These folks , falsely declared deadened , come out stronger on the other side .
1. Betty Robinson
At the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam , Betty Robinson , a 16 - year - honest-to-goodness pupil from Riverdale , Ill. , won a gold medallion in the 100 - meter dash and a silver medal as part of the 100 - beat relay squad . But her most impressive gymnastic accomplishment would derive eight year later , when she staged one of the gravid comebacks in sports history .
In 1931 , Robinson was flying in a small biplane with her full cousin when they crashed near Chicago . After she was pulled from the wreckage , hand brake proletarian declared her dead . Her consistence was set in the tree trunk of a car and driven to a mortician , who actualise that she was still animated . Robinson had suffered a concussion , a wiped out leg , a crack hip joint , and a crushed weapon . She would spend a total of seven month in a comatoseness , followed by another six in a wheelchair .
Miraculously , after just three years , Robinson was able-bodied to walk again . And before long , she was running . Within three years , she ’d restart training and was up to her premature speed . But because she could n’t twist her knees enough to crouch in the prescribed starting placement , she was n’t qualified to compete in most races . She could still go a baton , though . So , at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin , she was allowed to be the third runner in the 100 - meter relay team . Although the German team led for most of the raceway , their last stolon dropped the baton , and the U.S. team sprinted ahead to win by eight yard . Just five years after she ’d been deliver to the undertaker , Robinson won her 2nd Olympic gold .
2. Edward V. Rickenbacker
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Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was an star combatant cowcatcher and one of America ’s most dashing sub . During World War II , he was sent to deliver a substance to General Douglas MacArthur , who was leading the Pacific campaign from New Guinea . But in October of 1942 , tragedy strike when Rickenbacker ’s B-17 went down somewhere in the Pacific Ocean . After weeks of explore for his body , newspapers declared the war hero dead .
Twenty - four days after the chance event , Rickenbacker and six of his companions were ground alive , float on a raft in the centre the ocean . Headlines nickname the pilot “ Ironman Eddie ” and “ That Indestructible Man of Aviation . ” Rickenbacker was thankful to have survived , but the week of starvation and desiccation had token a toll on his physical and emotional health . He and his man had to ascertain , helpless , as one of their social status decease aboard the raft . After Rickenbacker render to health , he fix about making sure that no soldier suffered such pain again . He used his fame to boost the U.S. Air Force to contrive new life rafts equip with radios and emergency supplies . Fittingly , they became know as “ Rickenbackers . ”
But Rickenbacker ’s oeuvre was far from over . He also used his influence to gather a grouping of leading American scientist , whom he shoot down with finding a practical means of desalinating seawater . They soon developed a oral contraceptive pill that would make a modest quantity of seawater drinkable , and the U.S. Navy distributed it to all sailors . For the remaining eld of his life-time , Rickenbacker campaigned tirelessly to regain a better means to take the salt out of water . “ Water is our greatest liveliness - giving natural resourcefulness , ” he indite in his 1967 autobiography . “ By desalinating water from the great oceans we can , without building vast artificial lake and inundating more res publica , water the comeuppance and feast half a billion more people . ” Although he ’s well remembered as a war hero , Rickenbacker was also one of the world ’s first environmental warrior .
3. Sherlock Holmes
In 1893 , after six class of write Sherlock Holmes tale , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decided to kill off his most popular character . “ For some while now , ” he wrote in a letter to his female parent , “ I ’ve been tiring of my detective origination . ” And so , inThe Adventure of the Final Problem , Holmes plunges to his death at Switzerland ’s Reichenbach Falls in a last conflict with his nemesis , Professor James Moriarty .
To say that readers were shocked by the police detective ’s death is to put it mildly . Many write abusive letters to Doyle ; others wore black armbands in mourning . Even Queen Victoria was reportedly offended , personally asking Conan Doyle to bring in back the fabled detective . “ I was astounded at the concern verbalize by the world , ” wrote Doyle . “ They say that a humans is never properly appreciate until he is all in , and the general protest against my summary execution of Holmes learn me how many and how numerous were his friend . ”
It was n’t long before Doyle stoop to public insistency . In 1901 , he wroteThe Hound of the Baskervilles , a raw Holmes storey that get station before the hero ’s spectacular ruination . But that was n’t good enough for the mystery - loving public ; fans wanted Holmes alive . undermine once again to his readers ’ demands , Doyle resurrect the investigator ( and received a record sum of money from his publishers in getting even ) . In the first of these stories , The Adventure of the Empty House , Holmes explains that he ’d throw out Moriarty down Reichenbach Falls and misrepresent his own destruction to get by his opposition ’s henchmen . With a satisfied fan substructure back on control panel , Doyle continued to write Sherlock Holmes hazard for decade , blockade only three years before his own destruction in 1930 .
4. Samuel Coleridge
In 1813 , poet and playwright Samuel Taylor Coleridge was riding a professional heights . His playRemorse : A Tragedy in Five Actswas a hit at London theaters , and he was enjoy critical and financial success . But instead of indite a follow - up , Coleridge disappeared for six months .
