Atilla the Hun was one of the most notorious villains in history. He conquered all of Asia by 450 A.D. by destroying villages and pillaging the countryside. This bloodthirsty man died from a nosebleed on his wedding night. After feasting and toasting his own good fortune, he was too drunk to notice his nose, and he drowned in a snoutful of his own blood.

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I embarked on the 3rd Crusade to recapture the Holy Land in the twelfth century. After spending days trudging across the dry summer desert, his army came upon the River Saleph. In his parched state, Frederick threw caution to the wind -- instead of his heavy armor -- and plunged into the river, whereupon he sank to the bottom and drowned.

(5 November 1605, England) In the early hours of a wintry London night, authorities discovered Guy Fawkes sitting by a pile of gunpowder in the cellar of the Houses of Parliament. King James I was scheduled to attend Parliament when it convened later that day, and he was not pleased by this demonstration of disrespect by his subjects.
A manhunt was started for Fawkes' fellow conspirators, 14 people in all led by Brian Caton.
A few days later the plotters were brought to earth in a house in Buxton and a gunfight ensued. Unfortunately there was a driving rain and the gunpowder of the cornered men was too wet to fire properly. So they spread the gunpowder on the floor in front of the fire to dry. Guess what happened when a burning ember spat out from the fire and landed on the drying powder?
Needless to say, the survivors of the explosion and the incoming gunfire were captured, and hanged and beheaded for treason.

Tycho Brahe, a sixteenth-century Danish astronomer whose research helped Sir Isaac Newton devise the theory of gravity, died because he didn't make it to the bathroom in time. In that society it was considered an insult to leave the table before the banquet was over. Brahe forgot to relieve himself before the banquet began, then exacerbated matters by imbibing too much alcohol at dinner. Too polite to ask to be excused, he instead allowed his bladder to burst, which killed him slowly and painfully over the next eleven days.

Francis Bacon was an influential statesman, philosopher, writer, and scientist in the sixteenth century. He died while stuffing snow into a chicken. He had been struck by the notion that snow instead of salt might be used to preserve meat. To test his theory he stood outside in the snow and attempted to stuff the bird. The chicken didn't freeze, but Bacon did, prompting the question "Which froze first? The Bacon or the egg?"

LAKEWOOD | An 18-year-old Westlake man visiting his girlfriend in Lakewood died Tuesday evening after falling from an 11th-floor balcony at the Envoy Condominiums at 11811 Lake Ave. About 9:25 p.m., Adawi Najjar was hanging onto the balcony railing doing pull-ups, police said. He lost his grip and dropped, landing face down in a paved parking lot. Najjar may have done pull-ups because he saw a friend do them earlier on the balcony, a police report said. The Cuyahoga County coroner will examine the body and rule whether the death was accidental.

A cautionary tale for those who can't spare the time to slow down and do things properly.

14 August 2010, Kentucky | Kelita H. was travelling "at highway speed" in her Chevy, cruising down Country Road 519 with the wind blowing through her hair, when she and her passenger decided to swap seats. In this situation, a less hasty person would stop the car for a "Chinese fire drill" but Kelita was a little more creative than that. Fortunately, you see, her car had an open T-Top.

She stood up, pulled herself onto the roof, and she fell. And then Kelita was travelling solo "at highway speed" down that country road.

The Fayette County Coroner's Office reported that the 20-year-old died from injuries sustained while impacting a guardrail.

Jean-Baptiste Lully, a seventeenth-century composer who wrote music for the king of France, died from an overdose of "musical enthusiasm." While rehearsing for a concert, he became overexcited and drove his baton right through his foot. He succumbed to blood poisoning.

Clement Vallandigham was a well-known Northern Democrat who campaigned for states' rights during the Civil War. In 1863 Vallandigham was convicted of treason for his speeches attacking the administration of President Lincoln. He was banished to the South, where he continued to voice his political views.
After the war, Vallandingham became a lawyer. In his last appearance in the courtroom, he represented a client on trial for murder. The accused man's defense was that the victim had drawn his own gun in a fashion that caused it to fire, killing himself. To prove the defense argument, Vallandigham demonstrated the victim's method of drawing a gun--using the loaded evidence gun as his prop. The firearm went off, and he lost his life--but proved his case.

(Late 1989, Australia) A rather impressionable student of kung fu listened with rapt attention when his instructor dramatically informed the class, "Now that you have reached this level in your training, you can kill wild animals with your bare hands!"
The martial arts trainee took the statement as gospel, and headed to the Melbourne zoo to test his mettle with the wildest animal of all: the lion. In the dead of night, he slipped into the zoo, leapt into the lion enclosure, and engaged a suitable king of the jungle in combat.
He would probably have lost a one-on-one fight, but he never got to try. His naive fight plan didn't account for the enthusiasm of the lion's pride for a tender intruder; nor did it give sufficient weight to the possibility that his instructor didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
Zoo employees found his remains -- two arms and hands -- the following morning, with shreds of red fur grasped tightly in his fingers.

(March 1995, Michigan) James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Michigan, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."

(2 January 1996, India) A tiger killed one man and mauled another at the Calcutta zoo yesterday when they tried to put a marigold garland around its neck in a New Year's greeting.
Prakesh Tiwari, the dead man, and Suresh Rai had been drinking before they bought the floral garlands and crossed the moat around the tiger's enclosure, authorities said. "I was shocked to see the two young men weaving about in front of a tiger with garlands in their hands, " said Rakesh Banerjee, who witnessed the attack that triggered panic and a near stampede in the zoo.
The men, both in their 20's, were trying to put the garland on a 13-year old male Royal Bengal tiger named "Shiva" after the Hindu god of destruction. When Rai threw the garland around Shiva's neck, the tiger attacked him. His friend Tiwari intervened, kicking the tiger in the face. The tiger released Rai, and attacked and killed Tiwari.
"I saw it all; the tiger turned and jumped on the other young man and put its head on the man's neck, and within moments, the man was apparently dead, his head dangling," Banerjee said.