This is a list of drowning victims in chronological order. The reasons for drowning are diverse and range from suicide, to accidents or murders.
Antiquity Tiberinus Silvius, ninth Latin king of Alba Longa, drowned in the Tiber, which was named after him. Hippasus of Metapontum, a student of the mathematician Pythagoras, who, by some accounts, was drowned by his fellow Pythagoreans for the imprudence of discovering irrational numbers. Qu Yuan of China in 278 BC. Committed ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era, a sacrifice still commemorated today during the Duan Wu or Dragon Boat Festival. Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII of Egypt, drowned in the Nile in 47 BC. Antinous (born circa 111), lover of Roman Emperor Hadrian, drowned in the Nile in 130; the grieving emperor commissioned hundreds of statues of the youth and spread them around the Empire. Cao E, a Han dynasty girl venerated for her filial piety. In 143, Cao Xu accidentally fell into the Shun River. in an act of filial piety, she decided to find her father in the river. After five days, she and her father were both found dead in the river from drowning. Eight years later, a temple was built in Shangyu dedicated to the memory of Cao E and her sacrifice for filial piety. The Shun River was renamed Cao'e River in her honor. Maxentius, Roman Emperor, drowned in the Tiber during the chaos of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312. Yuan Zhao, briefly an emperor of the Northern Wei, thrown together with Empress Dowager Hu into the Yellow River to drown Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani, (697/98), a rebel in Umayyad Caliphate, was defeated by Umayyad Army. As he attempted to escape his Syrian pursuers (the Umayyad army), he drowned in the Dujayl Canal while trying to cross it. This occurred either in early 697 or in 697/98. Li Bai, Chinese poet, in 762. It is, however, suggested that he died of excessive drinking or mercury poisoning.
Middle Ages William Adelin (born 1103) and his half-sister Matilda FitzEdith, countess of Perches (born circa 1090), children of King Henry I of England, drowned in the Channel on 25 November 1120 in the White Ship wreck.William of Malmesbury, from Marion Meade, Eleanor of Aquitaine Kilij Arslan died trying to escape across the Khabur river, having lost the battle that took place near the river. Empress Zhu is believed to have committed suicide by drowning herself in 1127 after the Jingkang Incident because she was a victim of sexual abuse. Taira no Koremori is believed to have committed suicide on May 10, 1184, after defeated at the Battle of Kurikara. Emperor Antoku, Taira no Tokiko, Tomomori, Noritsune and many other members of the Taira clan committed suicide on April 25, 1185, after defeated at the Battle of Dan-no-ura. Friedrich I Barbarossa, Duke of Swabia and Holy Roman Emperor, drowned in the Göksu River (Cilicia) on 6 June 1190 during the Third Crusade, leaving an unstable alliance between Richard I of England and Philip II of France. Henry of Antioch, the son of Bohemund IV of Antioch, drowned at sea in June 1276. King Magnus IV of Sweden and Norway in shipping accident (as Magnus VII), 1316 – 1374. Zhao Bing and Lu Xiufu committed suicide after defeated at Battle of Yamen, and Southern Song fell, on March 19, 1279. Saint John of Nepomuk, martyred by drowning in 1393.
Renaissance Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, Constable of the Tower of London, 1430 – 1475. He fell overboard a ship and his body was found in the English Channel George, Duke of Clarence (born 1449), executed for treason against his brother king Edward IV of England on 1478, by drowning in a barrel of Malmsey wine; or so the legend says, because modern assessments favour the traditional decapitation instead Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese explorer who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. Drowned not far from the Cape of Good Hope in 1500 King Louis II of Hungary in the Csele Brook, on escape from the catastrophic Battle of Mohács (1526). Heavy cavalry armor impeded his ability to swim. Felix Manz, co-founder of the Swiss Anabaptists, was drowned in 1527 in the Limmat in Zürich by the Zürich Reformed state church Robert Parsons, English composer, fell into the then swollen River Trent at Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire and was drowned. Francisco Rodrigues Lobo (b. 1580), a Portuguese poet and writer of Sephardi Jewish origin, drowned on 4 November 1621 Alexander Whitaker, the "Apostle of Virginia" drowned while fording the James River in Virginia. He was the first English-speaking Clergyman in the New World.
18th century John William Friso of Orange-Nassau, stadholder of the Low Countries, in 1711 when a ferry boat overturned in bad weather. Miguel de Bragança (b. 1699), bastard son of King Peter II of Portugal, in the Tagus River on 13 January 1724 Peter Artedi, a disciple of Linnaeus, considered the father of Ichthyology, fell by accident in a channel of Amsterdam in 1735 172 passengers of shipwrecked vessel Le Saint Géran at Île D'Ambre off the coast of Isle de France (Mauritius) on 18 August 1744.
19th century Percy Bysshe Shelley, influential English Romantic poet, in a sudden storm while sailing off Livorno on 8 July 1822."The Sinking of the Don Juan" by Donald Prell, Keats-Shelley journal, Vol. LVI, 2007, pp 136–154 Charles Clement Johnston, U.S. Representative from Virginia, drowned in the Potomac River near Alexandria, Virginia in 1832. Lucas Barrett, English naturalist and geologist in 1862. Gonçalves Dias, a Brazilian Romantic poet, playwright, ethnographer, lawyer and linguist, in 1864. Constantine W. Buckley, former Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, drowned in the Brazos River near Columbia, Texas on 19 December 1865.* Digby Mackworth Dolben (born 1848), poet and friend of Gerard Manley Hopkins, drowned on 28 June 1867 in the River Welland when bathing with the ten-year-old son of his tutor. William Collinson Sawyer 1st Bishop of Grafton and Armidale died on Sunday, 15 March 1868 when the boat he was travelling in sank on the Clarence River.Illustrated London News, 1868 Richard Kirwan, English cricketer and Anglican clergyman, drowned while bathing in the sea off Sidmouth on 2 September 1872. Julius Krohn (b. 1835), founder of the scientific study of folklore, and influential journalist, author and translator. Ethnically German but active in Finland. Drowned in a freak sailing accident in 1888. , an unknown woman allegedly found dead in the river Seine in the late 1880s. Her death mask was reproduced and displayed in artists' studios.
