Men in History Who Got Screwed Over in Odd Ways

When I was still living back home and going to junior college, I had this crazy history teacher who taught the early years of U.S. History. We'll call him Dr. K. Anyway, so Dr. K started me on this craze of loving people who had crazy things happen in their lives. Or crazy things that just happened to end their lives. Here are three of my favorites and their crazy life-altering stories:

John Smith

Everyone has heard of the famous John Smith, who came to America as a famous explorer. However, what people don't know (or what has been fairly misled by the Disney film about Pocahontas) is that he wasn't actually romantically involved with the daughter of a Native American chief. Instead, he was capture but then became friends with some Native Americans after they grew fascinated with Smith's ability to read his pocket compass (and Smith did claim that he thought Pocahontas helped him out a little bit, although he couldn't really tell because he couldn't understand the language.) Anyway, so the best part of the story is when Smith was traveling down the river with some of his men and his gunpowder pouch caught on fire. He received a very severe burn underneath the belt (if you know what I mean) and he returned to England for treatment under the belt. Poor John Smith... :(
And, of course, we all think of him like this:

But, unfortunately, he really looked like this:

Edward Braddock

This guy was a British General, who had kind of a pompous attitude that ended up getting him killed. During the French and Indian war, he had the grand idea of having approximately 1,400 of his men march to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, even though he had received word from his Native American spies that the French and the Native Americans had massed in Pittsburgh. Since Braddock didn't respect Native Americans, he naturally didn't want to listen to their report so he decided to go to Pittsburgh against the will of the spies. As you can only imagine, they all marched to Pittsburgh and 900 out of the 1,400 people got completely slaughtered by the Native Americans because the British had no idea how to fight the same way that the Native Americans did. It ended with Braddock getting shot off of 4 different horses and getting hit in the chest and dying 4 days later, after General Washington took over. Pretty depressing death, huh? It'll teach people to be less arrogant.

Rodrigo de Jerez

Our good friend Rodrigo came over to America with Columbus. When the Native Americans approached the settlers with tobacco as a welcoming gesture, Columbus thought the whole idea of smoking was completely disgusting. Rodrigo, on the other hand, became the first European to be addicted to smoking. He really liked the habit. So, thinking that he was completely brilliant, Rodrigo decided to go back to Spain to show everyone the gloriousness of tobacco. However, unfortunately, the Spanish decided that Rodrigo was possessed by the devil because he could emit smoke from his nose and mouth, so they turned him over to the Inquisition, who threw him in jail for seven years. So, poor Rodrigo was not only the first European to become addicted to smoking, he was also the first European to have to break the habit cold turkey. Poor man!

So, which one are you saddest for?