celebrity.estateAn EGRET.LAW propertyWorld map3D timeline
Home / Places / Europe
Place

Europe

Royal houses, landed families, bankers and artists across Europe.

777 storiesUnited StatesUnited KingdomFranceItalyGermanyEgyptRussiaSwitzerlandSpainGreeceIsrael and PalestineTurkeyCanadaAustria

What do the Europe estate cases show?

A will can give a long-time friend priority over family and a partner, and only the will's words decide it. The person who controls the body at death decides the grave, and a recent spouse can outrank adult children for decades.

Stories
777
Years
32000 BCE to 2026
Main subjects
Literature and art, European families, Greece and Rome
Legal traditions
Civil law, Common law
Updated
30 October 2026

Every story in Europe, best-known first

Best-known first: cases from 1900 on, then the United States, then Europe, and the people most read about on English Wikipedia each month. Fiction, scripture and legend come last.

  1. 1991Freddie Mercury left his house and half his fortune to his ex-girlfriend, who buried his ashes in a place only she knowsThe Independent and 1 more
  2. 1969Judy Garland's fifth husband buried her in New York; 48 years later her children moved her to HollywoodCBS News and 3 more
  3. 1977Two men stole Charlie Chaplin's coffin for ransom, and his widow refused to payhistory.co.uk and 3 more
  4. 2011Amy Winehouse's father sued her friends over $1.2 million from her dresses and lostwtop.com and 2 more
  5. 1993Audrey Hepburn's two sons ended up on opposite sides of a lawsuit over who controls her imagenbclosangeles.com and 1 more
  6. 2013James Gandolfini's will left 80 percent of an estimated $70 million estate to his sisters and infant daughter, and a tax lawyer said about $30 million would go to taxesABA Journal and 3 more
  7. 2025Michael Schumacher's family has kept his condition secret since 2013, and a former guard tried to sell his medical records for €15 millionbluewin.ch and 2 more
  8. 2011Jimmy Savile left £4.3 million to friends and his charity; abuse claims froze the estate and the courts approved paying it to his victimsBBC and 4 more
  9. 1976Agatha Christie gave her grandson the rights to The Mousetrap as a child, and the company holding her estate was sold three timesagathachristie.com and 3 more
  10. 1970Jimi Hendrix died with no will, and his father's will later cut his brother out of an $80 million estateThe Seattle Times and 3 more
  11. 1950George Orwell married Sonia Brownell in a hospital in October 1949 and died in January 1950; his estate's accountant ran his rights until she sued in 1979washingtonmonthly.com and 3 more
  12. 1973Picasso died with no will and about 43,000 works, and the French state took its tax in paintingsInternet Archive and 3 more
  13. 1963A Lewis scholar says he saved C. S. Lewis's papers from a bonfire; a critic charged in 1988 that the story and an unfinished novel were a hoaxchristianitytoday.com and 2 more
  14. 1977Bing Crosby's sons waited for a trust they could not touch until 65, and their mother's trust went brokeCaselaw Access Project, Harvard Law School and 2 more
  15. 1963Sylvia Plath died separated but not divorced, so Ted Hughes inherited her work and destroyed her last journalnybooks.com and 3 more
  16. 1964Ian Fleming had two heart attacks during the Thunderball trial, settled, and died nine months laterWikipedia (English) and 2 more
  17. 2020Caroline Flack died in February 2020 before an assault trial; the coroner found the prosecution was among the causes, and her family said police and prosecutors singled her outlawgazette.co.uk and 3 more
  18. 1980Peter Sellers signed a trust for his daughter the day he collapsed; his widow kept a £4 million estateBBC and 1 more
  19. 2020MF DOOM's widow sued a former label manager for 31 notebooks of lyrics and got them back in 2025musictech.com and 3 more
  20. 1972Edward VIII gave up the throne, sold Sandringham and Balmoral to his brother, and hid how much money he hadWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  21. 1987James Baldwin's estate sold his papers to the Schomburg Center in 2017, with part of his correspondence reported sealed for 20 yearsinfodocket.com and 3 more
  22. 1945The Anne Frank Fonds named Otto Frank a co-author of the diary to extend its copyright past 2016jta.org and 3 more
  23. 2012Robin Gibb left a £93 million fortune to his wife and three children; his daughter with the housekeeper got a closing line in the willhellomagazine.com and 4 more
  24. 2024Alain Delon's three children fought over his care and his two wills, and in 2026 two of them were fined for secretly recording the thirdLe Monde and 6 more
  25. 1992Marlene Dietrich's daughter sold her estate to Berlin in 1993, about 300,000 pages, 16,500 photographs and 3,300 garmentsdeutsche-kinemathek.de and 6 more
  26. 1977Maria Callas died without a valid will, her estranged husband and mother split her $8 million, and her ashes were stolenThe Independent and 4 more
  27. 1956Angela Merkel returned two Emil Nolde paintings to the Berlin museum foundation in April 2019, as a Nationalgalerie show detailed his Nazi loyaltysmb.museum and 3 more
