Died on Their Birthday

Outta the way! I'm trying to cut the cake!

"I can't die on my birthday. That's a level of irony I'm just not comfortable with."

— Pete Fantasy, Teenage Euthanasia

Birthdays are usually fun (for most people), an occasion to look forward to where one gets to receive gifts, hear restaurant waitstaff sing, and be pampered by friends and loved ones. However, for some unfortunate people, their birthday is also the day that they die.

In fiction, whether this is done for comedy or for tragedy, this is something that's generally played up for its morbid Irony — an anniversary date marking when one entered into the world also coming to signify one's departure from it. In general, death can come for a person on their birthday in any number of ways. Murder, suicide, and accidents are all very common (in cases of murder, targeting a victim on their birthday may not necessarily be directly tied to a motive beyond Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday and often may simply be a sort of Contrived Coincidence). Elderly characters, specifically, may suddenly die of old age.

Studies of this general phenomenon in Real Life refer to it as The Birthday Effect — a statistical curiosity where an individual's likelihood of dying appears to increase on or close to their birthday. Common explanations for this in real life include alcohol being a factor (lots of grown-ups consume alcohol on their birthday, and some of them drive while intoxicated and end up in a fatal car accident) and psychological stresses (depression and possibly having suicidal thoughts).

In Jewish culture, dying on one's own birthday is particularly deemed a blessing, indicating that the departed soul had completed their God-given Earthly mission.

A Sub-Trope of A Birthday, Not a Break, where bad things in general happen to somebody on their birthday.

Compare Dangerous 16th Birthday, where turning 16 puts a young person in danger; Ironic Birthday, when a character arrives at their own surprise birthday party at an inopportune moment; Retirony, where death coincides with another life milestone.

See Also: Significant Birth Date, Death by Irony, Life/Death Juxtaposition, Birth-Death Juxtaposition, Bookends.

As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom: Koro-sensei is killed in mercy by his students exactly one year to the day after he destroyed the Moon, on March 13. This date is also his designated birthday, given that his actual date of birth is unknown.
• Case Closed: Several murder victims are killed on their birthday.
  • "Wealthy Daughter Murder Case/Billionaire Birthday Blues": Reika was found drowned in a bathtub on her 24th birthday with it being evident she was bound and gagged prior to her death.
  • "Three Hotta Siblings Murder Case/Unhappy Birthday": The father of the eponymous siblings gets killed in the blast of a homemade bomb in his bedroom on his 58th birthday.
  • "The Guardian of Time's Sword": Rukako Hoshina gets stabbed to death at 6PM, the exact time of her birth, on her 50th birthday.
• Made in Abyss: There is a mysterious disease that occurs on the surface around the Abyss where a person falls horribly ill on their birthday, and by the end of the day, they will have died. The mysterious disease is theorized to be the cause of the praying skeleton tombs that date back every 2000 years. The only known survivor of the birthday disease is Kiyui, who recovered in mere minutes after he was taken out of the Abyss' vicinity and taken onto the caravan fleet by Mio.
• Maria no Danzai: Kiritaka Nagare met his unfortunate end the night of his fourteenth birthday.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: In the anime adaptation, Asuna dies on her 14th birthday, but Negi is able to revive her with the help of his class.
• Nurse Angel Ririka SOS begins with Ririka turning ten and ends with her Heroic Sacrifice on her 11th birthday. However, the very end implies that she somehow survived.
• Vandread: Subverted where Meia is willing to perform a Heroic Sacrifice during her own Birthday Episode in order to save her crew mate's baby, but they are both saved in the very last moment.
• Virgin Ripper: It's Implied that on Hotaru's 15th birthday, she allowed herself to die (essentially suicide, and only suicides become reapers) so that the "real" Hotaru she was cloned from could get her organs, hence why her soul is different from the other reapers.

Comic Books

• America vs. the Justice Society: A variant. Professor Zee arrives through time-travel on what would be his 100th Birthday. However, mortally wounded (by Per Degaton from his starting travel point in 1947), he collapses dead.
• The Punisher MAX: In the first issue, Frank Castle walks inside the mansion of "Don" Massimo Cesare, who is celebrating his 100th birthday with every family member and associate in attendance. Frank shoots the old Don between the eyes, killing him, then leaves. By the time the mobsters get over the shock of the Punisher killing Don Cesare to come outside and swarm him, he's set up an M-60 machine gun to kill the rest of them, too.
• Y: The Last Man: Yorick’s mother mentions it’s his father’s birthday before Dad drops dead along with nearly every other man.

