How did he die, again?

It turns out that Wikipedia keeps an interesting of list of people who have died unusual deaths. I found it while looking up information on the pizza delivery guy who was killed by a bomb attached to a metal collar that was screwed onto his neck. (Wierd stuff.)

Anyway, I found the list interesting and posted a few of my favorites, here. To quote Glenn Reynolds, read the whole thing.

- 458 BC: The Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise on him, mistaking his bald head for a stone.

- 1841: William Henry Harrison, the 9th President of the United States, died of pneumonia one month after delivering his two-hour inauguration speech in cold weather without an overcoat.

- 1884: Allan Pinkerton, detective, died of gangrene resulting from having bitten his tongue after stumbling on the sidewalk.

- 1958: Gareth Jones, actor, collapsed and died while in make-up 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's absence.

- 1916: Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, was poisoned while dining with a political enemy, and supposedly he was given enough poison to kill three men his size. When he did not die, the assassin snuck up behind him and shot him in the head, and while checking Grigori's pulse the mystic grabbed him by the neck and strangled him. He proceeded to run away, while the other assassins chased. He was caught up to, lying on the ground having been hit with three shots during the chase. The pursuers bludgeoned him then threw him into a river (in Russia in the winter). When his body washed ashore, an autopsy showed the cause of death to be drowning.

- 1960: In the Nedelin disaster, over 100 Soviet missile technicians and officials died when a switch was turned on unintentionally igniting the rocket, including Red Army Marshal Nedelin who was seated in a deck chair just 40 meters away overseeing launch preparations. The events were filmed by automatic cameras. (This one's interesting because this sad event had the effect of getting the U.S. further ahead in the space race. -Adam)

- 1943: Lady be Good, a USAAF B-24 bomber lost its way and crash landed in the Libyan Desert. Mummified remains of its crew, who struggled for a week without water, were not found until 1960.

I hope this wasn't too morbid for anyone.