20th century 1900s Consort Zhen (born 1876), consort of Guangxu Emperor, thrown into a well by Empress Dowager Cixi, August 15, 1900. Isadore Rush (born ?), American actress. Drowned off the beach at San Diego, Hotel Del Coronado November 1904. Grace Brown (born 1886), American garment industry worker. She drowned in New York's Big Moose Lake on June 11, 1906, after she fell out of a boat being rowed by her boyfriend, Chester Gillette, nephew of her employer. Witnesses said Gillette had struck her on the head with a tennis racket before she went into the water; he claimed she had jumped out. After a murder trial that drew national attention, Gillette was convicted and sentenced to death; he was executed two years later. The case inspired Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy. Ernst Schultz (born 1879), Danish sprinter. Drowned while swimming in Roskilde Fjord, 20 June 1906.
1910s Sir W. S. Gilbert (b. 1836), British humorist, librettist of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, drowned on 29 May 1911 while going to the rescue of two other swimmers in the lake at his home. He may have died from a heart attack rather than by drowning.Ford, Tom. "G&S: the Lennon/McCartney of the 19th century" . Limelight Magazine, Haymarket Media Ltd., 8 June 2011 Michel Tamarati (born 1858), a Georgian Catholic priest and historian, died while trying to rescue a drowning man in a stormy sea near Santa Marinella, Italy, on September 16, 1911.Commemorating Mikheil Tamarashvili. The Messenger Online. October 25, 2011. Accessed April 16, 2012. John Jacob Astor IV (born 1864) drowned in the Titanic disaster in 1912. Benjamin Guggenheim (born 1865) drowned in the Titanic disaster in 1912. Isidor Straus and wife Ida Straus, drowned in the Titanic disaster.Encyclopedia Titanica article on Isidor Straus. Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (born 1850), British field marshal, presumed to have drowned after HMS Hampshire hit a mine and sank off the Orkney Islands in 1916. Grigori Rasputin (died 1916), Russian mystic and Imperial adviser. The aristocratic faction tried to kill him using several methods, including, after poison, several gunshots; this is believed to be the main cause of his death, but after his body was thrown in the Neva River (and later recovered), many tend to believe that drowning was the final cause of his death. For others, attributing death to drowning means adding to a legend.Joseph L. Gardner (ed.), "The Unholy Monk," Reader's Digest Great Mysteries of the Past, 1991, p. 161. Enrique Granados drowned after jumping out of a lifeboat to rescue his wife following the torpedoing of their ship by the German navy during World War I in 1916. Tom Thomson, Canadian painter who died in a canoeing accident in Algonquin Provincial Park in 1917.
1920s William Wilton (born 1865), Scottish football manager (Rangers F.C.), drowned in a boating accident at Gourock, Scotland in 1920. Little Lord Fauntleroy (murder victim), an unidentified child found in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on March 8, 1921. He had been hit in the head with a blunt instrument and was thrown into a quarry, which resulted in his death. Michael Llewelyn Davies (born 1900) and his friend Rupert Buxton drowned together in a pool of water downstream of a weir near Sandford Lock on the River Thames, a few miles from Oxford on May 21, 1921. The location has been the site of many drownings. Pavel Urysohn (born 1898), Russian mathematician and topologist, drowned on 17 August 1924 while on holiday in France. Sacadura Cabral died on 15 November 1924 after his airplane disappeared over the English Channel, along with his co-pilot Mechanical Corporal José Correia. As no bodies were found, it is not known whether they actually drowned. Ida Vihuri (born 1882), Finnish politician, died on 7 September 1929 in the shipwreck of SS Kuru.
1930s J. W. H. T. Douglas, (1882–1930), cricketer, died unsuccessfully trying to rescue his father after a collision at sea. Starr Faithfull (1906–1931), American socialite, drowned near Long Beach, New York in June 1931; whether her death was homicide, suicide or accident was never determined. Bertie Johnston, Australian politician, drowned at Black Rock, Victoria in 1932. Hart Crane, poet; suicide in the Caribbean in April 1932. Eugene James (1913–1933), Kentucky Derby-winning American jockey drowned in Lake Michigan while swimming at Chicago's Oak Street Beach. Oskar Kumpu (1889–1935), Finnish Olympic wrestler and Red Army officer, drowned while swimming in the Olonka River in the Soviet Union. Jiro Sato (1908–1934), Japanese tennis player, committed suicide in the Strait of Malacca on April 5, 1934. James Murray, (1901–1936), actor, found drowned in the Hudson River, possible suicide. Alfonsina Storni, (1892–1935), Argentine poet, committed suicide in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Michalina Isaakowa (1880–1937), Polish amateur entomologist, traveler and writer drowned in Peru.
1940s Virginia Woolf (born 1882), British writer, committed suicide on 28 March 1941. Glenn Miller (born 1904), American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during World War II, went missing in action (MIA) on December 15, 1944, on a flight over the English Channel from England to France. Osamu Dazai (born 1909), Japanese writer, committed shinjū in the Tamagawa Aqueduct on June 13, 1948.
1950s