February 4 | Franz Reichelt

Died February 4, 1912: Age unknown

And now, from the sublime to the... well, you know.

Franz Reichelt was an Austrian tailor who designed an overcoat that would act as a parachute, floating its wearer gently to the ground. To demonstrate his invention, he planned to send it off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower, using a dummy. Having obtained the correct permissions, however, and invited the gentlemen of the press, he decided at the last minute to test it in person, himself, possibly in response to the presence of newsreel cameras.

He strapped himself in and, after modelling his invention on the ground for the cameras and assembled crowds, climbed to the the first deck. There he hesitated several moments, poised on the rail of the deck, looking down at the ground. Finally, with a little thrust forward, he launched himself. With a 60 metre drop, the results were predictable. They were also caught on film, which can be viewed on YouTube, of course.

On the film, a title in French appears: "Comme s'il eut pressenti l'horrible sort qui l'attendait, le malheureux inventeur hesita longuement avant de se lancer dans le vide." It means "As though he sensed the horrible fate that awaited him, the unfortunate inventor hesitated long before throwing himself into the void." At the end you see them take his body away, and then the police measuring the depression in the ground made by his impact.

Sources: Wikipedia, Damn Interesting

January 30 | Baroness Mary Vetsera

March 19, 1871 - January 30, 1889: Age 17

If bad judgement were consistently fatal, we would never live beyond our teenage years. Mary Vetsera, the teenaged progeny of an elderly Baron and the daughter of a low-class Greek millionaire, made a lot of silly choices just like any other teenager, but in her case they were fatal.

Encouraged by her ambitious mother, she attracted the attention of Rudolph, the Crown Prince and heir of the Austrian Empire. Had he lived today he would have been all over the tabloid press: unable to connect with his distant, narcissictic mother (see September 10 death) and rigid, conservative father; and distant from all others due to his exalted rank, he drowned his depression and frustration in champagne, ether, opium, and sex. At 30, the physical effects were beginning to tell: he had contracted syphilis (which he had passed on to his wife and, no doubt, many others as well) and suffered blinding headaches and seizures. Married and emotionally unstable, he was not a great catch.

Mary seems to have been blinded by love and by the sheer romance of the lonely, great man, desperate for her tender rescue. Their relationship was consummated in mid-January. When he proposed a suicide pact with her, she agreed, and began composing suicide notes for various family members immediately (some were even found before the death). What she probably never knew was that she was not his first choice: Rudolph had been shopping for some time for a companion in death. Previously he had asked (many times) his friend Mitzi Kaspar, a Viennese prostitute, to join him. She, sensibly, refused and reported it to the police, who did nothing.

On the evening of January 30, 1889, Rudolph and Mary met at his hunting lodge, having agreed to spend one more night together before plunging into the afterlife together. At some point during the night Rudolph shot Mary. He then stayed in the room with the body six to eight hours before shooting himself in the head.

Because of his political position, the prime directive to all involved was instantly understood to be "cover-up". Mary's body was smuggled out of the lodge and buried secretly at a nearby monastery, her relatives warned, even threatened, to keep quiet. The first official story was that Rudolf had died of a heart attack. Too many servants, however, had seen the bodies and the notes for that to hold up, however, and the story of the suicide pact quickly became widespread. A special dispensation was obtained from the Pope to bury Rudolph in the family tomb (normally suicides cannot be buried in sacred ground).

Later various stories surfaced about conspiracies, some alleging that the couple had been killed by French spies, others that the Emperor himself had ordered the deaths. It is not known for sure how Mary died; officially she was said to have been shot, but other stories state that she was strangled. Her remains were stolen in 1992; when returned they were examined and there was no evidence of a gunshot but there was evidence of a severe beating. However it cannot be known for sure if the 100-year-old skeleton was actually hers. Some reports say that only one shot was fired, killing Rudolph; others say that six shots were fired. Because the crime scene was cleared up with only brief examination, and because the Emperor spent a fortune silencing witnesses and suppressing evidence, the truth will never be known.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Mayerling Tragedy

January 29 | Ulrike Maier

October 22, 1967 - January 29, 1994: Age 26

Ulrike Maier was a two-time Super Giant Slalom World Alpine Ski champion. She on in 1989 and in 1991. She scored five World Cup race victories in her career.