Fan Works

• In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Days Of Future Smurfed", Empath as Great-Grandfather Smurf dies on his 1150th birthday.

Film — Animated

• The Haunted World of El Superbeasto: Dr. Satan's rampage after transforming himself into a gigantic demon includes decapitating an old man celebrating his 100th birthday.
• Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox: Nora Allen is killed on her birthday by an unknown assailant when her son, Barry (The Flash), was only a child. Her death and Barry's regret about not being able to save her leads him to go back in time and create the Flashpoint timeline, which almost destroys the world.
• Minions: One of the Minions' previous bosses was Dracula. Assuming that he only slept during the day because he "partied" all night, the Minions surprised him on his 357th birthday by waking him up and opening the curtains. Sunlight, however, is the vampire's weakness, and he turned to dust.

Film — Live-Action

• Bio Zombie: Crazy has to remind Woody that today is his birthday, which Woody apparently forgot about. It just so happens the two of them unknowingly started a zombie outbreak on the same day. By the end of the day, Crazy succumbs to a zombie bite. His dying wish is for Woody and Rolls to take his photograph using a Game Boy Camera.
• Bloody Brotherhood: Ka-wah's daughter dies on her birthday in a kidnapping gone awry.
• Burning Ambition: Siu-Hong dies on her birthday (along with her brother, Chi-Wai) when their family is attacked by enemy Mooks at the family party for the occasion, shortly after Siu-Hong blew out her birthday candles. The mooks were targeting their father, Boss Chau, and the siblings had to fight them off to protect him.
• Defending Your Life: Daniel dies on his birthday when he crashes his new birthday present to himself - a BMW convertible.
• Die Oma Ist Tot: Grandma Vera is found dead in the late morning of her eightieth birthday, having died in her sleep due to a combination of old age and intoxication.
• Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood: Played for Laughs. At the moment an opening narrator—who already shot and killed another narrator—tells the audience that most people living in "the hood" won't even get to reach the age of 21, he is presented with a birthday cake for his 21st birthday as a friend sings, "Happy Birthday, Homey" The very moment he tries to blow out the candles on his cake, he, too, gets shot and killed.
• Eyes of Laura Mars: Donald is murdered on his birthday.
• Fearless (2006): Huo Yuanjia, in order to avenge his academy's honor, challenged a rival martial arts champion, Master Qin, to a Duel to the Death on Qin's birthday. Naturally, Huo wins, albeit in an Accidental Murder moment when his finishing blow on Qin turns out to be fatal, and this merely kicks off a vicious Cycle of Revenge when Qin's adult son kills Huo's mother and young daughter before committing Murder-Suicide.
• Fade To Black: Bially gets shot up with a tommy gun, courtesy of Eric (dressed as a gangster), on his birthday. Eric destroys the birthday cake in the ensuing spray of wild gunfire, too.
  Eric: Happy Birthday, sucka!
• Final Score (1986): The inciting incident of the story involves the hero's son and wife being killed on the son's 8th birthday, with their bloodied bodies displayed under a banner that says, "Happy 8th Bobby" for good measure.
• Get Shorty: At the beginning of the film, the mob boss Momo goes to what he thinks is a dangerous sit-down with rival gangsters. It turns out it's a surprise birthday party. He promptly keels over dead.
• Happy Birth Death: This is a 2016 Malaysian horror film where a group of friends rents an old, supposedly haunted mansion for the birthday party for one of the group, Alice, revealed to be an Alpha Bitch. Alice arranges to pull a cruel prank on her friend, Jean, that involves drugging her and convincing her of the mansion's "ghosts," which leads to her accidentally falling off a balcony to her death. In the process of trying to dispose of Jean's corpse, it's revealed that the mansion truly is haunted, and Jean's vengeful spirit now seeks retribution. The party night ends with everyone killed by spirits, with Jean personally finishing Alice off.
• Happy Death Day:
  • In the original film, Tree gets killed over and over again on her birthday.
  • Happy Death Day 2U revisits the original premise with a few twists. Namely, Tree must repeatedly kill herself at the end of each day so Ryan and his team can test new algorithms to try and break her out of the loop.
