History DeathByIrony / RealLife

* During their 1964 world tour, the Beatles gave a press conference in Adeleide, Australia. When a reporter said: "You're very aware of everything around you" Lennon [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMoNp_iI-Ig responded:]] "I think you've got to be, you know. You might get shot."

* Carlos Revilla, the first Spanish voice actor of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]], died after dubbing the 11th season. His last line for the show was "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E22BehindTheLaughter This is the last season]]".

* The UsefulNotes/{{Dada}} movement was an artistic movement effectively made to be anti-art, under the belief that the world was so horrible that it didn't ''deserve'' art. It accomplished this by effectively trolling people, and being as unartistic as possible; art without any actual artistic value. The movement died when people started to enjoy it, and found artistic value in it.
* Girolamo Savonarola was a religious fanatic who was famous for burning books and killing people he thought were heretics at the stake. Then public opinion turned against Savonarola, and ''he'' was burned at the stake.
* During the most radical phase of the UsefulNotes/FrenchRevolution, Maximilien Robespierre sent many peeople to be executed by guillotine. After he became paranoid, Robespierre was guillotined.

* Narrowly averted by a guy who [[http://www.theladbible.com/albums/evening-ladness-595/image/a9de19ab-e1fa-11e4-a47a-d4ae52c74096 tried racially abusing a certain Jeremy Green]], only to collapse in the street and require 15 minutes of solid CPR to keep him alive for the ambulance to get to him. Had Jeremy chosen to leave him there, the trope would have been fully in effect.
* Creator/RobertMcKimson, one of the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes directors, told Creator/FrizFreleng (who he was working for) one day in 1977 that his doctor said he could expect to live a long time, due to family history. Freleng later reflected, “He had just come from the doctor who told him he had a long life coming because of his [family] history, and he was bragging, ‘I’m gonna be around after you guys are gone!’” A few days later, [=McKimson=] died of a heart attack while lunching with Freleng. Freleng outlived him by 18 years.
* Creator/CaroleLombard's last role was in the film ''Film/ToBeOrNotToBe''. She originally had a line where her character said: "What can happen on a plane?" Before the film was be released she died in a plane crash and thus the studio executives cut the line from the movie.
* Creator/ClarkGable was so stressed out at Marilyn Monroe's antics during the filming of ''Film/TheMisfits'' that when the film was finished, he remarked "Christ, I'm glad this picture's finished! She damn near gave me a heart attack!" Gable died of a heart attack eleven days later. ''The Misfits'' turned out to be the last completed film for both Clark Gable and Creator/MarilynMonroe, who died a year later.
* Creator/JerryGarcia, who struggled for years with drug addiction, actually died of a heart attack while in rehab.
* Eric Fletcher Waters, a devout, anti-war Christian and member of the Communist Party, avoided the draft as a conscientious objector via his Christian beliefs, refusing to fight in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and becoming a truck driver. He later changed his mind, enlisted as a Second Lieutenant, and was tragically killed by a sniper near Anzio, Italy. It affected his son Music/{{Roger|Waters}} very deeply, who grew up without a father and would incorporate his experiences and a similarly pacifistic stance into many of his Music/PinkFloyd and solo works.
* The bullet that ''almost'' killed UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan in 1981 injured him after ricocheting off his bulletproof limo. Had it been a normal car, he would have been unharmed.
* Music/MarcBolan of T.Rex was afraid of dying prematurely in a car accident and so never learned to drive. His fears came true when he died in a car accident (as a passenger) two weeks short of his thirtieth birthday.
* One theory about the Iron Age bog bodies is that they were criminals who had committed acts so heinous that they were sentenced to being [[UnPerson erased from memory]] by dumping their bodies where they could not be retrieved and buried. The irony, of course, is that while it took thousands of years, people ultimately did find a way to retrieve them from the bogs, and that by this point they were the best preserved remains of the non-writing, long forgotten cultures that had condemned them.
* Peace Pilgrim gained fame by walking across the United States six times over the course of 28 years, more than 25,000 miles. She was killed in an automobile accident while being driven to a speaking engagement.
* The darkest examples yet would be serial rapist/killers Dennis Rader (the "BTK" killer) and José Antonio Rodríguez Vega picking their victims among their clients, because they made a living installing home security measures (alarms the former, reinforced doors the latter). There is also a possibility that some victims hired them ''because'' they had heard about their murders.
* TV producer Matthiew Klinck was murdered while vacationing in Belize on January 2016. He was involved at the time in the production of ''[[Series/CriminalMindsBeyondBorders Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders]]'', a show about a FBI unit that investigates crimes against American nationals in other countries. The second episode of this show takes place in Belize.
* Jerome Moody drowned in a pool during a lifeguard party in New Orleans, in 1985. The party had been organized to celebrate that the season had ended with no drowning deaths in the city.
* Lothar von Richthofen, younger brother of Manfred "the Red Baron" Richthofen, was himself a WWI flying ace as well as a baron (''Freiherr''). He achieved 16 victories and survived the war to become a commercial pilot. Four years later, he died in a plane crash when his engine failed. Both of his passengers survived.
* [[http://www.suasnews.com/2012/05/schiebel-s-100-crash-kills-engineer-in-south-korea/ Drone crashes in control car and kills engineer]] (Somewhat disputable, since it was a spy drone, not an armed drone.)
* UsefulNotes/GeraldFord was the POTUS with the shortest presidency (895 days) and the longest life (93 years, 165 days).
* A production assistant for the {{Netflix}} series ''Series/{{Narcos}}'', was killed while scouting for filming locations in central Mexico. Sources say he was in one of the more violent parts of the region, when he was ambushed and had his car riddled with bullets. He was in Mexico looking for locations to film an upcoming season, that details the downfall of Pablo Escobar and the rise of [[TheCartel Mexico's Juarez cartel]].
* Orville Lynn Majors, the Vermillion County Hospital serial killer native to Indiana, nicknamed the "Angel of Death", drugged his elderly victims to cause their hearts to stop. His own death at 56 was caused by ''his'' heart stopping.
* Music/TomPetty was part of a band called the Heartbreakers. He died of a heart attack.

