Joan of Arc (Jeanne Darc)
1431 --- burned at the stake for heresy and witchcraft.

Gee Jon
1924 --- 1st person executed in US in the gas chamber. Nevada State Prison in Carson City on February 8. (Hydrocyanic gas was used; the procedure took 6 minutes.)

Brian Jones - musician, one-time Rolling Stone
1969 --- drowned in his swimming pool while drunk and on drugs.

Joselito (Jose Gomez) - Spanish bullfighter
1920 --- fatally gored fighting his last bull.

Florence Griffith Joyner - US Olympic sprinter
1998 --- an epileptic seizure triggered by a brain abnormality. She died in her sleep at the age of 38.

Michael LeMoyne Kennedy
1997 --- collided with a tree while playing ski football in Aspen, Colorado.

William Kemmler - convicted axe murderer
1890 --- 1st person executed in US in the electric chair. At Auburn State Prison in New York, on August 6. (The procedure took 8 minutes.)

Vladimir Komarov
1967 --- 1st cosmonaut to die in space. (Russian Soyuz 1)

Mary Jo Kopechne
1969 --- drowned when the car she was a passenger in, driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy, fell off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, MA.

David Koresh (Vernon Wayne Howell)
1993 --- killed by agents of FBI & Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms.

T. E. Lawrence (Thomas Edward Lawrence)
1935 --- killed in a motorcycle accident after swerving to avoid two boys.

Francisco Lazaro - Olympic runner
1912 --- sunstroke and heart trouble. Collapsed toward the end of the 1912 Olympic marathon in Stockholm. Lazaro was one of only two athletes to die as a result of Olympic competition. (Knut Jensen was the other.)

Brandon Lee - actor
1993 --- shot by a gun firing blanks, while filming the movie "The Crow." His missing scenes were later filled-in by computer animation.

Bruce Lee (Li Yuen Kam) - actor
1973 --- died suddenly from a swollen brain.

John Lennon
1980 --- shot to death by a mentally ill fan.

Liberace (Wladziu Valentino Liberace)
1987 --- AIDS.

Carole Lombard (Jane Alice Peters)
1942 --- plane crash.

Louis XVI - French king
1793 --- beheaded by French revolutionaries.

Malcolm X (Malcolm Little)
1965 --- murdered - shot 16 times by three assassins.

Jayne Mansfield (Vera Jayne Palmer) - actress
1967 --- car accident. Her wig flew off in the impact, starting rumors that she had been decapitated.

Mark Maples
1964 --- 1st person to be killed on a ride in Disneyland. He stood up while riding the Matterhorn Bobsleds and was thrown to his death. (There have been 7 deaths at Disneyland since its opening in 1955.)

Jean-Paul Marat
1793 --- knifed while taking a bath.

Pete Maravich - basketball player
1988 --- heart attack while playing a game of pick-up basketball.

Marie Antoinette
1793 --- beheaded by guillotine.

Bob Marley - musician
1981 --- brain tumor, at the age of 36.

Christopher Marlowe - author
1593 --- stabbed in a tavern brawl in Deptford, England.

Bill Masterton - hockey player for Minnesota North Stars
1968 --- head injury. He fell over backwards and hit his head on the ice after being checked during a game against the Oakland Seals. His is the only death in pro-hockey during the modern era.

Kenneth Allen McDuff
1998 --- thought to be the only person ever freed from death row and then returned after killing again. Executed by injection, November 17, 1998, in Huntsville, Texas.

William McKinley - 25th US President
1901 --- died of gangrene. He was shot by an assassin and his wounds were not properly dressed.

Butterfly McQueen (Thelma Lincoln McQueen)
1995 --- died of burns received when lighting kerosene heater in her apartment.

Glenn Miller - "big band" musician
1944 --- listed as Missing In Action, was serving as a Major in the Army Air Force Band when his plane went down over the English Channel.

Sal Mineo - actor
1976 --- stabbed to death in the street outside of his home.

Margaret Mitchell - author, Gone With the Wind
1949 --- On August 11, she was crossing an Atlanta street on her way to the theater when she was hit by a speeding cab. She died of her injuries five days later.

Russell Mockridge - cyclist
1958 --- vehicular accident. He was competing in the Tour of Gippsland in Melbourne when he was struck by a bus and killed instantly.

Luis Monge
1967 --- executed in gas chamber, Colorado State Penitentiary, Cannon City, CO, on June 2. He was the last US execution until 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated. (He had murdered his wife and 3 of his 10 children.)

Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker)
1962 --- drug overdose, probably suicide.

Thomas More
1535 --- beheaded for treason upon the order of Henry VIII.

Vic Morrow - actor
1982 --- helicopter accident on the set of "Twilight Zone - The Movie."

Jim Morrison - musician (the Doors)
1971 --- heart attack while in the bathtub.

Mary Ann Nicholls - prostitute
1888 --- fed poisoned grapes and disemboweled by Jack the Ripper.

Florence Nightingale
1910 --- heart failure after 53 years as an invalid.

Francis Russell O'Hara - US art critic
1966 --- died from being hit by taxicab.

Janet Parker - medical photographer

Laura Patterson - professional bungee jumper
1996 --- killed during rehearsal for the Super bowl at the New Orleans Superdome on Jan. 23. She died of massive head injuries.

George S. Patton
1945 --- broke his neck in a car accident. He lived, incapacitated, for one more week.

Nicolas Jacques Pelletier - French highwayman
1792 --- 1st person beheaded with the guillotine.

River Phoenix - actor
1993 --- drug overdose on the sidewalk in front the Viper Club in Hollywood on Halloween.

Francisco Pizarro - Explorer and conquistador
1541 --- stabbed by countrymen in a feud over Incan riches.

