Very funny. And, highly appropriate, coming from someone called Mangetout.
The story of Rasputin’s assassination is a personal favorite. It has it all: failed poisoning, failed shooting, crossdressers…
The funniest class lecture I ever sat through was the one where our Russian History prof described the events surrounding his death.
I don’t have a site for this and it sounds like it could be BS. I read this in a Reader’s Digest book “Mysteries of the Unexplained” under the section “Coincidence”.
In the 1700’s there was a guy who shot and killed another guy in a duel. Fragments of the bullet lodged in a tree nearby. 20 years or so later, the first guy was trying to cut the tree down, and ended up using gunpowder to get rid of the tree. When he set off the charge the fragment was expelled at high velocity and went right through his eye socket, killing him.
Like I said, sounds like BS to me but it’s a pretty good story.
Lupe Velez’s? Don’t know about that…
Off to Google!
How about the death of actor Vic Morrow while filming a scene for Twilight Zone: The Movie? He was filming a scene for his Vietnam sequence. John Landis, the director, told the helecoptor above to go lower and lower. It went so low that it lost control, crushed to death one of the Korean children in the scene and decapitated both Morrow and the other child.
Oops. helicopter. Not helecoptor
Spottselvania, during the waning years of the Late Unplesantness. Union troops are cowering behind breastworks under sporatic fire from their Rebel counterparts. General John Sedgewick rides up and lambastes them for cowardace, saying “Nonsense! They couldn’t hit an elephant at that dis—” His statement is cut short as a minni ball takes him in the head, ending his life.
Director Boris Sagal, father of “Peg Bundy,” died from injuries he received after walking into the tail rotor of a helicopter during the filming of the TV movie “World War III.”
Let’s not forget Tycho Brahe, who died of complications from a burst bladder after he was too courteous to leave the table during dinner
i have no cites on this whatever. story was from someone i worked with many years back, who had a hobby of collecting bizarre death stories.
the tale, as i heard it, had some man deciding on suicide and picking a particularly nasty way to do it. after dumping gasoline over himself, he lit a match. the obvious result apparently changed his mind about the whole deal, however, and he frantically began rolling about on the ground in an attempt to put out the flames. he managed to roll off the edge of some sort of cliff. the impact proved fatal.
believe it or don’t.
lachesis
I’m not sure how amusimg recent deaths are but reading the Nation (I’m sure all dopers read Kenya’s leading daily) I came across this:
What’s even weirder is that being blown to bits didn’t stop him from coming in 19th in the 2001 Breast Stroke competition in some town in Denmark!
So, in short, I call bullshit on this one as well. 
That’s not so bizarre, he ate it with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. It’s practically a tradition.
Damn Tapioca, you beat me to it.
What some folks won’t do for $13!
Wait, the link’s not working, try this one-
Close to home there’s an overpass with a median between the two directions. And there’s a 100 metre stretch where there’s actually a gap between the two medians, and a 22 metre fall to the creek below. (Why they did this, I don’t know.)
In the past year two unfortunates have stopped on the highway at this particular point, and fallen through the gap to their deaths. One guy was looking for a place to take a leak-- the other was crossing the highway in the middle of the night.
Lesbos, a large island in the Grecian archipelago, was indeed the inspiration for the term Lesbian (incidentally, its inhabitants now prefer to be known as Lesbosians). It was ruled from 1355 to 1462 by the Genovese Gattilusio family. Prince Dorino I, a son of the aforementioned unfortunate Francesco, died in 1455 and left Lesbos to his eldest son, Domenico. A few years later Domenico was strangled by his younger brother, Niccolo, who reigned as Prince until Mehmed the Conqueror’s Turkish fleet sailed into the capital’s harbor, slaughtered most of the Lesbosians, and took control of the island. Niccolo was strangled in much the same manner as his brother. Oddly fitting, no? Their sister Maria ended up in Mehmed’s harem and was never heard from again.
It’s not understandable if Baydara was deeply and personally attached to that liver!
Another bizarre death: Fulk Nerra, Comte de Anjou, married his first cousin Élisabeth de Vendôme. In December 999 he caught her “in flagrante” with a goatherd in their castle, and in her panic to escape, Élisabeth lept out the window. However, she landed in the moat and survived! Fulk Nerra had her fished out, dressed her in her wedding gown, and boiled her alive.
In penance for his terrible acts, Fulk Nerra made two pilgrimages to Jerusalem, where he ran through the streets naked while two servants flogged him, screaming for God to forgive him. By all accounts he had a lot to atone for – he locked his son in a dog kennel, murdered priests, and burned churchs. There was also a disturbing rumor that his mother was actually his sister.
And people think history is boring!
.:Nichol:.
I think it was a Stuart who died “while eating peaches and cider”. For some reason I cracked up when I read that. It was either James I, II, or Charles II. Or Cromwell. Whatever.
In an issue of either American Heritage or Smithsonian several years back, it was asserted that Lincoln also died largely as a result of bad medical practices.
Booth’s derringer was not very powerful (its muzzle velocity was comparable to modern paintball guns). The bullet punched a neat hole in Lincoln’s skull and penetrated a few inches into his brain, leaving the little plug of bone behind it in the channel. Based on descriptions and sketches done by the physicians at the time, the forensic scientists consulted for the article asserted that the Lincoln might have survived a wound of that depth to that part of his brain, albeit probably with significant speech and/or physical imparement. However, in the fashion of the time, practically every visitor poked his finger into the wound trying to find the bullet. This caused more extensive and prolonged bleeding than would have been the case if it had been left alone, and was probably the proximate cause of Lincoln’s death.
The article further asserted that modern medical technology could likely have saved every assassinated president except Kennedy.
Umbriel, that is a cool story! I heard that one, too. It was on Modern Forensic Files.
I personally know no bizarre death stories, but at least we’ve got Cecil around to clarify things for us. I am referring to the story of Catherine the Great and the horse.
That one, if true, which it isn’t, would take the cake for the worst.
I do know of one genuine bizarre death in the Chicago area. I don’t have a cite for it, but it got a lot of press and perhaps some Chicago Dopers can back me up on this. It was several years ago.
An idiot who had a bad bowling night was so disgusted the he? she? threw the ball out the car window on the way home after the game.
It rolled down an embankment, off a highway overpass, through the windshield of a car passing beneath, and instantly killed the passenger.
The guilt ridden bowler surrendered to the cops a week or so later, even though the cops had no odea who did it.