During another World Cup downhill race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, her right ski hit a patch of soft snow. She lost her balance and flipped around, her head crashing into a timing post. Her helmet flew off, she tumbled over several times and was hit by a ski that had snapped free.

She was flown by helicopter to a hospital 15 miles east but they were unable to save her, and she was pronounced dead two and a half hours after the accident. She had planned to retire at the end of the season and marry the father of her 4-year-old daughter in the fall.

Sources: Wikipedia, The New York Times

December 24 | Alban Berg

February 9, 1885 - December 24, 1935: Age 50

Alban Berg was a Viennese composer. He was a student and lifelong friend of Arnold Schoenberg, and his compositions combined Schoenberg's 12-tone technique with a romantic style.

In the summer of 1935, Berg was stung on the back by a wasp. The bite became infected, and Berg developed septicemia, a condition in which bacteria enter the bloodstream and the immune response causes the body to go into shock. The treatment, today, is antibiotics, but penicillin, the first effective modern antibiotic treatment, hadn't come into broad use yet.

Like all of Schoenberg's students, he was obsessed with numbers. Berg calculated his chances based on a personal numerology, and predicted he would die on December 24 — and he did.

Here is a link to Glenn Gould playing Berg's first published piece of music: a stunning piano sonata. It's about 10 minutes long. Enjoy!

Sources: Wikipedia, Brain-Juice, Death myths of the great composers

December 5 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791: Age 35

"I never lie down at night without the reflection that — young as I am — I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled."

Mozart was perhaps the most brilliant musical genius in European history; certainly he is the most famous. He began playing piano at the age of 3; his first composition was created at the age of 5. He early career is a laundry list of such incredible bits of information. Certain Mozart was a child prodigy, but his father Leopold, a musician and composer himself, was also a canny marketer, and made the most of his son's talent. Mozart's older sister, Nannerl, was also a talented young musician, and the Mozart family travelled around Europe exhibiting the young prodigies.

Mozart went on to be an equally brilliant adult composer. (Nannerl, on the other hand, was discouraged and never performed in public once she had reached her late teens. It was thought she would not be "marriageable" if she performed as an adult.) Mozart's gigantic output of operas, symphonies, concerti, chamber music, and choral music are still performed and loved today. There is a special brilliance, a lightness to his music that is irresistable. His personal life was more difficult, as he had a rocky relationship with his father (he eventually moved from Salzburg to Vienna to get away from him) and the life of a freelance composer has never been an easy one in any age. For the most part he prospered until the 1790s brought an economic downturn and concomitant financial problems for the Mozart family (by this time he was married and had two children).

However the year 1791 was a very productive one artistically and financially. Alas, this was also the year of his death. His final illness came in November of 1791, when he was only 35. He came down on November 20 with swelling, pain, and vomiting. The most likely diagnosis is acute rheumatic fever, of which he had had several attacks starting when he was young. He was working at the time on a Requiem, and continued to do so during his illness until the swelling of his limbs made it impossible. On December 4 he seemed a little better, then suddenly much worse. He said to his sister-in-law, "You must stay here tonight and see me die...Why, I have already the taste of death on my tongue."

According to his son Karl, who was 7 when he died, "A few days before he died, his whole body became so swollen that the patient was unable to make the smallest movement, moreover, there was a stench, which reflected an internal disintegration which, after death, increased to the extent that an autopsy was rendered impossible." Just before he died, he asked his wife what the doctor had said after his visit that day. When she lied by telling him something positive, he said, "It isn't true. I shall die, now when I am able to take care of you and the children. Ah, now I will leave you unprovided for." According to his wife, as he spoke these words, "Suddenly he vomited — it gushed out of him in an arc — it was brown, and he was dead."

Much is made of the fact that Mozart was buried in a common grave and had a simple funeral, but this was normal practice for middle class people in Austria in that period.

Click here to see and hear the gorgeous 2nd movement of his clarinet concerto, written in the last year of his life.

Sources: Wikipedia; Solomon, Maynard, Mozart, Harper Collins, 1995

This post is for Stephen Prime, a damn good first violin, who suggested the subject.