  28. 2003Nina Simone left most of her estate to a trust for African children; the California Attorney General said her daughter diverted it, and the daughter resigned and gave up the rightsoag.ca.gov and 5 more
  29. 1967Brian Epstein died at 32 owed 25 percent of the Beatles' royalties for nine years, and his mother sold that claim to a City investment trustthe-paulmccartney-project.com and 3 more
  30. 1975Josephine Baker barricaded herself in the kitchen of her château when it was sold for her debts, and was carried out to the stepsculture.gouv.fr and 3 more
  31. 1965T. S. Eliot's 1,131 letters to Emily Hale stayed sealed at Princeton for 60 years, and Harvard released his own denial the same daypwb.princeton.edu and 3 more
  32. 1963Edith Piaf's body was driven secretly from Grasse to Paris so her death could be announced there, and her husband inherited her debtspariszigzag.fr and 4 more
  33. 1947Aleister Crowley died with £430 and left his writings to his order, and a federal court decided in 1985 which of the rival orders owned themaleistercrowleytimeline.com and 3 more
  34. 1991Publisher Robert Maxwell went overboard from his yacht, and his sons inherited companies that had used the staff pension fundsThe New York Times and 4 more
  35. 1992Francis Bacon's sole heir sued Bacon's dealer for up to £100 million, then dropped the case two weeks before trialThe Art Newspaper and 4 more
  36. 1950George Bernard Shaw's will ordered a new 40-letter alphabet; the High Court found the trust not charitable in 1957, and the National Gallery of Ireland received a third of his royalties until 2020oxbridgenotes.co.uk and 3 more
  37. 1979The FBI planted a false story about Jean Seberg's pregnancy in 1970, admitted it in 1979, and she was found dead in her car in Parisneh.gov and 3 more
  38. 1992Benny Hill left an estate of 7,548,192 pounds to seven nieces and nephews, and his grave was broken into in 1992 over a rumour of buried goldprobatesearch.service.gov.uk and 3 more
  39. 2002A Jersey accountant sued to open Princess Margaret's sealed will to prove he was her secret sonThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 1 more
  40. 2023Gina Lollobrigida left half her estate to an assistant who was convicted of exploiting her, and her son says €10 million is gonecorriere.it and 6 more
  41. 1972Ezra Pound spent more than 12 years at St. Elizabeths; his wife held legal control, and after he died the Pound archive was sold to Yale and both claimants were paidopenlettersmonthlyarchive.com and 2 more
  42. 1936George V's doctor injected him with morphine and cocaine so his death would make the morning papersThe New York Times and 1 more
  43. 2017Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi's ex-wife won a divorce payment reported near $874 million, then the largest on recordfindlaw.com and 2 more
  44. 1990Paulette Goddard inherited Erich Maria Remarque's money, properties and art in 1970 and left New York University more than $20 million in 1990findingaids.library.nyu.edu and 2 more
  45. 2011Lucian Freud left a 96 million pound estate to his solicitor and one daughter, and a High Court judge refused to open the will to a son who was one of at least 14 childrenThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 3 more
  46. 1988Aristotle Onassis's only granddaughter inherited half his fortune at 18, after her father and the trustees fought for yearsUPI and 2 more
  47. 1917Mata Hari's body went unclaimed after her 1917 execution, and the embalmed head kept in a Paris anatomy museum was found missing in 2000library.georgetown.edu and 3 more
  48. 1941James Joyce's grandson destroyed his aunt Lucia's letters and threatened scholars until the copyrights ran out in 2012historynewsnetwork.org and 4 more
  49. 1930Arthur Conan Doyle's heirs charged licence fees for Sherlock Holmes until a court ruled the character was free to uselaw.justia.com and 2 more
  50. 1971Jim Morrison left everything to Pamela Courson; she died three years later without a will, and both sets of parents fought for The Doors' moneyhackardlaw.com and 2 more
  51. 1957The Aga Khan's will passed over his son Aly Khan and made his 20-year-old grandson imamtheeastafrican.co.ke and 6 more
  52. 1993Rudolf Nureyev left most of his estate to two foundations; a sister and niece contested the will, and a federal judge ruled for the foundation in 1998Deseret News and 3 more
  53. 1997Louis Napoléon's 1997 will passed over his son Charles and named his 11-year-old grandson head of the Bonaparte houseThe Independent and 4 more
  54. 1912Bram Stoker's widow sued over Nosferatu, and a German court ordered every copy of the film destroyedEncyclopaedia Britannica and 3 more
  55. 1995Patricia Highsmith left her whole estate, over $3 million, to the Yaddo artists' colony, and her papers went to the Swiss Literary Archiveshelveticarchives.ch and 3 more
  56. 2021Equatorial Guinea's vice president bought a Paris mansion on a minister's salary, France confiscated it, and the UN court refused to stop the saleNBC News and 4 more
