In 1662, John Graunt, a London merchant, published the first set of actuarial tables in his book Observations on the Bills of Mortality. Graunt provides many interesting statistics regarding causes of deaths in London in 1632. Seven people are listed as being murdered, 10 people as having died from cancer, and no specific mention is made of heart ailments. On the other hand, 13 people are listed as having died from "planet", 38 from "king's evil", and 98 from "rising of the lights". Possibly the saddest statistic, however, is that out of 9,535 deaths that year, infants made up 2,268 of them, over 23%. (source)

Isaac Newton most likely died from mercury poisoning.

The noted playwright Tennessee Williams choked to death on an eyedropper bottle cap in 1983. (source)

In 1971, William G. Hall, of Shrewsbury, England, killed himself by drilling eight holes in his head with a power drill. (source)

The worst possible death for a Viking chief was to die peacefully in bed.

In 2010, Jim Heselden, owner of the Segway Company, died while riding a Segway.

Allan Pinkerton, who founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, died from an infection that set in after he bit his own tongue. (source)

King John of England died in 1216 of over-eating. (source)

In 1996, Richard Versalle suffered a heart attack onstage at the New York Metropolitan Opera after delivering the line "Too bad you can only live so long" during a performance of The Makropulos Case.

During the Third Crusade, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa drowned while crossing the Saleph River in Turkey on horseback. (source)

King Adolf Frederick of Sweden ate himself to death in 1771. His final meal included cabbage, lobster, caviar, smoked herring, and Champagne, followed by 14 servings of semla in hot milk. (source)

According to legend, Draco, the 7th century B.C. Greek lawmaker, died when, after giving an excellent speech, the crowd showered him with cloaks and hats and he died of suffocation. (source)

Ethiopia's Emperor Menelik II believed that the Bible had curative powers, and he would eat a few pages of it to help restore his health whenever he felt sick. However, he died in 1913 as a result of eating the entire Book of Kings. (source)

In 1911, Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee whiskey distillery, died from blood poisoning resulting from a toe injury caused by kicking his safe in anger when he could not remember its combination.

King Alexandros I of Greece (1917–1920) died from blood poisoning after being bitten by his pet monkey. (source)

100 people a year choke to death on ball-point pens.

Clement Vallandigham was an outspoken Ohio politician during the American Civil War. By the time the war was over, his now-obsolete pro-slavery beliefs made it hard for him to get elected, and he retired from politics and returned to practicing law in Ohio, at which he was quite successful. Six years later he was defending a certain Thomas McGehan, who was accused of murder in a bar fight. Vallandigham claimed that the victim, a certain Meyers, had accidentally shot himself by trying to draw his pistol while kneeling down. At Lebanon, Ohio, on the night of Friday, June 16, 1871, he was in a hotel room discussing McGehan's defence with Andrew McBurney, who had previously been Lieutenant Governor of Ohio. McBurney expressed scepticism at Vallandigham's theory, so Vallandigham grabbed a pistol he had placed on the table and demonstrated what he would show the jury. The only problem was that he didn't grab the pistol he thought he had, but rather a loaded gun, which discharged during the demonstration. Vallandigham received a wound similar to the one found on Meyers and died the next morning. As it turned out, however, Vallandigham's death was not entirely in vain. The jury in the McGehan case were now quite amenable to believing that Meyers' wound was self-inflicted, and McGehan was acquitted and went free. (source)

Under Massachusetts' Stubborn Child Act of 1654, parents could put their "stubborn" children to death. (source)

Henry I of England (reigned 1100–1135) died of food poisoning after eating too many lampreys at a banquet in France. His remains were sent back to England sewn into the hide of a bull. (source)

Ken Charles Barger, who was 47 years of age, accidentally shot himself to death in December 1992 in New­ton, North Carolina when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but instead grabbed a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

In October 1997, 79-year-old Maxine Ann Keggerris believed that she could mow the lawn with her ride-on mower and exercise her dog at the same time. However, the dog's lead became entangled with the lawn mower and both fell into a pond and drowned. (source)

According to legend, Aeschylus, a fifth-century B.C. Greek playwright considered to be the father of Greek tragedies, died when an eagle, mistaking his bald head for a rock, dropped a tortoise on his head. (source)

In ancient Egypt, slaves are known to have been murdered to accompany their deceased owners to the afterlife. (source)

In 1978, Kurt Gödel, the famous Austrian-American mathematician and logician, died of starvation. His wife had been hospitalized, and Gödel suffered from extreme paranoia and refused to eat food prepared by anyone else. He weighed only around 65 pounds at the time of his death.

In 1982, David Grundman was firing at cacti near Lake Pleasant, Arizona, just for fun. When he fired several shots at a cactus 26 feet in height at very close range, a 4-foot limb of the cactus, weakened by the gunfire, fell on him, crushing him to death.

On July 7, 1973, in Alwar, India, a bus was swept into a river by a flash flood. 70 of 78 passengers drowned because they belonged to two separate castes, and did not share a rope that would have allowed them to climb to safety. (source)

In 1915, statistics were compiled from 18 U.S. states of the number of deaths from three branches of outdoor sport. 16 people were killed in football, 59 in hunting, and 59 in baseball. (source)

In 1911, Bobby Leech survived a barrel ride over Niagara Falls. After recovering from his injuries, his new-found fame gave him the opportunity to embark on a worldwide lecture tour. In New Zealand, he slipped on a banana peel and died from complications due to the fall. (source)

Legend has it that Clement VII, pope from 1523 to 1534, was so fond of mushrooms that he made it illegal for anyone else to eat those growing in the Papal States, so that there would never be a shortage for his own table. He died in 1534 from eating a poisonous death cap mushroom. (source)

In 1972, Vera Czermak of Prague, Czechoslovakia found out that her husband was unfaithful. Deciding to commit suicide, she flung herself out of a third-storey window. It so happened that Mr. Czermak was walking by at the time, and she landed on him, killing him instantly. Mrs. Czermak was treated for minor injuries at the hospital and released. (source)