Nicholas Comper’s Firework Joke Killed

In June 1939, British aircraft designer Nicholas Comper went outside in Hythe, Kent, to light fireworks, and when a passerby asked what he was doing, he joked that he was an IRA man blowing up the town hall. The passerby took the remark seriously and knocked him down. Comper hit his head on the curb and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He later died in the hospital.

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