- 2 years ago
Just when you think you're safe someone steals part of your anatomy. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for when a famous person in history had body parts stolen, removed, or went missing after their passing, sometimes years later.
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00:00 If it is found that Geronimo's skull is really in there, that's a crime.
00:04 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for when a famous person in history
00:09 had body parts stolen, removed, or went missing after their passing, sometimes years later.
00:15 The story goes that the item was removed from the emperor's body at his autopsy in 1821 on the island of St Helena.
00:21 Number 10. St. Francis Xavier, Varius.
00:24 As one of the founders of the Society of Jesus, Francis Xavier was a Catholic missionary who
00:29 spread the word of his religion. In 1552, while awaiting entrance into China, Xavier passed away on Shengshuan Island.
00:36 December 3rd, 1552.
00:39 Stuck between two nowheres, the failing missions behind him and the unknown potential before him,
00:48 Xavier died.
00:51 He was placed in a casket with lime to reduce his body to bones for transport to Goa, India.
00:56 However, months later, Xavier's body was claimed to have remained the same,
01:01 and this was interpreted as him being a saint.
01:04 On the journey back to Goa, Francis' corpse was widely honored as it retraced his missionary steps from island to island.
01:12 Then, in 1554, a noblewoman named Donna Isabel Carome reportedly bit his toe off in Goa.
01:18 Her descendants kept it until 2009 when the toe was put on public display.
01:23 Various parts of Xavier's remains have been sent off around the world,
01:26 including a hand in Japan and a shoulder blade in Macau.
01:30 "This is Francis Xavier's right arm."
01:34 Thomas Paine was one of the most influential founding fathers of the United States.
01:41 "And he decided that he would write something to contribute to this debate on independence,
01:46 and he called it 'Common Sense.'"
01:49 After helping the country get its independence from Great Britain,
01:52 Paine fell out with his former allies with his views against organized religion.
01:56 In 1809, Paine passed away and was buried at a farm in New Rochelle, New York.
02:01 "But when Paine died, only six people showed up at his funeral."
02:05 Ten years later, former rival William Cobbett dug up Paine's remains and took them to England,
02:10 hoping to give them a heroic reburial in Paine's birth country.
02:14 Instead, his bones were left in Cobbett's possessions when he passed away.
02:18 Over the years, Paine's bones have disappeared.
02:21 There are allegations some were sold or handed off all over the world,
02:25 with his skull apparently ending up in Australia.
02:28 Born in Bielefeld, Germany in 1888, F.W. Murnau became one of the most influential early silent
02:38 filmmakers, including taking home multiple Academy Awards at the first-ever ceremony.
02:43 However, the wildly inventive Murnau's career was cut short in 1931 by a tragic car accident.
02:49 His body was buried in a cemetery near Berlin.
02:52 But much later in 2015, the Murnau family plot was broken into and the director's skull was stolen.
02:59 "The authorities in Germany say the skull of F.W. Murnau,
03:02 the director of 1920's silent vampire classic Nosferatu, has been removed from his tomb."
03:07 To make it even more creepy, wax residue was found in the area,
03:11 seemingly dripped from a lit candle, sparking the idea that some
03:15 kind of occult ritual was potentially involved.
03:17 The skull's whereabouts are still unknown.
03:20 "Theft from the Stansdorf Cemetery outside Berlin is thought to have taken place
03:24 between the 4th and the 12th of July. It's not known whether the grave was targeted specifically."
03:29 Number 7. St. Nicholas, Varius
03:32 Born in 270 CE in the Roman Empire in what is now modern-day Turkey,
03:36 St. Nicholas became famed for purported miracles and for gift-giving.
03:40 "Everybody knows Santa's real name is St. Nick, but you may be surprised to learn the real St.
03:46 Nicholas was born here, in what is now the town of Demre in southern Turkey."
03:52 In 343 CE, Nicholas perished, and his remains ended up in Myra, Turkey.
