~~~ Stupid Signs ~~~

[Boston-Sox]

The soprano Gertrude Bindernagel (1894-1932) was shot by her second husband - for erroneous reasons,as it turned out.
After a performance of Wagner's 'Siegfried In Berlin'. she was walking through the opera arcade when Wilhelm Hintze,a banker,fired a gun at her at pointblank range.She died some days later.
At the trial it emerged that Hintze was having money worries,caused by economic uncertainties just before the Nazis took power.He believed that his wife and her lover were responsible for organizing a conspiracy against him,but there was no conspiracy,and there was no lover.

[Boston-Sox]

The Russian composer and pianist Aleksandr Nikolayevich Scriabin (1872-1915) created an atmosphere of mystical yearning with his music,which had great rhythmic complexity.But his death was not to match the glory of his life's work.
This composer of such works as 'The Divine Poem' (1903) and 'The Poem Of Ecstasy' (1908) died from scratching a pimple on his lip.This simple act led to blood poisoning.What a stupid way to go.

[Boston-Sox]

There are some cacti that it's better to avoid having an argument with - assuming you're into arguing with cacti,that is.In 1982,just north of Lake Pleasant,David Grunddman,from Phoenix,Arizona,fired both barrels of his twelve-bore at a giant saguaro,but it cost him his life.
Saguaros are humungous plants,growing as high as 50 feet (15 meters).They're also quite hardy brutes,too,living as long as 150 or even 200 years.
Grundman's shotgun blast caused a 23-foot (7 metre) section of the huge succulent to fall on him,crushing him to death.The giant was about 26 feet (8 metres) high and estimated to be about 100 years old.He had already shot a smaller saguaro so many times that it thudded to the ground.'The first one was easy', he is reported to have said to his pal,James Joseph Suchochi.
There;s a song by the Texas rock band the Austin Lounge Lizards that chronicles Grundman's death.

[Boston-Sox]

First it was fruit that came hurtling out of the sky - then something a bit heavier: furniture.In 1996,three unfortunate people were killed by flyiong furniture as they walked on the pavement near a hotel.
Two kids - a seven-year old boy- and his six-year-old sister - had been left alone in their twenty-seventh-floor hotel room while their parents had gone off to the hotel's gaming room.The children,naturally,were bored rigid.So they looked out of the window and were fascinated by the 'ant-looking things' way down below.They decided to squish them.
They started by throwing fruit,but,hey,that's boring.So that's when they graduated to chairs and tables,a television set and drawers from the dresser in the bedroom,and ended up killing the three unfortunate 'ants' on the ground below,who were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Boston-Sox]

The English novelist,playwright,drama critic and essayist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) wanted to prove a point.But he paid for it with his life.
The author of such works as 'Anna of the Five Towns' (1902) and 'The Old Wives Tale'(1908),set out to show by example that the drinking water in Paris was all right to drink.Unfortunately it turned out not to be all right,and he died of typhoid.

[Boston-Sox]

When Raymond R. Foard arrived home at his apartment building in Maryland in 1977,he dug deep in his pockets,cursing the fact that he'd left his keys somewhere.Rather then waste time calling for help,he decided to scale the building all the way to the seventh floor in order to climb in through his apartment window.
He made it to the fifth,puffing and panting,when he was heard by a woman who was sitting on her balcony.Not surprisingly,she was terrified when she saw a hand grasp the edge of the balcony,and she did what many people would do in these circumstances: she screamed.
Unfortunately,the petrified yell broke Foard's concentration,and he lost his grip,plummeting down to the concrete - and his death - below.

[Boston-Sox]

Auckland's massage parlour was a favourite fortnightly haunt of a retired chef called George Wallace.The seventy-two-year-old New Zealander enjoyed the attentions of a number of pretty masseuses,who called him Old Wally,but eventually he chose his favourite masseuse - who was just seventeen,an amateur,who was paying for her college course using money she earned from the parlour.
On a February afternoon in 1977,at the climax of his session,things proved too much for George,and he just sat up,screamed,and fell back on to the table - dead.

[Boston-Sox]

When your life's under threat; when you really ought to get away from a place because things are becoming dangerous; when it would be clearly rather silly to remain while Mother Nature is in the process of hurling one of her deadliest weapons at you - well,why not stay and party!
Hurricane Camille claimed 143 lives along the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 1969,but twenty of her victims had been attending a beachfront 'Hurricane Party' at the time of her gusty arrival.There had been warnings aplenty telling people to evacuate the area,but these partygoers decided their festivities should continue unabated.They said that the concrete foundation of their apartment block and the second-floor location of their party gave them enough protection from the coming hurricane,but that was before a twenty-four-foot wave smashed into the apartment.The entire building was destroyed.Partygoers then found themselves facing gale-force winds and brutal ocean surges.