Martha Place
1899 --- 1st woman executed in the electric chair, Sing Sing Prison, NY, on March 20. She had murdered her stepdaughter.

Edgar Allan Poe
1849 --- cerebral edema following a drinking binge.
(The September 1996 Maryland Medical Journal published a study that showed Poe's symptoms suggest rabies instead.)

Pope Johann XII
963 --- beaten to death , at age 18, by the husband of a woman he was having an affair with.

Elvis Presley
1977 --- accidental drug overdose. He died while sitting on the toilet.

Alexander Pushkin - Russian author
1837 --- killed in duel.

Grigory Rasputin
1916 --- assassinated: poisoned (cyanide), shot (3 times), and thrown into a river.

Keith Relf - musician (The Yardbirds)
1976 --- electrocuted playing guitar in the bathtub.

John Augustus Roebling - designer of the Brooklyn Bridge
1869 --- died of a tetanus infection after having his leg crushed by a ferryboat while working on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Rebecca Rolfe (Pocahontas)
1617 --- smallpox. She died in London.

Oscar Romero - archbishop of San Salvador
1980 --- murdered while saying mass at the Cathedral of San Salvador.

Julius & Ethel Rosenberg
1953 --- executed in electric chair on June 19. The 1st husband-and-wife team executed in the US. They had been charged with espionage and spying.

Ronald Ryan
1967 --- executed by hanging in Melbourne. He was the last man to be hanged in Australia.

Girolamo Savonarola - religious reformer
1498 --- hanged and burned for heresy.

Rebecca Schaffer - actress
1989 --- shot by a "celebrity stalker" fan.

Hugh Scrutton
1985 --- first confirmed Unabomber victim. On Dec. 11, the computer rental store owner opened a package which had been left outside his door.

Selena (Quintanilla Perez) - singer
1995 --- shot by the president of her fan club.

Thomas A. Selfridge
1908 --- 1st mortality in an airplane crash. He was the passenger when Wilbur Wright crashed a US War Department test plane.

Betty Shabazz, (Betty Sanders; Sister Betty X, Hajj Bahiyah) - widow of Malcom X
1997 --- complications from apartment fire started by her grandson.

Tupac Shakur - musician
1996 --- murdered in drive-by shooting.

Percy Bysshe Shelley - writer
1822 --- accidental drowning.

Eddie Slovik
1945 --- shot by an American firing squad in France for desertion. (The only US soldier since the Civil War to be executed as he was.)

Vladimir Smirnov - fencer
1982 --- brain damage. During a fencing match against Matthias Behr, Behr's foil snapped, pierced Smirnov's mask, penetrated his eyeball, and entered his brain. Smirnov died 9 days later.

Joseph Smith - founder of Mormon religion
1844 --- shot by an angry mob while he was jailed in Carthage, IL.

Diana Spencer - Princess of Wales
1997 --- car crash while eluding paparazzi.

Evelita Juanita Spinnelli
1941 --- 1st she woman to be enter the gas chamber in California and the was the 1st woman ever to be officially executed in that state, on November 21st.

Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
1587 --- beheaded for treason.

Mary Surratt
1865 --- executed for being a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination. 1st woman ever executed by the United States government. Hung on July 7.

Yoshiuki Takada - actor
1985 --- The Sankai Juku Dance Company of Toyko had been performing The Dance Of Birth And Death on the side of Seattle's Mutual Life building when Takada's rope broke and he plunged six stories to his death. The film of his demise was shown on the nightly news. (September 10, 1985)

Sharon Tate
1969 --- murdered by Charles Manson and his followers.

Leon Trotsky - Russian leader
1940 --- assassinated in Mexico with the pick of an ice axe, died the next day.

Tommy Tucker - musician
1982 --- carbon tetrachloride poisoning sustained while he was finishing floors in his home.

Kelton Rena Turner
1975 --- last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War.

Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo di Valentina D'Antonguolla) - actor
1926 --- perforated gastric ulcer and ruptured appendix.

Mike Venezia - jockey
1988 --- died in 5th-race fall at Belmont Race Track, NY.

Gianni Versace - clothing designer
1997 --- murdered by serial killer.

Sir William Wallace - Scottish rebel
1305 --- executed by being hanged for a short time, taken down still breathing and having his bowels torn out and burned. His head was then struck off, and his body divided into quarters, the punishment known as 'hanged, drawn and quartered'. His head was placed on a pole on London Bridge, his right arm above the bridge in Newcastle, his left arm was sent to Berwick, his right foot and limb to Perth and his left quarter to Aberdeen where it was buried in what is now the wall at St. Machars Cathedral.

Karl Wallenda - aerialist
1978 --- fell to death at the age of 73 as he was walking a high wire strung between two buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Edward Higgins White, Jr.
1967 --- died in space capsule fire during rehearsal of scheduled Apollo 1 launch with Roger Chaffee & Gus Grissom.

Stanford White - Architect, designed Madison Square Garden
1906 --- shot atop Madison Square Garden by Evelyn Nesbit's jealous husband, Harry Thaw.

Oscar Wilde
1900 --- cerebral meningitis.

Tennessee Williams - writer
1983 --- choked to death on a on a nose spray bottle cap that accidentally dropped into his mouth while he was using the spray. He was 71.

Dennis Wilson - rock musician (The Beach Boys)
1983 --- drowned after diving from his yacht in the harbor at Marina Del Ray, California.

Jackie Wilson - entertainer
1967 --- collapsed of a stroke and a heart attack on stage, while singing his hit "Lonely Teardrops": He never regained consciousness and died eight years later.

Natalie Wood (Natasha Nikolaevna Gurdin)
1981 --- accidental drowning.

Alexander Woollcott - literary critic
1943 --- heart attack while appearing on the CBS radio program "People's Platform."