Duane Allman - musician
1971 --- motorcycle accident.

Sherwood Anderson - writer
1941 --- after swallowing a toothpick at a cocktail party he died of peritonitis on an ocean liner bound for Brazil.

John Jacob Astor
1912 --- drowned with the "unsinkable" Titanic.

Attila the Hun
453 AD --- bled to death from a nosebleed on his wedding night.

Alexander I of Greece - king of the Hellenes 1917–20
1920 --- died October 25, from blood poisoning after being bitten by his gardener's pet monkey.

Aleksandr II (Aleksandr Nikolaevich) - Czar of Russia 1855-81
1881 --- assassinated by a bomb which tore off his legs, ripped open his belly and mutilated his face.

Jane Austen
1817 --- Addison's disease.

Sir Francis Bacon
1626 --- pneumonia. He was experimenting with freezing a chicken by stuffing it with snow.

Lucille Desiree Ball
1989 --- died after undergoing heart surgery.

Velma (Margie) Barfield
1984 --- 1st woman executed in US since restoration of death penalty in 1967. (For poisoning her fiancée.)

Cheri Jo Bates
1966 --- 1st victim of the Zodiac killer. Murdered at Riverside Community College in California, her jugular and larynx were severed.)

Thomas a Becket - Archbishop of Canterbury
1170 --- murdered in the Canterbury cathedral by four knights, supposedly on orders by Henry II.

Ludwig van Beethoven
1827 --- cirrhosis of the liver.

John Belushi
1982 --- drug overdose.

Rainey Bethea
1936 --- the last publicly executed criminal in US. Executed by hanging.

Kimberly Bergalis
1991 --- died of AIDS. She had contracted the disease from her dentist.

Bridget Bishop
1692 --- 1st of the witches hung in Salem, Massachusetts. She was executed on June 10.
(Salem witches: Almost 150 "witches" were arrested, but only 31 were tried in 1692. All 31, including 6 males, were sentenced to death. Nineteen were hanged, 2 died in jail, and 1 man was slowly pressed to death under heavy stones. None were burned.)

Amanda Blake (Beverly Neill) - actress (Miss Kitty on "Gunsmoke")
1989 --- AIDS contracted from her bisexual husband.

Anne Boleyn
1536 --- beheaded for adultery by request of Henry VIII.

Neil Bonnett - race car driver
1994 --- car crash, killed during practice at the Daytona International Speedway.

Salvatore "Sonny" Bono
1998 --- crashed into a tree while skiing.

Ray Brennan
1976 --- on July 27th - 1st person to die of "Legionnaire's Disease."

Charles Brooks, Jr.
1982 --- 1st criminal executed in US by lethal injection.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning - poet
1861 --- acute bronchitis.

Jeff Buckley - musician
1997 --- drowned in the Mississippi River, near Mud Island Harbor, on May 29. His body wasn't found until June 4.

Lord Byron (George Gordon)
1824 --- died of malarial fever.

Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary)
1903 --- pneumonia following a bout of heavy drinking.

Al Capone - Chicago gangster
1947 --- syphilis.

Karen Carpenter - singer
1983 --- heart failure caused by anorexia nervosa, at age 32.

Jack Cassidy - actor
1976 --- died in a fire, while asleep on the couch in his apartment.

Catherine the Great - Empress of Russia
1796 --- a stroke, while going to the bathroom.

Nicolae Ceausescu - Romanian president
1989 --- executed by firing squad, on live television, along with his wife.

Anton Joseph Cermak - mayor of Chicago
1933 --- assassinated by accident when riding with Franklin Roosevelt in motorcade.

Sergei Chalibashvili - diver
1983 --- diving accident. Attempted a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position during the World University Games. On the way down, he smashed his head on the board and was knocked unconscious. He died after being in a coma for a week.

Raymond Johnson Chapman - Cleveland Indians baseball player
1920 --- died one day after being struck in head by baseball pitch, becoming the only player ever killed as result of major league baseball game.

Charles I - English king
1649 --- beheaded by order of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell on January 30.

Conor Clapton - son of musician Eric Clapton
1991 --- fell out of 53rd floor window at the age of 5.

Cleopatra
30 BC --- suicide by poison, supposedly from a venomous snake.

Nat "King" Cole - singer
1965 --- died of complications following surgery for lung cancer.

Christopher Columbus
1506 --- rheumatic heart disease.

