Though death is normally a serious and sad business, The World's Stupidest Deaths seeks to prove otherwise by revealing many unbelievable examples of the world's most unusual (and in some cases, highly ironic) demises, which are guaranteed to provoke tears of incredulous laughter, including accounts of the unfortunate deaths of such famous individuals as Attila the Hun, the writer and statesman Sir Francis Bacon, the Greek playwright Aeschylus, and Dr Robert Atkins, creator of the high-protein, low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet. Includes great stories such as that of the Austrian dwarf and circus acrobat, Franz Dasch, who was killed during an exhibition in northern Thailand when he bounced from a trampoline and was swallowed by a nearby yawning hippopotamus. Doctors later concluded that the hippo had a gag reflex that automatically caused her to swallow. The 7,000-plus spectators continued to applaud until they realized that the panicked crew and paramedics were not part of Dasch's act.