  57. 2008Iceland exhumed Bobby Fischer to test a girl's paternity claim, and the DNA said noUPI and 4 more
  58. 1968Marcel Duchamp worked in secret for 20 years on Étant donnés; it was moved to Philadelphia under his 1966 instructions after he died in 1968duchamparchives.org and 3 more
  59. 2014Spain's Supreme Court admitted a paternity suit against Juan Carlos I, then threw it out 7 votes to 3legaltoday.com and 4 more
  60. 2014Spain's King Felipe renounced his father's inheritance after a $100 million Saudi payment came to light, and Juan Carlos left for Abu Dhabieuronews.com and 2 more
  61. 1918After Gustav Klimt died in 1918, the mothers of his children claimed support from his estate and were paid 4,000 to 10,000 crowns eachklimt-database.com and 4 more
  62. 1905Jules Verne's son rewrote his posthumous novels, and Verne's lost 1863 novel stayed in a locked safe until his great-grandson forced it open in 1989depauw.edu and 3 more
  63. 1943Beatrix Potter left more than 4,000 acres and 14 or 15 farms to the National Trust, with a life interest for her husbandbeatrixpottersociety.org.uk and 3 more
  64. 1998A forged will leaving £386,000 to Dr Harold Shipman exposed Britain's worst serial killercrimeandinvestigation.co.uk and 3 more
  65. 2004Stieg Larsson's partner of 30 years got nothing from the Millennium fortune because they never marrieddagensps.se and 2 more
  66. 1971Coco Chanel used Nazi anti-Jewish laws to try to take her perfume company from the Wertheimers, who had signed it over to an aircraft makerfundinguniverse.com and 4 more
  67. 2005Zdzisław Beksiński was stabbed to death in his Warsaw flat in February 2005 by the 19-year-old son of his aide, after refusing a loankrakowpost.com and 4 more
  68. 2002The Queen Mother left her estate to her daughter free of inheritance tax under a 1993 deal between the palace and the TreasuryGOV.UK and 2 more
  69. 2024Alain Delon never acknowledged the son his mother raised, and French courts ruled the claim too late after both men diedici.fr and 5 more
  70. 2004A Qatari prince's letter said Nawaz Sharif's father had willed his Gulf profits to a grandson, and courts fought for six years over four Park Lane flatsoffshoreleaks.icij.org and 4 more
  71. 1944Glenn Miller vanished over the English Channel; his widow licensed his name for $1, and his children lost it in courtcacd.uscourts.gov and 1 more
  72. 2008Jocelyn Wildenstein's divorce was reported at $2.5 billion, and the judge barred her from spending alimony on surgeryatlantablackstar.com and 2 more
  73. 1930D. H. Lawrence was exhumed in France in 1935 and cremated for a New Mexico shrine, and a scholar reported that the man who carried the ashes said he threw them awaydhlawrenceranch.unm.edu and 2 more
  74. 2023After Mohamed Al Fayed died, more than 180 women came forward, and Harrods went to court over his estateleighday.co.uk and 3 more
  75. 2008Miriam Makeba's grandchildren fought her own trustees for her music, and the state paid their lawyers until the Public Protector ruled it unlawfulnews24.com and 4 more
  76. 1979Peggy Guggenheim's grandsons sued the Guggenheim Foundation in Paris to undo her gift of the Venice collection and losthyperallergic.com and 6 more
  77. 2007Isabella Blow's father left her £5,000, and after her death her estate put her McQueen wardrobe up for auctiontimeout.com and 3 more
  78. 2017Johnny Hallyday disinherited two of his children under California law, and a French court ruled French law appliedeapil.org and 3 more
  79. 1928Thomas Hardy's heart was buried in his first wife's grave and his ashes in Westminster Abbey after his executor overruled his wish; a legend says a cat ate the heartarchive.spectator.co.uk and 3 more
  80. 1976J. Paul Getty paid part of his kidnapped grandson's ransom and lent the rest to his son at 4% interestIl Post and 7 more
  81. 1946Hitler was godfather to Göring's daughter, the city of Cologne gave her a Cranach, and she lost the painting in 1968 and her father's estate in 2015thelocal.de and 2 more
  82. 1902A 1953 newspaper said a chimney sweep blocked Émile Zola's flue in 1902, and the Panthéon ceremony for his remains ended with a gunman wounding Dreyfushistorytoday.com and 3 more
  83. 2010Alexander McQueen died the day before his mother's funeral and left £50,000 to his dogs and most of £16 million to a charity for artiststhepinknews.com and 3 more
  84. 1985Philip Larkin's secretary shredded his 30 volumes of diaries after he died, on an instruction his will did not spell outprod.archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk and 3 more
  85. 2023Silvio Berlusconi left €100 million to his 33-year-old partner and €30 million to a friend convicted of mafia tiesansa.it and 3 more
  86. 1890Richard Burton's widow burned his manuscript of The Scented Garden and his diaries after he diedgrolierclub.omeka.net and 2 more
  87. 1937J.M. Barrie gave Peter Pan to a children's hospital, and Parliament made the hospital's royalty permanentlegislation.gov.uk and 3 more
  88. 1999Banker Edmond Safra died in a fire his nurse set in Monaco while his bank was being sold to HSBCCBS News and 8 more