Bob Crane - actor
1978 --- murdered in hotel room.

Jim Croce - singer
1973 ---plane crash. The plane crashed into a tree 200 yards past the end of the runway while taking off from Natchitoches, La. Municipal Airport.

Davy Crockett - US frontiersman
1836 --- killed defending the Alamo.
(Actually, Crockett survived the assault along with a few others, but was bayoneted to death by the Mexicans after they took the fort.)

Marie Curie - chemist, discovered Radium
1934 --- leukemia, caused by exposure to radiation.

Jeffrey Dahmer - mass murderer
1994 --- beaten to death with a broomstick by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institute.

James Dean (James Byron)
1955 --- car crash.

Albert Dekker - actor, California legislator
1968 --- suffocated, hanging from shower curtain rod, handcuffed, wearing women's lingerie.

John Denver (Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.) - singer
1997 --- plane crash in Monterey, CA.

Larry Desmedt - "Indian Larry" motorcyclist & daredevil
2004 --- died August 30 from injuries he suffered doing one of his signature stunts - standing up on his moving bike - at a show in Charlotte, N.C. on August 28th.

Edward Despard
1803 --- last executed criminal drawn & quartered in England.

John Dillinger - (1st number one criminal on FBI's most wanted list.)
1934 --- killed by FBI agent Melvin Purvis.

Jane Dornnacker - helicopter traffic reporter
1986 --- died doing a live traffic report for WNBC-AM NYC when her helicopter crashed.

Tommy Dorsey - Trombonist
1956 --- choked to death in his sleep, due to food that lodged in his windpipe.

Anthony J. Drexel III - philanthropist
1893 --- shot himself accidentally while showing off a new gun in his collection to his friends.

Jessica Dubroff - (age 7)
1996 --- plane crash - attempting to become the youngest pilot to fly cross-country.

Isadora Duncan - actress
1927 --- accidental strangulation when her scarf caught in car wheel.

Dominique Dunne - actress ("Poltergeist")
1982 --- choked by boyfriend, John Sweeny. She died after being in a coma for 5 days.

Amelia Earhart
1937 --- missing in an attempt to fly around the world.

Nelson Eddy - actor / singer
1965 --- suffered a stroke while entertaining on stage in Miami Beach. He died the next day.

Adolf Eichmann
1962 --- executed by hanging for "crimes against the Jewish people."

Andres Escobar - Colombian soccer player
1994 --- murdered by unknown thugs, apparently in anger over the accidental goal he had scored for US during World Cup Game.

Marty Feldman
1982 --- found dead in motel room in Mexico. Death from heart failure, either from climate change or from shellfish poisoning.

Francis Ferdinand - Archduke of Austria
1914 --- assassinated; the incident initiated World War I.

W. C. Fields (Claude William Dukenfield)
1946 --- stomach hemorrhage and cirrhosis of the liver.

Michael Findlay - horror film maker
1977 --- decapitated by helicopter blade.

Jim Fixx - made jogging popular
1984 --- died of a heart attack . . . while jogging.

Robert (Bobbie) Franks
1924 --- kidnapped and murdered by Leopold & Loeb.

Eric Fleming - actor ("Rawhide")
1966 --- drowned when his canoe capsized during the filming of a movie near the headwaters of the Amazon in the Haullaga River, Peru.

Dian Fossey - primatologist
1985 --- found hacked to death, presumably by poachers, in her Rwandan forest camp.

Sigmund Freud
1939 --- cancer of the jaw, palate, throat and tongue.

Bobby Fuller - musician
1966 --- his badly beaten body was discovered in a parked car in Los Angeles. His death was attributed to asphyxia through the forced inhalation of gasoline.

Rajiv Gandhi - prime minister of India from 1984 until 1989
1991 --- killed by a bomb, hidden in a bouquet of flowers, which exploded in his hand. Like his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.

Judy Garland (Frances Gumm)
1969 --- overdose of sleeping pills.

Marvin Gaye (Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.) - singer
1984 --- murdered on his birthday by his father.

Vitas Kevin Gerulaitis - tennis player
1994 --- died in his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning at the home of a friend.

Andy Gibb - singer
1988 --- heart infection.

Gary Mark Gilmore
1977 --- 1st American executed after restoration of US death penalty in 1976. (Executed by firing squad.)

John Glasscock - musician (Jethro Tull)
1979 --- heart infection caused by an abscessed tooth.

