Hoist by His Own Petard/Real Life: Difference between revisions

** However, the rumor that Dr. Guillotin was executed on the device he had introduced (referenced in the above ''Discworld'' example) is untrue.

** It's also shown in at least one film that Louis XVI had a hand in designing the guillotine, which he was later put to death by.

** And it gets better: when he tried to hide out in a hotel in an attempt to escape the above fate, he was refused, as the strict laws he had enacted in Qin while in power made it illegal for a hotel owner to admit a guest without proper identification.

** The Qin Dynasty did itself no favors in being so harsh--they only lasted 15 years.

{{quote|His words revolted me. I loathed the thought of such ingenious cruelty, and resolved to punish the artificer in kind. "If this is anything more than an empty boast, Perilaus," I said to him, "if your art can really produce this effect, get inside yourself, and pretend to roar; and we will see whether the pipes will make such music as you describe." He consented; and when he was inside I closed the aperture, and ordered a fire to be kindled. "Receive," I cried, "the due reward of your wondrous art: let the music-master be the first to play."|Phalaris I}}

** Some versions of the story have Phalaris letting him out after a spell, [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|only to have him thrown off a cliff]].

* On Christmas Eve of 2008, [[wikipedia:Covina massacre|Bruce Jeffrey Pardo]] went to a party held by his relatives dressed in a Santa suit, opened fire on them and killed eight, and then set fire to the house with a homemade flamethrower. His original plan was to establish an alibi and flee the country; however, the homemade flamethrower burned part of the Santa suit into his flesh, sabotaging his plans and driving him to commit suicide.

* On February 16, 2010, a man responsible for a string of terrifying holdups in Adelaide, South Australia was arrested due to the fact that not only were [[What an Idiot!|two of the stolen cars used for the robberies parked on his property]], he had in his possession a [[Rare Guns|SPAS-12 shotgun]], which was clearly identifiable on the released CCTV footage of some of the robberies, and is very rare, not to mention illegal to own in Australia.

* 1928: Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician, died following one of his experiments, in which the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, L. I. Koldomasov, was given to him in a transfusion.

* The Collyer brothers, extreme cases of compulsive hoarders, were found dead in their home in New York in 1947. The younger brother, Langley, died by falling victim to a booby trap he had set up, causing a mountain of objects, books, and newspapers to fall on him crushing him to death. His blind brother, Homer, who had depended on Langley for care, died of starvation some days later. Their bodies were recovered after massive efforts in removing many tons of debris from their home.

** Some of the funniest cases reordered [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-case-for-calling-them-nitwits/8130/ here].

* In 2004, when it looked like John Kerry might win the presidential election, the Democrats scrambled to change the rules so that an appointee of the (Republican) governor, Mitt Romney, wouldn't serve out the term. Six years later, under a Democratic governor, Ted Kennedy died too quickly for them to [[Moving the Goalposts|change the rules back]], but it didn't ''really'' matter since the Democrats [[Tempting Fate|couldn't possibly lose a Massachusetts Senate election]], right? [[wikipedia:United States Senate special election in Massachusetts, 2010|Right?]] ''[[Epic Fail|Right?]]''

* During the [[American Civil War]], the South's attitudes about race being what they were, the Confederacy decided against freeing their slaves and raising troops of black soldiers. This refusal exacerbated the already considerable logistical advantages the North had, including the fact that the Union did raise black troops, and helped ensure their already likely defeat.

* The French puppet emperor of Mexico Maximillian II attempted to dissuade the Mexicans from rebelling against him by enacting a law that sentenced every rebel captured in battle to death by firing squad. When he himself was captured by the rebels in 1867, the same law was applied to him and he was executed by firing squad.

 

{{reflist}}