Celebs who died on the same date

Death is the dark enigma at the center of life, and sometimes, it comes in strange ways … or on strange days. For instance, it's surprisingly common for people to die on their birthdays. There's also the weirdness that occurs when two famous people depart from the Earthly plane on the exact same day, within hours of each other, sometimes in really similar ways. These situations are probably just coincidences, but when they happen, they certainly feel weird.

The absolute strangest glitches in the Matrix, though, might be when celebrities tied together by interest, profession, or fate die on the exact same calendar date, but in different years. It almost feels as if these dates, and these people, are linked together by an invisible thread from the Grim Reaper. While the causes vary, as do the connections, here are some of the most notable cases of celebrities dying on the same date.

These days, the notion of bipartisanship — let alone legitimate friendships between Democrats and Republicans — often seems as magically fantastical as anything in Lord of the Rings. However, this hasn't always been the case. According to AZ Central, esteemed Arizona Senator and former U.S. presidential candidate John McCain, a Republican, enjoyed a good friendship with Democratic Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, for many years. ABC News says the two politicians were often dubbed the "maverick" and the "lion," respectively, and they worked together to form bipartisan legislation.

What's even stranger than their friendship, though, is the fact that both men died on the same date, August 25, and from the same tragic cause: a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. When Kennedy passed away in 2009, McCain gave a touching eulogy for his longtime friend and coworker, according to Town & Country Magazine. McCain died in 2018, and while Kennedy wasn't around to give the same honors, similar tributes were offered by his remaining family members, including Joe Kennedy III and Patrick J. Kennedy.

Everyone will always remember November 22, 1963, as the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and that date only got more implanted in the world's collective memory when Stephen King wrote a time travel novel about it. However, the fury and panic that followed JFK's death led to the demise of another cultural icon being swept aside: science fiction novelist Aldous Huxley. According to the Independent, the Brave New World author passed away less than an hour before the infamous scene in Dallas rocked the globe. He had been suffering from oral cancer, and on his deathbed, he asked his wife to inject him with 100 milligrams of LSD.

Now, when literary experts list the great science fiction dystopia novels, Brave New World is often joined by Anthony Burgess' bleak and violent A Clockwork Orange, and the similar nature of these two works makes it quite odd that Burgess also died on November 22, albeit 30 years later, in 1993. Burgess was living in Switzerland at this time, according to the New York Times, and had dealt with health crises throughout his life before finally succumbing to, like Huxley, cancer.

In 2016, it came as a huge, tragic surprise for wrestling fans across the nation when Joan Laurer was found dead of an unintended drug overdose in her Redondo Beach home, according to the Los Angeles Times. Though Laurer became an actress and reality TV star in her later years, her most prominent legacy will always be her role as the WWE wrestler Chyna, one of the program's most prominent female wrestlers.

Oddly enough, Laurer passed away on April 20, which Wrestling Inc notes as the exact same date that fellow wrestling superstar Rick Rude also died before his time in 1999. Heavy reports that Rude, who had been only 40 years old, died of heart failure believed to have been caused by a drug overdose. Both Laurer and Rude's deaths were proclaimed accidental, particularly Rude, who at the time had been busy training for a big return to the ring.

It's a horrible tragedy when young celebs are taken right as their careers are just beginning to take off, and the date of March 31 has claimed two such victims. The first was Brandon Lee, son of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee. As written by Entertainment Weekly, Lee was 28 years old when he starred in the dark comic book film The Crow, and by March 31, filming was almost complete. The heavy work was over, and to finish up, Lee just had to do a take where his character, Eric Draven, was murdered by a gunshot. But when the prop gun went off, a real bullet fired, lodging itself in Lee's spine. Despite five hours of surgery, and 60 pints of transfused blood, he died from internal hemorrhaging.

Though numerous conspiracy theories abound, the truth is that Lee's death was simply a terrible mistake. On the other hand, the murder of singer Selena Quintanilla — exactly two years later — was no accident. According to Pop Sugar, the bullet that took Selena's life was fired by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of the young artist's fan club, who had been caught embezzling $60,000. After a tense standoff with the authorities, Saldívar was arrested, found guilty, and has been in prison ever since.

Outer space is still a big, crazy, cosmic mystery, full of scary stuff. But it's a bit more familiar than it used to be, and part of the credit for that goes to old astronomers like Tycho Brahe, who somehow managed to figure out how galaxies spun without ever jumping into a spaceship. We might be stretching the definition of "celebrity" slightly, but Brahe was a 16th-century Danish mathematician, and his astronomy work helped convince all the egotistical Earthlings out there that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the solar system. Brahe died on October 24, 1601, according to Forbes, centuries before humankind touched the stars. The cause of his demise is an old mystery, but recent studies have shown that it was probably some combination of diabetes, obesity, and alcoholism.

Another man who dreamed of the cosmos was Gene Rodenberry, the famed creator of Star Trek, whose visions of a futuristic utopia have influenced popular culture, philosophy, scientific innovation (cell phones, anyone?), and countless cosplay outfits for over 50 years. According to Britannica, Roddenberry died on October 24, 1991. He was 70 years old, and the New York Times said the cause of his demise was a blood clot.

As if these weren't enough starry-eyed coincidences for one date, try this: In 1946, October 24 also marked the first time human beings saw their own planet from space, according to Vice. Crazy stuff.