Curated playlist
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
- John KeatsJohn Keats asked for a tombstone with no name on it. He died in Rome at 25, sure he had failed as a poet.
- Jane AustenJane Austen died in 1817 without her name on any of her novels. Her first book said only "By a Lady."
- Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller's tomb is now empty. On the 3rd of May 2008, DNA tests showed the skull in it was not his.
- Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was slashed with a sword as a boy for refusing to polish a British officer's boots.
- Mahmud IISultan Mahmud II hid on a palace roof in 1808 while assassins hunted him. A slave girl's thrown ashes blinded them.
- Stephen CraneStephen Crane wrote a famous Civil War novel without ever seeing a battle. He died of tuberculosis at 28.
- Vissarion BelinskyRussian critic Vissarion Belinsky died in 1848, just before the Tsar's police could arrest him.
- Simón BolívarAt 22, Simón Bolívar swore on a hill outside Rome to end Spanish rule in the Americas.
- Pauline BonapartePauline Bonaparte sold everything she owned to help Napoleon in exile on Elba. Reportedly, no other sibling went.
- Napoleon IINapoleon II was Emperor of the French for only two days. He was three years old and never ruled.
- Robert FultonA steamboat mocked as "Fulton's Folly" went from New York City to Albany and back in 62 hours in 1807.
- Aubrey BeardsleyDying at 25, artist Aubrey Beardsley begged his publisher to destroy his most explicit drawings.
- Franz Xaver SüssmayrFranz Xaver Süssmayr became famous for finishing someone else's work. He completed Mozart's unfinished Requiem.