May
17
/ 2022
Looking to the past, the annals of history have its fair share of extraordinary and unusual deaths, some more famous than others. It’s well known that Attila the Hun, the marauding Mongolian warlord, was killed by a nosebleed, and that Adolf Frederick of Sweden ate himself to death in 1771 after consuming caviar, lobster, kippers, and 14 servings of his favorite dessert. Lesser noted, but equally as outlandish was the death of Klaus Störtebeker, a 14th century German pirate, whose remarkable decapitation and spike-pierced skull still hold revered places in the pantheon of German national mythology. Klaus Störtebeker was born in 1360 in the North German town of Wismar. Not much is known about the early life of this elusive
