List of Unusual Deaths - 18th Century

18th Century

• 1753: Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann, of Saint Petersburg, Russia, became the first recorded person to be killed while performing electrical experiments when he was struck and killed by a globe of ball lightning that hit him on his head.
• 1755: Henry Hall died from injuries he sustained after molten lead fell into his throat while looking up at a burning lighthouse.
• 1762: Crown Prince Sado, then heir to King Yeongjo of Joseon, was ordered to be sealed alive in a rice chest after his father decided he was unfit to succeed him.
• 1771: Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, died of digestion problems on 12 February 1771 after having consumed a meal of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: hetvägg served in a bowl of hot milk. He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as "the king who ate himself to death."
• 1783: James Otis, Jr., the American revolutionary, "often mentioned to friends and relatives that ... he hoped his death would come from a bolt of lightning." His hope was fulfilled on May 23, 1783 when lightning struck the chimney of a friend's house in whose doorway he was standing.
• 1794: John Kendrick, an American sea captain and explorer, was killed in the Hawaiian Islands when a British ship mistakenly used a loaded cannon to fire a salute to Kendrick's vessel.