03:57 It's believed that in 1071, with saintly relics in hot demand,
04:01 sailors from Bari, Italy carried off some of Nicholas' bones.
04:05 They brought them to their city and later stored them in the Basilica di San Nicola.
04:09 "It is here, under the altar in the Basilica, that you have the tomb of St. Nicholas,
04:14 where over 900 years ago they believed that some of the relics of St. Nicholas were laid."
04:19 There's also a belief that some of Nicholas' bones were taken by Venetians
04:23 and placed in the monastery of San Nicolo al Lido.
04:26 In 2017, a piece of pelvis bone that turned up in the US and was attributed to Nicholas
04:32 was indeed found to be dated to roughly the era of the saint's passing.
04:36 Demre, where the saint preached and prayed, the faithful, like Anatoly Rether,
04:41 says it's what Nicholas did, not where he's buried, that matters.
04:45 "It doesn't matter where the remains are."
04:48 Number 6. Marahari, Head
04:50 Maharetta Zella, better known as Marahari, was an exotic dancer and courtesan from the
04:55 Netherlands who allegedly became a spy for Germany during World War I.
04:58 "Marahari is arrested and taken straight to the examining magistrate, Pierre Bouchardon.
05:04 She's accused of spying for Germany, of betraying state secrets."
05:09 This accusation led to her execution in 1917, with no family claiming her remains.
05:15 Hari's body was kept in France for medical research.
05:18 "Nobody wants Marahari's body, but her life immediately becomes the material for a whole
05:24 range of myths."
05:25 At one point, her embalmed head was stored at the Museum of Anatomy in Paris.
05:30 However, in 2000, researchers discovered Hari's head had vanished,
05:34 and it could have been missing since way back in 1954.
05:37 "These things do happen in museums with collections that are not being heavily used,
05:42 and no one anymore believes that you can detect criminality in the shape of someone's skull,
05:48 so people wouldn't be going and looking at their collection of criminal heads."
05:52 There are even records that the rest of her body was also transferred to the museum in 1918,
05:58 but it too couldn't be located.
06:00 As of 2023, the location of her remains is still unknown.
06:04 Number 5. Galileo Galilei - Fingers
06:08 Better known by his first name, Galileo Galilei was one of the most important scientists in
06:13 human history with his work in physics and astronomy.
06:16 "He is often considered the father of modern science."
06:18 "Galileo was the one who really put together the principles of experiment,
06:24 theory, and mathematics together into a common framework."
06:28 After being found "vehemently suspect of heresy,"
06:31 Galileo was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642.
06:35 Due to his controversial last years,
06:37 he was buried next to the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.
06:40 But in 1737, Galileo's remains were reburied in the main property.
06:45 During the move, it's believed Antonio Francesco Gori took three fingers,
06:50 a tooth, and a vertebra from the scientist's body.
06:52 After passing through many hands, in 1905, two fingers vanished.
06:57 In 2009, they were found at an auction and were later taken to the Museo Galileo.
07:03 Number 4. Albert Einstein - Brain
07:07 In 1955, after taking the world by storm with his hugely important work in physics,
07:12 Albert Einstein, one of the world's greatest minds, passed away.
07:16 However, Einstein's family discovered that his brain had been taken during
07:20 the autopsy by pathologist Thomas Harvey.
07:22 "Thomas Harvey believed that somewhere within Einstein's brain
07:26 was the secret to his genius."
07:28 Harvey later received permission from Einstein's son to keep the brain,
07:32 as long as it was to be studied.
07:34 Harvey proceeded with his work,
07:36 even removing parts of the brain and sending them to neurologists worldwide.
07:40 "He also never returned the brain, but rather stole it and kept it for himself,
07:45 with no intention of ever giving it back."
07:48 He also commissioned a painting of the brain.
07:51 Yet no substantive research material was published,
07:54 and the brain was eventually lost.
07:56 In 1978, it was rediscovered in Harvey's possession in two mason jars.
