While a bullet or a knife would usually suffice, these historical figures just had to think of murder methods that only a 007 movie would have.
A headline in a BBC News article stated that a German politician had been stabbed. A 44-year-old man had stabbed a mayoral candidate in the throat over her support for refugees. What made this incident so notable was the fact that this was one of the few politically-motivated assassination attempts in German history.
A knife to the throat is generally a fairly decisive and extremely possible way of murdering someone. However, you just have to admire the people who ignore common sense and go about murdering someone in the most illogical and silly manners you can think of, as if they were part of some spy thriller movie.
First off, let’s head back all the way to first century Rome. At the time, Rome was ruled by Emperor Nero, who allegedly burned the city to the ground so he could have a nicer palace built with the newly cleared-up space. Nero decided that his mother, Agrippina, was too popular and powerful, so he decided to have her killed.
In order to make it look like an accident, Nero decided to create a complex plan based on reactions that would result in her death. The plan began with his mother lying down in her bed and ended with a large chunk of the ceiling on top of her. Unfortunately for Nero, Agrippina always had a slave warm her bed first by laying down in it. The ceiling smashed a slave instead of the intended target, and Nero had to think of a new plan.
Nero then decided to trick his mother into going on a boat that would sink itself. He invited his mother to go onto the boat to celebrate the festival of Minerva. Halfway through the mini-cruise, a mechanism was triggered and the ceiling that was supposed to kill Agrippina and sink the boat fell. Once again, Agrippina survived the attempt. The ceiling had missed her and the boat had refused to sink. In fact, some sailors actually manually sunk the boat to cause Agrippina to drown, but that too was thwarted when Agrippina swam to shore.
In the end, Nero tired of his convoluted plans and sent three men to stab her to death.
But Nero isn’t the only guy who thought of convoluted ways to murder people. Jump forward 1,800 years and you’ll meet Giuseppe Marco Fieschi, a man who wished with all his heart that King Louis Philippe of France was dead. Instead of doing something logical (like taking careful aim with a firearm or sneaking up with a blade), Fieschi decided that he would invent a weapon that a James Bond villain would use, consisting of 20 guns that somehow meshed together. This extraordinarily practical device could be fired with a pull of a trigger.
When he opened fire with his diabolical contraption, bullets went flying everywhere, including into himself (somehow). About 20 people were killed in the magnificent volley. However, Louis Philippe was only grazed by one of the bullets. The French king had Fieschi nursed back to health. Fieschi decided that if he revealed all of his accomplices, he would likely receive a royal pardon since he had been nursed back to health by the king’s nurses.
Instead, Fiesci’s head was sliced off and handed off to some doctors to study.
Sometimes, you really do have to wonder what’s going in these people’s heads.
Richard Hwang is a student at Athens High School. What do you think of these murderous plots? Email him at rhwang999@gmail.com.
