The American revolutionary James Otis Jr. hoped his death would come by a bolt of lightning and often told his friends and relatives about it. His sister reported him telling her, “My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in His righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity that it will be by a flash of lightning.”

He died on May 23, 1783, at the age of 58. His wish was fulfilled when the lightning struck the chimney of a friend’s house in whose doorway he was standing.