Senselessness Squared

The armistice that ended World War I went into effect at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11 (“the 11th of the 11th of the 11th”) in 1918.

Gordon Brook-Shepherd writes: “[A]ny firing still going on ended on the last second of the tenth hour, sometimes with droll little ceremonies — as on the British front near Mons, where [a] German machine-gunner blazed off his last belt of ammunition during the last minute of the war and then, as the hour struck, stood up on his parapet, removed his steel helmet, bowed politely to what was now the ex-enemy opposite, and disappeared.”

The last casualties were not so droll. At 10:45 a.m., French soldier Augustin Trébuchon was running to tell his friends that hot soup would be served after the ceasefire when he was shot and killed.

And in the Forest of Argonne, American private Henry Gunther charged a German position just before 11:00 and was shot down. He died 60 seconds before the end of the war.

January 26, 2009January 3, 2013 | Death · History

Out With a Bang

Lawyer James Otis was a hero in American politics before the revolution. In his later years he used to tell his sister, “I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning.”

On May 23, 1783, he was standing in a doorway during a thundershower, telling a story to his family, when his wish came true.

“No mark of any kind could be found on Otis,” ran one account of his death, “nor was there the slightest change or convulsion on his features.”

“This flash of lightning was the first that came from the cloud, and was not followed by any others that were remarkable.”

January 21, 2009September 15, 2010 | Death

“Sucked to Death by a Bear”

Aftermath of a bear attack, Dhaka, Bengal, recounted by a Captain Williamson in The Terrific Register, 1825:

We found her husband extended on the ground, his hands and feet, as I before observed, sucked and chewed into a perfect pulp, the teguments of the limbs in general drawn from under the skin, and the skull mostly laid bare; the skin of it hanging down in long strips; obviously effected by their talons. What was most wonderful was, that the unhappy man retained his senses sufficiently to describe that he had been attacked by several bears, the woman said seven, one of which had embraced him while the others clawed him about the head, and bit at his arms and legs, seemingly in competition for the booty.

“We conveyed the wretched object to a house, where in a few hours, death relieved him from a state, in which no human being could afford the smallest assistance!”

January 4, 2009 | Death

A Delicate Matter

In 1926 an English probate court accepted a will written on an empty eggshell.

A Manchester widow had found the shell on her husband’s wardrobe. On it was written, “17-1925. Mag. Everything i possess. — J. B.”

The dead man had been dieting and used to bring eggs with him to work. His initials had been J.B., the message was in his handwriting, and he had always called his wife “Mag.” The court accepted the shell as a valid will (Hodson v. Barnes, 1926).

The Curse of Genius

Shortly after Joseph Haydn died in 1809, two phrenologists dug up the composer’s corpse to determine whether his talent was somehow reflected in his cranium. Johann Peter, governor of a local prison, found indeed that “the bump of music” in Haydn’s skull was “fully developed,” and he proudly kept the skull in a box adorned with a golden lyre.

Eleven years later, Haydn’s old patron Prince Esterházy discovered the outrage while arranging to have Haydn’s remains transferred elsewhere, and the phrenologists were forced to stash Haydn’s skull briefly in a straw mattress while they passed a different one to Esterházy.

The real skull was bequeathed eventually to the Viennese Society of the Friends of Music and was reunited with its corpse only in 1954, 22 years after Esterházy’s descendant had built a marble tomb for the purpose. Even in death, there’s paperwork.

Other truant heads: Oliver Cromwell, Jeremy Bentham, Albert Einstein.

December 18, 2008May 16, 2013 | Death

Oops

At Honolulu on Dec. 12, 1794, the American merchant sloop Lady Washington fired a 13-gun salute to greet the English schooner Jackal.

The Jackal returned the salute — instantly killing the other ship’s captain and several crewmen.

One of its cannon had been loaded with real grapeshot.

December 1, 2008November 30, 2008 | Death

Et Tu?

Stonewall Jackson was killed by his own troops. As he was reconnoitering after the Battle of Chancellorsville, a Confederate infantry regiment mistook him for Union cavalry and fired. He died a week later.

November 22, 2008September 17, 2010 | Death · History