Most died,but a few were swept miles away and,miraculously survived.

[Boston-Sox]

A giant wave of treacle was responsible for twenty-one deaths and 150 injuries in Boston.Massachusetts,in January 1919.It might be said that the hapless victims came to a sticky end. . . . .
There was a tank filled to capacity with the stuff - 2,320,000 gallons or about 14,000 tons.The weather was unseasonably warm that January and caused the tank to burst.A thirty-foot wall of goo smashed buildings and threw horses,wagons and pool tables about as if they were playthings.Rescue efforts were hampered by the sheer stickyness of the molasses,because anyone trying to help just got caught up in it.
The next day,this appeared in the 'New York Times' :
A dull,muffled roar gave but an instant's warning before the top of the tank was blown into the air.The circular wall broke into two great segments and sheet iron which were pulled in opposite directions.Two million gallons of molasses rushed over the streets and converted into a sticky mass the wreckage of several small buildings which had been smashed by the force of the explosion.
The greatest mortality apparently occurred in one of the city buildings where a score of municipal employees were eating their lunch.The building was demolished and the wreckage was hurled 50 yards (45 metres). The other city building,which had a office on the ground floor and a tenement above,was similary torn from its foundations.
One of the sections of the tank wall fell on the firehouse which was nearby.The building was crushed and three firemen were buried in the ruins.

There are people in Boston who maintain they can still smell the stuff on a hot summer's day.

[Boston-Sox]

When you're stuck in a psychiatric hospital at the beginning of the twentieth century,you could do with a bit of cheering up.Imagine how cheerful the Italian poet Severiano Ferrari must have felt when someone popped into his room in 1905,and said,"Hey,Sevy,you've just been made professor of literature at the University of Bologna!"
Tragically,the news came as a bit of a shock to Ferrari.He had a heart attack and died.

[Boston-Sox]

The avant-garde composer Anton Von Webern (1883-1945) - who extended the twelve-tone system of the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg - was around in days before health warnings appeared on cigarette packets.Not that it would have applied to his particular mode of demise - although it was a wish for a leisurely drag on the weed that caused it.
In September 1945,Webern stepped outside his home in Austria to smoke a cigarette,taking a stroll as he did so.Soon he found himself face to face with a military police officer belonging to the American forces.
The MP shouted,"Stop!" But for some reason,Webern - probably with his mind on rhythms and tone colours for his next intended dissonant piece of music - thought the officer had told him to advance.
This crucial lack of comprehension on his part led to his being shot and killed on the spot.

[Boston-Sox]

So security-conscious was a man from Grahamstown in South Africa that he asked police to guard his house while he was away.He would be back home,he said,on 12 January 1992.
However,on 30 December,almost a fortnight before the householder was due back,police noticed lights in the house,according to a report from the Associated Press that month.A police officer went round the back and stealthily approached the door,when it suddenly flew open.The officer opened fire,killing the 'intruder' instantly.
But it was no intruder: the householder had returned early.

[Boston-Sox]

A guy in Houston,Texas,was very proud of his new swimming pool,which he'd had installed in his back garden in June 1998.
A few weeks later,he and some friends were celebrating the Fourth of July,and the alcohol was flowing.At one point the pool's owner decided he'd climb onto the patio roof in order to dive into the water.
He was 6 foot (1.8 metres) tall while the water was only 4 foot (1.2 metres) deep.Consequently he broke his neck and died the following December.
During the interim,he and his family had tried to sue the installers on the grounds of faulty installation and inapropiate location - even though the pool owner had chosen the site himself.

[Boston-Sox]

The great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) may have paved the way for the equally great Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) to formulate a theory of gravity,but he didn't have the sense to break with tradition when he was bursting for a pee.
Brahe was a talented astronomer,and,although his theory was flawed,it nevertheless paved the way for planetary motion to be correctly described by the likes of Jonannes Kelper (1571-1630),who was Brahe's pupil.For all his brilliance,though,poor old Tycho forgot to attend to a small but very important matter before going to his last banquet.He didn't have a pee.
It was considered impolite - an insult,even - to leave the table at a banquet before the meal was finished.As Tycho enjoyed a tipple,it was to prove greatly damaging to the unfortunate bladder condition with which he suffered.
Because he'd failed to 'go' before the meal,and was too polite to ask to be permitted to use the facilities once the proceedings had begun,he was forced to suffer in silence,crossing and uncrossing his legs under the table and no doubt speaking through gritted teeth.Unfortunately,his bladder could stand it no longer,and it burst,leaving him to die painfully over the next eleven days.

