A letter by Ludwig van Beethoven, addressed to his brothers and revealing a personal secret: He's going deaf, and in order to avoid embarassement he's forced to isolate, causing people to mistake him for an antisocial grouch. He also reveals that he has contemplated suicide(translation in comments)
The human owl
What about it?
Martin Joe Laurello, "The Human Owl," was born with a twisted spine that allowed his head to turn a complete 180°. When he had his head turned, his spine was in the shape of a question mark. Laurello was a Nazi sympathizer. He died of a heart attack and was cremated in 1955, at age 70.