  89. 1944Rommel took poison on 14 October 1944 in exchange for a state funeral and pensions for his familyifz-muenchen.de and 3 more
  90. 1995Maurizio Gucci was shot dead in Milan in 1995 on the order of his ex-wife Patrizia ReggianiUPI and 12 more
  91. 1822Shelley's father would fund his widow only if she published no biography, and she kept the remains of his heart in her deskmentalfloss.com and 3 more
  92. 1817Kelly Clarkson bought Jane Austen's ring for 152,450 pounds in 2012, and Britain barred export until a museum raised the same summuseumsassociation.org and 3 more
  93. 1936Federico García Lorca was shot with three other men in August 1936, and a 2009 dig at the supposed grave in Alfacar found no remainsforoporlamemoria.info and 4 more
  94. 2019Karl Lagerfeld left about €200 million to his assistant, models, his godson and his cat, and seven years later a French tax claim and a will challenge hold itvol.at and 3 more
  95. 1890Van Gogh's brother died six months after him, and Theo's widow built the reputation from the paintings she inheritedvangoghmuseum.nl and 3 more
  96. 1983Arthur Koestler and his wife Cynthia died together in 1983; his 1 million pound estate paid for a parapsychology chair after four universities declined itpsi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk and 3 more
  97. 1986Thieves stole Henry Moore's 2-ton Reclining Figure, valued at 3 million pounds, from his foundation in 2005 and police believe it was sold for scrap worth under 3,000 poundstate.org.uk and 3 more
  98. 1901Giuseppe Verdi's villa was closed by a Parma court in 2022 over an heirs' fight, then taken by the state for about 7.6 million euros against a 30 million appraisalquotidiano.net and 4 more
  99. 1936The 1938 Moscow trial charged Yagoda and doctors with murdering Maxim Gorky and his son; 18 defendants were sentenced to be shotmarxists.org and 3 more
  100. 2009Bernie Ecclestone put his Formula One shares in his wife's Liechtenstein trust, and the divorce and tax cases followed the trusthellomagazine.com and 2 more
  101. 2014The 11th Duke of Marlborough went to court in 1994 so his drug-addicted heir would never control Blenheim PalaceThe Guardian and 7 more
  102. 2006Muriel Spark left her entire estate to her companion Penelope Jardine and took steps to leave her only son nothingmanuscripts.nls.uk and 3 more
  103. 2025Sunjay Kapur died at a polo match, and his children say the will leaving his Rs 30,000 crore estate to his widow is forgedwionews.com and 4 more
  104. 2009Maurice Jarre left his estate to his widow through a California trust, and France's highest court said his children's reserved share did not follow him abroadlegavox.fr and 4 more
  105. 1966Guinness heir Tara Browne died at 21 before his £1 million inheritance, and his mother won custody of his sonsau.rollingstone.com and 2 more
  106. 1996François Mitterrand's secret daughter walked behind his coffin after the state had paid to hide herfr-academic.com and 3 more
  107. 2025Giorgio Armani's will orders his heirs to sell 15 percent of his company to a rival group within 18 monthsksl.com and 2 more
  108. 1940Paul Klee's widow sold his estate for SFr120,000 two days before dying; his son sued the foundation that received it, and the case settled after four yearsarchive.zpk.org and 3 more
  109. 1954Hitler paid his field marshals 4,000 Reichsmarks a month and gave Guderian a confiscated Polish estatejournals.uchicago.edu and 3 more
  110. 1945Partisans shot Mussolini, fascists stole his body from an unmarked grave, and the state hid it in a monastery for 11 years before trading it for votespanorama.it and 2 more
  111. 1921Enrico Caruso's body lay in a glass-topped coffin in Naples for years, and his estate was split by a Naples decree that two New Jersey courts reopenedcase-law.vlex.com and 2 more
  112. 1834The heiress to the land around New Orleans's main square was shot four times by her father-in-law over her fortune, survived, and built the Pontalba Buildingslouisianastatemuseum.org and 3 more
  113. 1974Lord Lucan vanished the night his children's nanny was killed in 1974, and the High Court declared him dead in 2016legislation.gov.uk and 5 more
  114. 1953The Transvaal bought the largest diamond ever found as a birthday gift for Edward VII, the cutter kept the smaller stones as his fee, and South Africans petition for its returnUK Parliament, Hansard and 3 more
  115. 1990Malcolm Forbes spent 25 years buying the tsars' Fabergé eggs, his family sold all nine to a Russian billionaire before the auction, and the US sanctioned the buyer in 2018home.treasury.gov and 5 more
  116. 1935Kazimir Malevich's heirs sued Amsterdam over 84 works held since 1958; in April 2008 the city returned five paintingsstedelijk.nl and 4 more
  117. 2003Margherita Agnelli sued her three children over her mother's estate, and Turin prosecutors charged her son John Elkann with tax fraudnews.bgov.com and 6 more
  118. 1925Sergei Yesenin was found hanged in the Hotel Angleterre in 1925, his heirs went to court for three years, and his secretary died at his gravecalend.ru and 5 more