* One of the most spectacular fossil findings is a pair of mammoths with intertwinned tusks that were found in Nebraska in the 1960s. The animals, two males in breeding seasons, were fighting for the right to pass their genes to the next generation, but an unfortunate coincidence (one had his right tusk broken in a previous fight, the other his left tusk) resulted in them becoming trapped and dying of dehydration and/or hunger without mating. The same happens regularly with deer today; barring human intervention, the only way a deer can survive is for the other to be eaten by wolves while being spared by them, then carry the other deer's disembodied head over the antlers until they fall off.

* UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga, a big fan of [[KillItWithFire using fire to solve his problems]] and forcing enemies to commit {{seppuku}}, and who also loathed the Buddhist warrior monks, was ultimately cornered in a burning temple and forced to commit seppuku by an attack by a devout Buddhist.
* On a related note, UsefulNotes/AkechiMitsuhide fled from Yamazaki to avoid being killed by UsefulNotes/ToyotomiHideyoshi, a peasant that had become one of Nobunaga's trusted officers and was now deadset on avenging Nobunaga and claiming his power. While running from the battle, Mitsuhide was ambushed by peasant bandits and died an ignoble death.
* Greek playwright Creator/{{Aeschylus}} feared that he would be killed by a falling object and thus stayed indoors. When he did get out once he was hit on the head by... a tortoise which had been dropped by an eagle who tried to break open the shell.
* In 1958, actor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Jones_(actor) Gareth Jones]] played a character in a live TV play, ''Underground'', who was supposed to have a heart attack. No points guessing what he died of during that play...
* Actor Renato di Paolo portrayed Judas in a play the day before Easter, accidentally hanging himself during the hanging scene.
* Otto Lilienthal, inventor of the "hang glider", died when this flying device crashed.
* Scientist Kurt Gödel was paranoid about being poisoned. So much that he only trusted his wife to make dinner for him. When she was hospitalized he eventually died from starvation because he refused to eat food prepared by anyone else. So in the end his fear of a food related death did come true.
* Activist Marcus Garvey suffered a stroke in January 1940, which led to a newspaper accidentally reporting that he had died and described him as "broke, alone and unpopular." This shocked him so much that he suffered a second stroke and died.
* André-François Raffray was a French lawyer who signed a deal with a 90 year old lady in 1965, who had no heirs. He agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2.500 francs for living in her apartment, which would end when she passed away. Seeing that she was already darn old the 47-year old Raffray was confident that his payments would be over soon. Unfortunately for him this woman was Jeanne Calment, who would eventually grow to become the oldest verified human being in existence! At age 77, in 1995, Raffray died and his widow had to continue paying Calment for another two years before Calment finally passed away at the age of 122!
* A very tragic example: In the wake of 9/11, cockpit doors now can be locked from the inside to keep terrorists out, increasing the security... but the 150 passengers and crew on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 Germanwings Flight 9525]] might have been saved if it hadn't been there. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was suicidal, and when the pilot left for a toilet break, Lubitz locked him out of the cockpit and proceeded to crash the plane.
* Ignaz Semmelweis, medical hero against after-birth sepsis, died from a sepsis.
* Wolfgang Pauli, physics Nobelist. He was obsessed by the fine structure constant, which due to some cosmic quirk is almost exactly equal to the fraction 1/137. When he came into a hospital with stomach problems and saw the room number 137, he said, "I'll never get out alive!" He was right.
* British comedian Creator/BennyHill felt devastated when his popular show ''Series/TheBennyHillShow'' was cancelled after 20 years. It was all he lived for and as a result his health started to decline. Still he wasn't forgotten. Many viewers kept asking for a new series, so eventually Thames Television gave in and sent Hill a new contract by post. It arrived in his mailbox the day he died.
* Music/MichaelJackson died about a month before his comeback concerts would've taken place. In an ironic twist of events, [[DeadArtistsAreBetter his sudden passing actually did more to revitalize his public image and career than the shows probably would have]]. Lisa Marie Presley has also said in interviews that Jackson feared going out the same way Music/ElvisPresley did. Both singers died from a drug overdose, though in different circumstances.
** Evan Chandler, the father who accused Jackson of having sexually molested his son in 1993, committed suicide only six months after Jackson passed away. Ironically, by that time, Chandler himself had also underwent plastic surgery that made him almost unrecognizable.
* Music/JimiHendrix died at age 27 of a drug-related death. When Music/JanisJoplin heard of this, she said: "I can't go out this year, because he was a bigger star." Hardly a month later she died at the same age from a heroin overdose. When [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]] heard about the deaths of Hendrix and Joplin during an interview, he told the journalist, while holding up his glass: "You're drinking with number three." About a year later, Morrison too died at the age of 27.
* Ramón Artagaveytia developed an intense fear of sailing after surviving a sinking off the coast of his native Uruguay, in 1871. It took him four decades to overcome it, but he finally sailed again to visit a nephew in Europe. Ramón then died on the voyage home... aboard the ''UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic''.
** For added irony, while in Europe Artagaveytia had written a cousin about how much safer sailing was now, thanks to the introduction of the wireless telegraph. The ''Titanic'' was warned of icebergs by the wireless operator aboard the ''Californian'', only for the ''Titanic''[='=]s operator, who was busy transmitting the first class passengers' correspondence with the continent, to rudely tell him to shut up. The other operator closed down, went to bed, and twenty minutes later, the ''Titanic'' struck an iceberg. If it wasn't for that incident, the ''Californian'' would have come to the other ship's rescue.
* Merle Travis' song "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" is a song critical of smoking, with lines like : "...And I don't reckon that it'll harm your health/Smoked all my life and I ain't dead yet". He was a smoker himself and eventually died from pancreatic cancer.
* Likewise, at least [[http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/marlboro.asp four of the men]] who played the Marlboro Man in advertisements wound up dying of lung cancer.
* And for a third tobacco example: [[Series/TheMortonDowneyJrShow Morton Downey Jr.]], pioneer of the [[PointAndLaughShow "trash TV" tabloid talk show]], was a member of the National Smokers Alliance and routinely bashed anti-tobacco regulations on his program. One of his trademarks was to blow cigarette smoke in guests' faces in order to shut them up. His diagnosis with lung cancer triggered a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment in him, and he spent the last few years of his life as an anti-smoking activist.
-->"I had spawned a generation of kids to think [[SmokingIsCool it was cool to smoke a cigarette]]. Kids walked up to me until a matter of weeks ago, they'd have a cigarette in their hand and they'd say, 'Hey, Mort,' or, 'Hey, Mouth, autograph my cigarette.' And I'd do it."
* Lu Bu, most well known in the ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' series as a serious badass with an equally serious case of ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, was most known for two betrayals of father-figure masters, considered especially heinous under the Confucian tenets of loyalty and filial piety. It was only fitting that he would be betrayed twice before his ultimate humiliation and execution--first by his men surrendering their defensive position of Xiapi to Cao Cao's army, then by Liu Bei, who had been expected to put in a word for him to Cao Cao after Lu Bu offered his fearsome talents as a warrior to his captor. Unfortunately for Lu Bu, those words were "Do you remember what happened to Ding Yuan and Dong Zhuo?", [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves which encouraged Cao Cao to just have Lu Bu executed rather than risk being another potential victim of betrayal]].

