1900s •
Consort Zhen (born 1876), consort of
Guangxu Emperor, thrown into a well by
Empress Dowager Cixi, August 15, 1900. •
Isadore Rush (born ?), American actress. Drowned off the beach at San Diego,
Hotel Del Coronado November 1904. •
Grace Brown (born 1886), American garment industry worker. She drowned in New York's
Big Moose Lake on June 11, 1906, after she fell out of a boat being rowed by her boyfriend,
Chester Gillette, nephew of her employer. Witnesses said Gillette had struck her on the head with a tennis racket before she went into the water; he claimed she had jumped out. After a murder trial that drew national attention, Gillette was convicted and sentenced to death; he was executed two years later. The case inspired
Theodore Dreiser's novel
An American Tragedy. •
Ernst Schultz (born 1879), Danish sprinter. Drowned while swimming in
Roskilde Fjord, 20 June 1906.
1910s • Sir
W. S. Gilbert (b. 1836), British humorist, librettist of the
Gilbert and Sullivan operas, drowned on 29 May 1911 while going to the rescue of two other swimmers in the lake at his home. He may have died from a heart attack rather than by drowning. •
Michel Tamarati (born 1858), a Georgian Catholic priest and historian, died while trying to rescue a drowning man in a stormy sea near Santa Marinella, Italy, on September 16, 1911. •
John Jacob Astor IV (born 1864) drowned in the
Titanic disaster in 1912. •
Benjamin Guggenheim (born 1865) drowned in the
Titanic disaster in 1912. •
Isidor Straus and wife
Ida Straus, drowned in the
Titanic disaster. •
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (born 1850), British field marshal, presumed to have drowned after
HMS Hampshire hit a mine and sank off the
Orkney Islands in 1916. •
Grigori Rasputin (died 1916), Russian mystic and Imperial adviser. The aristocratic faction tried to kill him using several methods, including, after poison, several gunshots; this is believed to be the main cause of his death, but after his body was thrown in the
Neva River (and later recovered), many tend to believe that drowning was the final cause of his death. For others, attributing death to drowning means adding to a legend. •
Enrique Granados drowned after jumping out of a lifeboat to rescue his wife following the torpedoing of their ship by the German navy during World War I in 1916. •
Tom Thomson, Canadian painter who died in a canoeing accident in
Algonquin Provincial Park in 1917.
1920s •
William Wilton (born 1865), Scottish football manager (
Rangers F.C.), drowned in a boating accident at
Gourock, Scotland in 1920. •
Little Lord Fauntleroy (murder victim), an unidentified child found in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on March 8, 1921. He had been hit in the head with a blunt instrument and was thrown into a quarry, which resulted in his death. •
Michael Llewelyn Davies (born 1900) and his friend Rupert Buxton drowned together in a pool of water downstream of a weir near
Sandford Lock on the River Thames, a few miles from Oxford on May 21, 1921. The location has been the site of many drownings. •
Pavel Urysohn (born 1898), Russian mathematician and topologist, drowned on 17 August 1924 while on holiday in France. •
Sacadura Cabral died on 15 November 1924 after his airplane disappeared over the
English Channel, along with his co-pilot Mechanical Corporal José Correia. As no bodies were found, it is not known whether they actually drowned. •
Ida Vihuri (born 1882), Finnish politician, died on 7 September 1929 in the shipwreck of
SS Kuru.
