6 Million Ways to die. Choose One.

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Scaphism

Scaphism, also known as the boats, was an ancient Persian method of execution designed to inflict torturous death. The name comes from the Greek word skaphe, meaning "scooped (or hollowed) out".

The naked person was firmly fastened within a back-to-back pair of narrow rowing boats (or a hollowed-out tree trunk), with the head, hands, and feet protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing severe diarrhea, and more honey would be rubbed on his body in order to attract insects to the exposed appendages. He or she would then be left to float on a stagnant pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenseless individual's feces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects, which would eat and breed within his or her exposed and increasingly gangrenous flesh. The feeding would be repeated each day in some cases to prolong the torture, so that dehydration or starvation did not provide him or her with the release of death. Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock. Delirium would typically set in after a few days.

In other recorded versions, the insects did not eat the person; biting and stinging insects such as wasps, which were attracted by honey on the body, acted as the torture.

Death by scaphism was painful, humiliating, and protracted. Plutarch writes in his biography of Artaxerxes that Mithridates, sentenced to die in this manner for killing Cyrus the Younger, survived 17 days before dying.

• 401 BCE: Mithridates, a soldier condemned for the murder of Cyrus the Younger, was executed by scaphism, surviving the insect torture 17 days.

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Death from laughter



Chrysippus reportedly died of laughter.

Pathophysiology

Death may result from several pathologies that deviate from benign laughter.

Infarction of the pons and medulla oblongata in the brain may cause pathological laughter.

Laughter can cause atonia and collapse ("gelastic syncope"), which in turn can cause trauma. See also laughter-induced syncope and Bezold-Jarisch reflex.

Gelastic seizures can be due to focal lesions to the hypothalamus. Depending upon the size of the lesion, the emotional lability may be a sign of an acute condition, and not itself the cause of the fatality. Gelastic syncope has also been associated with the cerebellum.


Historical deaths attributed to laughter

• In the third century B.C., the Greek stoic philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter after giving his donkey wine, then seeing it attempt to feed on figs
  
  
• Martin I of Aragon died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughter in 1410.
  
  
• Pietro Aretino, who died in 1556, "is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much."
  
  
• The Burmese king Nanda Bayin is said in 1599 to have "laughed to death when informed by a visiting Italian merchant that Venice was a free state without a king."[11] This may be apocryphal, however, as Htin Aung states that the king abdicated a year before he was assassinated in 1600.
  
  
• In 1660, the Scottish aristocrat, polymath and first translator of Rabelais into English Thomas Urquhart, is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne.

Modern deaths attributed to laughter

• On 24 March 1975, Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, featuring a kilt-clad Scotsman battling a vicious black pudding with his bagpipes. After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died from heart failure. His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments of life so pleasant.
  
  
• In 1989, a Danish audiologist, Ole Bentzen, died laughing while watching A Fish Called Wanda. His heart was estimated to have beaten at between 250 and 500 beats per minute, before he succumbed to cardiac arrest.
  
  
• In 2003, Damnoen Saen-um, a Thai ice cream salesman, is reported to have died while laughing in his sleep at the age of 52. His wife was unable to wake him, and he stopped breathing after two minutes of continuous laughter. He is believed to have died of either heart failure or asphyxiation.

In popular culture

• In the film Mary Poppins, the director of the bank at which George Banks works died of laughter.
  
  
• In the Monty Python sketch "The Funniest Joke In The World", a joke is discovered (but never revealed to the viewer, other than a gibberish pseudo-translation into German) that causes people to die from laughter.
  
  
• In the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, aside from The Dip (turpentine/acetone/benzene), too much laughter is one of the few things that can kill a cartoon character.
  
  
• In the Batman comics, his archenemy The Joker's main weapon is "Joker venom", a drug that causes death from uncontrollable laughter.
  
  
• In the 1986 version of the film Little Shop of Horrors the sadistic dentist overdoses on laughing gas, causing him to laugh to death.
  
