Being 58 years old, nearly 59, it’s compelling to flip the hour glass and reflect on those whose lives spanned 58 years and no more.
Marcus Aurelius Roman emperor, Stoic philosopher – natural causes
Edna Vincent St. Millay poet – heart attack
James Joyce Irish writer – perforated ulcer
George Harrison Beatle “All Things Must Pass” – lung cancer
Hugo Chavez President of Venezuela – cancer
Gertrude Bell English writer, traveller, spy – apparent overdose of sleeping pills
Paul Atkinson (guitarist) The Zombies – liver and kidney disease
Vidkun Quisling collaborator Axis forces WWII – executed by firing squad
Richard Burton actor – brain hemorrhage
Kit Carson frontiersman – abdominal aortic aneurysm
Tim Russert TV journalist – heart attack
Barry White – musician – kidney failure
Niccolo Machiavelli historian, philosopher – unspecified – He was in declining health the last year of his life.
Andy Warhol artist – post operative cardiac arrhythmia after routine gallbladder surgery
Gustave Flaubert French writer – suffered from venereal disease most of his life, died of a cerebral hemorrhage
Sun Yat-sen Chinese revolutionary – liver cancer
Bertolt Brecht German poet, playwright – heart attack
Charles Dickens English novelist – stroke
Paddy Chayefsky American playwright, screenwriter – cancer
George B. McClellan American Civil War general – Democratic presidential nominee 1864 – heart attack
Pompey military and political leader, late Roman Republic – stabbed to death
R. J. Reynolds, Jr. son of founder of tobacco company, businessman and philanthropist – oxygen overdose, suffering from emphysema
Alan Watts writer, interpreter of Eastern Philosophy – heart failure
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