We've explored a lot of strange historical deaths in the past. There are a lot of them... so this time we're switching things up. We all know that humans can find a lot of unique and strange ways to meet their maker, but what about animals?
10. Fastball Pigeon
On March 21, 2001, future Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson walked into the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium preparing for a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants. Little did he know he was about to create one of baseball's most infamous bloopers.
Johnson threw the ball at nearly 100 miles per hour. They didn't call it "The Big One" for nothing. But as the ball hurtled toward the hitter, a pigeon had the misfortune of flying right in front of him. The ball struck the bird, killing it instantly, leaving behind a cloud of feathers. Many curious spectators were left confused as to what the hell just happened.
The pigeon was removed, its feathers cleaned, and the referees had to deliberate over the decision, as there was no rule regarding an animal interfering with play on the field.
9. Killer Mary
In September 1916, the circus Sparks World Famous Shows arrived in Sullivan County, Tennessee. On the 12th, the show was in Kingsport. At the front of the line was the main attraction, a 30-year-old Asian elephant named Mary, ridden by her trainer, Red Eldridge.
Despite its fancy name, Sparks Circus was a fringe operation and didn't have the money to hire a proper handler. In fact, just a few days earlier, Eldridge had been working as a bellhop at a hotel. That same day, he was hired by the circus without any training or experience handling large, dangerous animals. Who could have predicted that something would go wrong?
Anyway, something happened during the parade. We're not sure what. Some say Red hooked Mary's ear with a hook; others that he poked her infected tooth; or maybe she just didn't like the guy. The end result was the same - Mary exploded, threw Eldridge off her, and then killed him. Again, the exact method of execution is unclear.
Now Charlie Sparks had a problem. Mary was his "cash cow" elephant, but everyone in the local area wanted her dead. No town would allow his circus to operate with "Killer Mary" still at large, so he reluctantly agreed to execute her, but the question was how?
They traveled to the nearby town of Erwin, where the railroad industry was booming. The decision was made to hang Mary with the powerful industrial rig they had, and since Sparks was not the kind of guy to pass up an opportunity, he invited the entire town to participate at no extra cost.
8. Basel Devil's Rooster
Every now and then you read about roosters laying eggs. But can a male hen lay eggs? The simple answer is no; the more complex answer is that she actually doesn’t, but it looks like she can… What actually happened there is that the hen has undergone a spontaneous sex change, caused by a dysfunction of the left ovary, which causes the right ovary to release testosterone. Consequently, the bird grows larger, develops male plumage, and may even start crowing. In other words, she looks and acts like a rooster, but is actually a hen in disguise.
Nowadays, we understand this process and simply look at it as a freak of nature. But in the Middle Ages, such anomalies were clearly the work of the devil. Worse, rooster eggs were considered very powerful ingredients for witchcraft. Some even wrote that such eggs would hatch into a two-legged snake-like creature known as a cockatrice.
It was under such circumstances that in 1474, in Basel, an unfortunate hen was mistaken for a rooster, and when she laid an egg, all hell broke loose. Both the bird and the egg were taken into custody, and the animal was brought to trial for the "vile and unnatural crime of laying an egg." The bird was found guilty and burned at the stake along with the egg for its involvement in witchcraft.
7. Woolly Jumpers
Calling someone a “sheep” is a derogatory way of implying that they cannot think for themselves and are easily influenced by others. Some may argue that such a depiction is a bit unfair to sheep, but they may change their minds when they learn about a strange event that took place in Turkey in 2005.
A gigantic flock of sheep was grazing outside the town of Gevas, near the shores of Lake Van. There were about 1,500 sheep in the town, owned by dozens of families. At one point, one sheep came to a cliff and, for reasons known only to itself, jumped off the cliff to its death.
All the other sheep thought it was a good idea and followed her. The shepherds could only watch in stunned horror as 1,500 sheep fell off the cliff. About 450 animals died. The rest survived only because the layer of dead sheep became so high that it began to cushion the fall of those who jumped later.
6. Atomic cow
A “broken arrow” is a term used by the U.S. military to describe an accident involving a nuclear weapon or nuclear components that does not create a risk of nuclear war. Since 1950, the Department of Defense has reported 32 such incidents, the most infamous of which occurred on May 22, 1957, when a Convair B-36 bomber accidentally dropped a Mark 17 hydrogen bomb south of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The plane was en route to Kirtland Air Force Base, transporting a 42,000-pound thermonuclear device from Biggs Air Force Field in El Paso, Texas. What caused the malfunction was never determined, but the hydrogen bomb broke free of its traps, fell through the closed bomb bay doors, and crashed to the ground.
Just to be clear, for safety reasons, there were no nuclear components inside the bomb. There was no chance that the Mark 17 would go nuclear, but the conventional explosives detonated on impact, leaving behind a 25-foot-wide crater. Luckily, the area where it landed was uninhabited, but there was one unfortunate victim—a single cow that happened to be grazing nearby.
