Amazing Death Trivia

Jerome Rodale, who founded The Rodale Press publishing house, was taping an interview on the Dick Cavett Talk show. He was bragging about how he was so healthy he'd live to be 100 when he slumped over, dead from a heart attack. The show was never broadcast to the public because it'd be kinda funny.

Pope Johann XII died at age 18 after being beaten to death by his lover's husband.

Jim Fixx, who wrote "The Complete Book of Running" and lectured about how running and a healthy diet would promote longevity, dropped dead from a heart attack while running. An autopsy revealed he had 3 massively blocked heart arteries.

In ancient Japan, it was thought that somewhere on the tail of a cat there was a single hair that would restore life to a dying person. Relatives would sometimes bring a cat to the dying person, letting them pluck a hair to try their luck. So they'd die anyway, but with a cat swatting their face with their claws...

It's impossible to kill yourself by holding your breath, so if a kid pulls that on you, say, "That's nice, dear. Go right ahead.."

Cosmic Irony - The person who wrote the famous song, "Keep the Home Fires Burning" burnt to death when their home caught fire.

In 1970, television newsman Chris Hubbock announced, "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of always bringing you the latest in gore and guts in living color, you're about to see another first - an attempted suicide". Then she pulled out a gun and fatally shot herself in the head.

Eric II, King of Denmark, died in 1104. He was known as Eric the Memorable. No one remembers why...

Nosophilia refers to those who get sexually aroused by the knowledge that a partner is terminally ill. They will even stake out support groups for those with terminal illness like others flock to dating services, pretending to have had a family member or friend that passed from the disease, which is why they're there "trying to learn". . Oh, so that's why they're so attentive and understanding!

Napoleon killed over a thousand people with a cough. In 1799 he was deciding whether to release 1,200 Turkish prisoners of war when he coughed and said, "Ma sacré toux!" (my darned cough) which sounded to officers like "Massacrez tous!" (Kill them all!). So they did.

Paul Revere was the fist person to ever identify a body by dental records. He recognized the dead man because of work he had done joining two teeth together with silver wire.

The most expensive funeral so far was that of Alexander the Great. It'd cost about $600,000,000 in today's money. One of the reasons was the building of a road from Babylon to Alexandria, big enough move a jewel studded hearse the size of a small building which was pulled by 64 horses. .

The French playwright Molière became sick and died while playing the role of a hypochondriac in his play "The Imaginary Invalid".

Necrosadism is sadistic acts on corpses for sexual arousal. Jeffrey Dahmer as well as most serial killers do this.

Mummies were so plentiful when first discovered that they were ground up and sold as fertilizer and put into medicines.

Mysophilia is the practice of ingesting the body fluids of corpses, particularly urine.

A few months before he got killed in a car accident, James Dean made a driver's safety TV ad in which he said, "Drive safely; the life you save may be mine".

Elvis and Charles Schultz were the #1 and #2 money earning dead people in 2002. Elvis made $31 million; Schultz made $9 million

Playwright Tennessee Williams died after choking on the cap of a bottle of eyedrops (one man wrote me to say he knew a woman who knew TW personally and that it had been an aspirin bottle cap). He was a habitual pill-taker and drunk, and in an impaired state he put the cap in his mouth, mistaking it for another pill. It got stuck; The End.

Mark Twain, born on a year Halley's Comet visited us, correctly predicted he would die the next time it came by.

It is a myth that the hair and nails grow after death ;the skin shrinks, giving the illusion of their growth.

Crematoria ovens heat typically to 1,100-1,300 F and will burn up a 180 lb. man in about an hour and a half. There's always bones and chunks left; everything is then ground up and those are the 'ashes' you get back.

The Cunard Line, which owns the Queen Elizabeth II, has a service by which relatives can book passage for deceased if they want to be buried at sea. Here in Chicago we just put them in a sack and throw them in the river. Much cheaper :)

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is the first person to have their ashes put aboard a rocket and "buried" in space.

The word 'mausoleum' comes from the memorial tomb of Mausolus, ruler of Caria, who died in 353 B.C. When he died his wife had him cremated, mixed his ashes with water, and drank him. Cheers!