How they died

Woodrow WilsonDied 3 February 1924 · Washington, D.C., United States (his house at 2340 S Street NW)Wilson administrationExhaustion following a digestive disturbance, with arteriosclerosis and paralysis from the 1919 stroke (Rear Admiral Grayson's statement, reported 4 February 1924)
H. H. AsquithDied 15 February 1928 · The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), EnglandAsquith governmentIllness following a stroke in 1926 and further attacks in 1927, ending in coma (no certified cause appears in the sources)
Wilhelm IIDied 4 June 1941 · Huis Doorn, Doorn, Netherlands (in exile)German Empire under Wilhelm IIPulmonary embolism, as reported by United Press in 1941, at the age of 82
Adolf HitlerDied 30 April 1945 · Führerbunker, Reich Chancellery garden, Berlin, GermanyNazi GermanySuicide by a gunshot to the head (cyanide is also reported); the bodies were burned
Benito MussoliniDied 28 April 1945 · Giulino di Mezzegra (Mezzegra), near Lake Como, ItalyFascist Italy under MussoliniShot by Italian partisans acting for the Committee of National Liberation for Northern Italy (who fired, and at what hour, is disputed)
Franklin D. RooseveltDied 12 April 1945 · The Little White House, Warm Springs, Georgia, United StatesRoosevelt administrationCerebral haemorrhage (a massive stroke) after years of high blood pressure and heart disease; no autopsy was performed
Joseph StalinDied 5 March 1953 · Blizhnyaya (Near) Dacha, Kuntsevo, outside Moscow; the official announcements said MoscowSoviet Union under StalinCerebral haemorrhage (stroke), per the official medical report; poisoning has been claimed and is disputed
Winston ChurchillDied 24 January 1965 · 28 Hyde Park Gate, LondonChurchill wartime governmentCerebral thrombosis (stroke) after a first stroke on 15 January 1965, at the age of 90
Mao ZedongDied 9 September 1976 · Zhongnanhai, BeijingPeople's Republic of China under MaoHeart failure and multiple organ failure after a heart attack, with a long neurological illness whose diagnosis is disputed
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa)Died 7 January 1989 · Imperial Palace, Tokyo, JapanEmpire of Japan, 1937 to 1945Cancer of the duodenum (the diagnosis was not announced during his life)
Nicolae CeausescuDied 25 December 1989 · Targoviste, RomaniaSocialist Republic of Romania under CeausescuShot by a firing squad after a death sentence from an extraordinary military tribunal
Kim Il SungDied 8 July 1994 · Not stated; North Korean statements name no placeNorth Korea under the Kim familyHeart attack, according to an official North Korean medical report; no independent examination is on record
Pol PotDied 15 April 1998 · A Khmer Rouge camp in the Dangrek mountains near Anlong Veng, northern Cambodia, close to the Thai borderDemocratic Kampuchea under Pol PotReported as heart failure by Khmer Rouge officials; a later report of suicide by overdose is disputed; no autopsy was done
Saddam HusseinDied 30 December 2006 · Baghdad, IraqIraq under Saddam HusseinHanged after a death sentence from the Iraqi High Tribunal
Kim Jong IlDied 17 December 2011 · On a train during a field guidance tour, according to North Korean state media; no location is givenNorth Korea under the Kim familyHeart attack, according to North Korean state media; no independent examination is on record
Muammar GaddafiDied 20 October 2011 · Near Sirte, LibyaLibya under Muammar GaddafiDied in the hands of Misrata-based fighters after capture; the exact cause is disputed

Running list

16 of 24 leaders on the list are written up. Still to come: Augusto Pinochet, Erich Honecker, Fidel Castro, Francisco Franco, Idi Amin, Josip Broz Tito, Philippe Petain, Vladimir Lenin.

One page per leader on how their life ended, from the documented record, and how the death was announced, shown, denied or used afterwards. The record covers leaders of every side: monarchies, democracies, one-party states and military governments alike. A page says what happened and what the sources show. It never says who deserved what.

Each death is told in the same order, with the same level of detail, whether the leader died in office, in exile, in custody or in bed. Where the record is disputed (the time, the cause, the place of burial), the page says so and names the sources on each side.