List of drowning victims

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.

Non-Fictional

*Tiberinus Silvius, ninth Latin king of Rome, drowned in the Tiber River, 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
*Li Bai, Chinese poet, in 762. It is, however, suggested that he died of excessive drinking or mercury poisoning. [cite web |url=http://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/poets/libai.html|title=Li Bai and Chinese Poetry|accessdate=2008-01-22]
*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
*Henry of Antioch, Henry of Poitiers or Henri de Poitiers, drowned at sea on June 18/June 27/June 28, 1276, son of Bohemund IV of Antioch and first wife Plaisance Embriaco de Giblet
*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
*Francisco Rodrigues Lobo (b. 1580), a Portuguese Poet and Writer of Sephardi Jewish origin, drowned on 4 November, 1621
*John William Friso of Orange-Nassau, stadholder of the Low Countries, in 1711
*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 Icthyology, fell by accident in a channel of Amsterdam in 1735
*Percy Shelley, in a sudden storm while sailing off Livorno on July 8, 1822.
*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. [* Handbook of Texas | id = BB/fbu6 | name = Constantine W. Buckley | reference = yes | accessdate = 2007-01-22 ]
*Ludwig II of Bavaria, 1845 – June 13 1886, found drowned dead in Lake Starnberg (then called "Lake Würm")
*Bernhard von Gudden, 1824 – June 13 1886, Psychiatric Professor who diagnosed and accompanied Ludwig II of Bavaria, found dead drowned in Lake Starnberg (then called "Lake Würm")
*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
*John Jacob Astor IV (born 1864), drowned in the Titanic disaster
*Benjamin Guggenheim (born 1865), drowned in the Titanic disaster
*Isidor Straus and wife Ida Straus, drowned in the Titanic disaster
*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.
*William Wilton (born 1865), Scottish football manager (Rangers F.C.), drowned in a boating accident at Gourock, Scotland in 1920.
*Sacadura Cabral, died on 15 November, 1924 after his airplane disappeared over the English Channel, along with his Co-Pilot Mechanical Corporal José Correia
* 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 March 28 1941
*Edward Johnston (politician) - drowned at Black Rock, Victoria
*Arky Vaughan (born 1912), baseball Hall of Famer, drowned after falling from his fishing boat on August 30, 1952
*Prince Frederick of Prussia (born 1911), died in 1966 at Reinhartshausen, Germany after drowning in the Rhine.
*Eric Fleming, actor best known for his role in the CBS series Rawhide, drowned on September 28, 1966, in a remote river in Peru's back country while filming the made-for-TV movie "Selva Alta" ("High Jungle") for MGM.
*Harold Holt, serving Prime Minister of Australia, presumed drowned (or taken by shark) on 17 December 1967.
*Mary Jo Kopechne (born 1940), drowned in Edward Kennedy's Oldsmobile Delta '88 in a car accident off of Chappaquiddick Island in 1969.
*Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones (born 1942) (known as Brian Jones, original guitarist of The Rolling Stones), drowned in Hartfield, Sussex, England, in his own swimming pool on 3 July 1969. Classified as "death by misadventure"
*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
*Jessica Savitch (born 1947), NBC and PBS broadcaster and reporter, drowned when her car went off the road during a heavy rainstorm into a canal. Her car sank upside down in the mud and filled with water in 16 October 1983.
*Carol Wayne, American actress who drowned under mysterious circumstances in Manzanillo, Mexico in 1985.
*Jerry Anderson, former NFL football player who drowned while saving a boy who had fallen into a flooded creek in 1989.
*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 Memphis, TN in 1997
*Spalding Gray, monologuist and actor ("Swimming to Cambodia"), born 1941, in a suspected suicide in New York City's East River in 2004.
*Édouard Michelin (born 1963), French businessman, drowned while fishing near the island of Sein in northwest France, in 2006.
*Rafael Donato (born 1938), distinguished Filipino educator and university president, accidentally drowned off the coast of Morong, Bataan, in the Philippines in 2006
*Gilbert Aldana (born 1977), American Mixed martial artist, drowned in a boating accident at Lake Pleasant in Arizona in March 2007.
*Marquise Hill (born 1982), Defensive End for the New England Patriots, accidentally drowned in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans after a jet ski accident on 27 May 2007
*Kari Blackburn (born 1954), BBC World Service executive, drowned (suicide) at sea at Felixstowe, Suffolk, England in 2007. [cite news |title=BBC editor's death 'was suicide' |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7405651.stm |work=BBC News |date=2008-05-16 |accessdate=2008-05-26]
*Katoucha Niane (born 1960), French model, drowned in the Seine in 2008.

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
*Paul et Virginie, from the novel of the same name, died drowned in a shipwreck
*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
*Leander, lover of Hero; drowned swimming across the Hellespont
*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 in 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".
*Charlie Pace drowned in the season 3 finale of "Lost".
*Javert from Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" commits suicide by throwing himself off a bridge into the Seine.
*Dr. Howard Kramer from "Hollow Man", drowned by Sebastian Caine

Notes