* A situationally ironic tragedy: While taking simulated training flights to learn from mistakes and accidents in a safe environment, [[https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/25394876/plane-crash-kills-three-in-flight-simulator/ three people are killed after a plane crashes into a flight simulator]].
* OlderThanDirt: There is good fossil evidence (like fossilized fish pellets with pterosaur bones in them and shark teeth lodged in the bones of ''Pteranodons'') that some fish-eating pterosaurs met their ends when a big predatory fish decided to turn the tables on them.
** Another prehistory example; many theorize that the marvelously preserved fossils of oviraptorid dinosaurs brooding their nests formed when the animals' parental instincts backfired on them, leading them to be buried in sandstorms because they just couldn't bring themselves to leave the nest unguarded.

* The U.S. Department of Defense was forced to change the color of the packaging on Humanitarian Daily Rations from yellow to blue to avoid their being confused with cluster munitions. A civilian on the ground was reportedly killed when an airdrop of HDR's over Bosnia in 1999 landed directly on him.
* Creator/ChrisFarley wished to be the next Creator/JohnBelushi, who had tragically died of a drug overdose at 33, shortly after signing to play the main character in the [[ArtifactOfDeath reputedly cursed script]], ''Atuk''. Farley then died of a drug overdose at 33, shortly after signing to play the main character in ''Atuk''.
* Peer Augustinski, a German actor well known as the German voice dub of Creator/RobinWilliams, died less than two months after Williams, though in his case of old age.
* Roland Freisler was the HangingJudge in charge of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany's [[KangarooCourt People's Court]], an organization without constitutional authority that made show trials of members of the German Resistance, and where the only guarantee was a death sentence at the end. In February 1945, when the People's Court was targetted by an American air attack (led by Robert Rosenthal, a Brooklyn Jew), Freisler ordered the accused to be taken to a bomb shelter, but he went back to retrieve their files himself, and was killed when a beam collapsed over him in his own courtroom. Freisler was thus the only person that met death in court that day. It is said that Freisler's body was found holding onto the file of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, who went on to become judge of West Germany's Constitutional Court after the war.
* Dutch actor Hans van Tongeren was best known for playing Rien in the Dutch movie ''Film/{{Spetters}}'' (1981), where his character commits suicide after being paralyzed. In 1982 he was cast to play another character commiting suicide in a movie adaptation of ''Van De Koele Meren Des Doods'', but this never came about because the mentally ill actor made an end to his life.
* There are cases of hog farmers that fell inside the pen and were [[FedToPigs eaten by pigs]].
* In 1668 the vicious French pirate François l'Olonnais was defeated by the Spanish army in South America. While on the run, l'Olonnais ambushed two Spanish soldiers, cut out the heart of one and ate it before the other, then said he'd do the same to him if he didn't give l'Olonnais a safe passage to the sea. The terrified soldier complied, but l'Olonnais didn't escape for long. He run ashore in Panama and was captured by a cannibal tribe.
* The medicine [[Music/TheWho Keith Moon]] accidentally overdosed on which led to his death in 1978 was prescribed for him to cure his alcoholism, which Keith was trying to cure after more than a decade of [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll rock excess]].
* Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen were two polar explorers who both wanted to become the first man to set foot on [[UsefulNotes/{{Antarctica}} the South Pole]]. Scott in particular wanted his name to be remembered in history. Unfortunately for him Amundsen beat him to the historical deed. As Scott and his team turned back disappointed they all died on their way home from frostbite, starvation and/or exhaustion. Yet, ironically enough Scott has become more famous in history than Amundsen, because the tragic fate of his expedition turned out to be far more interesting subject matter for books, documentaries and films than Amundsen's successful, yet dramatically dull achievement. Case in point is the fact that there is a movie about Scott- the 1947 film ''Film/ScottOfTheAntarctic' - but none about Amundsen's expedition.
* Composer Music/ArnoldSchoenberg had a phobia for the number "13", despite being born on that date. He died on Friday the 13th, 13 minutes before midnight.

