking a gallon of carrot juice a day, in the belief it would make him healthy.
26. In 1992, Greg Austin Gingrich died in the Grand Canyon after jokingly pretending to fall to his death, then losing his footing and actually falling to his death.
27. Queen Sunanda Kumariratana of Siam (now Thailand) drowned in 1880 in full view of many of her subjects because they were forbidden to touch her, so couldnt rescue her.
28. The first people ever killed in an air accident were hot air balloon pioneers Jean-Franois Piltre de Rozier and Pierre Romain, in 1785.
29. And the first person ever killed in a powered aeroplane crash was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge in 1908, in a plane piloted by Orville Wright.
30. An Irish woman died in 2008 after voluntarily having sex with a dog. The exact cause of death is (Continued)
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unclear, although it was speculated that an allergic reaction to dogs might have been the cause.
31. Twenty-one people died in the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, when a massive tank of molasses burst on a warm day, sending a 25ft high wave of sweetener through the city at 35mph.
32. And eight people died in the London Beer Flood of 1814, when a giant vat at a brewery burst, sending over 3,500 barrels of beer pouring though the nearby streets.
33. Chef Peng Fan from Foshan, Southern China was bitten by a cobra's severed head, which he'd cut off twenty minutes earlier. Fan had put the head aside while using the body to prepare a soup in 2013. Police said the case was "highly unusual".
34. Chronic snorer Mark Gleeson tried to cure his snoring problem by shoving two tampons up his nostrils before going to bed.
But Mark, 26, from Hampshire, suffocated as he slept in 1996.
35. In 1988 experienced skydiver Ivan McGuire, 35, decided to film his two mile jump above North Carolina. He remembered his camera but forgot his parachute and filmed his own death.
36. French undertaker Marc Bourjade was killed when a pile of coffins at his workshop fell on top of him in 1982. Fittingly, he was buried in one of the caskets that killed him.
37. Lovebirds Brent Tyler and Chelsea Tumbleston, both 21, tumbled 50ft from a roof-top in Columbia, South Carolina.... while caught in the throes of passion. Their naked bodies were (Continued)
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found on the road by a taxi driver in 2007.
38. Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed as he fell through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burgling in Lompoc, California. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth to keep his hands free rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
39. In 2010 in the Democratic Republic of Congo 20 crew and passengers died in a plane crash when a crocodile being smuggled by a traveller in a sports bag, freed itself. Panicked passengers all ran towards the flight deck and the tiny plane unbalanced and crashed. One passenger and the crocodile survived.
40. Alex Mitchell from King's Lynn, Norfolk, laughed so hard at the Ecky-Thump episode of hit BBC comedy The Goodies in 1975 that he died of a heart failure.
His widow later wrote to the show's stars to thank them for making her husband's last minutes so happy.
BONUS #1
564 BC: Arrhichion of Phigalia, Greek pankratiast, caused his own death during the Olympic finals. Held by his unidentified opponent in a stranglehold and unable to free himself, Arrichion's trainer shouted, "What a fine funeral if you do not submit at Olympia!" Arrichion then kicked his opponent with his right foot while casting his body to the left, causing his opponent so much pain that he made the sign of defeat to the umpires, while at the same time breaking Arrichion's own neck as the other fighter still had him in a stranglehold. Since the opponent had conceded defeat, Arrichion was proclaimed victor posthumously.
BONUS #2
Basil Brown, a 48-year-old health food advocate from Croydon, England, drank himself to death in 1974 by consuming 10 gallons (38 litres) of carrot juice in ten days, causing him to overdose on vitamin A and suffer severe liver damage