1930s •
J. W. H. T. Douglas, (1882–1930), cricketer, died unsuccessfully trying to rescue his father after a collision at sea. •
Starr Faithfull (1906–1931), American socialite, drowned near
Long Beach, New York in June 1931; whether her death was homicide, suicide or accident was never determined. •
Bertie Johnston, Australian politician, drowned at
Black Rock, Victoria in 1932. •
Hart Crane, poet;
suicide in the
Caribbean in April 1932. •
Eugene James (1913–1933),
Kentucky Derby-winning American jockey drowned in
Lake Michigan while swimming at
Chicago's
Oak Street Beach. •
Oskar Kumpu (1889–1935), Finnish Olympic wrestler and Red Army officer, drowned while swimming in the
Olonka River in the Soviet Union. •
Jiro Sato (1908–1934), Japanese tennis player, committed suicide in the
Strait of Malacca on April 5, 1934. •
James Murray, (1901–1936), actor, found drowned in the Hudson River, possible
suicide. •
Alfonsina Storni, (1892–1935), Argentine poet, committed suicide in
Mar del Plata, Argentina. •
Michalina Isaakowa (1880–1937), Polish amateur entomologist, traveler and writer drowned in Peru.
1940s •
Virginia Woolf (born 1882), British writer, committed suicide on 28 March 1941. •
Glenn Miller (born 1904), American
big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during
World War II, went
missing in action (MIA) on December 15, 1944, on a flight over the
English Channel from England to France. •
Osamu Dazai (born 1909), Japanese writer, committed
shinjū in the
Tamagawa Aqueduct on June 13, 1948.
1950s •
Arky Vaughan (born 1912), baseball Hall of Famer, drowned after falling from his fishing boat on 30 August 1952. •
Susan Martin (1945–1958) and
Virginia Martin (1947–1958) died by drowning in the
Columbia River in unexplained circumstances when they, along with their mother, father, and older sister, disappeared in December 1958.
1960s •
Victor Prather (born 1926), U.S. Navy flight surgeon, drowned on May 4, 1961, after the landing of the
Strato-Lab V balloon flight, which set a new manned balloon altitude record. •
David Kenyon Webster of the
101st Airborne Division (Band of Brothers) was lost at sea, September 9, 1961, while shark fishing. Presumed drowned. •
Klara Dan von Neumann (born 1911), pioneer in computer science, drowned on 10 November 1963 in
La Jolla, California. •
Johnny Burnette, pop singer known for hits such as "
You're Sixteen", drowned after a boating accident on August 14, 1964. •
Hugo Ärnfast (born 1908), Swedish diplomat, died in a drowning accident near
Bogotá on 11 July 1965, after being swept away by strong currents while on a trip to a mountain village. •
Lao She (born 1899), Chinese novelist and dramatist. Experienced mistreatment when the
Cultural Revolution began in 1966, committed suicide by drowning himself in Beijing's Taiping Lake on 24 August 1966. •
Prince Frederick of Prussia (born 1911), died in 1966 at Reinhartshausen, Germany, after drowning in the
Rhine. •
Eric Fleming, actor best known for his role in the
CBS series
Rawhide, drowned on 28 September 1966, in a remote river in
Peru's back country while filming the made-for-TV movie "Selva Alta" ("High Jungle") for
MGM. •
Harold Holt, serving
Prime Minister of Australia,
presumed to have drowned on 17 December 1967. •
Brian Jones (born 1942), original guitarist of The Rolling Stones, drowned in
Hartfield, Sussex, England, in his own swimming pool on 3 July 1969. Classified as "death by misadventure". •
Mary Jo Kopechne (born 1940), drowned in
Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile Delta 88 in a car accident off of
Chappaquiddick Island in mid-July 1969.
1970s •
Albert Ayler, jazz musician, suspected
suicide November 1970. •
George Duncan (born 1930), Australian law lecturer, drowned in
Adelaide's
River Torrens after being thrown in by a group of men believed to have been police officers charged with enforcing vice laws, particularly gay cruising on the riverbanks. No suspects have ever been identified in the case, but outrage over it led
South Australia to become the first Australian state to fully decriminalize homosexuality three years later. •
Cengaver Katrancı (born 1964), a Turkish boy, who lived in
West Berlin. He is one of the youngest victims of the
Berlin Wall's existence. Drowned in the
Spree on October 30, 1972. •
István Kertész, orchestral conductor, accident, 16 April 1973. •
Ann Quin, British experimental author. Drowned 1973,
open verdict. •
Horatio Strother (born 1930), American historian and educator who accidentally drowned while swimming in
Hidden Lake in
Haddam,
Connecticut, in 1974. •
Josef Mengele (born 1911), war criminal and leader of the
Nazi human experimentation programme, drowned while swimming off the Brazilian coast in 1979.
