Via Pravda (no, not the BBC), a morbidly amusing article about some bizarre deaths :

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Descriptions of absurd deaths can be traced back in ancient times. In most cases, they sound like black humor jokes. For example, in year 207 B.C. Chrysippus, a Greek philosopher died of laughter watching his drunk donkey trying to eat figs.

Another curious story took place on January 8, 1687. Jean-Baptiste de Lully, a French composer, was conducting an orchestra during the performance of Te Deum, which he had written for Louis XIV. He was beating time by banging a long staff (a precursor to the bâton) against the floor, as was the common practice at the time, when he struck his toe, creating an abscess. The wound turned gangrenous, but Lully refused to have his toe amputated and the gangrene spread, resulting in his death on 22 March.
In 1998, an astonishing incident happened to illustrate how a human being can fall a victim to their own enthusiasm. Ivan McGuire was a very experienced skydiver. One day he decided to film his 3,000-meter jump above North Carolina. As it turned out during the jump – the man had the camera, but he forgot to take his parachute.

Two car passengers died when an eagle soaring overhead accidentally dropped a cobra into their vehicle. The snake bit them straightaway, killing them both.

An 18-year-old occupant of a farm in Belgium was killed by an unmanned Russian MiG fighter jet The pilot had ejected in Poland, but the aircraft flew 560 miles on auto-pilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the poor teenager’s home.

Willie Murphy was more than a bit shell-shocked when an avalanche of peanuts buried him at a processing plant in Georgia, USA, in 1993.

I am not sure which of those would win the worlds most unlucky people award but the snake dropping into the car must be a damned good candidate.

Also, I would love to know why the hell Chrysippus’ donkey was drunk in the first place.