* In 1987, comedian Dick Shawn was playing a politician reciting cliches. One of them was "If elected, I will not lie down on the job." He then fell down and didn't get up. The audience thought it was part of his act. When he didn't get up, there were actually catcalls from people who thought he was dragging it out too long. Finally someone went on stage, examined him and said "IsThereADoctorInTheHouse" Another audience member performed CPR on him, but it was to no avail. The audience didn't know if the people coming on stage to examine him were part of the act or not. They weren't: he died of a massive heart attack on stage. There is sad irony in the fact that he had played Lorenzo St. Du Bois (the actor playing Hitler) in the scene in Film/TheProducers described above.

* Rezső Seress was a Hungarian composer, best known for the song later translated as ''"Gloomy Sunday"''. Back in the 1930s it was notorious for inspiring a lot of suicides. In 1968 Seress himself threw himself out of a window, survived, then choked himself to death on his hospital bed.
* Creator/OrsonWelles is most famous for his film ''Film/CitizenKane'' about a man who has a blitz career to the top, then loses everything and eventually dies alone in his house. Welles too became a famous and well respected actor and director before he was 30 years old, but then his career gradually went downhill. By the end of his life he was reduced to voicing commercials or narration in films and died alone in his home.
* Roy C. Sullivan set the world record for surviving the most lightning strikes, an amazing seven times. The worst effects he suffered were burns and some loss of hearing. He killed himself.
* French comedian Pierre Desproges was infamous for his black humour. Cancer was one of the topics he seemed to be obsessed about. [[http://www.desproges.fr/citations?tag=cancer He made countless jokes about it]], among which: "I don't have cancer and it won't happen to me. I'm against it." Guess what illness killed him in the end?
* In 1993 Belgium changed from a unitary state into a federal one. King Baudouin, symbol of the old Belgium, died that same year, only a few months after the law came in effect. Many Belgians back then noticed this symbolic coincidence.
* ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'' is a graphic novel based on author Creator/ArtSpiegelman's father experiences during the Holocaust. Spiegelman's father tells the anecdote how he put his faith in a group of Polish smugglers who would help him and his wife escape to another country. In reality they were betrayed by them and thus deported to Auschwitz. Though, in an ironic twist of fate Spiegelman's parents both survived the death camps, while the smugglers eventually ended up in Auschwitz themselves and were murdered there.
* Paula Yates, partner of singer/activist Bob Geldof, died of a heroin overdose in 2000. Her daughter Peaches Geldof felt devastated by the loss, yet died of the same cause in 2014.
* Creator/JoanRivers, whose plastic surgery is extremely well-documented, died of complications of a botched procedure in 2014.
* The Greek philosopher Thales of Milete, who believed that water was the principle behind everything in the universe, died of dehydration while attending a sporting game while sitting in the sun.
* Roberto Calvi, head of the Vatican Bank, was obsessed with the novel ''Literature/TheGodfather'' and carried a copy along with him everywhere he went. To him it was ''the only book that tells you how the world is really run''. He would have known, because he was heavily involved in mafia intrigues, which eventually brought him into debt troubles. In 1982 he went missing and was found hanging on top of a bridge in London, which ironically would inspire the character Kenzig in ''Film/TheGodfatherPartIII'', who is murdered by the Mafia in the same fashion.
* In 1959 French writer Boris Vian attended the premiere of a movie adaptation of one of his novels when he was suddenly struck by a heart attack only minutes after the film had started. He died on his way to the hospital. The title of the movie adaptation? ''J' irai cracher sur vos tombes'' (translation: ''I will spit on your grave.'')
* General José Sanjurjo, leader of the 1936 coup that would devolve into the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar, died in a plane crash three days in, while trying to take off from his exile in Estoril, Portugal and fly to Burgos. The tiny [=DeHavilland=] Puss Moth, which Sanjurjo had chosen to fly in rather than wait for a bigger [=DeHavilland=] Dragon Rapide that had just arrived in Lisbon, crashed shortly after taking off because of the excessive weight of Sanjurjo's large trunk, that contained the uniforms and medals that he intended to wear during his victorious entry in Madrid. The cherry on top of the cake? The aistrip was at Boca do Inferno ("Hell's Mouth" in Portuguese), and the plane went up in flames, but only Sanjurjo died. The pilot escaped with minor burns.
** Sanjurjo was a [[DecoyLeader figurehead]]. The real [[TheManBehindTheMan thinking head]] was another general, Emilio Mola... who died in a separate plane accident the next year. [[OffWithHisHead By decapitation.]]
** Given the fate of his predecessors, it is ironic too that Francisco Franco, who had been once the youngest general in Spain and was not considered a possible leader before the coup, instead lived to die of ripe old age and with his leadership never challenged.
* Early in the [[UsefulNotes/TheArabSpring Libyan Civil War]], UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi dismissed the rebels as "rats". At the end of the war, he was fished out of a drainage pipe and shot by those rebels.
* In 2012, a 19 year-old UsefulNotes/{{Ohio}}an run a stop sign, was hit by a semitruck and died. He was out that night stealing stop signs.
* Salvatore Maranzano, the only man to ever declare himself Boss of all Bosses for the [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia the American Mafia's]] for only 5 months in 1931, was fascinated by UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and considered himself as [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia the mob's]] version of UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar. Like Caesar, he was betrayed by his henchmen (including Charles Luciano, who, already rankled by Maranzano's heavy-handed attempts to seize control of the Five Families, got wind of his plot to assassinate him) and stabbed to death. But that's not the end of it: Caesar was the last dictator of Rome, having become that after a long CivilWar with Pompey and his successors, and his death led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. Maranzano was the last capo di tutti capi (Boss of all Bosses in Italian), having become that after a long MobWar with his ArchEnemy Joe "the Boss" Masseria, and his death led to the establishment of the Commission, which was established as a power-sharing agreement within the various Mafia families to prevent another MobWar from breaking out like the one in 1931. In the mob, crime bosses are viewed as peers, and having one boss reign supreme over the others runs contrary to this idea (Luciano saw what happened to Masseria and Maranzano -- [[ItsAllAboutMe the power went into their heads]], [[BadBoss and they immediately became arrogant in treating their subordinates]]). The Commission acts as a body for settling disputes that might otherwise lead to all-out {{Mob War}}s—anybody can see it as a board of directors of mob bosses than having one man controlling the entire underworld.

