<P> The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin prophetically described a number of duels in his works, notably Onegin's duel with Lensky in Eugene Onegin . The poet was mortally wounded in a controversial duel with Georges d'Anthès, a French officer rumoured to be his wife's lover . D'Anthès, who was accused of cheating in this duel, married Pushkin's sister - in - law and went on to become a French minister and senator . </P> <P> In 1864, American writer Mark Twain, then a contributor to the New York Sunday Mercury, narrowly avoided fighting a duel with a rival newspaper editor, apparently through the intervention of his second, who exaggerated Twain's prowess with a pistol . </P> <P> In the 1860s, Otto von Bismarck was reported to have challenged Rudolf Virchow to a duel . Virchow, being entitled to choose the weapons, chose two pork sausages, one infected with the roundworm Trichinella; the two would each choose and eat a sausage . Bismarck reportedly declined . The story could be apocryphal, however . </P> <P> Duels had mostly ceased to be fought to the death by the late 19th century . The last known fatal duel in Ontario was in Perth, in 1833, when Robert Lyon challenged John Wilson to a pistol duel after a quarrel over remarks made about a local school teacher, whom Wilson married after Lyon was killed in the duel . Victoria, BC was known to have been the centre of at least two duels near the time of the gold rush . One involved a British arrival by the name of George Sloane, and an American, John Liverpool, both arriving via San Francisco in 1858 . Duel by pistols, Sloane was fatally injured and Liverpool shortly returned to the US . The fight originally started on board the ship over a young woman, Miss Bradford, and then carried on later in Victoria's tent city . Another duel, involving a Mr. Muir, took place around 1861, but was moved to an American island near Victoria . </P>

Name a person you associate with the civil war