In 1974, Florida morning TV talk-show host Christine Chubbuck announced to her viewers, “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first - attempted suicide.” She then drew a revolver and shot herself behind her right ear.

In 1878, George W. Burleigh distributed flyers announcing that he’d kill himself at the end of a lecture at Chicago’s Thornton Hall. He packed the house, delivered his speech, and then blew out his brains.

In 1854, George Towler calmly jumped into a furnace containing 50 tons of molten iron. A charred spine was all that remained of Mr. Towler.

Beginning in the 1920s people would travel to the popular tourist destination, Mount Mihara, in Japan and jump into the searing lava of the active volcano. More than 600 people jumped in 1936.

In 1877, while watching an approaching steam roller, George Perks announced “Where that will go, I will follow.” George then threw himself in front of the advancing roller, leaving nothing behind but a mangled corpse.

In 2008, as a way of getting back at his younger wife for leaving him, businessman Gerald Mellin tied one end of a rope around a tree and the other end around his neck. He then hopped in his Aston Martin and floored it, ripping his head off to the horror of onlookers.

In 2002, schizophrenic artist, Richard Sumner, handcuffed himself to a tree in the woods and threw away the key. Scratch marks on his wrist indicated that he changed his mind and struggled to break free, but after four days he died from exposure, the key just out of reach. His body was found three years later.

In 2012, Nordin bin Montong, jumped into an enclosure housing three white tigers and began taunting them with a broom. They tore him to pieces as zoo visitors screamed in horror.

December 23, 1856, in a hotel lobby George Barker rammed a red hot fire poker down his throat, scorching him from the inside-out.

In 1922, Felix Bourg lit a stick of dynamite, placed it under his hat, and took a few steps before his head was blown off his shoulders.

Boyd Taylor spent three months constructing a complicated eight-foot-high guillotine. An electric jigsaw plugged into a timer switch would cut the wood and release the wire holding the blade. Boyd lived with his father, so to avoid being found for some time he made it so the falling blade would cut a thread tied to a hammer, which would then swing and strike off the power. One night in 2003, he swallowed a handful of pills, turned on the device, went to sleep, and never woke up.

In 1877, George Wheeler constructed a suicide machine that involved a series of springs, pulleys, and gears connected to a spinning wheel on which an axe-head and numerous small blades were attached. When police found him, his brain was dripping out of his skull.

On the final night of the Olympic games of 165 A.D., a Greek Cynic philosopher, Peregrinus Proteus, delivered an elegant speech about bringing “a golden life to a golden close.” He then stripped naked and walked calmly into the Olympic flame. In 180 AD, a statue of Peregrinus was erected in his home city of Parium.