10 Weirdest Deaths In History

10. Sir William Payne-Gallwey

Yes, those are turnips. Yes, they're relevant. Just read on.

If you know there's death at the end of a story, and that story starts with firearms, you'd be forgiven for thinking that firearms were the direct cause of the aforementioned death. Sometimes, though, the firearm is just a background character, playing second fiddle to the cruel, callous, seemingly indiscriminate machinations of the universe. Such was the case of Sir William Payne-Gallwey, 2nd Baronet. Payne-Gallwey was a Conservative Party MP who sat in the House of Commons from 1851 until 1880, when he stood down.

The very next year, Payne-Gallwey found himself in the parish of Bagby, where he was shooting recreationally. While trouncing through a turnip field, he somehow tripped and fell. He could've tripped over a turnip, or he could've tripped over being in his 70s. The records aren't exactly clear. Whatever the case may have been, he apparently landed on a turnip, an impact that resulted in significant internal injuries. He died not long after.

Now, would he have died of these injuries were he not a 70-something-year-old man in the 1800s? Probably not. Old people are brittle, after all. Still, death by turnip isn't the way anyone wants to go.