1980s •
John Crabbe Cunningham (born 1927), Scottish climber, mountain instructor and member of the Creag Dhu mountaineering club, drowned at
South Stack,
Anglesey, Wales in January 1980, when attempting to rescue a female pupil who fell into the sea while
Coasteering •
Natalie Wood (born 1938), actress, drowned in a yachting accident in 1981 off of Santa Catalina Island; the accident raised several suspicions and murder was considered and the case was reopened in 2011 and is now categorized as suspicious with husband
Robert Wagner named as a person of interest. •
Joe Delaney (born 1958), Running back for the
Kansas City Chiefs, accidentally drowned in 1983 while trying to save three children who were screaming for help. •
Dennis Wilson (born 1944), one of the members of
the Beach Boys, drowned in 1983 at
Marina del Rey, California, while diving after drinking. •
Jessica Savitch (born 1947),
NBC and
PBS news broadcaster and reporter, drowned in 1983 when the car in which she was riding went off the road during a heavy rainstorm into a canal, sank upside down in mud and filled with water. •
Grégory Villemin (born 1980), French child, was found drowned, bound and gagged in France's
Vologne River from his home in
Lépanges-sur-Vologne on October 16, 1984. It was later found that the water in his lungs did not match the river, suggesting he had been killed elsewhere. The ensuing homicide investigation and trials captivated the country; no one has been convicted in the case. •
Hans Neij (born 1921), a Swedish Air Force major general serving as defence attaché in
Washington, D.C. and
Ottawa drowned during a holiday stay at
Fort Walton Beach, Florida on 24 April 1985. •
Fernando Pereira, Dutch photographer drowned when French agents sank the
Greenpeace ship
Rainbow Warrior, July 10, 1985. •
Carol Wayne, American actress who drowned under mysterious circumstances in Manzanillo, Mexico in 1985. •
Uwe Barschel, German politician who was found dead under mysterious circumstances on 11 October 1987 when his clothed body was discovered in a full bathtub at
Hotel Beau-Rivage in
Geneva. •
Jerry Anderson, former NFL football player who drowned while saving a boy who had fallen into a flooded creek in 1989.
1990s •
Jim Hodder, (born 1947), American drummer who drowned in his pool in 1990. •
Robert Maxwell, newspaper magnate, disappeared from his yacht under mysterious circumstances in 1991, body later recovered off the coast of
Tenerife,
Canary Islands. • Will Sinnott, bass player and keyboardist for
The Shamen, who drowned while swimming in the
Canary Islands in 1991. •
Kiyoshi Nishimura, Japanese film maker, committed suicide on November 17, 1993. •
Tom Mees, longtime sportscaster for
ESPN, drowned while trying to rescue his 4-year-old daughter in a neighbor's swimming pool, in 1996. The daughter survived. •
David Chan Yuk-cheung (Chinese: 陈毓祥, born 1950), a leader of
Baodiao movement in Hong Kong, drowned in the sea during a protest in 1996. •
Jeff Buckley (born 1966), singer-songwriter, drowned in the
Wolf River in
Memphis, Tennessee in 1997. •
Mae Boren Axton, songwriter known as "The Queen Mother of Nashville" and mother of singer
Hoyt Axton, drowned in her hot tub at her home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, in 1997, after an apparent heart attack. •
Nerine Kidd Shatner (Born July 13, 1959) actress/model and the third wife of
William Shatner drowned while swimming alone in the couple's pool. ==21st century==