Zachary Taylor - Unusual Death

Zachary Taylor was a war hero in the Mexican-American war who became the 12th president of the United States in 1849. 

In 1850, while attending a Fourth of July event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction, Taylor consumed copious amounts of raw fruit and iced milk during the long, hot day. This combination of foods gave Taylor diarrhea and dysentery, which he died from five days later.

Marie Curie - Unusual Death

Marie Skłodowska Curie was a Polish-French physicist and chemist who discovered radioactivity and the methods used to isolate radioactive isotopes. She and her husband were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, and she received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. 

 It is unfortunate, then, that what killed Curie was the very thing that she devoted her life to. She suffered many ailments due to exposure from radiation, including cataracts that rendered her nearly-blind. In 1934, she died from aplastic anemia, a rare bone marrow disease caused by radiation.