A Brief History
On December 29, 1916, the Russian known as “Rasputin,” or “The Mad Monk,” was murdered by a group of Russian noblemen, finally dying the next day after surviving being poisoned with cyanide and shot three times, and ultimately having to be drowned. Today, we look at some of history’s toughest characters that were hard to kill.
Digging Deeper
Blackbeard the Pirate: In 1718, the most notorious pirate of them all was finally killed in spectacular fashion, only after being shot five times and slashed by swords 20 times!
Hugh Glass: A tough as nails Mountain Man and trapper of the American frontier, Glass survived a horrible mauling by a grizzly bear, was abandoned by his “friends,” and crawled 200 miles on his own to safety! Oh, and he had survived being shot the previous year!
Rasputin: Survived being stabbed in 1914, survived poisoned tea cakes and then poisoned wine, was shot three times, and finally drowned.
Theodore Roosevelt: The hero of San Juan Hill was shot in the chest during a campaign speech in 1912 but did not die and continued his speech for 90 minutes!
Question for students (and subscribers): Who do you believe is the hardest to kill person in history? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Myers, John. The Saga of Hugh Glass: Pirate, Pawnee, and Mountain Man. Bison Books, 1976.
Smith, Douglas. Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs. Picador, 2017.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of Rasputin after being wounded in the stomach, is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.