"Defenestration" is a great word that came into being to describe an historical event, The Defenestration of Prague. (Isn't etymology great?!?) Here's what the OED has on that: "Defenestration of Prague, the action of the Bohemian insurgents who, on the 21st of May 1618, broke up a meeting of Imperial commissioners and deputies of the States, held in the castle of the Hradshin, and threw two of the commissioners and their secretary out of the window; this formed the prelude to the Thirty Years' War."
The word has since evolved to mean throwing anything out of a window, not just people, but clearly it started as a way to die--or, perhaps more accurately, a way to kill someone. It seems that suicide by jumping out of a window doesn't fall under the auspices of defenestration. The general sense of the word is to remove an enemy quickly, however, so it doesn't even need to lead to death. If defenestrated through a first-story window, one might suffer only some cuts from the broken glass. It is the height of the window and the availability (or lack thereof) of emergency assistance that can lead to death. What is certain, though, is that a window must be involved. Throwing someone off a roof does not count.
What makes this method worthy to me as an "interesting" way to die is not so much the methodology as the fact that there was a word was invented to describe it. Although the term wasn't coined until 1618, people died by defenestration well before the word existed.
One notable person was a woman--Jezebel (of 1 and 2 Kings in the Bible)--who was ordered defenestrated by her own son. She had been the wife of a Hebrew king, Ahab, but she was a Phoenician and worshiped a different god. She attempted to convert her husband and was unsuccessful. After the death of Ahab, there was a political battle between Jezebel and her son, and he eventually ordered her death and then trampled her body with his horse. Now that's cold.
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