  119. 2014Switzerland's top court ruled that Baby Doc's family could have his frozen millions hours before the Haiti earthquake, and parliament passed a law to stop itswissinfo.ch and 3 more
  120. 1967Prince Felix Yusupov sold two Rembrandts to Joseph Widener with a buy-back option, raised the money, and lost them in courtCaselaw Access Project, Harvard Law School and 5 more
  121. 1885Victor Hugo left 50,000 francs to the poor and asked for their hearse; France gave him a state funeral that drew more than two million peopledeslettres.fr and 2 more
  122. 1898Lewis Carroll's diaries lost four volumes and ten pages before reaching the British Library in 1969; his Alice manuscript sold at Sotheby's in 1928contrariwise.info and 3 more
  123. 1986Coluche left 6.1 million francs of debt in 1986, his ex-wife refused the estate, and his sons spent 28 years suing over his sketcheslefigaro.fr and 3 more
  124. 2007The Winnie-the-Pooh rights holder sued Disney for 13 years, and lost because its investigator took Disney's trashthedailyrecord.com and 3 more
  125. 1973A French court gave Renoir's assistant Richard Guino co-authorship of the Renoir sculptures in 1973; his heirs won a US infringement verdict against Renoir's great-grandson in 2008cases.justia.com and 3 more
  126. 2018Ingvar Kamprad put IKEA into a Dutch foundation in 1982 that The Economist called the world's richest charity and one of its least generousThe Economist and 3 more
  127. 1974The government refused Mentmore for £2 million, and Sotheby's sold its contents for more than £6 million in 1977Internet Archive and 8 more
  128. 1976Eileen Gray's furniture was removed from her villa E-1027 and sold at Sotheby's in 1991; the state bought the ruined house in 1999archiseek.com and 3 more
  129. 2017Liliane Bettencourt gave a photographer about €1 billion, and her daughter's complaint ended in his convictionabcnews.com and 8 more
  130. 1958Hungary hanged Imre Nagy in 1958 and buried him face down under a woman's name, and over 200,000 people came to his reburial in 1989301.nori.gov.hu and 2 more
  131. 2004Prince Bernhard denied a secret daughter to the Lockheed inquiry, then left her and a second one a sixth of his estate eachnos.nl and 4 more
  132. 2003Alberto Sordi's sister left his €50 million to a foundation, relatives accused nine people of exploiting her, and all nine were acquittedIl Post and 2 more
  133. 1956Robert Walser was found dead in the snow in 1956 after 23 years in an asylum, and his guardian Carl Seelig controlled the microscripts until 1962vqronline.org and 4 more
  134. 1987Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali was shot in London in 1987, Britain expelled Israeli officials after a Mossad double agent was jailed, and no one has been charged with the murderAl Jazeera and 2 more
  135. 1984Lord Brooke sold Warwick Castle to Madame Tussauds for £1.3 million in 1978, ending 374 years of Greville ownershipThe New York Times and 7 more
  136. 1828Goya's grave in Bordeaux was opened in 1888 and his skull was missing; he was reburied in Madrid in 1919 without itSmithsonian Magazine and 2 more
  137. 2019Porsche tried to buy Volkswagen and ended up owned by it, and Ferdinand Piëch was later forced out of VWporsche-se.com and 8 more
  138. 1900Nietzsche's sister took control of his papers while he was insane, published The Will to Power, and Hitler came to her funeralWikipedia (English)
  139. 1913Adolphus Busch's widow stayed in Germany during World War I, and the US Alien Property Custodian took her share of the brewery until she came homemissourioverthere.org and 3 more
  140. 2014The Duchess of Alba gave her estate to her six children before marrying a civil servant 24 years youngerarchive.boston.com and 6 more
  141. 1966Monet's last heir died in a car crash on 3 February 1966 and left Giverny and his father's paintings to the Académie des Beaux-Artsacademiedesbeauxarts.fr and 3 more
  142. 1947Pierre Bonnard's wife had four unknown nieces; a French court ruled in 1951 that he forged her will, and the family won on appeallejournaldesarts.fr and 4 more
  143. 1945German troops packed the Amber Room into 27 crates in 1941, and it has been missing since 1945NBC News and 4 more
  144. 1945Anton Webern was shot dead by a US Army cook in Mittersill on 15 September 1945, and the record shows no trialtheamericanscholar.org and 2 more
  145. 2020Pierre Cardin's great-nephew found a will naming him sole heir to an €800 million estate, and a Paris court ruled it was not a willfashionunited.fr and 2 more
  146. 2009Two barristers bought Countess Markievicz's childhood home and spent seven years in court with Sligo County Council over its avenuesThe Irish Times and 5 more
  147. 2023Matteo Messina Denaro owned nothing on paper when he was caught after 30 years on the run, and gave his surname to his daughter weeks before he diedopen.online and 2 more
  148. 2022Leonardo Del Vecchio split his holding company into eight equal shares, and his heirs are suing in Milan and Luxembourgtg24.sky.it and 8 more
