# Who famously died while you were in utero? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2016, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158 "2016-04-04T09:41:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/1 "2016-04-04T09:41:03Z")
I was \*in utero \*for the first nine months of 1945. During that time the following people died: Anne Frank Franklin D. Roosevelt Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler & Eva Braun Joseph Goebbels Robert H. Goddard And a whole lot of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/2 "2016-04-04T11:01:30Z")
**Lenny Bruce** , who made his last joke when I was in utero. **Russell Crouse** , probably missed me by a few days, but there’s a slim chance. **Walt Disney** , who died just three weeks before I was born. **Bobby Fuller** , who died under mysterious circumstances. **Margaret Sanger** was still alive when I was conceived, but didn’t make it to my birth. I may or may not have been a tiny blastocyst when\*\* Evelyn Waugh\*\* died. **Clifton Webb** , who was born in Indianapolis. **Charles Whitman** who was shot down in a clock tower in Texas while I was in utero. And a lot of people in Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/3 "2016-04-04T11:11:55Z")
I was born in February of 1958. In November 1957, Aro was executed in Papua, New Guinea. [QUOTE=Wikipedia] Aro (known only by that name) was the last person executed in Papua New Guinea.[1] In 1957, while Papua New Guinea was an Australian territory, Aro, then a young man, walked into a hospital “carrying a baby and a blood-stained axe” and stated that he had killed his two wives.[1] He was convicted of willful murder, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in November 1957.[1] There were no further executions. The death penalty was abolished in 1970, five years before Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia. It was reintroduced in 1991, but never applied.[1] [/QUOTE] Oddly, I have no recollection of this historic event. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/4 "2016-04-04T11:34:06Z")
Born in September '73, so deaths between December '72 and Sept '73: Harry S Truman Lyndon Johnson Pearl S. Buck Bruce Lee Eddie Rickenbacker Rudolph Hess J.R.R. Tolkien ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/5 "2016-04-04T12:20:50Z")
Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977. I was born on August 21, 1977. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/6 "2016-04-04T12:51:21Z")
Clarence Darrow, Thomas Wolfe, and 47 people on a train on a washed out bridge in southeastern Montana. And anybody who died of fright from the panic over Orson Welles’ radio drama “War of the Worlds”. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/7 "2016-04-04T12:59:28Z")
> [@Lsura](#): > > Born in September '73, so deaths between December '72 and Sept '73: > > Harry S Truman > Lyndon Johnson > Pearl S. Buck > Bruce Lee > Eddie Rickenbacker > Rudolph Hess > J.R.R. Tolkien Hess died in 1987 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/8 "2016-04-04T13:11:12Z")
Sir Winston Churchill. Knew that without having to look it up. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/9 "2016-04-04T13:23:05Z")
Let’s see… J. Edgar Hoover is probably the most famous, dying about halfway through my gestation. Other than him, there was Dan Blocker (“Hoss” on Bonanza), the Israeli athletes murdered in Munich, King Talal of Jordan, King Frederick IX of Denmark, and Walter Winchell (the gossip columnist). (I was born in September 1972, so I was in utero for the first 3/4 of 1972, more or less) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/10 "2016-04-04T13:48:51Z")
Best. Alibi. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/11 "2016-04-04T13:49:37Z")
The names that jumped out at me, September 1970 - June 1971: Janis Joplin Charles de Gaulle Bill W. Philo T. Farnsworth ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/12 "2016-04-04T13:56:34Z")
Gary Cooper Clark Gable Patrice Lumumba Zog I of Albania Muhammad V of Morocco very deservingly (but too late), Rafael Trujillo ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/13 "2016-04-04T13:58:59Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977. I was born on August 21, 1977. I was born October 14, 1977. Joan Crawford - May 10 Wernher von Braun - June 16 Groucho Marx - August 19 Bing Crosby - October 14 ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/14 "2016-04-04T14:03:38Z")
Cole Porter Sam Cooke Winston Churchill Nat King Cole Malcom X Trigger (Roy Roger’s horse) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/15 "2016-04-04T14:10:39Z")
Jimmie Lunceford Fiorello LaGuardia Raoul Wallenberg (officially, but I believe there is more than a lot of doubt about really happened to him) Max Planck Baroness Orczy (who wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel) Ernst Lubitsch Sergei Eisenstein Richard Tauber Jan Masaryk Zelda Fitzgerald ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/16 "2016-04-04T14:42:27Z")
I was just a few cells when Valentin Bondarenko burned to death in a 15-day endurance experiment in a low pressure altitude chamber. Gary Cooper Carl Jung Ernest Hemingway Ty Cobb Dag Hammarskjöld Chico Marx James Thurber 14 Americans and 176 Cubans the Bay of Pigs. Wolfgang von Trips and 14 spectators at the Italian Grand Prix. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/17 "2016-04-04T14:58:48Z")
Nov. 1970, which means these people kicked it while I was in the womb: Jimi Hendrix Janis Joplin Charles de Gaulle Vince Lombardi John Scopes Famed filmmaker Abraham Zapruder Gypsy Rose Lee Erle Stanley Gardner E.M. Forster ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/18 "2016-04-04T15:06:09Z")
I apparently was born a few weeks before 74westy. Ty Cobb Gary Cooper Dag Hammarskjold Ernest Hemingway Carl Jung Chico Marx ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/19 "2016-04-04T15:14:52Z")
Born March 1978: Vladimir Nabokov Elvis Presley Groucho Marx Bing Crosby Hubert Humphrey Actor John Cazale died on my birthday. I am the reincarnation of Fredo Corleone! ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158/20 "2016-04-04T15:29:50Z")
Those who shuffled off this mortal coil whilst I was baking in the maternal oven: Albert Einstein James Dean Cy Young Charlie “Bird” Parker James Mann Dale Carnegie James Agee [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-famously-died-while-you-were-in-utero/751158.md?page=2)