23/01/2026
Here we go - '15 Weird Facts about Death' - Whats your favourite one?
1. Humans have been burying their dead for at least 200,000 years.
2. Some of the earliest grave sites can be found in Atapuerca in Spain, and in the Pontnewydd Cave in Wales.
3. The leading cause of death worldwide is heart disease.
4. In 897, Pope Stephen VI had the co**se of a previous pope, Formosus, exhumed, perched on a throne, and questioned about his “crimes” (which were mostly about being on the wrong side of a political struggle.) This event is known as the 'Cadaver Synod'.
5. The 'Frozen Dead Guy' festival in Nederland, Colorado, is held each year in honour of a 110-year-old co**se located in a local shed. The festival has events such as coffin racing, frozen salmon tossing, costumed polar plunging, and frozen t-shirt contests.
6. Every year, about 8 out of every 1,000 people die. That's about 55.3 million people per year. Or: 151,600 people a day; 6,316 people an hour; 105 people a minute or nearly two people a second.
7. Out of those 55 million deaths per year, about 9.5 million of them are Chinese.
8. About half of Britons believe in life after death.
9. Rigor mortis, a stiffening of the body, sets in between three and four hours after death. It's caused by chemical changes in the muscles that force them to contract, it then disappears again within 36 hours.
10. About 50 billion cells die in your body every day.
11. There are some animals that don't die from old age, including a jellyfish and a kind of flatworm!
12. Today, there are about 300 bodies frozen in liquid nitrogen in America in the hope that science will one day be able to bring them back to life. (Contrary to popular belief, Walt Disney is not one of them.)
13. It’s a myth that hair and nails grow after death. What really happens is that the body dries out, so the nail beds and skin on the head retract, making nails, stubble, and hair appear longer.
14. There are more than 200 frozen co**ses on Mount Everest.
15. The idea that graves need to be '6 feet deep' comes from the 1665 plague outbreak. The mayor of London decreed the burial depth to limit the spread of disease. In the 19th century, several inventors came up with “safety coffins” equipped with bells, flags, and air tubes all designed to help people avoid being buried alive.
