Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 35, dies in Vienna 230 years ago this hour #OnThisDay #OTD (Dec 5 1791)


Video: 'Amadeus Mozart Documentary'

(Monday, December 5, 1791, 12:55 a.m. local time)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, considered among the greatest classical composers of all time, died this morning at his home in Vienna, Austria, at the age of 35.


Video: 'Mozart's Mysterious Death'

The circumstances of his death are largely uncertain, and have thus been much mythologized.

In 2009, British, Viennese and Dutch researchers performed epidemiological research combined with a study of other deaths in Vienna at the time of Mozart’s death. They concluded that Mozart may have died of a streptococcal infection leading to an acute nephritic syndrome caused by poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis. In Austria this disease was also called “Wassersucht” (dropsy/edema).