List of unusual deaths. This is a list of unusual deaths.
This list includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history, noted as being unusual by multiple sources. Some of the deaths are mythological or are considered to be unsubstantiated by contemporary researchers. Death from laughter. Death from laughter refers to a rare instance of death, usually resulting from cardiac arrest or asphyxiation, caused by a fit of laughter.
Instances of death by laughter have been recorded from Ancient Greece to the modern day. Pathophysiology[edit] Death may result from several pathologies that deviate from benign laughter. Infarction of the pons and medulla oblongata in the brain may cause pathological laughter.[1] Historical deaths attributed to laughter[edit] Candy desk. In 1965, California's George Murphy joined the Senate, and kept candy in his desk to offer his colleagues, and to consume himself, though eating is not allowed on the Senate floor.
When he left the Senate after a six-year term, other Republican senators maintained the custom. The nascent tradition did not become publicly known until the mid-1980s, when Washington Senator Slade Gorton disclosed it in announcing that he would be sitting at the Candy Desk. History[edit] George Murphy, a one-term senator from California, is considered the founder of the candy desk tradition.
Paul Fannin, Harrison Schmitt, Roger Jepsen, and Steve Symms all continued the new candy desk tradition, in that order, after Murphy's one term was over.