People of the PastThink the whole world revolves around you? Read about some Very Important Historical Figures and the fascinating lives they led while changing the world and having no idea that you even exist.
For some historical figures, their final act is the most impressive. These are the famous people who predicted their own deaths, whether by means of a fortuneteller, a comet, or a dream. To know how it will all end is a feat unto itself, and it represents a deep sensitivity to the current of life, something that exists outside of fleeting celebrity altogether.
Arnold Schoenberg couldn't hide behind the number 13. Abraham de Moivre couldn't escape his own theorem, the one that calculated his lifespan. Mark Twain saw a mirroring of his own life in the passage of Halley's Comet. William Thomas Stead, the "father of the modern tabloid," wrote fiction about ocean liners under attack from the elements, only to sink to the bottom of the sea aboard the Titanic. Frank Pastore made light of his own imminent death on his national Christian radio show, complaining about traffic just hours before a fatal motorcycle accident. Bob Marley wrote lyrics about his macabre visions, and Jim Hellwig made a prophetic speech.
Photo: unattributed; based on the depiction from a mechanical glass slide by T. M. McAllister of New York, c1865-75/Restored by Adam Cuerden / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
Mark Twain had a special relationship with Halley's Comet. According to Twain, the comet was visible at the time of his birth in 1835, so he felt it would have to play a role again in his death, or at least be visible once again. Twain felt a kinship with the space oddity: the two celestial bodies were "unaccountable freaks" who "came in together" and therefore "must go out together."
Though the details are murky, Abraham Lincoln reportedly saw a vision of his own death in a foreboding dream just days before his assassination. Lincoln's fascination with dreams was heavily documented in his letters to his wife, as well as in meetings with his cabinet. According to a lawyer friend, Ward Hill Lamon (who was also tasked with being the president's bodyguard), Lincoln dreamed of a dead body visited by a crowd. Upon asking who the unlucky fellow was, Lincoln learned it was he, and that he'd been killed "by an assassin." Of course, as we know, this all came to pass.
Influential atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg feared the number 13. Born on the 13th of September, he was convinced that he would eventually die on the 13th of some future month. He began actively avoiding the number, even changing the letter count for the title of his operaMoses and Aaron to Moses and Aron. Schoenberg maintained that his vicious triskaidekaphobia was not based on superstition, but instead on "belief."
Regardless, the fear was heightened on his 76th birthday, when an acquaintance mentioned that 7 + 6 = 13. On Friday the 13th, 1951, Schoenberg laid low, already suspecting death was near. His wife entered his room to offer some comforting words, but the composer let out a death rattle, and that was that.
Frank Pastore, who pitched for the Cincinnati Reds and Minnesota Twins in the 1970s and '80s, and then went on to host the national Christian radio show The Frank Pastore Show, made a very public and portentous comment about his own demise. In his November 19, 2012 episode, Pastore waxed philosophical about motorcycles and mortality. "You guys know I ride a motorcycle, right?" he asked his viewers. "At any moment, especially with the idiot people who cross the diamond lane into my lane, without any blinkers - not that I'm angry about it - at any minute, I could be spread all over the 210."
Tragically, Pastore was riding his motorcycle on the 210 freeway just hours after the broadcast when a 56-year-old woman drifted into his lane and collided with him. Pastore tumbled off his motorcycle, endured major head trauma, went into a coma, and subsequently died a month later - all as he prophesied.
William Thomas Stead, touted as the "father of the modern tabloid," was a fearless investigative journalist who helped raise the age of consent for child prostitution in Britain from 13 to 16. Aside from his work as an editor and activist, Stead was also a writer of fiction and occult poetry. In one of his pieces, The Sinking of a Modern Liner, which he wrote in 1886, Stead described a doomed ocean liner bound for New York City that tragically lacked the required lifeboats to save the crew.
Growing up in St. Ann, Jamaica, Bob Marley apparently harnessed psychic powers. His childhood friend, Allan "Skill" Cole, claims to have witnessed Marley reading palms and telling the future to locals. Later in life, Marley's Rastafarian friends urged him to relinquish his psychic ways, though it was generally acknowledged that he was a prophet.
Rumors have circulated about what Marley knew in regards to his own death. Some say he (rightly) predicted it would happen at the age of 36, citing Jesus's lifespan as a model. Others argue that the reggae icon was assassinated by the CIA through the use of a pair of boots.