  
• In the film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, while searching for Sid, Manny, Diego, Crash, Eddie and Ellie cross the Chasm of Death, at the bottom of which are skeletons of dinosaurs who died laughing due to the mix of helium and nitrous oxide in the chasm.
  
  
• The post-punk band Killing Joke's name is a direct reference to the concept of the fatal hilarity of Monty Python's "Funniest Joke In The World".
  
  
• In the AdventureQuest online games by Artix Entertainment, a skeleton called Chuckles is said to have told a joke so funny that he died of laughter, and even continued to laugh (as an undead) after he died.
  
  
• In Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, in a subterranean orchard called the Vineyard of Eyes, a certain carnivorous plant emits a gas that causes euphoria and laughter, rendering the victims defenseless to attacks by the plant.
  
  
• In an episode of the anime Naruto, a group of men attempt to kill Kakashi by hitting him with a dart containing a substance that induces uncontrollable laughter. The dart misses Kakashi and hits a frog, which then laughs uncontrollably until it dies.
  
  
• In an episode of 1000 Ways to Die, one man suffers cardiac arrest after laughing uncontrollably for 36 hours.
  
  
• In the animated television series South Park, on the episode Scott Tenorman Must Die, Kenny McCormick died of laughter after seeing Cartman being humiliated.
  
  
• In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, "Billy & Mandy's Jacked-Up Halloween", several pumpkins brought to life by Jack O'Lantern with Grim's scythe laughed so much that they exploded and their souls rose to a dimensional portal to the underworld.

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Boston Molasses Disaster



1919: In the Boston Molasses Disaster, 21 people were killed and 150 were injured when a tank containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) of molasses exploded, sending a wave travelling at approximately 35 mph (56 km/h) through part of Boston, Massachusetts, United States

The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. A large molasses storage tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that on hot summer days, the area still smells of molasses.


Disaster



The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility on January 15, 1919, an unusually warm day. At the time, molasses was the standard sweetener in the United States. Molasses can also be fermented to produce rum and ethyl alcohol, the active ingredient in other alcoholic beverages and a key component in the manufacturing of munitions at the time. The stored molasses was awaiting transfer to the Purity plant situated between Willow Street and what is now named Evereteze Way in Cambridge.

Near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h), and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft? (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm). As described by author Stephen Puleo:

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The Boston Globe reported that people "were picked up by a rush of air and hurled many feet." Others had debris hurled at them from the rush of sweet-smelling air. A truck was picked up and hurled into Boston Harbor. Approximately 150 were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed ? some were crushed and drowned by the molasses. The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing fits became one of the most common ailments after the initial blast.

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Aftermath

First to the scene were 116 cadets under the direction of Lieutenant Commander H. J. Copeland from USS Nantucket, a training ship of the Massachusetts Nautical School (which is now the Massachusetts Maritime Academy), that was docked nearby at the playground pier. They ran several blocks toward the accident. They worked to keep the curious from getting in the way of the rescuers while others entered into the knee-deep sticky mess to pull out the survivors. Soon the Boston Police, Red Cross, Army and other Navy personnel arrived. Some nurses from the Red Cross dove into the molasses, while others tended to the wounded, keeping them warm as well as keeping the exhausted workers fed. Many of these people worked through the night. The injured were so numerous that doctors and surgeons set up a makeshift hospital in a nearby building. Rescuers found it difficult to make their way through the syrup to help the victims. It took four days before they stopped searching for victims; many dead were so glazed over in molasses, they were hard to recognize. Two found on the fourth day were never identified.


Cleanup

It took over 87,000 man hours to remove the molasses from the cobblestone streets, theaters, businesses, automobiles, and homes. The harbor was still brown with molasses until summer. Local residents brought a class-action lawsuit, one of the first held in Massachusetts, against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company (USIA), which had bought Purity Distilling in 1917. In spite of the company's attempts to claim that the tank had been blown up by anarchists (because some of the alcohol produced was to be used in making munitions), a court-appointed auditor found USIA responsible after three years of hearings. USIA ultimately paid out $600,000 in out-of-court settlements (at least $6.6 million in 2005 dollars).

