Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Charles Francis Hall's death on the Polaris
On 8 November 1871, at Thank God Harbor in north Greenland, Charles Francis Hall, leader of the US Polaris expedition to the North Pole, died after falling ill drinking coffee, accusing his crew of poisoning him.
1871 CE · 81.60, -61.70 · status: disputed
The account
A naval inquiry found that he died of a stroke. In 1968 his biographer Chauncey Loomis had his body exhumed; tests found that Hall had received large doses of arsenic in his last two weeks.
The sceptical view
Arsenic was also used in medicines of the time, so murder (with the ship's doctor, Emil Bessels, the main suspect) is likely but not proven.