Sport of Kings can be a fatal attraction

Jousting in SL may produce a sore hand from operating the mouse, but nothing compared to its real life counterpart, where history records several fatalities.

On 30 June 1559, during a match to celebrate several key events, King Henry II of France was was mortally wounded by the lance of Gabriel Montgomery, captain of the King's Scottish Guard. The king suffered a mortal head wound from a lance fragment entering the eyeslit and lodging in his brain. Despite the efforts of royal surgeon, he died on 10 July 1559.

452 Years later, on January 27, 2011, A re-enactment of a medieval joust ended in a similar death of one of the actors taking part . A splinter sheared off a 7ft wooden lance, spearing 54-year-old Peter Allen’s eye and brain. He also died about a week later.

#history