DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that Wikipedia maintains a list of unusual deaths? The list is ordered chronologically. Some of the oldest entries probably are either outright lies or at the very least stretch the truth considerably. The more recent ones are much more valid. Did you know that throughout the centuries, people have supposedly died from laughing? Some of the more interesting demises are as follows:

“1322: Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford was fatally speared through the anus by a pikeman hiding under the bridge during the Battle of Boroughbridge.”

“1514: György Dózsa, Székely man-at-arms and peasants’ revolt leader in Hungary, was condemned to sit on a red-hot iron throne with a red-hot iron crown on his head and a red-hot sceptre in his hand (mocking at his ambition to be king), by Hungarian landed nobility in Transylvania. While Dózsa was still alive, he was set upon and his partially roasted body was eaten by six of his fellow rebels, who had been starved for a week beforehand.”

“1862: Jim Creighton, baseball player, died when he swung a bat too hard and ruptured his bladder.”

“1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, Nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night in apparent terror, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six of the hikers died of hypothermia and three by unexplained fatal injuries. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, one victim had a fatal skull fracture, two had major chest fractures (comparable in force to a car accident), and one was missing her tongue. The victims’ clothing also contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that “a compelling unknown force” had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter.”