What are the origins of this fun-filled festive custom?
The former President of France died in some unusual circumstances involving an intimate act with a young woman named Marguerite Steinheil.
Faure is believed to have had a seizure while Steinheil was performing an intimate act in the presidential office. La petite mort, indeed!
Lully hit himself in the foot with his conducting staff. The wound got infected and he was advised to amputate his leg. Lully refused because he wanted to still be able to dance! Needless to say, the infection spread, and he danced with the Grim Reaper instead.
British actor Gareth Jones died of a heart attack during a play that was being broadcast on live TV in 1958. Bizarrely, the character he was playing was also supposed to suffer a heart attack.
Student James Betts died from asphyxiation after his love Elizabeth Spencer tried to hide him in a wardrobe at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, England. She was the only child of Dr. James Spencer, the master of Corpus Christi College, who was against their romance.
The duke was executed for treason in the Tower of London in 1478. How? He was drowned in wine!
In 2011, a man died during an illegal cockfight in California. The owner had apparently strapped a knife to the bird's leg, so the cockerel accidentally stabbed the man fatally.
Sources: (History of Yesterday) (History Things 1 and 2) (Afterlife Funerals) (Taking on the World)
See also: Bizarre celebrity deaths you've probably never heard of
Elizabeth Spencer reportedly took her own life shortly after. The couple are said to haunt the college grounds to this day.
An Austrian mayor named Hans Steininger was known for his 4.5 ft- (1.37 m-) long beard. One version of how he died says that his beard caught fire and he burned to death. Another version says that he was escaping a fire, tripped on his beard, fell, and died.
Jean-Baptiste Lully was a famous Italian-born French composer, who worked in the court of Louis XIV of France. He died performing his job: conducting.
A lamplighter came up with an innovative idea in the 1880s in Flatbush, New York: he invented an alarm clock comprising of a clock, a wire, and a stone.
One night he really went for it and ate caviar, lobster, an array of meats, and drank champagne. If that wasn't enough, he ate 14 traditional sweet rolls called semla. Adolf Frederick died of severe digestion problems shortly after.
King Adolf Frederick of Sweden liked to eat. A lot. He allegedly suffered from gout, which his over-indulgence didn't help.
Vallandigham was trying to show that the victim could have shot himself accidentally. Except, when exemplifying so, the weapon was loaded and he fatally shot himself in the bladder. The suspect was acquitted though!
American politician and lawyer Clement Vallandigham is known to have died in a peculiar way: he shot himself in court, trying to prove a point during the defense of a murder suspect.
Brahe died because he apparently held his bladder until it burst. Because, you know, it's impolite to leave the table...
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe seemed to have died of...politeness. It was first suspected that he had died following a banquet in which he was poisoned. But an analysis in 2010 revealed something else.
Sedgewick is said to have told his troops to stop flinching because the enemies "couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” Except they did and shot him fatally in the face.
John Sedgewick was a Union Army general who was killed during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Nothing unusual here. Except that his alleged over-confidence/arrogance was what got him killed.
It seemed promising until he moved his bed one night and forgot to put it in the right place. The result? He was crushed by his own device the following morning!
The famous Greek philosopher might have spent a whole lot of time thinking about serious matters, but he reportedly died laughing!
The story goes that Chrysippus saw a donkey eating a fig. He found the scene so hilarious that he laughed until he lost consciousness and eventually died.
Either way, he was killed by his own beard. The 450-year-old beard of Steininger is still held in the District Museum Herzogsburg in Branau. Yes, really!
And then we have this Spanish king, who died of both too much food and too much laughter. So, what you do after you eat an entire roast goose on your own? You go to bed, of course.
The famous Chinese poet's death is said to have been equally poetic. Li Po was on a boat when he saw the Moon reflected on the water. Po apparently tried to hug it, fell off the boat, and drowned. Sad, but poetic nonetheless.
But then the King's jester, Borra, walked into the room and reportedly told him a joke. The king found it so funny that he fell off his bed laughing, and died.
What was the joke? “In the next vineyard, where I saw a young deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if someone had so punished him for stealing figs.” Another story of a four-legged creature and figs ending a life...
This great ruler was the Romans' worst nightmare. He didn't actually die in battle though, nor was he assassinated. Instead, Atilla got pretty drunk while celebrating his latest marriage, so when his new wife, Ildico, joined him in his tent, she was reportedly scared and avoided him.
Atilla then chased her and might have fallen or hit something, because the story goes that he had a nosebleed and choked to death on his own blood.
Death is life's biggest tragedy, but one that none of us can escape. Indeed, some people throughout history have died in really bizarre ways, some of which can be labeled as ridiculous. Who would have thought one could die of laughter? Or drown by trying to hug the reflection of the Moon? But there's more. A lot more!
Click through and discover the most ridiculous deaths in history.
History’s strangest and most unusual deaths
Can one die of laughter?
LIFESTYLE Curiosities
Death is life's biggest tragedy, but one that none of us can escape. Indeed, some people throughout history have died in really bizarre ways, some of which can be labeled as ridiculous. Who would have thought one could die of laughter? Or drown by trying to hug the reflection of the Moon? But there's more. A lot more!
Click through and discover the most ridiculous deaths in history.