[Boston-Sox]

Boonchai Lotharakphong thought his flag would ward off bad luck,and so when the forty-three-year-old Thai factory owner hit money problems in November 2003,what better way to resolve them?
So up onto the roof of his factory went Mr Lotharakphong - but as he tried to raise his 'lucky' flag he slipped off the roof in Lopburi Province,and fell to his death.

[Boston-Sox]

Look after the pennies,they say,and the pounds will look after themselves.Well,it didn't quite work out that way for the billionaire founder of Canada's Weston food empire,George Weston.
Legend has it that he caught pneumonia because he had walked through a blizzard rather then pay for overnight accommodation or a taxi ride home in 1924.

[Boston-Sox]

General William Henry Harrison (1773-1841),who became the ninth President of the USA,in 1841,was a strange fellow indeed.He had the nickname 'General Mum',because he rode into battle - and subsequent glory - without saying a word during the War of 1812 between America and Britain.
However,during his inauguration as President in March 1841,he was not so taciturn: he made the longestt inaugural speech in American history,which lasted nearly two hours,and was about 8,450 words in length.
Rather stupidly,though,it was delivered during a snowfall,and Harrison was wearing neither hat nor coat.It is said that the pneumonia that eventually killed him only a month after his inauguration was the result of this needlessly foolish action.
Even during the hours leading up to his death,he said nothing,according to 'The Times' of 29 April 1841.
'In the course of the evening he became speechless,'the newspaper reported.'About this time he was asked by Dr Hill if he was aware of his situation; he signified that he was.He then continued to sink very fast up to the time he expired.'

[Boston-Sox]

Things were a bit too violent in her native Belfast for seventy-eight-year-old Elizabeth McClelland.With too many street fights it was getting a little too dangerous,so off she went to find a new life in Christchurch,on New Zealand's South Island.
A couple of years passed,when one day McClelland was taken to hospital where she died of head injuries after having been struck on the head by a placard that someone had been carrying on a demonstration in favour of Irish Civil Rights.

[Boston-Sox]

Poor William Pitcairn was just the sort of chap who'd welcome a drink.He was a tramp in nineteenth-century Staffordshire and was killed by a bunch of jokers,although probably not deliberately.
They plied him with several pints of ale and,not surprisingly,Pitcairn became somewhat inebriated.As a result he didn't really mind - in his stupefied state - being put into the local stocks for a laugh.His feet were fixed firmly to the apparatus,and he couldn't move - and that was where he was found the next morning - dead from exposure and malnutrition.

[Boston-Sox]

A poacher got a taste of his own medicine after he had been electrocuting fish in a lake in central Poland in 1995.The twenty-four-year-old man was in a party of four who were fishing with a cable that linked a net and a high-voltage electricity line.
The PAP news agency reported an official of Wloclawek as saying,"For a while everything went according to the poacher's plan and they had fish in their bags.But at a certain moment the man holding the net tripped and fell into the water."
And there he was poached - or at least electrocuted.The other poachers tried to revive him,but it was too late.

[Boston-Sox]

Lady Luck was just not on Eward Danvers's side as he passed the Brooks coffee shop in London.In the eighteenth century this popular coffee house was the haunt of countless men of fashion,many of whom were young bloods,who were noted for their willingness to gamble on just about anything.On this occasion it was poor Edward Danvers who gave them the opportunity they were looking for by presenting them with an unusual subject for a bet.
As he walked past the establishment Danvers suddenly collapsed on the street,and the smart young men in the coffee shop immediately opened a book on whether he would live or die.No one could help him,of course,because they reasoned that this would interfere with the odds.Those who bet he would die were lucky; Edward Danvers was not.

[Boston-Sox]

This is a tale of a stupid death that wasn't a death,but the tales worth telling,because,had the deare lady concerned been of a weaker disposition,she might well have dropped dead of shock.
She was the wife of a rector who had just died,and she received an email from a US businessman who had the same first name as her deceased husband.The fellow had travelled south to sunny Florida for work reasons,and his wife was due to follow the next day.
When he got to his hotel room the businessman emailed his wife.Because he had left his address book on his desktop computer at home,he typed in what he thought was her email address,but he had got one letter wrong,and so the message went off to someone of a similar name: the rector's widow.When she read the message,she is said to have fainted when she saw it,thinking it was from hewr late hubby.

This is roughly what the email said:

Dearest Wife
Have just checked in.Preparations all made for your arrival tomorrow.
Love John
PS. It sure is hot down here . . . . .

