Death

Sucking out a viper's venom won't save your life.

From quicksand to free-falling elevators, these situations call for clear thinking.

Ljuba brank via WikimediaCommons // CC BY-SA 3.0

Grave robbers made off with the composer's skull in 1809. So how did two different heads end up back where he's buried?

The grave of German film director F.W. Murnau

F.W. Murnau isn't the only historical figure to have lost his head after death.

Remember how scared we were of satanic cults, Y2K, and nuclear war? (Okay, we're still scared of nuclear war.)

getty images (shelley) / istock (heart and jar)

The gruesome way the author of Frankenstein coped with her husband's death.

Though he was in office less than a year, Garfield's grave is one of the most elaborate presidential monuments ever built.

From getting hitched to saving the environment, here's proof you can still be a busybody long after you kick the bucket.

After George Parkman mysteriously disappeared on November 23, 1849, an unusual suspect emerged.

John Scott Harrison, onetime Ohio congressman and gentleman farmer, is the only person who was both the son and father of U.S. Presidents: father William Henry was the ninth, while son Benjamin was the 23rd.

L'Inhumation Precipitee or "The Premature Burial" by Belgian artist Antoine Wiertz

Over the past several centuries, some well-known people made provisions to avoid being declared dead before their time.

It should come as no surprise that she had very specific plans she wished to be followed upon her passing.

The most dangerous movies in history.

He was probably ugly.

There have been people throughout history whose bodies have stubbornly refused to decompose as expected.

Elva Zona Heaster Shue, or the "Greenbrier Ghost," is only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer.

All it took to locate the bones of Richard III was 500 years, a psychic vision, and a grassroots movement.

It might sound grotesque, but bones have been an architectural staple for millennia. Here are some of the world’s greatest osteological marvels.

From the conjoined livers from a pair of Siamese twins to slides of Albert Einstein’s brain, Philadelphia's Mütter Museum houses dozens of strange artifacts from medical history.

Either way, it isn't going to be pleasant.

10 Misconceptions About Things That Can Kill You

Why Does Haydn's Tomb Contain Two Skulls?

6 Historical Heads Stolen From Their Graves

Where Are They Now? Things That Terrified Us in the '90s

Mary Shelley's Favorite Keepsake: Her Dead Husband's Heart

Grave Sightings: James Garfield

10 Things Your Body Can Do After You Die

The Harvard Chemistry Professor Who Was Also a Murderer

The Mysterious Life and Death of Kaspar Hauser

The Body-Snatching Horror of John Scott Harrison

10 Famous People Who Were Afraid They'd Be Buried Alive

Many of Egypt's Animal Mummies Don't Contain Mummies At All

The Very Particular Details of Emily Dickinson's Funeral

6 Movie Sets That Could Have Killed Someone

6 People Who Can Cheat (Certain Kinds of) Death

Scientists Reveal the Real Face of King Tut

The Era of the Body Snatchers

5 Bodies That Refused to Rot

The Ghost Who Helped Solve Her Own Murder

Unearthing Richard III: The Luckiest Find in History

10 Buildings Made With Bones

11 Weird (But Awesome) Things at the Mütter Museum

If You Fell Into a Volcano, How Would You Die?