* Creator/PaulWalker, one of the stars of ''Film/TheFastAndTheFurious'' series, died in a car crash on November 30, 2013, even though he wasn't driving. Police investigation is currently factoring in [[http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/02/showbiz/paul-walker-death/ whether street racing played a part in the accident]]. Even more ironic is that only a day earlier an Internet hoax had reported he had died. This is one of the reasons why many people didn't believe it when he passed away for real.
* Adult antlions (which resemble dragonflies) occasionally fall into the sand traps of the larvae and are eaten.
* A magazine known as ''Continuum'' (which ran from 1992 to 2001) was published by its eponymous owner group that claimed that AIDS and HIV were a conspiracy of homophobia and did not exist (it also claimed to be a scientific journal in spite the loads of pseudo-science in its pages and no peer review in sight). Of its three editors, the first two died sequentially of conditions now known as iconic secondary complications of AIDS and HIV infection. The final editor took up the reins as the last request of the second editor, but in lieu of continuing the magazine (and perhaps seeking to avoid the RuleOfThree), he published a single final issue and closed the magazine, meaning that ''Continuum'''s end also came about because of AIDS.
* Nigerian musician Music/FelaKuti didn't believe AIDS existed. He eventually died of it, yet denied his condition to the very end, despite all signs to the contrary. Ironically his final recorded song mocked AIDS hysteria. Even more ironic is the fact that Kuti was such a superstar to the African population that his death actually increased awareness about the disease in Africa.
* Music/AmyWinehouse spent a large portion of her life unrepentant about her drug use (her most famous song even being about rehab). When she decided to finally go cold turkey, she had been a user for such a long time, the withdrawals were ultimately what killed her according to the autopsy.
* Princess Diana was hounded by the popular press ever since she became Prince Charles' wife. Everywhere she went paparazzi were chasing her. Even after her divorce they still couldn't leave her alone. One night she was being car chased by sensation crazy journalists who desperately wanted a scoop. They got one: her chauffeur was speeding so fast to escape from the journalists that she and her lover, Dodi Al-Fayed, died in a car crash.
** Driving the point home (ahem), Diana had stimulated her relationship with the paparazzi in an attempt to get back at Charles and the British monarchy. When she had enough of it, she told them to stop... [[GoneHorriblyWrong but they wouldn't]].
* Musician Music/RitchieValens, best known for the song ''"La Bamba"'', suffered from severe aviophobia after two airplanes collided over the playground of his high school, killing or injuring several of his friends. Valens was not at school that day as he was attending his grandfather's funeral. He eventually overcame his fear enough to travel by airplane. In 1959, when he had to travel a plane that could only carry a small amount of passengers Valens did a coin toss and went on board, while the other potential passenger took a bus instead. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died As it would turn out the plane crashed and Valens was killed, along with]] Music/BuddyHolly and Music/TheBigBopper.
* Several men in AncientRome took their power by assassinating the ruling Emperor. Only to be murdered by their own successors afterwards...
* Ancient Roman politician Crassus was famous for being the richest man of his day (even one of the richest in history). He was killed by Parthians who poured molten gold in his mouth as a symbol of his thirst for wealth.
* UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte was born in Corsica, a small island near Italy that became a French colony in the mid 18th century. During his youth he was frequently mocked by Frenchmen for having a thick Corsican accent. In a twist of revenge this man who came from an island that most Europeans saw as a backwards primitive nation eventually conquered most of Europe. And in an even more ironic fashion he was eventually banished to live on another small pathetic island, St. Helena, in front of the African coast, where he died.
* Music/JohnDenver first became famous for the song ''"Leaving on a Jet Plane"''. [[FunnyAneurysmMoment But after Denver died in a plane crash in 1997]], his rendition has all but disappeared from mainstream radio, with Peter, Paul, and Mary version primarily played instead, [[CoveredUp even though Denver wrote the song himself]].
* Not one, but ''two'' people were killed on the former ''[=PeopleMover=]'' attraction at ''[[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]]'' when they were run over by the vehicles of what was known as the slowest-moving and most harmless-looking ride in the entire park.
* 1930s Chinese movie actress Ruan Lingyu portrayed an actress hounded by tabloids in the film ''"New Women" (1935)'', where her character eventually commits suicide as a result. After the premier both the film and Lingyu herself were scolded and badmouthed by the press. Just like her movie character Lingyu couldn't take it anymore and choose to end her own life. To make everything even more ironic: the film itself was based on the life and death of another actress, Ai Xia, who had also committed suicide because of tabloid slander!
* PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were sworn rivals. Both had a reputation for having spent a lot of innocent bloodshed to accomplish their goals, yet they both died a relatively peaceful, virtually similar death. In 2004 Arafat was sent to a hospital in Paris, where he fell into a coma and died. Two years later Sharon too succombed in a coma and remained in a hospital in a vegetative state until his death in 2014.
* A memorial tree planted in the honor of Music/GeorgeHarrison, a member of Music/TheBeatles, [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/22/george-harrison-memorial-tree-beetle-killed_n_5609432.html was killed in July 2014 by a beetle infestation]].

