You can not die by holding your breath. Many children think they can, so when yours next threatens to do so, let them give it their best shot. The worst thing they can expect is a few moments of gasping and a flush in their cheeks. As this will make them look healthy for the next time Social Services drop by unexpectedly, why not let them have repeat attempts?
Isadora Duncan was an American dancer who was hugely popular in France but it was a tragic love affair. First in 1913 her two children were killed when the car that they had been left in, driverless, drove itself in to the river Seine. Then in 1927 she herself had her final brush with death on the French Riviera. Her trademark had been the huge scarves she wore and, unbeknown to her the end of her scarf caught in the wheel of open-topped car. The car swiftly accelerated and Isadora was thrown - or rather pulled - out and hurled to the pavement. Legend has it that she was decapitated - in fact, folks, she was strangled.
Joseph Guillotin invented the Guillotine, right? Wrong! He simply proposed it as a method of execution - clean, swift but nevertheless rather bloody. Your really didn't want to stand directly in front of it as the blade came down on yet another hapless victim. Swift it may have been, but clean? It is also a myth that he died by his own device - that would, essentially, have been too good to be true. The most probable truth of his demise was that he died from a “carbuncle” on his shoulder which turned rather bad.
There are many stories about Abraham Lincoln but none quite as strange as the one which spread after his son, Willie, died. He was so distraught that, unable to come to terms with his son's death, he had his body exhumed not once, but twice. One had always thought that it was the wife who was supposed to be ever so slightly, er, mad. Still, Abe did lots of good stuff and even came back to Planet Earth as JFK, so many would have us believe!
Gene Rodenberry gave the world Star Trek and as such it would not surprise the author that in two thousand years his works and words are revered as holy texts, the cast and crew of The Enterprise as his “disciples”. When he died a capsule the size of a matchbox containing some of his ashes was launched in to space, making him the first person to be “buried” in this way. The capsule was due to circle the earth for six years before it re-entered the atmosphere. A shame, because if in the future clones could be made from ashes, we could have him back for Star Trek: The Ninety Ninth Generation.
Bela Lugosi was best known for playing Dracula on the silver screen. The actor, in later life, came to understand that he would only be remembered for this and while he railed against it, we hope that he came to terms with it finally. Certainly, his decision to be buried in his favorite Dracula cape might intimate that he had, indeed, resigned himself to his claim to fame. Bless.
Something not mentioned in the Bill and Ted adventures, Napoleon, one of our favorite despots, had a terrible cold in the year 1799. He had been asked to decide on the fate of over one thousand Prisoners of War (from Turkey, incidentally). While pondering, Napoleon had something of a coughing fit and exclaimed “Ma sacrē toux!”. This means, roughly translated, “my damn cough, splutter, splutter,”. Unfortunately it also sounds remarkably similar to the French for “massacre them all”. No delight for the Turkish that evening, we assume.
Tut tut, King Tut! Legend has it that the people who opened Tutankhamen's tomb all died swift and horrible deaths as revenge from beyond the grave. Nothing could be so far from the truth. In fact, ten years after the opening of the tomb, only one of the twenty one people present had died. Not much of a curse, then!
Ann Boleyn made a lot of mistakes in her life. Perhaps her greatest was marrying a certain Henry Tudor, otherwise known as Henry VIII, a king who managed to execute over 60,000 of his subjects during his reign. His favorite form of execution was boiling his enemies alive. Shudder! A footnote in history, however, is Ann's little dog, Urian. When she was executed, by beheading, the same fate awaited her poor little pooch. Shame on you Henry!
Mark Twain, the famous American author of “Tom Sawyer” was born in 1835 - when Halley's Comet passed over the earth. The writer steadfastly believed that when it passed again he would slip this mortal coil. Sure enough, the day after the comet passed the earth in 1910, Twain died. Self-fulfilling prophecy or what!
