Mental Floss

DEATH

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Shortly before 11 p.m. on Monday, December 8, 1980, John Lennon was gunned down in front of his New York City apartment building by an obsessed fan. This is the story of the days leading up to that tragedy.

Kenneth Partridge








Sugar skulls are just one part of Día de los Muertos.

In Latin America, el Día de los Muertos is a celebration of life and death, and an invitation for the deceased to return home once again to those who love them.

Roxana Becerril




Victor Hugo, Anne Rice, and Thomas Hardy were all believers.

Some, like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Victor Hugo, believed they had communicated with spirits directly; others, like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Hardy, had ghostly encounters they couldn’t explain.

Lorna Wallace












Is disaster about to strike?

An exploding corpse, a 45-minute car chase, and a horse-related mishap that led to a century-long royal tradition. In this episode of The List Show, host Justin Dodd covers funerals gone wrong.

Bethel Afful
Elvis Presley, Josephine Baker, Joan Crawford, and James Brown.

Poignant, funny, sad, weird, or mean—last words can make quite the impact as we shuffle off the stage of life. Here are 65 notable examples.

Chris Higgins