• Harold and Maude: Maude had long planned to end her life on her 80th birthday, and at the end of the movie, she follows through with that plan by overdosing on pills.
• Jawbreaker: The story begins with Courtney, Julie, and Marcie staging a fake kidnapping of their friend, Liz, on her 17th birthday. However, the prank goes horribly wrong, as Liz ends up choking to death on the jawbreaker that her friends used to gag her.
• Knives Out: Harlan Thrombey dies on the night of his 85th birthday with his throat slit. The police rule it a suicide, but private detective Benoit Blanc is anonymously hired to investigate, setting the rest of the movie's plot into motion.
• Lethal Weapon 3: When Travis and his men raid the police station, Riggs enlists the help of a young cop, Edwards, to stop them. When Riggs asks for his age, Edwards mentions that it's his birthday that day. During a shootout, Edwards is killed by one of Travis' armor-piercing bullets. Upon seeing the corpse, Riggs grimly says, "Happy Birthday."
• Little Annie Rooney: Annie's police officer father is shot dead on his birthday. Annie learns this after she made a birthday cake for him.
• Living 'til the End: After a psychic predicts that Jack Whilton will die on his next birthday, that is exactly what ends up happening to him by the end of the story.
• Meet Joe Black: Bill Parrish is scheduled to die on his 65th birthday. In the end, Joe reaps his soul after the father/daughter dance with Susan at his birthday party.
• Miss Violence: The film begins with 11-year-old Angeliki committing suicide on her birthday.
• Mother's Day (2010): This remake largely involves a birthday party that gets interrupted by a home invasion. Near the end of the story, Mother shoots and kills the birthday boy, Daniel.
• No Retreat No Surrender 3: John is attacked and killed by Colombian terrorist Antonio "Franco" Franconi and his men, shortly after John had celebrated his 65th birthday.
• Pet Sematary (2019): During her ninth birthday party, Ellie is hit and killed by a derailed tanker truck, after she spotted Church and ran out into the street.
• The Room (2003): The final scenes take place at a birthday party for Johnny. After learning about the infidelity between his girlfriend Lisa and his friend Mark, Johnny kicks everyone out, trashes his apartment, and finally commits suicide by gunshot.
• Scream 3: The movie's climax takes place at Roman's birthday party at John Milton's mansion. Played around with. After everyone at the party splits up to look for secret passageways, Roman uses this moment to first fake his own death (Gale finds him in a trunk with a large knife sticking out of his stomach) before later revealing himself to be the Ghostface killer and explaining his motives to Sidney. The two of them fight, and in the end, Sidney stabs Roman in the back, twice, with an icepick. Roman ultimately dies from these injuries (and an additional headshot from Dewey) but not before sharing a sibling moment with his half-sister, Sidney, who takes some sympathy on him.
• The Shootist: The finale occurs during the shootout that Books arranged for his birthday on January 29, 1901. Books is mortally wounded when he is shot in the back by the saloon's bartender carrying a shotgun.
• Spookies: The first act of the film follows a 13-year-old boy named Billy who runs away from home after his parents forget his birthday. Making his way through thick woods, he encounters a drifter who is violently slashed to death after Billy leaves him. Billy stumbles upon an old mansion where a room is decorated for birthday celebrations. Believing it to be a surprise from his parents, he opens a present only to discover a laughing severed head. Running away in terror, he is then attacked by the drifter's killer, a werecat with a hook for one hand, and is subsequently buried alive.
• Under Siege: Captain Adams of the USS Missouri is murdered on his birthday by his traitorous XO, Krill, who used preparations for the Captain's party as cover to bring his terrorist allies on board.
• What We Did on Our Holiday: Gordie dies on his seventy-fifth birthday. He got to visit one of his oldest friends, spend quality time with his grandchildren, and watch them play one last time before succumbing to a heart attack.
• Zurich: Lea, who is dying of a terminal illness, intends to end her life on her 23rd birthday. She does exactly as she plans.

Gamebook

• Scary Birthday to You takes place on the reader's birthday, and owing to a deranged conjurer named Dr. MacDeath, the reader can suffer a multitude of gory deaths throughout the story. In fact, averting the trope is part of the main goal.