United States Industrial Alcohol did not rebuild the tank. The property became a yard for the Boston Elevated Railway (predecessor to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority), and is currently the site of a city-owned baseball field.


Causes

The cause of the accident is not known with certainty, but the company was found liable and made to pay damages.

Several factors that occurred on that day and the previous days might have contributed to the disaster. The tank was constructed poorly and tested insufficiently. Due to fermentation occurring within the tank, carbon dioxide production might have raised the internal pressure. The rise in local temperatures that occurred over the previous day also would have assisted in building this pressure. Records show that the air temperature rose from 2?F to 41?F (from −17?C to 5?C) over that period. The failure occurred from a manhole cover near the base of the tank, and it is possible that a fatigue crack there grew to the point of criticality. The hoop stress is greatest near the base of a filled cylindrical tank. The tank had only been filled to capacity eight times since it was built a few years previously, putting the walls under an intermittent, cyclical load.

An inquiry after the disaster revealed that Arthur Jell, who oversaw the construction, neglected basic safety tests, such as filling the tank with water to check for leaks. When filled with molasses, the tank leaked so badly that it was painted brown to hide the leaks. Local residents collected leaked molasses for their homes.

An urban legend claims that the doomed tank might have been overfilled in late 1918 so that the owners could produce as much rum as possible before Prohibition came into effect. However, Purity Distilling did not make rum, but rather specialized in the production of industrial alcohol, which was exempt from the state prohibition laws in effect in 1919, and would later be exempted from the Volstead Act and other national Prohibition laws. While an urban legend, a recent television documentary, part of the Engineering Disasters series, has recently argued that - even if there was no specific plan to make alcohol to beat Prohibition - there may have been some general idea of increasing the volume at the last minute so as to prepare in case alcohol production might occur.

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Curse of the pharaohs



1923: George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, became the first to die from the alleged King Tut's Curse after a mosquito bite on his face, which he cut while shaving, became seriously infected with erysipelas, leading to blood poisoning and eventually pneumonia.

The curse of the pharaohs refers to the belief that any person who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh is placed under a curse.

There are occasional instances of curses appearing inside or on the facade of a tomb as in the case of the mastaba of Khentika Ikhekhi of the 6th dynasty at Saqqara. These appear to be more directed towards the ka priests to protect carefully the tomb and preserve ritual purity rather than a warning for potential robbers. Though there had been stories of curses going back to the nineteenth century they multiplied in the aftermath of Howard Carter's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. There was no actual curse found in the King's tomb. The evidence for such curses relating to King Tutankhamun has been considered to be so meager that it is viewed as "unadulterated clap trap" by Donald B. Redford.


Tomb curses

Curses relating to tombs are rare, perhaps through the idea of such desecration being unthinkable and dangerous to record in writing. They most frequently occur in private tombs of the Old Kingdom era. The tomb of Ankhtifi (9-10th dynasty) contains the warning: "any ruler who..shall do evil or wickedness to this coffin..may Hemen [a local deity] not accept any goods he offers, and may his heir not inherit". The tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi (9-10th dynasty) contains an inscription: "As for all men who shall enter this my tomb...impure..there will be judgment...an end shall be made for him..I shall seize his neck like a bird...I shall cast the fear of myself into him". Curses after the Old Kingdom era are less common though more severe in expression, sometimes invoking the ire of Thoth or the destruction of Sekhemet. Zahi Hawass quotes an example of a curse: "Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose."


Possible causes

Some have speculated that deadly fungus could have grown in the enclosed tombs and been released when they were open to the air. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, favoured this idea, and speculated that the mold had been placed deliberately to punish grave robbers.

