When Luck Took an Indefinite Holiday

Some people get dealt bad hands. Others seem personally singled out by misfortune as if fate itself had a vendetta against them. The stories that follow aren’t about people who made terrible decisions—though some certainly did—they’re about individuals whose lives demonstrate that sometimes destiny picks someone to absolutely pummel. We’re talking multiple disasters, impossibly bad timing, and the kind of cosmic irony that would seem too heavy-handed in fiction. Here are twenty of the unluckiest people in history.

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1. Violet Jessop

She survived three separate ship disasters. First was the Olympic collision in 1911, next was the Titanic sinking in 1912, and finally the Britannic torpedoing in 1916. She worked as a stewardess and nurse on all three vessels. Most people don’t experience one maritime catastrophe in a lifetime, but she managed three before age 29.

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2. Tsutomu Yamaguchi

He was in Hiroshima on business August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb exploded. He inexplicably survived and managed to drag himself to the train station despite severe burns, then returned home to Nagasaki. On August 9, he reported to work and the second bomb fell. He not only survived, but lived until 2010.

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3. Roy Sullivan

He was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977. As a park ranger in Shenandoah National Park, he spent considerable time outdoors, which partially explains the odds. The National Weather Service estimates the lifetime odds of being struck once at roughly 1 in 15,300. Being struck seven times is astronomically improbable.

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4. Frane Selak

He experienced seven near-death transportation accidents. In 1962, he was aboard a train that derailed into an icy river. The following year, his plane’s door blew open mid-flight. A few years later, in 1966, his bus crashed into a river. Twice, his car caught fire. Once, he was hit by a bus and driven off a cliff. Then, in a dramatic reversal of fortunes, he won $1 million in the lottery in 2003.

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5. Ann Hodges

She remains the only confirmed person hit by a meteorite. On November 30, 1954, she was napping on her couch when an 8.5-pound chunk of rock smashed through her roof, bounced off a radio, and slammed into her hip. The bruising was spectacular. The legal battle over who owned the meteorite—her or her landlord—lasted for years.

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6. Adolphe Sax

The man who invented the saxophone survived multiple childhood accidents that should’ve killed him. He once fell down three flights of stairs. On another occasion, he drank sulfuric acid, thinking it was milk. Despite the odds against him, he lived to 79.

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7. Henry Ziegland

In 1883, he broke up with his girlfriend, who then killed herself. Her brother came after Ziegland with a gun, shot him, and believing he’d succeeded, turned the gun on himself. Yet the bullet had only grazed Ziegland’s face and lodged in a tree. Twenty years later, he tried to remove that same tree with dynamite. The explosion dislodged the bullet, which struck him in the head, killing him instantly.

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8. Archduke Franz Ferdinand

He survived a bombing on June 28, 1914, when the assassin threw a grenade at his motorcade that bounced off. Ferdinand continued to his scheduled event. His driver took a wrong turn, bringing him right in front of Gavrilo Princip, a conspirator who’d given up and gone for a sandwich. Princip shot him and his wife, ushering in WWI.

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9. Francisco de Miranda

This Venezuelan revolutionary spent time in prison on three continents. He not only fought in the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and multiple South American independence wars, but was also imprisoned by the French, the Spanish, and his own revolutionary allies, ultimately dying in a prison cell.

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10. John Kendrick

This American sea captain died when British ships fired a ceremonial salute in 1794, forgetting to remove the cannonballs. One struck his ship in Honolulu Harbor, killing him in what may very well be history’s most awkward friendly-fire incident.

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11. King Béla I of Hungary

This monarch died when his throne collapsed in 1063. The heavy wooden canopy above his seat fell on him, killing him instantly.

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12. Terry Kath

This guitarist for the band Chicago accidentally shot himself in 1978. He was playing with a gun he thought was unloaded, put it to his head, and said, “What do you think I’m gonna do? Blow my brains out?” Then he did exactly that.

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13. Bobby Leach

This daredevil survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1911, breaking both kneecaps and his jaw in the process. Fifteen years later, he slipped on an orange peel in New Zealand. The resulting leg injury developed complications, and he ultimately died from them.

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14. Claude Volter

This French actor dropped dead during a stage performance of a play about a man who drops dead from a heart attack. The audience thought it was part of the show until the curtain failed to come down.

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15. Aeschylus

This ancient Greek playwright supposedly died when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, apparently mistaking it for a rock. Whether this actually happened remains disputed, though Pliny the Elder later wrote about it as fact.

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16. Sherwood Anderson

This writer died from peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick at a party in 1941. He had survived World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, and the Great Depression, yet was undone by a cocktail garnish that punctured his intestine.

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17. Hans Steininger

This 16th-century Austrian mayor died when he tripped over his own impressively long beard during a fire. Normally he kept it rolled up, but the emergency made him forget. He fell down the stairs and broke his neck.

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18. Horace Wells

He pioneered anesthesia in dentistry, but after a failed demonstration, his reputation collapsed. He became addicted to chloroform, suffered a psychotic episode, was arrested for assault, and died by suicide in jail in 1848. His contributions were only acknowledged by the medical establishment years later, after his death.

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19. General John Sedgwick

His reputed last words at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, 1864, were, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” On cue, a Confederate sharpshooter immediately shot him below the left eye.

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20. Joseph Avenol

He headed the League of Nations from 1933 to 1940, and his entire tenure involved watching the organization fail to prevent World War II. Sometimes the unluckiest fate is leading a system remembered only for collapsing at the worst possible moment.

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