Literature

• Cautionary Tales For Children: In Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse, and Was Eaten by a Lion, the eponymous Spoiled Brat meets his gruesome demise while on a visit to the zoo that was meant to celebrate his birthday.
• "Damned (2011)": The novel revolves around Dead to Begin With protagonist Madison "Maddy" Spencer and her adventures in hell. It's ultimately revealed that she was accidentally strangled to death by her adopted older brother in a botched attempt at playing the choking game. This occurred on the night of her 13th birthday, driven home by the fact that the last words Madison hears before dying are of her celebrity mother wishing her a happy birthday on TV.
• Dollanganger Series:
  • Flowers in the Attic: At the beginning of the story, Christopher, Sr. is killed in a car crash while driving to his 36th birthday party.
  • Petals on the Wind: Julia kills her son Scotty on his 3rd birthday as part of a Murder-Suicide. They both drown.
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven: Eddie dies on his eighty-third birthday saving a young girl from a malfunctioning amusement ride.
• Leap Day: Discussed. Narrator Taylor born on Leap Day explains that, while she fears death on most days, she has nothing to fear on her birthday, because it's highly improbable to both be born on and die on Leap Day.
• Milly, Molly: In "Grandpa's Oak Tree", Granny Peg passes away on the evening of her birthday.
• A Murder Is Announced: Dora Bunner died just after her birthday party, having gone to rest in her bed. It was actually Letitia Blacklock, or rather her sister Charlotte, the real one having died years ago, who poisoned her.
• My Sweet Audrina: The first Audrina dies on her 9th birthday on September 9.
• Sleeping Beauty: Defied. The evil fairy had intended to kill the princess with a curse on her birthday, but a good fairy managed to weaken the curse to only make the princess fall asleep, instead. In some versions of this story, this doubles as a Dangerous 16th Birthday.
• Sparkling Cyanide: The beautiful and ditzy Rosemary Barton dies of cyanide poisoning during her own birthday party. Her death is initially ruled a suicide, but one year later, the investigation is reopened to find out if she was, in fact, murdered.
• The Thorn Birds: Mary Carson flat-out declares that she's going to die the night of her 65th birthday and indeed she does.