He was lie with to brook from Great Depression and opium addiction , and many worry that the poet was dead . In the spring of that yr , a newspaper reported Coleridge ’s self-destruction . According to the taradiddle , a man had been found fall from a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , and although he had no means of designation , his shirt was mark off “ S. T. Coleridge . ”
A few day later , Coleridge was sitting in a hotel café when he heard the news of his expiry . When he read the newspaper report card , he smiled and quipped that he was credibly the first man “ to hear of a lost shirt in this way . ”
Where had Coleridge been all that time ? Uncomfortable with his newfound fame , the poet had crawfish out into his opium wont . He ’d been softly getting gamey in the countryside and forefend his supporter and family . But the false demise announcement served as a wake - up call , and Coleridge began drop a line again . Within three years , he ’d published his most pop rhyme , “ Kubla Khan . ”
5. Nikki Sixx
In the 1980s , Mötley Crüe bassist and songwriter Nikki Sixx was the placard boy for rock ‘ n ’ roll excess . “ I was the only one in the dance band without a family , a girlfriend , a wife , or any prospects , and I was too smack out to care , ” he say . “ I experience like the McDonald ’s of rock ‘ n ’ roll ; my life was disposable . ” One night in London in 1986 , he fall out out in his drug trader ’s flat after injecting heroin and was left for dead . He after wake up up , reportedly in a dumpster .
Yet , it would take an even more shocking near - death experience for Sixx to change his ways . After another diacetylmorphine overdose in December 1987 , Sixx was incorrectly declared dead in an ambulance while being rushed to L.A. ’s Cedars Sinai Medical Center .
Word of his aver overtaking leak out to the press . When he came to in the hospital , a terrified Sixx rip the tube out of his nose and take flight , bear only his leather pants . In the parking mass , he found two teenage fans in lamentation , who — once they ’d commence over the jar of seeing him active — gave him a ride dwelling house . In the gondola , he heard reports of his last on the wireless that include interviews with his friends and family . Soon after , he admit to the band that he could n’t curb his addiction , entered rehab , and successfully gave up drugs and alcoholic drink .
Sixx ’s experience jar the sleep of the band into sobriety , and ironically , temperance made them large rock star than they ’d ever been before . Mötley Crüe top out commercially with the liberation of its next record album , Dr. Feelgood , in 1989 . The banding ascribe the album ’s winner to their corporate push toward clean livelihood .
6. The Biograph Girl
In the early years of the movies , one of the most illustrious faces of the silver silver screen was “ the Biograph Girl . ” The star ’s familiar smile always take in the crowds . But in keeping with the drill of the times , audiences never learned her name . Her anonymity was part of a business model open up by Thomas Edison , which was designed to keep movie stars ’ egos in check and their wage down .
All of this changed in 1910 , when moving-picture show allocator Carl Laemmle lure the Biograph Girl to his new studio apartment , promising her renown and luck . Laemmle wanted to change state the Biograph Girl into a proper celebrity , and he had just the publicity stunt in mind to perpetrate it off . First , he send out a press composition saying that the Biograph Girl had died in a tragic trolley car accident in St. Louis . Her fan barely had time to mourn her death before Laemmle sent out a second notice , revealing that the actress was alive and working exclusively for his studio . More importantly , the composition also reveal her identity element . The Biograph Girl was a 24 - year - old , Canadian - born showgirl named Florence Lawrence .
The PR campaign make like a charm . A hebdomad after Laemmle ’s annunciation , Lawrence made a public appearance in St. Louis , where she was greeted by gang large than those that had greeted President Taft there the previous workweek . But Florence Lawrence ’s career was n’t the only one lift to new tiptop by the publicity stunt . Within the next few year , the cinema start up attracting outstanding player from the stage — people who ’d previously finger their noses at the pictures , include “ the Divine ” Sarah Bernhardt . And by 1912 , producer Carl Laemmle had founded Universal Studios , one of the most successful yield company in history .
7. Mark Twain
In 1897 , famed author and humorist Mark Twain was 61 , belly-up , and living quietly in London . He had n’t had a major success sinceA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur ’s Courteight years earlier , and his late books had received scathing review . rumor of his fiscal woes had even spread across the pond , incite one New York newsprint to establish a Polemonium van-bruntiae fund in his name . ( Twain asked them to end the fund . )
Then , in May of 1897 , the editor of a major newspaper in New York heard that Twain was seriously ill , perhaps even dead , and dispatched a youthful newsman to probe for detail . In reply to the probe , Twain famously gag , “ The report of my last was an exaggeration . ” Like a 19th - century Tweet , the line went viral , and newspapers around the mankind joyously describe the news that both Twain and his sense of humour were still kicking . Once the source was back in the limelight , people started buying his record again , and Twain ’s finances quickly better .
Strangely , that was n’t the last time Twain ’s exit would be inaccurately reported . A decade later , The New York Times reported that the author was lost at ocean and possibly stagnant , again . The next day , Twain , who was safely on wry earth , wrote in to the paper . “ I will make an thorough investigation of this paper that I have been lose at ocean , ” he joke . “ If there is any creation for the theme , I will at once revalue the anxious public . ” For the stay three year of Mark Twain ’s life , no one else incorrectly report his passing .
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