Unhappy Endings - Death
Straining to relieve constipation, George II fell off the toilet and smashed his head on a cabinet. He died from his injuries.
Ken Barger, 47, of Newton, North Carolina, accidentally shot himself dead in 1992 while answering the phone in the middle of the night. He went to pick up the phone beside his bed, but half asleep, grabbed his .38 Smith and Wesson special instead. The gun went off when he pulled it to his ear.
King Charles VIII of France died as a result of his gallantry. On entering a tennis court in 1498, hw bowed to his wife and allowed her to proceed first. As he brought his head up, it crashed against a low wooden beam, fracturing his skull and killing him.
Canadian lawyer Garry Hoy fell 24 storeys to his death while attempting to demonstrate the safety of a building’s windows. Hoy was showing visiting law students around Toronto’s Dominion Bank Tower. To illustrate how strong the windows were, he barged into a pane with his shoulder. The window gave way and Hoy ended up in the courtyard below. He was described by the head of his legal firm as “one of the nest and brightest” members.
Isabelle, daughter of Charles VI of France, was a widow at the age of ten. She was only seven when she married England’s 29-year-old King Richard II in 1396, and he died just over three years later.
Alexandros I of Greece died in 1920 from blood poisoning after being bitten by his pet monkey.
Nicholas Breakspear who, as Adrian IV became the only English Pope, choked to death on a fly he’d accidentally swallowed.
King Alexander III of Scotland died when his horse jumped over a cliff while they were out riding at night.
The son of George II, Prince Frederick, should have succeeded him as king. But Frederick was hit by a cricket ball and died in 1715.
The first person to die of radiation poisoning was Madame Curie, discoverer of radium. She took not precautions against radioactivity and, even now, nearly 70 years on, her notebooks are still too contaminated to handle.
Escapologist Harry Houdini boasted that his stomach could withstand any blow. But one day a fan punched him without warning. Houdini collapsed in agony, having suffered an internal rupture. He died shortly afterwards.
Six people drowned in Southern Egypt in 1997 while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a 60ft. well. An 18-year-old farmer was the first to go in after the chicken, but drowned in the strong undercurrents. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Finally two elderly farmers went to help, but met a similar fate. After the six bodies were pulled from the well, the chicken was also brought out … alive.
In 1985, New Orleans lifeguards threw a party to celebrate a season without any drownings. As the party came to an end, one of the guests was found dead at the bottom of the pool.
American Jim Fixx, the man who started the trend of jogging, died of a heart attack while out jogging.
Viscount Palmerston died from a heart attack while having se with a parlour maid on his private billiard table.
A guard in a US armoured van was killed in 1986 when $50,000 worth of quarters fell on him.
James II of Scotland was attacking Roxburgh when one of his own cannon exploded and killed.
The Earl of Morton was beheaded by the very guillotine which he had introduced into Scotland.
Attila the Hun had a dozen wives but the last proved one too many. For he burst an artery and died while enjoying rampant sex with her on their wedding night.
In 1957, King Haakon VII of Norway slipped on the soap in his marble bath and struck his head fatally on one of the taps.
Napoleon’s stomach finished up in a silver pepper pot. His shrivelled penis went on sale at a London auction room, but failed to reach its reserve price.
Michael Anderson Godwin spent years awaiting the electric chair In South Carolina before finally his sentence for murder commuted to life imprisonment. Then in March 1989, while sitting on the metal toilet in his cell, he tried to fix his portable TV set. He bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
