a list of unusual deaths

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history, some deaths are mythological or considered to be unsubstantiated by contemporary researchers

Antiquity

The tragedian Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped from a height by an eagle.

Note: Many of these stories are likely to be apocryphal.

• c. 620 BC: Draco, Athenian law-maker, was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina.
• 564 BC: Arrhichion of Phigalia, Greek pankratiast, caused his own death in order to win the Olympic finals. Held by his unidentified opponent in a stranglehold and unable to free himself, Arrichion's trainer shouted "What a fine funeral if you do not submit at Olympia!" Arrichion then kicked his opponent with his right foot while casting his body to the left, causing his opponent so much pain that he made the sign of defeat to the umpires, while at the same time breaking Arrichion's own neck as the other fighter was still strangleholding him. Since the opponent had conceded defeat, Arrichion was proclaimed victor posthumously.
• 455 BC: Aeschylus, the great Athenian author of tragedies. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle that had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avert a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object.
• 401 BC: Mithridates, a soldier condemned for the murder of Cyrus the Younger, was executed by scaphism, surviving the insect torture for 17 days.
• 270 BC: Philitas of Cos, Greek intellectual, is said by Athenaeus to have studied arguments and erroneous word usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death. British classicist Alan Cameron speculates that Philitas died from a wasting disease which his contemporaries joked was caused by his pedantry.
• 210 BC: Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, died after ingesting several pills of mercury in the belief that it would grant him eternal life.
• 162 BC: Eleazar Maccabeus was crushed to death at the Battle of Beth Zechariah by a war elephant that he believed to be carrying Seleucid King Antiochus V. Charging into battle, Eleazar rushed underneath the elephant and thrust a spear into its belly, whereupon it fell dead on top of him.
• c. 98: Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamon, was roasted to death in a brazen bull during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian. Saint Eustace, his wife and children supposedly suffered a similar fate under Hadrian.
• 212: Lucius Fabius Cilo, a Roman senator of the 2nd century, "...choked...by a single hair in a draught of milk".
• 258: According to tradition, Saint Lawrence of Rome was roasted alive on a giant grill, during the persecution of Valerian.
• 336: Arius, presbyter of Alexandria, is said to have died of sudden diarrhea followed by copious hemorrhaging and anal expulsion of the intestines while he walked across the imperial forum in Constantinople. He may have been poisoned.
• 415: Hypatia of Alexandria, Greek mathematician, philosopher and last librarian of the Library of Alexandria, was murdered by a Christian mob that ripped off her skin with sharp seashells. Various types of shells have been named, including clams, oysters and abalones. Other sources claim tiles or pottery shards were used.

Middle Ages

An illustration of Charles II of Navarre, burned alive when brandy-soaked bandages, in which he was wrapped, were set on fire.

• 762: Li Po (Li Bai), Chinese poet and courtier, supposedly tried to kiss the reflection of the Moon beside the boat in which he was travelling, fell overboard and drowned.
• 892: Sigurd the Mighty of Orkney strapped the head of his defeated foe, Máel Brigte, to his horse's saddle. The teeth of the head grazed against his leg as he rode, causing a fatal infection. 
•  1063: Béla I of Hungary died when his wooden throne collapsed upon him.
• 1131: Crown Prince Philip of France died while riding through Paris, when his horse tripped over a black pig running out of a dung heap.
• 1219: Inalchuq, the Muslim governor of the city of Otrar in Central Asia, was ordered to be executed by Genghis Khan by pouring molten silver in his eyes and ears in vengeance for his execution of Mongol traders the year before.
• 1258: Al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, was executed by his Mongol captors by being rolled up in a rug and then trampled by horses.
• 1327: Edward II of England, after being deposed and imprisoned by his wife Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, was rumoured to have been murdered by having a horn pushed into his anus through which a red-hot iron was inserted, burning out his internal organs without marking his body. However, as Seymour Phillips observes in his recent biography of the king, there is no real academic consensus on the manner of Edward II's death and it has been plausibly argued (for example, by Ian Mortimer) that the story is effectively propaganda.
• 1387: Charles II of Navarre, after having been wrapped in bandages soaked in brandy in an attempt to cure an illness, was burned alive when a servant accidentally set the bandages on fire.
• 1410: Martin of Aragon died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing.
• 1478: George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, was executed by drowning in a barrel of Malmsey wine at his own request.

Renaissance

Pietro Aretino, who died from uncontrollable laughter

• 1518: In the Dancing Plague of 1518 a woman (and eventually a league of 400 people) uncontrollably danced for a month causing dozens of participants to die of stroke and exhaustion. The reason for this occurrence is still unclear.
• 1552: Henry Pert a gentleman, of Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, died when he stretched his bow to its full extent and the arrow got lodged. While he was leaning over to look at it, the arrow released.
• 1556: Pietro Aretino, an Italian poet, satirist and pornographer, is said to have died by suffocation caused by uncontrollable laughter.
• 1567: Hans Steininger, the burgomaster of Brunau, Austria, died when he broke his neck by tripping over his own beard. The beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.
• 1667: James Betts died from asphyxiation after being sealed in a cupboard by Elizabeth Spencer, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in an attempt to hide him from her father, John Spencer.

18th century

Crown Prince Sado was sealed alive in a rice chest to prevent him inheriting the throne of Korea.

• 1755: Henry Hall died from injuries he sustained after molten lead fell into his throat while he was looking up at a burning lighthouse.

• 1762: Crown Prince Sado, then-heir to King Yeongjo of Joseon, was ordered to be sealed alive in a rice chest after his father decided he was unfit to succeed him.

• 1771: Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, died of digestion problems on 12 February 1771 after having consumed a meal of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: hetvägg served in a bowl of hot milk.
• He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as "the king who ate himself to death."

• 1783: James Otis, Jr., the American Revolutionary, "often mentioned to friends and relatives that ... he hoped his death would come from a bolt of lightning." His hope was fulfilled on 23 May 1783 when lightning struck the chimney of a friend's house in whose doorway he was standing.

• 1794: John Kendrick, an American sea captain and explorer, was killed in the Hawaiian Islands when a fellow trading ship mistakenly used a loaded cannon to fire a salute to Kendrick's vessel.