Live-Action TV

• Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction: The segment "Bad Dreams" from Season 4, Episode 9 is about a woman who keeps dreaming about dying on her 30th birthday. She believes this is a premonition, and she spends her birthday alone with her husband in sheer terror, as events from her premonition come true, but when she survives, she's relieved, and she stops having the dreams. However, one year later, when a proper birthday party is being held in her honor, a relative explains to her husband that her grandmother (who helped raise her after her parents died when she was a small child) actually got her age wrong and reveals that she is one year younger than she thought she was, meaning this second party is actually her 30th birthday. Once again, events from the woman's original premonition start happening, and moments later she is found stone dead. At the end of the episode, Jonathan Frakes reveals this story to be a work of fiction.
• The Big Bang Theory: Discussed in the episode "The Intimacy Acceleration" where Penny and Sheldon are carrying out an experiment together, and Penny asks Sheldon a hypothetical question about him dying on this particular evening. Sheldon responds, "Well, I suppose there's something satisfying about dying on my birthday." He had been keeping his birthday a secret because he doesn't enjoy presents or like the thought of people jumping out and yelling, "Surprise!"
• Birds of a Feather: In "Nuptials", Dorien, who is experiencing Milestone Birthday Angst over her 50th birthday, attempts to kill herself come the day. Thankfully, the other girls come across her and stop her.
• Breaking Bad:
  • In "IFT", Tortuga is decapitated by Marco and Leonel Salamanca after he is distracted by an apparent birthday gift.
  • In the final episode of the series, "Felina", Walter White dies on his 52nd birthday, with his drug empire wiped out for good, but not before getting back at his enemies and securing his family's future.
• Charmed (1998): Cole Turner's final death happened during his birthday after he changed reality where Paige was murdered so he can be together with Phoebe again. After his death, the changes in reality were undone while he remained dead. To hammer this home even further, the changes in reality also resulted that Cole was back to being Belthazor and lost his invulnerability, meaning he died as the half-demon he was born as. At the end of the episode, Paige said "Happy birthday, Cole" after he's been vanquished.
• Creepshow: Implied in "A Dead Girl Named Sue". If the cupcake Cliven holds during her flashback is any indication, then poor Sue met her horrific death at his hands on her birthday.
• Criminal Minds: The episode "Hanley Waters" centers around a woman whose son died a year prior on his birthday.
• CSI: The first victim in "Crime After Crime" is knifed to death at his 35th birthday party which, ironically, he threw for himself as a celebration of having already achieved everything he'd set out to do in life.
• The Good Place: In the episode "Somewhere Else", it's revealed that Eleanor died on her birthday.
• Hemlock Grove: In the Season One finale, "Birth", Roman opts to slit his wrists and commit suicide on his birthday, rather than kill his and Letha's baby daughter. However, bleeding out and dying from this causes Roman to reawaken as an Upir.
• Inside No. 9:
  • Justified in the episode "How Do You Plead", where Webster made a Deal with the Devil that stipulates that his soul gets collected on his birthday.
  • In the episode "Wise Owl", Joanne was killed in a fire on her sixth birthday after her father, Wilf, figured that safety matches must be safe for children and let his 6-year-old daughter try to use them on her own.
• Kamen Rider Geats: Akari, the heiress to the Kurama zaibatsu, died on her 8th birthday in a kidnapping gone wrong. This leads to her father, Kousei, wishing for a Replacement Goldfish in order to detach himself from his grief, leading to the creation of Neon in her stead.
• Kamen Rider Ghost: As part of the Downer Beginning, Takeru dies on his 18th birthday after defending his friends from an attacking Gamma, setting the entire plot into motion.
• The Last Man on Earth: Subverted. When Phil celebrates his birthday alone (believing everyone else in the world is dead), he becomes overcome with despair and goes to kill himself. Just as he's about to ram his truck into a boulder, he spots smoke from a campfire and rushes off to meet the other survivor.
• Law & Order: UK: DI Wes Leyton celebrates his birthday in the Cold Open of the episode "Hard Stop"... and is shot and killed after leaving the party.
• Masters of Horror:
  • In the episode "Fair Haired Child", Johnny is revealed to have drowned on his 15th birthday. This devastating loss compelled Johnny's parents to make a deal with a demon and perform a ritual that involves them providing a sacrifice of one virgin teenager per year until they fill a quota of 12.
  • "The Damned Thing" begins in 1981, where a peaceful family man in a small Texan town goes crazy on the night of his 40th birthday and kills his wife before he is killed, in turn, by an invisible force.
• Midsomer Murders: In "Fit for Murder", we learn that Tom's father died on his birthday. As Tom approaches the age his father was when he died, he starts to worry that he is going to die on his own birthday.
• Monk: In the episode "Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man", Miles Holling is murdered only a few hours before his 115th birthday, which was supposed to be a grand party for the oldest man in the world.
• Newhart: One episode had the characters go to Stephanie's parents' house for her cousin's one-hundredth birthday. At the party, the cousin blows out the candles, sits on a nearby couch, and just slips away.
• Quantum Leap: In "Good Night, Dear Heart" Sam must discover the truth about the death of a beautiful young woman and determine whether she died by suicide or if she was murdered. After Al informs him of the date, Sam pulls the victim's ID out of her purse and realizes it's her 19th birthday.
• Russian Doll: The majority of Season One is set on Nadia's birthday, and depicts her dying in a myriad of different ways and constantly being reincarnated to the same point at her birthday party (although sometimes she does manage to live past midnight, dying instead in the early hours of the following morning).
• The Sarah Jane Adventures: A variant. "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?" takes place in an alternate timeline where Andrea made a deal with the Trickster that lead to Sarah Jane dying in the accident that was originally supposed to have killed Andrea when they were 13. On her birthday, Andrea decides to revoke her deal, and she, essentially, kills herself by restoring the original timeline, erasing her older self from existence.
• Supernatural: In the episode "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One", Sam is killed on his 24th birthday, literally (and figuratively) stabbed in the back Jake Talley, who Sam was trying to help. However, in "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two", Sam's brother, Dean, makes a deal with the Crossroads Demon to resurrect Sam.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In "It's a Good Life", being unable to relax and do what he wants on his birthday for fear of provoking the local 6-year-old Reality Warper is the final straw that pushes Dan Hollis into a meltdown that winds up getting him killed by said reality warper.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Examination Day", on his 12th birthday, Dickie Jordan wishes that he will do well on the government's mandatory intelligence test. After the test is conducted, he is found to be too intelligent and he is killed by the government.
• Ultraman Leo: "The Black Planet" Story Arc begins when the first Saucer Beast, Silver Bloome, attacks the MAC space station while the crew are celebrating Bridge Bunny Momoi's birthday. Momoi and nearly everyone else at the party, except for Gen Ohtori and his captain Moroboshi, get Eaten Alive by Silver Bloome.
• Zoey 101: In "Chase's Grandma", Zoey learns that Chase and his grandmother share a birthday, and she decides to invite her over to PCA as a surprise. However, Zoey later finds out that she died the day of the party.