  149. 1935Alban Berg's widow kept the third act of Lulu unfinished for 41 years, and a composer finished it in secret for the publishernybooks.com and 2 more
  150. 2012Aldi's Theo Albrecht was ransomed for 7 million marks, and his son's widow fought the family foundation for a decadeiww.de and 7 more
  151. 1955Calouste Gulbenkian left his oil fortune to a Lisbon foundation and his son Nubar about $2.5 millionTime and 6 more
  152. 1832Walter Scott owed £130,000 when his printer failed, refused bankruptcy, and wrote until he died to pay itWikipedia (English)
  153. 1801Benedict Arnold was paid £6,315 for changing sides and died in debt; his widow paid the debtsAmerican Heritage and 1 more
  154. 1900Oscar Wilde died bankrupt in Paris; his friend Robbie Ross bought back the rights and gave the income to Wilde's sonsthecanadianencyclopedia.ca and 1 more
  155. 1904Stanley was refused burial beside Livingstone in Westminster Abbey, and his papers were sold to Belgium in four partsafricamuseum.be and 6 more
  156. 1839A banker's nephews fought ten years over his jewels, and the heir who got the Hope Diamond could sell it only with the court's permissiongia.edu and 4 more
  157. 1925Adele Bloch-Bauer's will asked for her Klimt portraits to go to Austria; the Nazis took them, and her niece won them back in 2006plone.unige.ch and 4 more
  158. 1925Max Linder and his wife died in a Paris hotel in 1925, a letter said "He will kill me," and his brother won custody of his daughter and her fortuneThe New York Times and 3 more
  159. 1943Credit Suisse demanded a death certificate for a banker killed at Majdanek; his daughter waited until 1998 for his accountjweekly.com and 6 more
  160. 1916Britain hanged Roger Casement in 1916 and buried him in quicklime, returned him to Dublin in 1965 on condition he stay out of the North, and in October 2026 his supporters applied to move himirishnews.com and 2 more
  161. 1913Rudolf Diesel vanished from a Channel steamer in 1913 and left his wife a bag of money with papers showing his debtsSmithsonian Magazine and 3 more
  162. 2021Bernard Tapie was beaten in his home six months before he died owing the state more than 400 million euros, and his widow lost her flatthelocal.fr and 3 more
  163. 1942Bruno Schulz was shot in the street in Drohobych in November 1942 in a feud between two SS men; in 2001 Yad Vashem cut his murals from a pantry wall and flew them to Israelnewrepublic.com and 3 more
  164. 1931Lillian Leitzel fell to her death in 1931, and her widower Alfredo Codona shot his third wife and himself in 1937 during a property splitcircusringoffame.org and 3 more
  165. 1852Gogol burned the second part of Dead Souls nine days before he died; in 1931 his coffin was opened, and legend says the skull was missingweekend.rambler.ru and 3 more
  166. 1910Dr Crippen was hanged for killing his wife, and the court refused to let his mistress take the wife's estate through his willThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 3 more
  167. 1980Sartre adopted Arlette Elkaïm and made her his heir, so Simone de Beauvoir had no legal say over his work and adopted a daughter of her ownjffp.pitt.edu and 3 more
  168. 2024Roberto Cavalli split his estate equally among his partner and six children, and the heirs accepted it only up to the value of his debtsilfattoquotidiano.it and 2 more
  169. 2014Vladimir Potanin's ex-wife sought billions in Moscow, then moved to London to try again, and the UK Supreme Court stopped her 3 to 2The National Archives, Find Case Law and 1 more
  170. 1964The KGB seized Vasily Grossman's novel and every draft in 1961, and the FSB gave the papers to a state archive in 2013, not to his heirsdaily.jstor.org and 2 more
  171. 2009Omar Bongo left about 300 billion CFA francs and 54 children; one daughter took his heir's birth certificate to a French court, and France charged at least nine of the childrenafrik.com and 5 more
  172. 1933Anti-Treaty IRA men burned Moore Hall in 1923 because a Moore brother backed the Treaty, and the novelist's ashes lie on Castle Island in Lough Carracon-telegraph.ie and 3 more
  173. 1825France refused to take back Jacques-Louis David's body in 1825, so he lies in a Brussels cemetery under an obeliskpatrimoine.brussels and 2 more
  174. 2006Thieves stole the coffin of Friedrich Karl Flick, heir to a Nazi-era fortune, from his Austrian mausoleumsueddeutsche.de and 6 more
  175. 2015Police found the P2 lodge's 962 names in Licio Gelli's factory in 1981, and after he died prosecutors asked a court to confiscate his villa from a dead manIl Post and 3 more
  176. 1969The Kabaka of Buganda climbed his palace wall to escape the army, and died in a London flat three years laterWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  177. 1547Henry VIII's will was signed with a stamp, not his hand, and its validity was disputed for 20 yearsdiscovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk and 3 more
  178. 1535Henry VIII beheaded Thomas More and took the family's property, and his daughter bribed a man for his head, which a Canterbury parish voted in 2025 to dig upcanterbury-archaeology.org.uk and 4 more
