Charles Blondin

popular name: Robert Wadlow

date_of_death: July 15, 1940

age: 22

cause_of_death: Wound infection

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Robert Pershing Wadlow, also known as Alton's Gentle Giant and the Giant of Illinois, was an American man who was the tallest person in recorded history for whom there is irrefutable evidence. He was born and raised in Alton, Illinois, a small city near St. Louis, Missouri. His great size and his continued growth in adulthood were due to hypertrophy of his pituitary gland, which results in an abnormally high level of human growth hormone (HGH). By the time of his graduation from Alton High School in 1936, he was 8 feet 4 inches tall and measured almost 9 feet tall at the time of his death. Wadlow became a celebrity after his 1936 U.S. tour with the Ringling Brothers Circus, appearing at Madison Square Garden and the Boston Garden in the center ring (never in the sideshow). During his appearances, he dressed in his everyday clothes and refused the circus's request that he wear a top hat and tails. In 1938, he began a promotional tour with the International Shoe Company, which provided him shoes free of charge, again only in his everyday street clothes. Wadlow saw himself as working in advertising, not exhibiting as a freak. He possessed great physical strength until the last few days of his life. He was buried at Alton Cemetery (aka Oakwood Cemetery) in Alton, Illinois.

popular name: Mary E. Hart

date_of_death: October 15, 1872

age: 47

cause_of_death: Unknown

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: As the story goes, at 48 years old Mary E. Hart, as she was known in life, “just drops to the floor” one day at midnight. Believing her dead, her family had her buried at Evergreen Cemetery the very next day. However, one night her aunt has a terrible nightmare that Mary’s not actually dead. The aunt eventually convinces the family to exhume the body, and when they open the coffin, they find Mary’s nails bloodied from scratching and a petrified look on her face as if she died of asphyxiation. Legend has it that she may of just suffered a stroke when she fell to the floor, her family not realizing she was still alive. So now urban legend has it that Midnight Mary haunts Evergreen Cemetery and will curse anyone with certain death if they are found in the graveyard at midnight or caught desecrating her grave.

popular name: Elizabeth Edwards

date_of_death: December 7, 2010

age: 61

cause_of_death: Metastatic breast cancer

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: During a lifetime of idyllic successes and crushing reverses, Elizabeth Edwards was an accomplished lawyer, the mother of four children and the wife of a wealthy, handsome senator with sights on the White House. But their 16-year-old son was killed in a car crash, cancer struck her at age 55, the political dreams died and, within months, her husband admitted to having had an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer. The scandal over the affair faded after his disclosure in 2008. But in 2009, Mrs. Edwards resurrected it in a new book and interviews and television appearances, telling how her husband had misrepresented the infidelity to her, rocked their marriage and spurned her advice to abandon his run for the presidency. Eventually John Edwards admitted he had fathered a child with the staffer. Soon afterward, he and Mrs. Edwards separated legally. Her story and John Edwards subsequent charges of campaign finance violations involving his mistress to the tune of $900,000 was fodder for tabloids for the better part of a year. Elizabeth Edwards gravesite is one of the top most-visited memorials at historic Oakwood Cemetery.