Interesting Facts about Death

by Michele Baskin-Jones for about.com

Things to Ponder…

When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed that his small intestine contained five gold Krugerrands.

Interesting Facts about Death — From Your About Guide to Death & Dying. Read about the interesting and sometimes bizarre facts about death and dying here.

On average, right-handed people live 9 years longer than their left-handed counterparts.

A murder is committed in the US every 23 minutes, which makes about 22852 murders each year.

On average, people fear spiders more than they do dying. However, statistically you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by the bite of a poisonous spider.

Cockroaches can live for nine days without their heads, at which point they die of starvation.

In Erwin, Tennessee an elephant was once hanged for murder.

About 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens each year.

In the Spanish Pyrenees, when a beekeeper dies, each of his bees is splashed with a drop of Black Ink.

Dr. Alice Chase, who wrote ‘Nutrition for Health’, died of malnutrition.

The tiny poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill over 2200 people!

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Orange County, California. Number one is heart disease.

Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older.

A body decomposes four times as fast in water than on land.

The first U.S. execution by lethal injection was in 1982.

When Thomas Edison died in 1941; Henry Ford captured his last dying breath in a bottle.

Robert Hershey died when he fell into a vat of chocolate and drowned.

A Dentist invented the Electric Chair!

Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously; it can kill you.

In Italy, it is against the law to make a coffin out of anything except wood or nutshells.

Over 2500 left handed people are killed from using products made for right handed people each year.

In 1845, President Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot was removed from his funeral for swearing.

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