08:01 Sections of the brain have since been located and housed in various U.S. museums.
08:05 Number 3. Geronimo - Skull
08:09 Born in 1829 in Arizona, Geronimo became a
08:13 Bodonkahe Apache leader during the Apache Wars against the United States.
08:17 After surrendering in 1886,
08:19 he spent his later years as a prisoner before passing away in 1909.
08:23 Decades later, speculation emerged that members of Yale University's secret society,
08:28 the aptly named Skull and Bones,
08:30 had stolen some of Geronimo's remains,
08:32 including his skull from an Apache cemetery at Fort Sill in Oklahoma around 1918.
08:38 "And he stumbles across an incredible letter."
08:40 "In it it said, 'We have Geronimo's skull, bones, and horse tack.'"
08:46 "What I love about the story, the best part of it, is who takes it?
08:49 It's supposedly Skull and Bones."
08:51 One of the members involved was purported to be Prescott Bush,
08:54 the grandfather of President George W. Bush.
08:57 While the society and relatives denied this and claimed it was a tall tale or hoax,
09:01 a lawsuit was filed in 2009 for the bones to be returned from their clubhouse.
09:06 "Harlan Geronimo is the warrior's great-grandson.
09:09 He and other descendants are suing Yale University and the secret society
09:14 known as the Order of Skull and Bones,
09:16 claiming Geronimo's skull was stolen back in 1918."
09:19 However, it was dismissed the following year.
09:22 Number 2. John F. Kennedy - Brain
09:25 Inaugurated as the President of the United States in 1961,
09:29 John F. Kennedy held the position until his infamous assassination in Dallas, Texas in 1963.
09:34 "From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official,
09:38 President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
09:43 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago."
09:49 During the autopsy, the intact portion of JFK's brain was stored away in the National Archives.
09:54 However, in 1966, it was discovered the brain,
09:57 along with other evidence collected from the autopsy, had vanished.
10:01 "After the autopsy, the doctors placed the brain in a container,
10:04 it's transported to the National Archives, and then the brain vanished."
10:08 To this day, no one seemingly knows what happened.
10:12 But this did give rise to many, many conspiracy theories.
10:16 Some believe the government destroyed the evidence to hide JFK's true assassins.
10:20 Other conspiracies revolve around Robert F. Kennedy
10:23 taking the brain to conceal secrets about his brother.
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10:40 Number 1. Napoleon Bonaparte - Reproductive Organ
10:46 Napoleon Bonaparte was a massively important figure in French history.
10:49 "We probably should remember Napoleon as a war criminal.
10:53 We probably will remember Napoleon as one of the greatest military geniuses in all of history."
10:59 After his involvement in the French Revolution,
11:01 Napoleon eventually became the country's emperor and a conqueror before being
11:05 exiled to St. Helena and, well, that's barely scratching the surface.
11:09 But after his death in 1821, the doctor Francesco Antomarchi,
11:13 who performed his autopsy, supposedly removed the little Napoleon as revenge and gave it to a priest.
11:19 "A French doctor cut off Napoleon's penis and gave it to the former emperor's chaplain,
11:23 Abbe Anghe Vignale, whose family kept it for almost a century."
11:28 After this, it apparently circulated among different owners and even appeared in exhibitions.
11:33 In 1977, urologist John K. Latimer purchased Napoleon's private piece at an auction
11:38 and it was later handed down to his daughter.
11:40 "What motivated your father to buy Napoleon's penis?"
11:43 "One of his big crusades, and he was the world's leading urologist for maybe 40 years,
11:48 was to lend dignity to that profession."
11:53 It's been referred to as very small, which seems a little harsh.
11:58 It's no wonder he had a complex named after him.
12:00 Which of these missing parts weirded you out the most? Let us know in the comments.
12:05 Italians insist the saint's remains were stolen long ago, whisked out of Turkey, and taken to body.
12:12 [Music]
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