5. Syphilis used to be a pretty common way to die… until the invention of penicillin during the 1940s, that is. Among the most famous people to die from complications to the STD: Oscar Wilde, Al Capone, and Henre de Toulouse-Lautrec.
6. Mark Twain had a strange connection to the sky. Not only was the famous author born when Halley’s Comet visited, but he passed away when it finally returned. This was especially strange, since the comet only passes by Earth every 75 years. Perhaps, most interestingly, Twain was famously quoted having said that, since he was born when it came, he “would go out with it, too.”
7. Jockey Frank Hayes died and won a race simultaneously. In 1923, during a horse race at Belmont, New York, he suffered a massive heart attack. Even though he had perished before reaching the finish line, his horse finished the race in first place. So… yay?