* On 17 February 1673, French playwright and actor Creator/{{Moliere}} collapsed on stage playing the title role, the hypochondriac Argan, in his play ''Le malade imaginaire'' ("The Imaginary Invalid"). He incorporated his agony into his performance and died a few hours after the play ended.

* Devon Clifford, drummer for the Canadian indie rock band You Say Party! We Say Die!, collapsed on stage during a gig in Vancouver in 2010 and died two days later in a hospital. After his death, the band changed their name to You Say Party, then split up the next year (they've since reunited with a new drummer).
* Operatic baritone Leonard Warren died from a cerebral hemorrhage during a performance of Music/GiuseppeVerdi 's "La forza del destino". His final aria started with the words "Morir, tremenda cosa (to die, a momentous thing)". More trouble with Verdi: Conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli suffered a fatal heart attack while conducting a performance of Aida in 2001.
* French virtuoso organist and composer Louis Vierne gave the performance of his life one evening at Notre Dame de Paris - then collapsed and died of a massive stroke while preparing stops for his encore. He purportedly told his assistant before beginning the concert: "I think that I'll die tonight."
* Most people know that TV presenter and biologist Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray spine while filming a documentary. The name of the episode? "Ocean's Deadliest". After years of interacting with some of the planet's deadliest creatures, he was killed by a relatively harmless one.
* Stuntman Tip Tipping was killed when his parachute failed to open while he was filming an episode of the British series 999, which was - ironically enough - a show with the premise of reenacting dangerous accidents.
* Artist Patrick Nagel (the guy who did the cover for Music/DuranDuran's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(Duran_Duran_album) Rio]] album) died of a heart attack shortly after participating in an "Aerobathon" for The American Heart Association.
* The USS ''Utah'', an American Dreadnought battleship built in 1910, had her guns removed and was converted to a target ship, as part of the 1930 London Naval Treaty, which limited the number of battleships each signatory nation could have. During the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, the aforementioned target ship found herself the target of several Japanese bombers, and capsized with 65 officers and crew dying with her (465 of her crew survived).

* King Mithridates VI of Pontus always lived in fear of being poisoned to death, just like his predecessor did. So he took small doses of poison throughout his life to gain AcquiredPoisonImmunity. Eventually his empire was conquered by the Roman general Pompejus and Mithridates VI decided to commit suicide by swallowing poison... only to discover that he had indeed become immune to it! He eventually died by sword.
* UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun invaded the Western Roman Empire after receiving a marriage proposal from Valentinian III's sister, Honoria. When he failed to get Honoria, he married the Ostrogoth Ildico... and died from complications after their massive wedding banquet.[[note]]It's commonly reported that he "died of a nosebleed," but whether the nosebleed itself was the cause (by choking on his own blood) or only a symptom of a much worse problem is disputed.[[/note]]
* Poor President UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison. Accused of being old, frail, and unintelligent, he set out to prove his critics wrong by delivering a two-hour inauguration speech in the freezing rain with no coat. He was dead 30 days later.
* Frederick Treves, a surgeon who performed the first appendectomy in England, died from peritonitis, a disease commonly resulted from a ruptured appendix.
* [[UsefulNotes/PunicWars Hannibal Barca]]. In history, only twice an outnumbered army was able to surround the enemy. The first time was at Cannae, where Hannibal obtained his greatest victory against the Romans. The second time was at Zama, where ''the Roman survivors of Cannae surrounded Hannibal's army after (barely) foiling his own attempt to repeat Cannae''.
* A man in Australia named Tommy Johns set the world record for being arrested the most times. He was arrested roughly 2,000 times for public drunkenness. He eventually died... from a brain tumor and not an alcohol related illness.
* It's rumored that the executioner who carried out serial killer Ted Bundy's death sentence was a woman with her hair parted in the middle. Women with their hair parted in the middle were the women Bundy mostly targeted.
* 1980s Miami drug Queenpin Griselda Blanco used motorcycle drive-by shootings as a favorite method of killing her enemies. In 2012, she was killed by a motorcycle drive-by shooting after she left a butcher shop in Columbia.
* During the Metropolitan Opera's premiere of Leos Janacek's "The Makropulos Affair", tenor Richard Versalle suffered a heart attack and fell from a fifteen-foot ladder on-stage, moments after singing the line, "Too bad you can only live so long."
* Actor Antony Wheeler accidentally hanged himself while performing Judas' climactic suicide scene in ''Music/JesusChristSuperstar''.
* Actor Creator/JamesDean, who had a famous scene where he's speed chasing towards a cliff in ''Film/RebelWithoutACause'' and who once made a commercial to warn the youth about safe driving, died while speeding too fast in his car on the road, causing an accident that killed him.
* In 1987, comedian Dick Shawn was playing a politician reciting cliches. One of them was "If elected, I will not lie down on the job." He then fell down and didn't get up. The audience thought it was part of his act. When he didn't get up, there were actually catcalls from people who thought he was dragging it out too long. Finally someone went on stage, examined him and said "IsThereADoctorInTheHouse" Another audience member performed CPR on him, but it was to no avail. The audience didn't know if the people coming on stage to examine him were part of the act or not. They weren't: he died of a massive heart attack on stage. There is sad irony in the fact that he had played Lorenzo St. Du Bois (the actor playing Hitler) in the scene in Film/TheProducers described above.