Olivia Goldsmith - author, "First Wives Club"
2004 --- complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery.

Sergei Grinkov - Russian figure skater
1995 --- died of heart attack during skating practice.

Henry Gunther
1918 --- last soldier killed in WWI.

Alexander Hamilton - former US Treasury Secretary
1804 --- shot by US Vice President Aaron Burr in a pistol duel near Weehawken, New Jersey on July eleventh.

Mata Hari (Gertrud Margarete Zelle) - World War I spy
1917 --- executed by firing squad, she refused a blindfold and threw a kiss to the executioners.

William E. Harmon
1981 --- 1st BASE jumping fatality. He died in a jump from a 1000-foot antenna tower on April 11. BASE is an acronym for Building, Antennae, Span, Earth, and thus represents the fixed-objects from which BASE jumps are made.

William Henry Harrison
1841 --- 1st US President to die in office.

Leslie Harvey - musician
1972 --- lead guitarist of the Glasgow band Stone the Crows, died after being electrocuted onstage at Swansea's Top Rank Ballroom, May 3, 1972.

Owen Hart - WWF wrestler
1999 --- died while performing a stunt in the wrestling ring. He was being lowered into the ring by a cable, when he fell 70 ft. to his death, snapping his neck.

Elizabeth Hartman - actress
1987 --- fell to her death from a fifth floor window in a bizarre reflection of a character in her staring 1966 movie "The Group."

Frank Hayes - jockey
1923 --- heart attack during a race. His horse, Sweet Kiss, won the race, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race.

Rita Hayworth (Margarita Carmen Cansino)
1987 -- Alzheimer's disease.

Phil Hartman (Philip Edward Hartmann)
1998 -- shot by his wife, who then committed suicide.

Les Harvey - musician (Stone the Crow)
1972 --- electrocuted on stage at a show in Swansea, Wales. He touched a poorly connected microphone and died a few hours later.

Ernest Miller Hemingway
1961 --- suicide with shotgun.

Margaux Hemingway (Margot Hemingway)
1996 --- suicide, overdose of a sedative. She was the fifth person in her family to commit suicide.

Jon-Erik Hexum - actor
1984 --- playfully shot himself with a blank-loaded pistol on the set of TV spy show "Cover Up." The concussion forced a chunk of his skull into his brain; he died six days later.

Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok)
1876 --- shot in the back of the head while playing poker.

Adolf Hitler
1945 --- suicide, cyanide and handgun.

Jimmy Hoffa (James Riddle Hoffa)
1975 --- disappeared from a Michigan restaurant on July 30th.

William Holden - actor
1981 --- found dead in his apartment. He had been drinking, and apparently fell, struck his head on an end table, and bled to death.

Buddy Holly (Charles Hardin Holley)
1959 --- died in airplane crash with Ritchie Valens & the Big Bopper. The name of the plane was "American Pie."

John C. Holmes - porn film star
1988 --- complications of AIDS.

Harry Houdini (Erich Weiss) - magician
1926 --- ruptured appendix. He died on Halloween.

Leslie Howard (Leslie Stainer) - actor (Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind)
1943 --- his civilian plane was shot down by German fighter planes during WWII.

Rock Hudson (Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.)
1985 --- died of AIDS. He was the 1st major public figure to announce he had AIDS.

William Huskisson
1830 --- 1st person killed by a train. His death occurred when he was attending the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway. As he stepped on the track to meet the Duke of Wellington, Stephenson's 'Rocket' hit him. He died later that day.

Hal Mark Irish
1991 --- was killed in a leap from a hot air balloon in what was believed to be the first US death from the thrill sport of Bungee jumping. Irish fell more than 60 feet to his death on October 29, 1991, after breaking loose from his bungee cord during a demonstration.

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson - Confederate General
1863 --- pneumonia, after accidentally being shot by his own troops.

Josef Jakobs - German spy
1941 --- last person to be executed in the Tower of London, England.

Thomas Jefferson
1826 --- dysentery. He died on the 50th anniversary of signing of Declaration of Independence, and the same day as John Adams.

Knut Jensen - Olympic cyclist
1960 --- fractured skull during the 1960 Olympics in Rome. In the 93 degree heat, he collapsed from sunstroke and hit his head. He was one of only 2 athletes to die as a result of Olympic competition. (Francisco Lazaro was the other.)