ways to go

Wikipedia has a very interesting list of unusual deaths here. Some of my favorites, so to speak:

212 BC: Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, was said to have been doing a math problem in the sand of his town, Syracuse, Sicily, when an army invaded. A soldier interrupted Archimedes who just replied, "Do not disturb my circles". The soldier then killed him.

1960: Baritone Leonard Warren collapsed on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera of a major stroke during a performance of La forza del destino. The last line he sang was "Morir? Tremenda cosa." ("To die? A tremendous thing.")

1971: Jerome Irving Rodale, an American pioneer of organic farming, died of a heart attack while being interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show. When he appeared to fall asleep, Cavett quipped "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?".[23] The show was never broadcast.

1975: On 24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn literally died laughing whilst watching an episode of The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of Bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic Black Pudding in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye." After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure.

Also see a list of inventors killed by their own inventions and the Darwin Awards.