[[folder:Animals]]
* Believe it or not, the situation depicted in the page image (beaver killed by tree it cut down falling on it) actually happens occasionally.
* ''Film/GrizzlyMan'': Timothy Treadwell, self-professed activist and friend of bears. Eaten by a bear.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comedians]]

* Stunt man Bobby Leach, who had crossed great heights during his career, died in 1911 when he slipped on a banana peel and broke his leg. The injury became gangrenous.

* Actor Redd Foxx is best remembered for his catchphrase in ''Series/SanfordAndSon'' in which the cantankerous Fred Sanford would clutch his chest and yell, "It's the big one!" While filming a different series in an episode ironically titled "Chest Pains", The Big One was real, but the cast and crew laughed at what they thought was a joke until Foxx fell to the ground and stopped breathing.
* On 17 February 1673, French playwright and actor Creator/{{Moliere}} collapsed on stage playing the title role, the hypochondriac Argan, in his play ''Le malade imaginaire'' ("The Imaginary Invalid"). He incorporated his agony into his performance and died a few hours after the play ended.
* Playwright J. I. Rodale died while he was a guest on the Dick Cavett show. During the recordings Rodale ironically claimed he felt great and said: ''"I'm in such good health that I fell down a long flight of stairs yesterday and I laughed all the way", "I've decided to live to be a hundred"'', and ''"I never felt better in my life!"'' He had also previously bragged, ''"I'm going to live to be 100, unless I'm run down by some sugar-crazed taxi driver."'' A few minutes later, he suffered a heart attack and passed away. The show was never broadcast.
* Singer Felix Powell, best known for the song ''"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag (And Smile, Smile, Smile)"'', later committed suicide.
* Motorcyclist [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/03/motorcyclist-dies-helmet-protest_n_889427.html Philip Contos]] was riding without a helmet in protest of helmet laws. He lost control of his bike, hit his head, and died. Troopers say he would have survived if he were wearing a helmet.
* 18th century politician UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre ruled a reign of terror and ordered many people to be guillotined for plotting against the Republic. Eventually, he was beheaded for the same reason.
* UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy: The last thing anyone ever said to JFK while he was alive was: "Well, you can't say the people in Dallas don't love you, Mr. President."
* Music/JohnLennon: As a FunnyAneurysmMoment, the Beatle who once sang "shoot me" in the chorus of "Come Together" was eventually shot dead. Lennon also wrote the Beatle song "Happiness Is A Warm Gun". Music/ToriAmos covered the song in 2001 and included voice samples of Lennon in the number.
** When Music/TheBeatles first arrived in the USA some journalist asked Lennon: "Are you scared when crowds scream at you?". He snapped back:"[[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy More so in Dallas]] than other places."
** Another HarsherInHindsight quote by John: "I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40." When he was murdered in 1980 he was exactly that age!
** And, this is getting rather eerie, there was an interview in the 1960s where Lennon was asked how he expected to die? His answer: "I'll probably be popped off by some loony."
* Music/KurtCobain, the rock singer who once wrote a song called "I Hate Myself And Want To Die" eventually committed suicide and left a note that in a nutshell had the same message. Even more ironic is that CNN, only a month earlier, had incorrectly reported he had died from an overdose. It was in fact only a coma as a result of an overdose.
* Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, contracted the "Brazen Bull" in which a victim was put into a bronze replica of a bull and the bull was slowly heated. When Tellemachus overthrew Phalaris, Phalaris himself became a victim of the "Bull".
** It is sometimes reported that the first victim of the Bull was its designer, Perillos of Athens. However, ancient sources say that Phalaris only tested the Bull with Perillos, then took him out and threw him over a cliff.
* Over the course of his life, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men, his first victim being Stephen Hicks, who, in 1978, had been bludgeoned by Dahmer with an exercise weight. In 1994, while in prison for his crimes, Dahmer was killed by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who bludgeoned him to death with an exercise weight.
* The owner of Segway Inc, Jimi Heselden, was killed in a Segway accident. Specifically, he was killed when he apparently rode a Segway off a cliff.
* A member of the Jolley Gang (a notorious group of British party crashers) [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/21/victoria-coren-jolley-gang choked to death on a canape at a funeral he had not been invited to]].

