Sometimes the circumstances of a famous person’s death are as interesting as their lives. Take these folks, for example.
Claim to Fame: Founder of Buddhism
How He Died: From indigestion, following a meal of spicy foods
Postmortem: Like many spiritual people who search for enlightenment, Prince Siddhartha Gautama hoped to find it by fasting, eating only mosses and roots. When that didn’t work, he went back to eating a normal diet…and soon acquired the huge belly that became as famous as the religion he founded.
He also acquired what modern historians believe were ulcers—he suffered terrible stomach and intestinal pains—and they caught up with him in 483 B.C. when he sat down to a lavish meal of sukara-maddava ( spicy pork) in the village of Pava, India. While eating, Gautama suffered an attack of stomach pain so severe that he wasn’t able to finish the meal. He and his followers promptly left the banquet and began walking to the village of Kusinara. Along the way, Gautama collapsed from dehydration and may have worsened his condition by drinking tainted water. By the time he arrived at Kusinara, the Buddha—or Enlightened One—was bleeding, vomiting, and near death. Fading in and out of consciousness, he finally passed away after instructing his followers, “Try to accomplish your aim with diligence.” He was 80.
Claim to Fame: Sixth president of the United States
How He Died: Shouting the word “No!”
Postmortem: Adams served as president from 1825 to 1829. In 1831 the ex-president was elected to the House of Representatives. He was still there 17 years later, when the House took up the matter of honoring U.S. Army officers who had fought in the Mexican-American war. Adams was vehemently opposed to the idea.
Having friends for dinner: Jellyfish eat other jellyfish.
When the vote was taken and the House erupted into a chorus of “Ayes” in favor of the idea, Adams stood up and shouted, “No!” Right then and there he suffered a stroke, collapsing into the arms of another congressman. Four of his colleagues carried him out to the capitol rotunda for some air, and he regained consciousness long enough to thank them for their effort. He drifted in and out of consciousness for the next two days before dying on February 23, 1848.
Claim to Fame: William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066, in what became known as the Norman Conquest
How He Died: From a riding injury
Postmortem: In 1087 William and his soldiers attacked the French town of Mantes, destroying an enemy garrison and burning the town to the ground. Rather than waiting for the fires to go out, William decided to survey the ruins while they were still burning. Big mistake—his horse stepped on a hot coal and lurched violently, lifting William up off his saddle and plopping him on top of the pommel, the hard metal protrusion in the front of the saddle. The injury ruptured William’s intestine, causing a severe infection that spread across his entire abdomen. He spent the next five weeks in excruciating pain, finally dying on September 9, 1087.
Claim to Fame: Former First Lady, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
How She Died: From a stroke, possibly the result of medical errors made while she was being treated for anemia
Postmortem: In April 1960, the 75-year-old Mrs. Roosevelt was found to be suffering from aplastic anemia, which means her bone marrow wasn’t producing enough red blood cells. By April 1962, she was also suffering from a shortage of white blood cells and platelets, so doctors prescribed prednisone, a drug that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more blood cells. But prednisone has a side effect: it suppresses the body’s ability to fight off infections.
In August 1962, Mrs. Rooselvelt was back in the hospital, this time with a fever and a cough. Her doctors considered the possibility that she was suffering from tuberculosis, but when a chest X-ray showed no signs of the disease, they declined to do any further tests.
The average American home has 15 cookbooks.
Mrs. Roosevelt was discharged from the hospital…but six weeks later she was back again, this time in even worse shape and still suffering from a “fever of unknown origin.” On September 27, her doctors finally took a bone marrow sample and sent it to a laboratory to test for tuberculosis, a process that takes four to six weeks.
By October 18, Mrs. Roosevelt was so miserable and so convinced her end was near that she had herself discharged so that she could die at home. Her test results came back on October 26: she had tuberculosis…and months of treatment with prednisone had made it impossible for her body to fight it off. Not only had the doctors’ diagnosis been wrong, but the medication was the worst possible thing they could have given her.
Nine days after finally receiving the correct diagnosis, Mrs. Roosevelt, still at home, suffered a stroke and slipped into a coma. She died three days later.
“Charged with murder in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Donald Leroy Evans wanted a little respect. Evans filed a motion which would allow him to wear a Ku Klux Klan robe during his court appearance. The motion also requested that Evans’s name be officially changed on all court documents to ‘the honorable and respected name of Hi Hitler.’ Apparently, Evans thought Hitler’s subjects were chanting ‘Hi Hitler’ instead of ‘Heil, Hitler.’”
—Presumed Ignorant
A man was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday for trying to break into the Rideau Correctional Center. Shane Walker, 23, was believed to be bringing drugs to his friends last week when he was foiled by striking corrections workers who heard bolt-cutters snapping the wire fence and apprehended him.
—National Post
An astronaut orbiting Earth can see as many as 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours.