Wait, That Actually Happened? Mind-bending Historical Moments You Won’t Believe

The Last Laugh: When People Died of Laughter

Laughter can kill. A 6th-century Greek painter, Zeuxis, passed away from it. He insisted on using an older woman as a model for his painting of Aphrodite. However, he continued laughing at the artwork and died.

Similarly, Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen, had a servant who laughed when she learned of her husband’s death. And in 1989, Ole Bentzen died from a heart attack while laughing during a comic scene in a play, most likely due to extremely high blood pressure.

Next: A writer predicted this man’s death four decades earlier.

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