* The Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, was obsessed with obtaining immortality through alchemical elixirs. In Chinese Alchemy, mercury was considered a potent ingredient, so one of his solutions was to always have a daily dose of mercury everyday. In the end he died of mercury poisoning when he tried a new formula of mercury pill. The irony of it was in his quest for immortality, he instead found a way to die faster.
** Even worse, his greatest friend and most trusted adviser told him that he shouldn't be taking the potion and that the apothecaries were killing him with it. A special on Creator/TheHistoryChannel showed him dying from the potion right after his adviser told him to stop. Though this may not be ironic and be more TooDumbToLive.
** Legend says that the Chinese inventor of gunpowder came with the formula while also trying to fabricate an elixir of immortality... and promptly got a severe case of explosion to the face.
** Another legend states that a Chinese philosopher once ascended to heaven by strapping a bunch of gunpowder rockets to a chair. ''Series/MythBusters'' attempted to replicate this, and after witnessing [[StuffBlowingUp an impressive pyrotechnic display]], they acknowledged that the rockets might have indeed helped him get to heaven, but he still most likely got there the usual way.
** During Emperor Qin Shi Huang's reign, Sinister Prime Minister Li Si devised the Five Pains, a lethal form of torture. After the Emperor's own Ironic Death, Li Si became anxious that the Emperor's successor Fusu would order him to forfeit his position as Prime Minister to Fusu's friend Meng Tian, so he underwent a FaceHeelTurn and forged a letter from Qin Shi Huang saying that both Fusu and Meng Tian must kill themselves, which was [[DrivenToSuicide successful]]. He was found out, and he was then sent to his doom through the aforementioned form of torture that he himself had devised, the Five Pains.
* According to legend, pirate Bartholomew Roberts's famous sobriety was a direct cause of his death. When the British Navy finally caught up to him, most of his crew was so hungover they couldn't stand up. As one of the few guys in any condition to move around and tend to the ship, Roberts presented a perfect target for the British guns...
* Throughout much of his adult life, UsefulNotes/MalcolmX preached about how the white man was the devil and how they were out to get black people. But in 1965, when Malcolm made the Hajj to Mecca and then had a change of heart about his earlier beliefs, it was people of his own race (and the same group he was such a prominent part of) who ended up assassinating him.
* Creator/SamKinison made his substance abuse a big part of his act and was known as a heavy drinker. He often joked about his propensity to drive drunk. He died in a car accident. While Kinison was sober, his car was hit by a 17-year-old drunk driver.

* Chrysippus was a Greek philosopher who belonged to the school of thought known as [[TheStoic Stoicism]]. He died of laughter.
* Famous French comic strip writer Creator/ReneGoscinny, best known for ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' and ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'', died from cardiac arrest during a cardiac stress test.
* Basil Brown, an English health food advocate, died of liver damage caused by hypervitaminosis after drinking ten gallons of carrot juice.
* Michael Anderson Godwin, sentenced to death by the electric chair but commuted to life in prison, was electrocuted while fixing a television while sitting on a metal toilet seat.

* UsefulNotes/JosefStalin terrorized Russia for decades. One morning he couldn't breathe and was in desperate need for medical help, but nobody dared to enter the room without his explicit permission...
* During UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, General John Sedgwick was very dismissive of the Confederates' shooting skills. At one point during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (1864), he said: ''"[[TemptingFate They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance]]"''. He was shot seconds later, which is why [[SedgwickSpeech we have a trope named after him]].
* Captain Buckey O'Neill believed that an officer should never take cover in order to keep the morale of his men high. During the Battle of San Juan Hill in the UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWar, he kept walking through the American trenches while chain smoking and [[TooDumbToLive laughing at his men's fears that he was going to be shot]]. ''"The Spanish bullet is not molded that will kill me"'', he said. A moment later, [[UpToEleven he was shot in the mouth]].
* Terry Kath from the rock group Music/{{Chicago}} was toying with a gun when he said: ''"Don't worry, guys. It isn't even loaded. See?"'', before he [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace accidentally shot himself]].
* Stunt man Bobby Leach, who had crossed great heights during his career, died in 1911 when he slipped on a banana peel and broke his leg. The injury became gangrenous.
* 19th century lawyer Clement Laird Vallandigham died during a court case. He tried to defend someone who was accused of murder by showing that the victim might have accidentally shot himself. Vallangdigham showed this by using a real gun and [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace accidentally shot himself dead with it]]! The silver lining: Vallandigham's client was acquitted because the jury was convinced by his defense.
* Comedian Creator/TommyCooper died in 1984 on stage during a live TV broadcast. While he suffered a heart attack, the audience thought it was [[AllPartOfTheShow all part of the act]] and laughed as he drew his final breath. Even more ironically, he was known for performing stage acts where a large chunk of the comedy was that everything went wrong!

* During the phase of the UsefulNotes/FrenchRevolution, Maximilien Robespierre sent many peeople to be executed by guillotine. After he became paranoid, Robespierre was guillotined.

* The UsefulNotes/Dada movement was an artistic movement effectively made to be anti-art, under the belief that the world was so horrible that it didn't ''deserve'' art. It accomplished this by effectively trolling people, and being as unartistic as possible; art without any actual artistic value. The movement died when people started to enjoy it, and found artistic value in it.

* The serial killer native to Indiana nicknamed the "Angel of Death" drugged his victims to cause their hearts to stop. His own death at 56 was caused by ''his'' heart stopping.

* The serial killer native to Indiana nicknamed the "Angel of Death" drugged his victims to cause their hearts to stop.
His own death at 56 was caused by ''his'' heart stopping.

* A production assistant for the {{Netflix}} series ''Series/{{Narcos}}'', was killed while scouting for filming locations in central Mexico. Sources say he was in one of the more violent parts of the region, when he was ambushed and had his car riddled with bullets. He was in Mexico looking for locations to film an upcoming season, that details the downfall of Pablo Escobar and the rise of [[TheCartel Mexico's Juarez cartel]]

* Wolfgang Pauli, physics nobelist. He was obsessed by the fine structure constant, some ~1/137. When he came into a hospital with stomach problems and saw the room number 137, he said "I never get out alive!" He was right.

* Salvatore Maranzano, "Boss of Bosses" of UsefulNotes/TheMafia for about 5 months in 1931, was fascinated by UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and considered himself a modern version of UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar. Like Caesar, he was betrayed and stabbed to death. But that's not the end of it: Caesar was the last dictator of Rome, having become that after a long CivilWar with Pompey and his successors, and his death led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. Maranzano was the last Boss of Bosses, having become that after a long MobWar with Joe Masseria, and his death led to the establishment of the Commission.