5. Cocaine Bear
Recently released movie"Cocaine Bear" pretty much does what it says on the tin: it shows a bear taking a lot of cocaine and then going on a rampage. It sounds like a preposterous idea plucked from the weirdest corners of Hollywood fantasy, but it's actually based on a true story.
Back in 1985, notorious drug smuggler Andrew Thornton crashed his plane while transporting a shipment of cocaine from Colombia to the United States. Before the crash, Thornton jettisoned his cargo in a last-ditch attempt to right the plane. It didn’t work, but the drugs landed safely in the woods outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Enter our furry protagonist. A few days later, a curious bear stumbled upon the merchandise and, intrigued by his new find, ripped open the duffel bag. He told himself he'd try it, just try it, but ended up dunking his entire face in the white substance, Tony Montana style. Before he knew it, the bear had consumed over 70 pounds of cocaine.
What happened next is where the movie diverges from real life. While the movie beast continued to terrorize, the real bear simply overdosed because, well, he ate 70 pounds of cocaine. But what a way to go!
4. The Pig of Falaise
Here we have another medieval animal ordeal, but it was infamous enough to earn its own nickname: the sow of Falaise. And, truth be told, assuming the allegations are true, this one does deserve to be executed. In fact, it’s easily the most heinous crime committed by any of the animals on this list. In 1386, a sow in the French town of Falaise devoured a three-month-old baby, who later died from her injuries.
The pig was executed on January 9, 1386. The execution was a big deal at the time, and several legends arose around the Falaise pig. Some said that the animal was dressed in human clothing on the day of its death, while others said that local pigs were brought in to witness what happened to farm animals that tried to eat people. The execution scene was even supposedly depicted on a fresco inside a local church, but no such images have survived.
3. Fabio's Bird Madness
There are certain moments that are not only immortalized in pop culture, but also define an entire generation—like the moon landing or the fall of the Berlin Wall. But for kids of the '90s, that moment came when Fabio killed a goose with his face.
It was March 30, 1999. Fabio was a successful model who first found fame posing for the covers of romance novels. On that fateful day, he was at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, helping to promote the opening of a new roller coaster. As the guest of honor, Fabio sat front and center on the inaugural ride. When the coaster started, Fabio was all smiles, but by the time it was over, his face was a bloody mess.
During the ride, a goose flew straight into the model’s face. The impact was strong enough to kill the bird, though Fabio only needed a few stitches. At least, that’s the story we were led to believe. It wasn’t until two decades later that Fabio revealed what really happened. In a plot twist worthy of Agatha Christie, the bird never touched him. In reality, the goose died when it crashed into a video camera mounted on the roller coaster. A piece of the camera hit Fabio and cut his nose, but the folks at Busch Gardens were willing to push the original version of the story to avoid liability.
2. Topsy the Elephant
We come to perhaps the most infamous animal execution in history, that of Topsy the elephant. Topsy was electrocuted on January 4, 1903, at Coney Island's Luna Park, and the whole thing was caught on camera for the short film Electrocuted elephant" , produced by Thomas Edison's film company.
Edison’s role in the whole affair was another thing that helped the event gain notoriety. For years, he took most of the blame for Topsy’s death, being accused of devising the entire stunt to show the world how dangerous alternating current could be. After all, would anyone want to have something powerful enough to instantly kill an elephant in their home, especially when Edison’s direct current was supposed to be much safer?
It sounded like something Edison would do. He had a reputation for being ruthless and manipulative in business, and Topsy was the unfortunate victim of what became known as the War of the Currents. This time, however, Edison was innocent. The War of the Currents ended in the early 1890s with a resounding victory for alternating current. Topsy was killed a decade later. In this particular case, his company was there to capture the extraordinary moment on film, and the real villains in the story were Topsy’s owners, who decided to kill the elephant for publicity.
1. A cow, two heifers, three sheep and two pigs (oh my)
Cotton Mather was a 17th-century New England Puritan minister and writer. As a member of London's Royal Society, he was considered one of colonial America's leading intellectuals, and later gained infamy for his role in the Salem witch trials. We're not interested in that, though, because we're here to talk about the guy who reportedly had sex with animals.
His name was William Potter, and he was in his sixties. Although Potter was described as devout, religious, and "zealous in righting the sins of others," he admitted to having begun sodomizing animals when he was just 10 years old and never looking back. His wife even caught him in the act with the family dog, but he convinced her to keep quiet. At the time of his arrest, Potter had a brothel on his farm, consisting of a cow, two heifers, three sheep, and two sows.
Since zoophilia was considered a form of satanic possession, Potter was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed on June 6, 1662, in New Haven, but before he was killed, all of his animal "lovers" were executed before his eyes, one by one, causing him to collapse in tears by the time he reached the noose.
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