  179. 1953The 12th Duke of Bedford was found shot in 1953, and the son he had cut off opened Woburn Abbey to paying visitors to meet a £4.5 million tax debtbedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk and 7 more
  180. 2002Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza sued over his family's Bermuda trust and sold his collection to Spain for $350 millionForbes and 7 more
  181. 1886Bavaria deposed Ludwig II as insane over his castle debts, he died in a lake the day after his arrest, and Neuschwanstein opened to paying visitors within weeksneuschwanstein.de and 5 more
  182. 1976Getty Trust chief Barry Munitz resigned in 2006 and paid back $250,000 after reports on his spendingLos Angeles Times and 2 more
  183. 1899Johann Strauss II gave up Austrian citizenship and his church to remarry, then left his fortune to a music society instead of his familyprojekt-gutenberg.org and 3 more
  184. 1935Max Liebermann's widow Martha killed herself in March 1943 as police came to deport her, and in 2025 a Dutch committee advised returning a Liebermann drawing from the Rijksmuseum to her heirsDutch Restitutions Committee and 3 more
  185. 2008Deutsche Post's chief hid money in a Liechtenstein foundation, a bank clerk sold the data, and he was convicted in 2009Der Spiegel and 2 more
  186. 1969A Schiele portrait lent to MoMA was seized in New York as Nazi loot, and the Vienna museum paid the owner's heirs $19 million to keep itThe New York Times and 3 more
  187. 1896Alfred Nobel gave 94 percent of his fortune to prizes, and his relatives and the King of Sweden tried to stop itnobelpeacecenter.org and 3 more
  188. 1980Nina Kandinsky was strangled at her Gstaad chalet in 1980, about $2 million of her jewellery was stolen, and no one has been chargedscene4.com and 1 more
  189. 2025Lord Brocket was jailed for five years for insurance fraud in 1996, and his trustees leased out Brocket Hallbrocket-hall.co.uk and 5 more
  190. 1950The 10th Duke of Devonshire died in 1950 before his tax plan matured, and his heirs took 17 years to pay 80 percent death dutychatsworth.org and 5 more
  191. 1967Alfried Krupp was convicted at Nuremberg, got his property back in 1951, and left the firm to a foundation instead of his sonkrupp-stiftung.de and 6 more
  192. 1778Voltaire was refused a Paris burial in 1778, buried in secret, moved to the Panthéon in 1791 with his heart kept apart, and a legend says his bones were thrown away in 1814jackboulware.substack.com and 3 more
  193. 2025A year after Ozzy Osbourne died, Sharon Osbourne asked the High Court to remove his accountant of more than 40 years as executoraccountingtoday.com and 3 more
  194. 2023The original Hermes bag made for Jane Birkin sold at Sotheby's Paris in July 2025 for 8.58 million euros, the highest price paid for a handbag at auctionBloomberg and 3 more
  195. 2016A Saudi billionaire took a diplomatic post to defeat his ex-wife's claim, lost, and died nine days before he had to pay £53 millionarchive.news.stv.tv and 3 more
  196. 2016George Michael left his £97 million estate to his sisters and nothing to his partner, who would not leave the Regent's Park housesmoothradio.com and 4 more
  197. 2014A recluse found with 1,406 artworks in his Munich flat left them all to a Swiss museum, and his cousin said he was not of sound mindInternet Archive and 4 more
  198. 2012Switzerland's oldest bank took the American clients UBS dropped, pleaded guilty in New York, and closed after 272 yearsjustice.gov and 2 more
  199. 2010Wagner's grandson held a lifetime contract at Bayreuth, refused to leave when the board named his daughter's rival, and handed the festival to his daughters at 89historynewsnetwork.org and 5 more
  200. 2008A UBS banker told the US how the bank hid Americans' money, went to prison for 31 months, and the IRS paid him $104 millioncsmonitor.com and 2 more
  201. 2007Pavarotti left three wills, and his daughters challenged the share of his second wife until a 2008 settlementfoxnews.com and 3 more
  202. 2005Lilly Cassirer gave up her Pissarro to the Nazis for an exit visa in 1939, and her heirs' suit against Spain's Thyssen museum went to decision in October 2026Cornell Law School, LII and 3 more
  203. 2004Polish colonel Ryszard Kukliński passed 40,000 pages to the CIA, was sentenced to death in absentia, and lost both sons within months in 1994eng.ipn.gov.pl and 2 more
  204. 2004Theo van Gogh was killed on an Amsterdam street on 2 November 2004, and Mohammed Bouyeri was sentenced to life without parole as a terroristAl Jazeera and 3 more
  205. 1998Brunei accused the sultan's brother of taking billions as finance minister, and the Privy Council ordered him to hand over his hotelsnycourts.gov and 2 more
  206. 1990Death duties forced an earl's family to sell Leonardo's notebook in 1980, and a widow's niece's lawsuit forced its next owner's museum to sell it againhistory.com and 2 more
  207. 1990Netflix bought the Roald Dahl Story Company in September 2021 for a reported 500 million pounds, about $686 millionfinance.yahoo.com and 3 more
  208. 1989Bette Davis wrote her daughter, her adopted daughter and two grandsons out of her will after "My Mother's Keeper"Internet Archive and 2 more
