What the title said. In a slightly more leisurely fashion:- > Let $X$ be a compact, connected subset of $\mathbb{R}^2$ with more than one point, and let $x\in X$. Can $X\smallsetminus\{x}$ be totally disconnected? Note that the [Knaster-Kuratowski fan][1] shows that, in the absence of the compactness hypothesis, the answer can be 'yes'. To give credit where it's due, this question was inspired by one that I was asked by Barry Simon. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knaster%E2%80%93Kuratowski_fan