- Death is the cessation of the biological functions that sustain a living being.
- In the Nineteenth century, Egypt had such an excess of mummies that they started using them as fuel for trains engines.
- Many cultures have viewed biological death as a portal into an afterlife.
- Approximately 100 billion people have died since humans began.
- Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States for the two sexes, followed by cancer.
- 80% of people who die in the U.S. die inside of a hospital.
- In 1900, only a small fraction of Americans died in hospitals, and infectious diseases like influenza were among the leading killers.
- Causes of death in humans as a result of intentional activity include suicide, homicide and war.
- Burials in the United States put 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, into our soil each year.
- 150,000 people die around the world each day.
- There are more than two hundred euphemisms for death.
- Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted.
- In the United States, a person is dead by law if a Statement of Death or Death certificate is approved by a licensed medical practitioner.
Death facts
