How Many Of These Stranger Than Fiction Deaths Do You Know About?

Regardless of how many battles they fought or extreme situations they put themselves in, for some historical figures, it seems the Grim Reaper just had other plans. Whether they were born into wealth and nobility, fought their way to the top, or were genius thinkers, these people's bizarre deaths remind us that mortality is inevitable, and no one is above dying on the toilet or from biting their own tongue. Beyond the grand narratives and famous last words, some of history's greatest characters met their end in circumstances so strange that they sound like fiction. Here are 20 of history's most bizarre deaths. 

Unknown author on Wikimedia

1. Attila the Hun

Attila the Hun was the ruler of the Huns from 434 to 453 and the most feared man in Asia. He ironically died not in some exhilarating battle, but on his wedding night when he got a nosebleed and choked to death in his sleep. Some theories suggest, however, that he was actually poisoned by his new wife.

Julio Strozza on Wikimedia

2. Emperor Qin Shi Huang

Emperor Qin Shi Huang was the founder of the Qin dynasty of ancient China. Obsessed with immortality, he had the famous army of terracotta warriors built to protect him for eternity and swallowed mercury pills, believing they would allow him to live forever. Of course, mercury is poisonous to humans and those "immortality pills" proved to have the opposite effect.

Tris T7 on Wikimedia

3. Tycho Brahe

It's said that the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe died from being too polite when he refused to excuse himself from a banquet to use the bathroom. When he got home he could no longer urinate and he suffered for five days before succumbing to a fatal bladder rupture.

Ramblersen on Wikimedia

4. Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was a philosopher and statesman who was a proponent of the scientific method. He contracted pneumonia while experimenting with the effects of freezing a chicken.

Paul van Somer I on Wikimedia

5. Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully was King Louis XIV's composer. He accidentally impaled his foot with his conducting staff in a particularly passionate moment during a performance. The foot became gangrenous and he died. 

Chabert on Wikimedia

6. Molière

It's perhaps only fitting that this famous French playwright died after giving an especially realistic performance in one of his own plays. He collapsed on stage but, like a true actor, insisted the show must go on, and he died two hours later from a tuberculosis complication.

Pyb on Wikimedia

7. King Adolf Frederick of Sweden

King Adolf Frederick of Sweden's death was the result of a much too indulgent feast. Known as the "king who ate himself to death," he consumed copious amounts of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring, and a sweet but called semla which proved to be more than his body could take.

Gustaf Lundberg / Jakob Björck on Wikimedia

8. Li Po

Li Po was a renowned poet during China's Tang Dynasty. A lover of wine, he died from drowning when he fell off a boat, drunk. He was reportedly trying to embrace the reflection of the moon on the Yangtze River which seems fittingly poetic. 

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9. Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan was an American dancer and pioneer of modern contemporary dance. She died by strangulation when her scarf became entangled in the wheels of the car she was riding in. 

George Grantham Bain Collection on Wikimedia

10. Grigori Rasputin

Grigori Rasputin, the Romanov family's infamous advisor had a particularly weird death at the hands of Russian noble conspirators. His autopsy revealed that he was poisoned, then shot repeatedly, bludgeoned, and finally thrown into the river where still alive, he drowned.

Karl Bulla on Wikimedia

11. Bobby Leach

Bobby Leach was a daredevil who spent his life doing crazy stunts, most notably, he went over the Niagara River in a barrel. Ironically, he didn't die doing any dangerous stunt, but by slipping on an orange peel. He suffered a broken leg which became infected and needed to be amputated which caused his death. 

Library and Archives Canada on Wikimedia

12. Harry Houdini

The legendary escape artist, Harry Houdini, was accustomed to putting himself in all sorts of dangerous situations, but it was a simple punch to the stomach that led to his end. One of his students administered the hit, wanting to test if Houdini could really withstand the blow. Houdini wasn't prepared for it and it ruptured his appendix.

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13. Jack Daniel

Perhaps fittingly, Jack Daniel of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey died from being too much of a hot head. In a moment of frustration, he kicked his safe when he couldn't remember the combination, and his injured toe became fatally infected.  

Unknown author on Wikimedia

14. Christine of France

Christine of France was the daughter of King Henry IV. She died after taking a lethal gulp of a potent herbal alcohol called "eau de carmes" mistaking it for water.

Francesco Cairo on Wikimedia

15. Chrysippus

Chrysippus was a Stoic philosopher who, in a very unstoic moment, died of laughter. He saw his donkey eating some figs and for whatever reason that tickled him so much that he literally couldn't stop laughing, even to breathe.

Copy of Euboulides on Wikimedia

16. King Alexander of Greece

King Alexander of Greece ruled from 1917 only until he died in 1920. While roaming the castle grounds, he noticed a fight taking place between his dog and the estate's domesticated Barbary ape and went to break it up, while doing so, another monkey came out of nowhere and bit him deeply. His wounds were cleaned and bandaged at once but even so, he contracted sepsis and died soon after.

Charles Chusseau-Flaviens on Wikimedia

17. Clement Vallandigham

Clement Vallandigham was a 19th-century American lawyer who met his end in a dramatic court scene when taking one of his cases a little too seriously. He wanted to prove that his client who was accused of shooting another man to death in a bar fight was innocent and that the other man had in fact shot himself. To demonstrate, he prepared a pistol as he imagined the man who shot himself had, but instead of being handed an unloaded one, he was given the real one which he had prepared as evidence, and fired it, accidentally killing himself.

Mathew Benjamin Brady on Wikimedia

18. Duke Jing of Jin

After having a disturbing dream about an evil spirit, Duke Jing who ruled the Jin state in the 6th century BC consulted a shaman who predicted the duke would not live to see the wheat harvest. Months later, Duke Jing was presented with the newly harvested wheat which he rubbed in the face of the shaman before having him executed for being incorrect. However, before partaking in the harvest celebrations, the duke went to use the bathroom, fell into the toilet, and died before being able to taste any of the newly harvested wheat.

Unknown Chinese artist on Wikimedia

19. Edward II of England 

Edward II of England's story was full of humiliating defeats. He was king until he was forced to abdicate the throne to his 14-year-old son after being defeated by Robert the Bruce and overthrown by his wife in favor of their son. He was then imprisoned where he was allegedly gruesomely murdered by having a red-hot poker stabbed into his bum, supposedly to avoid noticeable signs of violence.

Founder of Oriel College on Wikimedia

20. Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton, a well-known spy, died not from one of his risky undercover jobs, but from an unfortunate incident involving his wife's poodle. He was taking the dog for a walk when it tangled its leash around his leg, tripping him. As he fell, he severely bit his tongue, and the bite became fatally infected. 

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