September 23 | Sigmund Freud

May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939: Age 83

Freud loved a good cigar (whether just a cigar, or nothing more), and he smoked a lot of them: 20 a day. In 1923 he was diagnosed with mouth cancer, but he continued to smoke, even though he knew they were killing him (although the first breakthrough medical study linking tobacco smoking with health damage didn't come out until 1948, the link had been suspected since the 17th century).

The tumours started on his hard palate and metastasized to the upper part of the lower jaw and his cheek. He underwent more than 30 operations to try to halt the cancer and replace some of the affected tissue with prosthetics, but they seemed only to increase his discomfort.

In March 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria, and anti-Semitism in Vienna (including visits from the Gestapo and the cancellation of his passport) drove Freud and his family to flee to London in June 1938. His cancer advanced, and in March 1939, he wrote to Arnold Zweig, "There is no longer any doubt that we are dealing with a new outbreak of my dear old carcinoma with which I have shared my existence for the past 16 years. Who would turn out to be the stronger could not, of course, have been predicted." In June he wrote to Marie Bonaparte, "...the radium has once again begun to eat away at something...and my world is what it was previously, a small island of pain floating on an ocean of indifference."

In September he asked his friend, Dr. Max Schur, who had fled with him to London, to help him die. “My dear Schur, you certainly remember our first talk. You promised me then not to forsake me when my time comes. Now it is nothing but torture and makes no sense any more.” Schur administered three large doses of morphine in the space of several hours, and Freud died, an assisted suicide.

There is an interesting article on the website of the Freud Museum about Freud's attitude. A quote: “Freud did not just 'have' cancer, he formed a relationship with it which echoed the structure of numerous others in his life - from childhood playmates to later friends and colleagues.” Click here to read more, it’s worth your time.

Sources: BBC History, Jewish Virtual Library, Freud Museum

September 10 | Elizabeth of Austria

December 24, 1837 - September 10, 1898: Age 60

Empress Elizabeth of Austria was the third child of a Duke. Her elder sister, Helene, was chosen to be the wife of the young Emperor Franz Josef, but when the family was taken to meet the young monarch he fell in love with Elizabeth. Against everyone's wishes (except hers), they were married. She was 16; he was 23.

Elizabeth's life was as interesting as her personality. Her mother-in-law was a powerful and wily politician who ruled the empire through her son; they never saw eye-to-eye but Elizabeth was one of the very few people in Europe capable of standing up to her. Strong, independent, rich, dazzlingly beautiful, popular, adored by her subjects — even so, Elizabeth was often deeply unhappy. She hated the tedious responsibilities of the role she had married into. She became obsessed with preserving her beauty, and was anorexic, starving herself to maintain a 20-inch waist throughout her life. She traveled obsessively and constantly, becoming more and more restless as she grew older. When in 1889 she lost her son to suicide, she withdrew into deep depression.

On September 10, 1898, 25-year-old Luigi Lucheni, an Italian anarchist, was in Geneva with the intention to kill an aristocrat. His original target was a french Duke, but when that individual changed his itinerary he fixed on the other royal who happened to be in town: the Empress Elizabeth. He actually had no idea who she was, he just knew she was important. While she was boarding a steamship, he rushed up to her and stabbed her with a needle file. She didn't realize she was hurt at first. She had fallen to the ground but got up immediately and proceeded to board the boat. Once on the boat, the wound was discovered, and she was rushed back to land to be seen by a doctor. The wound was small but fatal: it had punctured her heart. She died before receiving medical attention. Her last words were, "What has happened to me?"

Lucheni was sentenced to life in prison. In 1910, 12 years later, he was found hanged in his cell, an apparent suicide. Physicians and psychiatrists, eager to "fathom the secrets of the criminal mind", removed Lucheni's head, preserving it in a jar of formaldehyde. Described as "yellowing" and "sleepy-eyed", it was kept in a closet in Geneva's Institute of Legal Medicine for 66 years. In 1986 the Swiss sent the head to the Anatomical Institute of the University of Vienna, where presumably it remains today.

Sources: Wikipedia, Empress of Austria (Her British Journeys), "Relic of an 1898 Crime Goes Home to Vienna" (New York Times, August 31, 1986)