[Boston-Sox]

An anonymous Polish immigrant in Stoke-on-Trent managed to prove something that Professor Van Helsing had said years before: garlic keeps vampires away.The Pole managed to prove it - but in 1973 it cost him his life.
The man had an irrational fear of vampires,and so slept each night with a clove of garlic in his mouth.
He did this for years - and sure enough,the vampires stayed away.However,one night he becang coughing in his sleep,and in doing so he dislodged the clove of garlic,which caught in his throat and choked him to death.

[Boston-Sox]

Amazing Joe Burrus,an American escape artist and magician,was also a recovering drug addict who wanted to give something back to society.
So,in 1990,he decided to perform a stunt worthy of the great Harry Houdini for the benifit of a rehabilitation clinic.He was to be bound in chains and placed in a locked coffin before being covered by a mound of dirt and wet cement to a depth of about two metres.
In the event about nine tonnes of this gloop was poured onto the coffin,but it wasn't his escapology skills that let him down.It was simply that the coffin couldn't stand up to the weight of the load - with the result that Amazing Joe Burrus was crushed to death.

[Boston-Sox]

A French tailor called Teichelt was several decades ahead of Batman creator Bob Kane.He devised a bat-wing cape that he thought would enable him to fly,and asked the POaris authorities to allow him to leap from the Eiffel Tower.
The authorities weren't too keen,but they gave permission eventually,with the proviso that Tiechelt would also request police authorization and sign a document absolving tower authorties from any blame should anything go wrong.Which it did.Spectacularly.
The police duly gave permission and so Teichelt,accompanied by some well-wishers and journalists,climbed to the level of the first platform.He stepped off the edge . . . . . and plunged to his death.

[Boston-Sox]

An unidentified man was probably a little the worse for drink as he watched the sinuous movements of an exotic dancer at a club in Phillipsburg,New Jersey,one night in 1998.
Eventually,he just couldn't help himself,and after plucking a pasty from her,which she had been using as part of her act,he bit into it.But the trouble was,it wasn't meant to be eaten.In fact it was covered in sequins,and he choked to death.
The dancer,identified only as Ginger,said,"I didn't think he was going to eat it.He was really drunk."

[Boston-Sox]

In March 2003,three robbers decided to invade the bar in a Madrid brothel one morning,but they were still when police got a call that an incident was in progress.When the officers surrounded the building and began to use a megaphone to encourage the occupants to come out,so afraid were they of being arrested that the intruders decided that the best way out was to shoot . . . . . and shoot some more . . . . . at everything and everyone in sight.They would either escape or die in a blaze of glory.
Naturally,the police fired back,killing two of the robbers and wounding a third in his right leg.Baffled,the police wondered why they'd manage to win the day so easily - and then discovered that the raiders had been using real guns which were loaded with blank ammunition.Persumably the criminals had hoped to use the guns to create fear and thus carry out their intended robbery without actually killing anyone.

[Boston-Sox]

When Herbert Pickney,a born-again Christian,decided to end it all in a Charleston jail in South Carolina in July 1992,he must have decided that he was unclean in the eyes of the Lord.His chosen methord of dispatch was the consumption of eight bars of soap and five cans of shaving cream.He died several hours later.
According to the 'Weekly News' of 25 July,before he died he informed his warders: "The Lord told me to do it."

[Boston-Sox]

Some tribal peoples have been known to believe that,if you eat part of a person,you will acquire attributes which reflect that particular body part.Perhaps this was what one Dr Buckland had in mind when he took an interest in the preserved heart of King Louis X1V of France.
It was once possible to view the heart of Louis X1V - who was known as the Sun King,and who died in 1715.It had been donated to the Harcourt family as thanks from a French cleric for the family's provision of hospitality to refugee French nobles during the Revolution.Generations of the Harcourts passed on this relic - which looked like a piece of dried-up leather - and in 1905,when Dr Buckland,Dean of Westminster,was visiting,he was shown the Royal heart.
He was fascinated by it,and wet his finger and rubbed it on the organ,thence licking the digit clean.Then he picked up the heart,shoved it into his mouth and swallowed it whole (although it's uncertain as to whether this was deliberate or accidental)
Whatever had motivated Buckland to do such a thing,the cleric died some time later - and the heart,far from being life-giving,was death-inducing.

[Boston-Sox]

Woodrow W. Creekmore of Chickasha,Oklahoma,was a lucky man - for a while.
After a tie rod had broken on his car while he was driving near his home town in 1976,the vehicle careered into a telegraph pole.Woody was lucky: he walked away alive.
However,sometime later he was having a friendly chat with the Highway Patrol officer who had come to investigate the accident,when the pole fell over,landing right on Creekmore's head and killing him.