Manhua

• My Beloved Mother: As revealed in the story's epilogue, Aya was incinerated alive by a gas explosion on her 25th birthday while using her body to shield her toddler son, the then 4-year-old protagonist Sinbell. Before she dies, she requests for her consciousness to be reprogrammed into a robotic body, the Robot Mother codenamed Milan, for her to continue her motherly duties.

Music

• Evillious Chronicles: Allen (disguised as his twin sister, Riliane) is executed via guillotine for his sister's crimes on their shared birthday.
• Johnny Cash: In the song "Joe Bean", the title character, in prison for robbery and murder, gets hanged on his birthday. The song ends with the prison staff singing, "Happy Birthday, Joe Bean" as the gallows lever is pulled.
• Senses Fail: Alluded to in the song title "Irony of Dying on Your Birthday" from their debut album, Let It Enfold You.

Mythology & Religion

• According to Jewish tradition and the The Talmud, Moses was both born and died on the 7th of Adar. The three patriarchs and King David are also believed to have passed away on their birthdays. Rosh Hashana 11a claims that the reason for this is that God sits and “completes the years of the righteous from day to day and from month to month,” based on a Biblical verse, “The number of your days I will fulfill” (Exodus 23:26).

Theatre

• Julius Caesar: Cassius mentions on the day of the Battle of Philippi that it's his birthday. He ends up committing suicide when his side loses.

Video Games

• Five Nights at Freddy's 3 implies that the child whose soul was taken and would one day become Golden Freddy was killed on their birthday by William Afton.
• Grand Theft Auto IV: Referenced by Roman Bellic after Niko angered the Russian mob who is out to kill them. When Roman tells his cousin being killed by the mob is not how he wants to die. Niko rhetorically asks him "How [does he] wish to die?" which Roman responds with: "While having a threesome on [his] 100th birthday."
• Hitman (2016): In the mission "Club 27," 47 is tasked with assassinating rockstar Jordan Cross on his 27th birthday. Diana even lampshades the fact that many music stars have died at age 27.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Implied. Dark Brotherhood assassin Gogron gro-Bolmog tells the player about a time he got hired to kill a five-year-old Nord girl at her birthday party.
  Gogron: This one time I had a contract to kill a little Nord girl at her birthday party. She asked me if I was the jester! So I said to her, "No, I am a messenger of death." You should have seen the look on her face! Ha ha ha ha! Anyway, she won't be seeing age six!
• Kingdom Hearts: Roxas. The opening of Kingdom Hearts II shows Roxas spending a week in the virtual Twilight Town before being absorbed by Sora. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, as the title suggests, spans 358 days, beginning with Roxas' birth up until his transfer to the virtual Twilight Town. 358 + 7 = 365. Later subverted since Kingdom Hearts III has Roxas becoming separated from Sora by inhabiting a replica body, enabling him to exist as a separate person.
• Painkiller: In the game's opening cinematic, Daniel's wife, Catherine, mentions that it's her birthday just before the Surprise Car Crash that kills her.
• Papers, Please: It is possible for the player character's young son to die on his birthday, if he is too ill.
• The Punisher (THQ): A Mook begs for mercy by saying it's his birthday. The last thing he hears is the reply, "Last one."
• What Remains of Edith Finch: Barbara Finch, a child star in horror movies in the 1940s and '50s, was born on October 31, 1944, and died on her 16th birthday—October 31, 1960—after she gets killed by her own "fans."

Visual Novels

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All: The victim of the first case, Dustin Prince, is murdered on his birthday.

Webcomics

• Homestuck: The story mostly takes place on John's birthday. The 13th of April is quite the deathday for John, who dies about three times in that single day. Fortunately the story applies video game mechanics to its characters, and Death Is Cheap.
• Unsounded: Duane Adelier and his daughter are both brutally murdered by a group of muggers on the daughter's birthday. One of the last things Duane saw before his eyes were gouged out was his daughter's lifeless corpse lying in front of him.

