Charles Blondin

popular name: Joan Merriam Smith

date_of_death: February 17, 1965

age: 28

cause_of_death: Plane crash

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Joan Merriam Smith was an American aviator, famous for her 1964 solo flight around the world in which she became the second woman to complete the trip, by following the equatorial route attempted in 1937 by Amelia Earhart. (Jerrie Mock set off the same week on a different route, and finished before Smith did.) In doing so she also became the first woman to fly a twin-engine aircraft around the world, and the first woman to fly the Pacific Ocean from west to east in a twin-engine plane. Following the equatorial Amelia Earhart route, Joan became the first person in history to successfully complete a solo flight around the world at the equator, as well as the first person to complete the Amelia Earhart route. Smith also was the the first person in history to fly solo around the world at the equator, to complete the longest single solo flight around the world, first woman to fly a twin-engine aircraft around the world, the first woman to fly the Pacific Ocean from west to east in a twin-engine plane, the first woman to receive an airline transport rating at the age of 23, the youngest woman to complete a solo flight around the world, and the first woman to fly solo from Africa to Australia, from Australia to Guam via New Guinea, and from Wake to Midway Island. Sadly she died the following year when the plane she was piloting suffered structural failure and crashed in California.

popular name: Diana Mosley

date_of_death: August 11, 2003

age: 93

cause_of_death: Heat Stroke

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Diana Mosley (née Mitford) was a British aristocrat best known for her controversial political views and associations with fascist and Nazi figures. Born into the prominent Mitford family, she became one of the most notorious members due to her far-right ideology. She was initially married to Bryan Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and both were part of the Bright Young Things, a social group of young Bohemian socialites in 1920s London. Her marriage ended in divorce as she was pursuing a relationship with Oswald Mosley (leader of the British Union of Fascists). In 1936, she married Mosley at the home of the propaganda minister for Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels, with Adolf Hitler as guest of honor. Diana was a fervent admirer of Adolf Hitler, whom she met several times and regarded with great affection—she even honeymooned in Nazi Germany and maintained correspondence with Hitler. Her views included openly racist and anti-Semitic sentiments, and she was a Holocaust denier who downplayed or dismissed the atrocities committed by the Nazis. During World War II, she and her husband were interned by the British government as threats to national security. Despite her privileged background and social status, Diana Mosley remained unapologetic about her extremist beliefs until her death in 2003, making her one of the most unsettling figures of British fascism. She joins her two sisters, Unity and Nancy, at the gravesite of Diana Mosley at St. Mary's Churchyard in Swinbrook, UK.

popular name: Eben Byers

date_of_death: March 31, 1932

age: 51

cause_of_death: Cancer due to excessive radiation exposure

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Eben Byers, popular Pittsburgh sportsman, socialite and industrialist, fell out of an upper berth in 1927 returning from a Yale-Harvard football game and injured his arm. His Pittsburgh physiotherapist, Dr. Charles Clinton Moyar, prescribed a patented drink called ''Radithor." Radithor, a popular and expensive mixture of radium 226 and radium 228 in distilled water, was advertised as an effective treatment for over 150 "endocrinologic" diseases, especially lassitude and sexual impotence. Over 400 000 bottles, each containing over 2 μCi (74 kBq) of radium, were marketed and sold worldwide between 1925 and 1930. Byers was drinking in excess of 3-4 bottles a day for years, claiming the elixir eased the arm pain and gave him a little energy boost. He enthusiastically recommended it to friends, sent them cases of it, even gave some to one of his horses. but stopped in October 1930 (after taking some 1400 doses) when that effect faded. Soon after he lost weight, had horrible headaches and his teeth began to fall out. In 1931, the Federal Trade Commission asked him to testify about his experience, but he was too sick to travel, so the commission sent a lawyer to take his statement at his home; the lawyer reported that Byers's "whole upper jaw, excepting two front teeth and most of his lower jaw had been removed" and that "All the remaining bone tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull." The death of the Pittsburgh millionaire sportsman Eben M. Byers, who was an avid Radithor user, by radium poisoning in 1932 brought an end to this era and prompted the development of regulatory controls for all radiopharmaceuticals. The grave of Eben Byers can be found at the historic Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.