List of drowning victims

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This is a list of drowning victims, either real or fictional characters in chronological order. The reasons for drowning are diverse and range from suicide, to accidents or murders.

[edit] Non-Fictional

Hippasus of Metapontum, a student of the mathematician Pythagoras, drowned by his master 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 January 13, 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
Li Bai, Chinese poet, in 762
Giselberg, Duke of Lotharingia, drowned on October 2, 939 in the Rhine, near Mainz
William Adelin (born 1103) and his half sister Matilda FitzEdith, countess of Perches (born circa 1090), sons of king Henry I of England, drowned in the Channel on November 25, 1120 in the White Ship wreck
Friedrich I Barbarossa, duke of Swabia and Holy Roman Emperor, drowned in the Göks River (Cilicia) on June 6, 1190 during the Third Crusade, leaving an unstable alliance between Richard I of England and Philip II of France
King Magnus II of Sweden and Norway, 1316 – 1374
Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, Constable of the Tower of London, 1430 – 1475
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, Portuguese explorer who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. Drowned not far from the Cape of Good Hope in 1500
Felix Manz, co-founder of the Swiss Anabaptists, was drowned in 1527 in the Limmat River in Zürich by the Zürich Reformed state church
John William Friso of Orange-Nassau, stadholder of the Low Countries, in 1711
Peter Artedi, a disciple of Linnaeus, considered the father of Icthyology, fell by accident in a channel of Amsterdam in 1735
Charles Clement Johnston, U.S. Representatives from Virginia, drown in Atlantic near a dock in Alexandria, Virginia in 1832
Lucas Barrett, English naturalist and geologist in 1862.
Constantine W. Buckley, former Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, drowned in the Brazos River near Columbia, Texas on 19 December 1865.^[1]
Ludwig II of Bavaria, 1845 – June 13, 1886
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
Percy Shelley, in a sudden storm while sailing off Livorno on July 8, 1822.
Adolphe Helière, French cyclist. Drowned while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea during a rest day of the Tour de France, 1910.
Grigori Rasputin (died 1916), Russian mystic and Imperial adviser; the aristocratic faction tried to kill him using several methods, eventually drowning on the Neva River proved to be the most efficient
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.
J. W. H. T. Douglas, 1882-1930, cricketer, died unsuccessfully trying to rescue his father after a collision at sea.
Eugene James (1913-1933), Kentucky Derby-winning American jockey drowned in Lake Michigan while swimming at Chicago's Oak Street Beach
James Murray, 1901-1936, actor, found drowned in the Hudson River, possible suicide
Virginia Woolf (born 1882), British writer, committed suicide on May 28, 1941
Arky Vaughan (born 1912), baseball Hall of Famer, drowned after falling from his fishing boat on August 30, 1952
Harold Holt, serving Prime Minister of Australia, drowned in accidental circumstances on 17 December 1967.
Mary Jo Kopechne (born 1940), drowned in Edward Kennedy's Oldsmobile Delta '88 in a DWI accident off of Chappaquiddick Island in 1969.
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones (born [1942]), drowned in Hartfield, Sussex, England, in his own swimming pool on 3 July 1969
Albert Ayler, jazz musician, suspected suicide November 1970
Istvan Kertesz, orchestral conductor, accident, 16 April 1973
Josef Mengele (born 1911), war criminal and leader of the Nazi human experimentation program, drowned while swimming off the Brazilian coast in 1979
Hart Crane, poet; suicide in the Caribbean.
Natalie Wood (born 1938), actress, drowned in a yacht accident in 1981; the accident raised several suspicions and murder was considered
Dennis Wilson, one of the members of the Beach Boys, in 1983
Carol Wayne, American actress who drowned under mysterious circumstances in Manzanillo, Mexico in 1985.
Jim Hodder, (born 1947), American drummer who drowned in his pool in 1990.
Robert Maxwell, newspaper magnate, disappeared from his yacht under mysterious circumstances in 1991, body later recovered off the coast of Tenerife
Tom Mees, longtime sportscaster for ESPN, drowned while trying to rescue his 4 year old daughter in a neighbor's swimming pool, in 1996. The daughter survived.
Jeff Buckley (born 1966), singer-songwriter, drowned in the Wolf River in 1997
Spalding Gray, monologuist and actor (Swimming to Cambodia), born 1941, suspected suicide in New York City's East River.
Édouard Michelin (born 1963), French businessman, drowned while fishing near the island of Sein in northwest France, in 2006.

[edit] Fictional

Aegeus, father of the hero Theseus, committed suicide by jumping into the sea for believing his son dead; the sea was named after him and today is known by Aegean Sea
Icarus, son of Daedalus; escaped with his father using artificial wings; flew too near the sun and wings fell off; drowned in what is today called the Icarian Sea
Jason Voorhees, the living-dead, masked serial killer of the Friday the 13th films, was originally a boy who drowned in a summer camp
Primula Brandybuck and Drogo Baggins, the parents of Tolkien's character Frodo Baggins of The Lord of the Rings
Ophelia in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet
Adam and Barbara Maitland, the main characters in the film Beetlejuice, drowned when they crashed their car off a covered bridge.
Yailee Ming Deception Point, drowned when he fell into a meteorite extraction pit, in the Arctic.
Buffy drowned by the hand of the Master, in the episode Prophecy Girl, the finale of the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Shisui Uchiha drowned in a river at the hands of his best friend, Itachi Uchiha, in the anime Naruto.