Bad topic. The most gruesome one that I have heard about was of the prime minister of my country (by suicide bomb). My father was there and witnessed it firsthand. I don't think I could ever describe it for fun without feeling terrible about myself.

...wow... captain downer strikes again. My condolances but this is not the direction I was hoping this thread would go toward.

I'd have to say Rasputin's was rather awesome/spectacular.

Darwyn beat me to it.

@avaq2790, are you Sri Lankan (Sinhalese)?

I would refer all of you to: http://www.cracked.com/article_16133_5-historical-figures-who-died-weirdest-deaths.html

"Gangrene of the genitalia" :-o

@aum - certainly not! Why do you ask?

They had a pm die of a suicide bomb before.

Most of the apostles after they went to spread Jesus word. Not to make it religious you understand just many of them died rather gruesomely.

St. Andrew especially upside down crucifixation (if wondering, origin of Scots flag)

I think it was peter who was specifically crucified upside-down.

No andrew definetly was lol

He's not very famous unless you watch Lost, but this one is pretty hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dvI6bqIlgY

There's no disputin', it's Rasputin.

Come on, it must be Caesar! The Ides of March! 23 stabs and he still muttered the word "καὶ σύ, τέκνον" or "You too, my son!". My second choice was Goebbels.

no its rasputin stop to dispute.

@aum - Make no mistake, I wasn't offended. It's just that the quotation on my profile should reveal quite the opposite.

Frederick I?

Ava's quote is in Tamil so he is likely to be Indian, the PM he refers to would be Rajiv Ghandi.

+1 diplomat61

@Ava: as Ghandi was killed by the LTTE I am curious as to what Indian Tamils think about it.

Elvis Presley. A legend who odee's on the toilet. How can you beat that?

What, Ghandi wasn't killed by LTTE. He was killed by some radical Hindu.

@Largeham: are you sure? From the BBC website: "No-one has admitted carrying out the murder but it is being blamed on Mr Gandhi's arch enemies, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a violent guerrilla group fighting for a separate homeland for Tamils on the island of Sri Lanka."

The man who 'froze to death' in a freezer compartment that was switched off.

"
"Man freezes to death in refrigeration car". The 1964 headline was hardly startling, but the circumstances were. A man had become trapped inside the refrigeration car as the door accidently slammed on him. When he was found, he had all the physical symptons of having frozen to death. Yet the refrigeration unit was switched off and at no time had the temperature been at, or even close, to freezing. He believed he was going to freeze - and his mind had produced the physical effect to create hypothermia and freeze him to death...

"

Think you may have your Gandhi"s mixed up, more than a few of that political dynasy have been assassinated. Mahatma Gandhi was killed by Hindu nationalist.

Rajiv Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhi aren't related. And being brought up Hindu, I can safely say that many Hindus didn't like the idea of non-violence or Pakistan.

@Largeham: were you thinking of Mahatma Ghandi or do you have another theory about Rajiv's assassination?

Thucydides is right, Rasputin:

First stabbed with a knife in the cut and mortally wounded, but not really, he survived only to be attacked at a later date.

Next, he was poisoned with cyanide, enough to kill 5 men. Still not dead he was shot in the back and left to die. The killers left him dead. But later came back to check on the corpse only to be attacked by Rasputin. They shot him 3 more times, clubbed him into submission, and castrated him. Tying him him and wrapping his body in a carpet, they then tossed him into a river. But no, this was not enough, Rasputin broke free of his bondage and attempted to swim to safety.

Sadly, he was trapped beneath the ice and drowned to death.

However, his castrated penis went on to be worship as a fertility symbol by Russian women in Paris.

Sorry, no edit button. The above should read, "knife in the gut with entrails hanging out and mortally wounded, but ... "

It was actually proven that the cyanide didn't do much, as it mostly evaporated during the baking. Prince Felix changed his story multiple times, no one is really sure how he died.

Actually, the above version of Rasputin's death is a little romanticized. The guys who recounted the fable were completely high on opium when they tried to kill him so you can assume they weren't completely accurate.

The cyanide they tried to poison him with was baked into sweets but the cyanide evaporated in the oven. After that the shot fired into his back completely missed any vital organs. The last thing that killed him was a bullet to the head. They did toss him into a river, although that didn't kill him as he was already pretty much dead.

What would have been most frightening for those living in Russia at the time would have been when they tried to cremate him. They didn't know that you have to cut the tendons before the cremation so, as his body was being burnt, his tendons dried out and contracted, making it look like he was trying to sit up and escape the fire after being long dead.

"What would have been most frightening for those living in Russia at the time would have been when they tried to cremate him. They didn't know that you have to cut the tendons before the cremation so, as his body was being burnt, his tendons dried out and contracted, making it look like he was trying to sit up and escape the fire after being long dead."

Niiiice!


Anyway. Stop trying to dispute Rasputin.

Edward II of England didn't have nice death.

Attila the Hun drowned in his own blood from a nose bleed...

@KaiserW - haha, that's quite amusing :P