You hear of people dying of a heart attack; you hear of people dying of insect bites; you hear of people dying because they drank too much Pepsi; and sometimes you hear of people who died because they slipped on a banana peel and hit their head on the sidewalk. Dying seems like such an easy thing to do – it seems to take no effort at all.
But not for these three guys you are going to read about in this article. One of them went down with a vicious struggle, the kind you don’t see outside an action movie; and the other two refused to be killed altogether. Now, that’s what I call spirit, even if it was in these notorious, blacklisted guys.
Fidel Castro
This guy definitely takes the cake for showing a stubborn refusal to just up and die; so much so that there was a documentary made on him – 638 Ways to Kill Castro. And that’s the exact number of assassination attempts that were made on him – 638. Castro definitely puts a cat to shame – actually, a whole bunch of cats I would say.
A great big thorn in CIA’s side for several years, this former President of Cuba survived all kinds of assassination attempts – poison pills, exploding cigars, deadly syringes concealed inside ball point pens, and even seductive female assassins. But his luck remained strong and unwavering. Exhibiting a sense of humor, Castro remarked, “If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.” I think a Platinum medal would be a higher honor for him!
Adolf Hitler
The most wanted man on this planet; probably one of the most feared and hated leaders in this world, History Channel states that Hitler survived 43 attacks to bump him off. I find that to be an unusually few number of assassination attempts on this tiny man, considering the amount of death and destruction he wreaked on this world. However, with Lady Luck smiling a million dollar smile at him, the only person who was successful in killing the Fuhrer was…well, the Fuhrer himself. I am sure there’s some sort of poetic irony in there for literature students to mull over.
Grigori Rasputin
Grigori Rasputin, the man with the wild eyes and even wilder beard lived with Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia. This mysterious man has a stranglehold on the Imperial family of Russia and was notorious for his ability to manipulate people into doing his evil bidding.
Having had too much of his tyranny, the nobility got together and plotted his death. They offered him a scrumptious looking cake poisoned with cyanide, but the only effect it had on Rasputin was to induce a burp! Frustrated, one of the conspirators shot him in the back, only to have Rasputin jump on him and beat him within an inch of his life. He received a sound thrashing in equal measure by the other members of the nobility and was shot 3 more times for good measure.
After this, he was tied up, stuffed into a sheet, and thrown into the freezing waters of Neva River. When Rasputin’s body floated ashore, it was discovered that he’d managed to untie himself and was struggling to free himself, before his lungs filled with water and drowned. This time, at least, he stayed dead for good.