A newspaper report printed following Carnarvon's death is also believed to have been responsible for the wording of the curse most frequently associated with Tutankhamun ? "Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King" ? a phrase which does not actually appear among the hieroglyphs in KV62, even though it was said to appear in several different places.

While there is no evidence that such pathogens killed Lord Carnarvon, there is no doubt that dangerous materials can accumulate in old tombs. Recent studies of newly opened ancient Egyptian tombs that had not been exposed to modern contaminants found pathogenic bacteria of the Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas genera, and the moulds Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus. Additionally, newly opened tombs often become roosts for bats, and bat guano may harbour histoplasmosis. However, at the concentrations typically found, these pathogens are generally only dangerous to persons with weakened immune systems.

Air samples taken from inside an unopened sarcophagus through a drilled hole showed high levels of ammonia, formaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide; these gases are all toxic, but at dangerous concentrations are easily detected by their strong odours.


Deaths claimed to be related to 'the curse'


The death of Lord Carnarvon six weeks after the opening of
Tutankhamun's tomb resulted in many curse stories in the press

The tomb was opened on November 29, 1922.

• Lord Carnarvon died on April 5, 1923 after a mosquito bite became infected. His death was 4 months, and 7 days after the opening of the tomb
  
  
• George Jay Gould I died in the French Riviera on May 16, 1923 after he developed a fever following a visit to the tomb.
  
  
• Howard Carter opened the tomb on February 16, 1923 and died on March 2, 1939.

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Sawing



Sawing is a method of torture and execution. It is one of the most inhuman methods of punishment. The condemned was hung upside down and then sawed apart down the middle, starting at the crotch. Since the condemned was hanging upside-down, the brain received a continuous blood supply in spite of severe bleeding. The condemned would remain alive and conscious until the saw severed the major blood vessels of the abdomen, and sometimes even longer. In Asian countries, the condemned stood up while constrained and sawing started at the head. According to some religious histories, the prophet Isaiah was executed in this manner.

It was said that the Roman Emperor Caligula particularly enjoy giving out this method of torture.

Death by Grizzly Bear



2003: Timothy Treadwell, an American environmentalist who had lived in the wilderness among bears for thirteen summers in a remote region in Alaska, and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and partially consumed by a bear. An audio recording of their deaths was captured on a video camera which had been turned on at the beginning of the incident. Werner Herzog's documentary film, Grizzly Man, discusses Treadwell and his death.

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Flaying



Flaying is the removal of skin from the body. Generally, an attempt is made to keep the removed portion of skin intact.

Scope

Flaying of humans is used as a method of torture or execution, depending on how much of the skin is removed. This article deals with flaying in the sense of torture and execution. This is often referred to as "flaying alive". There are also records of people flayed after death, generally as a means of debasing the corpse of a prominent enemy or criminal, sometimes related to religious beliefs (e.g. to deny an afterlife); sometimes the skin is used, again for deterrence, magical uses, etc. (i.e. scalping).


History

Flaying is an ancient practice. There are accounts of Assyrians flaying a captured enemy or rebellious ruler and nailing the flayed skin to the wall of his city, as a warning to all who would defy their power. The Aztecs of Mexico flayed victims of ritual human sacrifice, generally after death. Searing or cutting the flesh from the body was sometimes used as part of the public execution of traitors in medieval Europe. A similar mode of execution was used as late as the early 1700s in France; one such episode is graphically recounted in the opening chapter of Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1979). The Subprior and the Sacrist of Westminster Abbey broke into the Chapel of the Pyx in 1303, the abbey muniment and treasury chamber, and stole from the contents. The Pyx chapel door has been found to have fragments of human skin attached to it as have the three doors to the revestry. The Copford church in Essex, England has been found to have human skin attached to a door. In Chinese history, Sun Hao, Fu Sheng and Gao Heng were known for removing skin from people's faces. The Hongwu Emperor flayed many servants, officials and rebels. In 1396 he ordered the flaying of 5000 women. Hai Rui suggested that his emperor flay corrupt officials. The Zhengde Emperor flayed six rebels, and Zhang Xianzhong also flayed many people. Lu Xun said the Ming Dynasty was begun and ended by flaying.

Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" - St Bartholomew holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin; Michelangelo does a self portrait depicting himself as St Bartholomew after he had been flayed (skinned alive). This is reflective of the feelings of contempt Michelangelo had for being commissioned to paint "The Last Judgment."

Examples of flayings

• Yahu-Bihdi, ruler of Hamath, was flayed alive by the Assyrians under Sargon II.
  
  
• According to Herodotus, Sisamnes, a corrupt judge under Cambyses II of Persia, was flayed alive for accepting a bribe.
  
  
• In Greek mythology, Marsyas, a satyr, was flayed alive for daring to challenge Apollo.
  
  
• Also according to Greek mythology, Aloeus is said to have had his wife flayed alive.
  
  
• Tradition holds that Saint Bartholomew was flayed before being crucified.
  
  
• In Aztec mythology, Xipe Totec is the flayed god of death and rebirth. Slaves were flayed annually as sacrifices to him.
  
  
• The Talmud discusses how Rabbi Akiva was flayed by the Romans for the public teaching of Torah.
  
  
• In 260 Roman Emperor Valerian was taken prisoner by Persians. Some accounts hold that he was flayed alive and his skin turned into a footstool.
  
  
• In 415, the Neo-Platonist philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was flayed alive.
  
  
• Mani, founding prophet of Manichaeism, was said to have been flayed or beheaded (c. 275).
  
  
• Totila is said to have ordered the bishop of Perugia, Herculanus, to be flayed when he captured that city in 549.
  
  
• Pierre Basile was flayed alive and all defenders of the chateau hanged on 6 April 1199, by order of the mercenary leader Mercadier, for shooting and killing King Richard I of England with a crossbow at the siege of Chalus in March 1199.
  
  
• In 1314, the brothers d'Aulnoy, who were lovers to the daughters-in-law of king Philip IV of France, were flayed alive, then castrated and beheaded; and their bodies were exposed on a gibbet. The extreme severity of their punishment was due to the l?se majest? nature of the crime.
  
  
• The Polish Jesuit Saint Andrew Bobola was burned, half strangled, partly flayed alive and killed by a sabre stroke by Cossacks on the schismatic side.
  
  
• In a particularly acute example of deadpan, Jonathan Swift's narrator in "A Tale of a Tub" says, "Last week I saw a woman flay?d, and you will hardly believe how much it alter'd her person for the worse".
  
  
• One of the plastinated exhibits in Body Worlds includes an entire posthumously flayed skin, and many of the other exhibits have had their skin removed.
  
  
• In 991 AD during a Viking raid in England, a Danish Viking was flayed by London locals for ransacking a church.
  
  
• Daskalogiannis, a Cretan rebel against the Ottoman Empire was said to have been flayed alive.
  
  
• The Rawhide Valley in Wyoming is said to have gotten its name from a white settler who was flayed alive there for murdering an Indian woman.
  
  
• Marcantonio Bragadin, last Venetian governor of Cyprus, was flayed alive after the Conquest of Famagusta by the Turks.
  
  
• In 1404 or 1417, the Hurufi Imad ud-Din Nes?m?, an Islamic poet of Turkic extraction, was flayed alive, apparently on orders of a Timurid governor, and for heresy.
  
  
• In the United States, Nat Turner was hanged on November 11, 1831. His body was then flayed, beheaded and quartered.
  
  
• Billy Lynch, a U.S. Marine from the Boston area, was captured by the Japanese during WW II. His "captors tortured him, peeling the skin from his body before killing him, cutting him up, and stuffing his remains in a barrel that was sealed."
  
  
• In 2000, government troops in Myanmar reportedly flayed all the male inhabitants of a Karenni village.

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[Boon]

Damn. And i was always afraid of drowning.

[cmetz]

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right?!?!?!?!??

fuck the middle ages