NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Victims of poisoning

This is a List of poisonings in alphabetical order of victim. It also includes confirmed attempted and fictional poisonings. Many of the people listed here committed or attempted to commit suicide by poison; others were poisoned by others.

Contents

1 Poison deaths

2 Attempted poisonings

3 Possible poisonings

4 Fictional poisonings

4.1 Poisons in crime fiction

4.1.1 Novels
4.1.2 Films

5 Notorious poisoners

6 See also

Poison deaths

Adolf Hitler (d. 1945) cyanide and gunshot simultaneously before capture
Alan Turing (d. 1954), British mathematician
Alan III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1040)
Alphonse I, Count of Toulouse (d. 1148)
Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), caliph
Antipater the Idumaean (d. 43 BC), father of Herod the Great
Baldwin III of Jerusalem (d. 1162)
Blanche of Bourbon (d. 1361), first wife of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile
Clare Boothe Luce
Cleopatra VII of Egypt (d. 30 BC), poisoned herself with an asp’s snakebite
Constance of Normandy (d. 1090), daughter of King William I of England
Demosthenes (d. 322 BC) Athenian polititian
Emperor Hui of Jin China (d. 304)
Eric XIV, King of Sweden (d. 1577)
Erwin Rommel (d. 1944) German general
Eva Braun (d. 1945) suicide by cyanide capsule at Hitler's side as his wife
Georgi Markov (d. 1978), Bulgarian dissident
Germanicus (d. 19), Roman general
The Goebbels children (d. 1945), poisoned by their parents Magda and Joseph Goebbels (who then poisoned themselves shortly afterwards before capture)
Heinrich Himmler (d. 1945), leader of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS); suicide by cyanide capsule after being captured
Hermann Goering (d.1946), leader of the Nazi Luftwaffe; suicide by cyanide capsule, long after being captured and only hours before his hanging was to take place
Juan Ponce de Le�n (d. 1521), Spanish conquistador; alter being wounded by a poisoned arrow
Julius Caesar Drusus (d. 23), son of Tiberius
Ladislaus, King of Naples (d. 1414)
Marshall Applewhite (d. 1997); cult suicide
Musa al-Kazim (d. 799), Shia Imam
Odilo Globocnik
More than 900 members of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown led by Rev. Jim Jones (d. 1978); cult suicide
Pope Pius VIII (d. 1830)
Romanus II (d. 963), Byzantine Emperor
Socrates, Greek philosopher
Yamada Nagamasa (d. 1630), Japanese adventurer

Attempted poisonings

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukranian politician, was poisoned with dioxin during the 2004 electoral campaign.
Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, survived being poisoned with potassium cyanide, as well as being shot, bludgeoned, and being thrown into a frozen river before finally dying of hypothermia.

Possible poisonings

Alexander the Great
Barbara Radziwiłł (d. 1551), Queen of Poland
Charles Darwin
Claudius (d. 54), Roman Emperor, by his wife Agrippina the Younger
Jamestown colonists
King John of England, with plums
Joseph Stalin
Mithridates VI of Pontus
Napoleon Bonaparte
Pope Benedict XI (d. 1304)
Pope John Paul I (d. 1978)
Ptolemy XIV of Egypt (d. 44 BC), if so, by his sister Cleopatra
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (d. 1612)
Robert Johnson (d. 1938), American musician
Stefan Dusan (d. 1355), Serbian king
Yasser Arafat

Fictional poisonings

Hamlet, King Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes, characters in William Shakespear’s tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Imogen, in William Shakespear’s play Cymbeline
Snow White ate a poisoned apple
Vladimir Harkonnen of Dune

Poisons in crime fiction

Due to the plot strength of poisioning in crime fiction, this is an inexhaustive list.

Novels

Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case
Ann Granger: Say It With Poison
Francis Iles: Before the Fact (filmed as Suspicion)
Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought
Agatha Christie: Three Act Tragedy
Agatha Christie: A Pocket Full of Rye
Agatha Christie: Crooked House
Dorothy Sayers: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Dorothy Sayers: Strong Poison
Cornell Woolrich: Waltz into Darkness (filmed as Mississippi Mermaid and Original Sin)
Joseph Kesselring: Arsenic and Old Lace (play)

Films

D.O.A. (1950 movie)
Arsenic and Old Lace (movie)

Notorious poisoners

Graham Frederick Young (d. 1990), British serial killer
Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia)
Thomas Neill Cream (d. 1892), serial killer
Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer who preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s.