Web Original

• Acquisitions Incorporated: In Season 10, the party is invited to Jim Darkmagic's 40th birthday party, where he plans to host a fake murder investigation with himself as a victim. However, he is actually murdered by one of the guests. This being Dungeons & Dragons, he is raised from the dead by the end of the episode.
• SCP Foundation: There's a Cymbal-Banging Monkey in SCP-983 that is able to age a person up on their birthday with each ring until they die. It stops only if the person sings along or dies.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In the episode "Ricky Spanish", Roger, in his alter ego Ricky Spanish, aims to make right with all the people he had wronged. This involves paying a visit to Bullock's house to apologize for having killed his wife on her birthday. A Cutaway Gag depicts Roger as Ricky Spanish impaling his wife with a katana sword as she blows out the candles on her birthday cake. Bullock, however, seems to have no recollection of the incident and doesn't appear perturbed when reminded about it because he's in the middle of a wild cocaine binge.
• Animaniacs: A "Good Idea, Bad Idea" segment features the bad idea of throwing a surprise birthday party for your grandfather... who dies from shock.
• Bojack Horseman: Mr. Peanutbutter's Nobel Prize-winning TV show "Birthday Dad" is about a dad who dies on his birthday.
• Family Guy: Played With in "Better Off Meg", Meg fakes her death on her birthday.
• Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Eddie, one of the scientists at Jurassic World, gets eaten by the Indominus rex on his birthday.
• Robot Chicken: In one skit, a family is celebrating grandma's birthday. When they tell her to blow out the candles, grandma suddenly dies.
  Grandpa: [Walks in, putting his arms around his wife and son] What'd I miss?
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "Old Money", Grandpa Simpson falls in love with a lady named Beatrice Simmons and promises to attend her birthday. However, he is dragged into a discount lion safari by Homer and his family. When he returns to the Retirement Castle later that night, he finds out that Bea died of a burst ventricle (literally, a broken heart). Because he was unable to attend her last birthday, Grandpa then says that she died of a broken heart in the metaphorical sense.
  • In the episode "Stark Raving Dad", the "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon that Bart and Lisa watch entails Itchy killing Scratchy at his birthday party.
  • The "Treehouse of Horror XXXI" segment "Be Nine, Rewind" spoofs Happy Death Day by having Lisa die in grisly ways over and over again on her 9th birthday.
• Trese: One of the train passengers that was killed by the aswang in the first episode's opening scene was murdered on the night of her birthday.

Real Life

• Generally speaking, there have been several prisoners on Death Row who were executed on their birthday. Quite a few of them even had birthday cake for or with their Last Meal.
• John Banner, known as Sergeant Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, died on his 63rd birthday on January 28, 1973.
• Corey La Barrie, professional Youtuber, was killed by his drunk-driving friend as they were celebrating Corey's 25th birthday in 2020.
• Ingrid Bergman: Born on August 29, 1915; died on August 29, 1982.
• Merle Haggard died on April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday.
• Jayda Handy died on her 3rd birthday after getting hit by a car while greeting her grandfather. She was born on August 6, 2013 and died on August 6, 2016.
• Gaius Cassius Longinus, assassin of Julius Caesar, died during the Battle of Philippi on his birthday.
• Levi P. Morton, a former governor of New York and Vice President to Benjamin Harrison, died on his 96th birthday.
• Raphael Sanzio: The Renaissance painter died on his 37th birthday (April 6, 1520).
• William Shakespeare: Tradition holds that this happened to the Bard, however, scholars cannot be certain as to what date he was actually born on. We know that he died on April 23, 1616, but we only know that he was baptized on April 26, 1564. Back then, babies were baptized a few days after birth, so it's a possibility.
• Lisa Simon, director of Sesame Street died on April 4, 2015, the day of her 64th birthday.
• James Milne Wilson, the eighth Premier of Tasmania, died on his birthday, which was February 29.
• Elizabeth of York, wife of King Henry VII of England, died on her 37th birthday while giving birth to a daughter, Katherine, who also died after a few days.
• Mexican singer Ricardo Silva passed away on his 67th birthday, February 7, 2021, due to Covid-19 complications.
• The Dynamite Kid died on his 60th birthday, December 5, 2018.
• Corrie ten Boom was a member of the Dutch Resistance and survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. After the war, she became a popular Christian evangelist and writer. She was born on April 15, 1892 and died on April 15, 1983. Corrie's fans often interpret her death on her birthday in line with the Jewish tradition, as Corrie and her family saved about 800 Jews from the Holocaust.

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