  209. 1989A Madrid judge had Salvador Dalí exhumed for a paternity test 28 years after his death, and the DNA said noThe Art Newspaper and 4 more
  210. 1986Borges left everything to the woman he married seven weeks before he died; she died without a willThe New York Times and 3 more
  211. 1985Chagall's heirs paid his death duties with 46 paintings and 406 drawings, and his granddaughters' committee seized a £100,000 fake to destroy itcentrepompidou.fr and 5 more
  212. 1982Fassbinder's first wife said the head of his foundation invented a marriage to him to control his estate, and 25 colleagues demanded she resignpresseportal.de and 3 more
  213. 1977Nabokov told his wife to burn his last novel; it sat in a Swiss bank vault for 32 years before their son published itmg.co.za and 2 more
  214. 1976The Man Ray Trust said in 2021 that 148 of 188 lots in a Christie's Paris sale of his assistant's collection lacked clear title; Christie's sold theminsidehook.com and 3 more
  215. 1973The Tolkien estate sued New Line for $150 million, saying it had received nothing from three films that earned billionsawn.com and 3 more
  216. 1966A forger sold about 1,300 fake Giacometti sculptures over ten years, German police seized more than 1,150 suspect works in 2009, and a Stuttgart court gave dealers two-year suspended sentencesThe Art Newspaper and 3 more
  217. 1965Somerset Maugham tried to disinherit his daughter in 1962 to adopt his secretary Alan Searle; a 21-month case in British and French courts barred the adoptionspectator.com and 3 more
  218. 1964Italian fishermen netted a Greek bronze in 1964, Italy's courts acquitted the sellers, and decades later ordered it confiscated from the Gettylagen.nu and 3 more
  219. 1962Oregon claimed a dead woman's estate because her only heirs lived in East Germany, and the Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a state cannot run its own Cold War through probateCornell Law School, LII and 3 more
  220. 1960Eleven weeks after Boris Pasternak died, the Soviet state arrested his companion over his Doctor Zhivago royalties and sent her to a camp for eight yearszhivagostorm.org and 3 more
  221. 1960Richard Wright died in a Paris clinic in 1960; his daughter and friends said the US government may have had him killedfbeyes.wustl.edu and 3 more
  222. 1952The author of Goodnight Moon left her royalties to a neighbour's nine-year-old son, who spent the millionsThe New Yorker and 3 more
  223. 1893A 10-year-old Sikh maharaja signed away the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria, and other countries still claim itWikipedia (English) and 2 more
  224. 1877Gustave Courbet was billed 323,000 francs to rebuild the Vendôme Column and died in Swiss exile in 1877bonjourparis.com and 2 more
  225. 1948The government ordered opencast mining up to Wentworth Woodhouse, and the Fitzwilliam earldom ended in 1979wentworthwoodhouse.org.uk and 6 more
  226. 1890Joseph Merrick's manager stole his savings, the London Hospital took him in, and after his death it kept his skeleton while his flesh went to an unmarked gravelondonmuseum.org.uk and 2 more
  227. 1805Weimar buried a skull as Friedrich Schiller's in 1827; DNA tests in 2008 showed it and the skeleton were not hisNBC News and 2 more
  228. 1840Beau Brummell spent his inheritance on clothes and cards, fled London by night, and died in a paupers' asylum in Caenenglish-heritage.org.uk and 2 more
  229. 1976The 7th Duke of Leinster sold his future inheritance to a moneylender and died in a London bedsitInternet Archive and 5 more
  230. 1960Fausto Coppi's son was born in Argentina so he could carry the Coppi name, because Italian law made him another man's sonInternet Archive and 4 more
  231. 1920Prince Paolo Borghese lost the family fortune in the Rome building crash, and the state bought the Borghese collection for 3.6 million lireTreccani and 5 more
  232. 2004The 10th Earl of Shaftesbury was strangled by his wife's brother in Cannes, and his heir died six months laterfrance24.com and 4 more
  233. 1999The 7th Marquess of Bristol spent a fortune of up to £35 million on drugs and died at 44 after selling the Ickworth leasenationaltrust.org.uk and 5 more
  234. 2002Freddy Heineken was kidnapped for 35 million guilders, and his only daughter inherited control of the brewerydigibron.nl and 8 more
  235. 1986ETA killed the 17th Duke of Veragua, a descendant of Columbus and a Spanish vice admiral, in Madrid in 1986diariodecuyo.com.ar and 3 more
  236. 1889Father Damien was buried on Molokai where he had served leprosy patients, Belgium took the body in 1936, and Hawaii got back his right hand in 1995US National Park Service and 2 more
  237. 1727Isaac Newton died without a will, and his heirs held his alchemy and theology papers for 209 years before selling them for £9,000newtonproject.ox.ac.uk and 2 more
  238. 1907Ilia Chavchavadze was shot dead on the road to his Saguramo estate in 1907, and the Georgian church made him a saint in 1987oca.org and 3 more
  239. 1845Karl Wilhelm Naundorff sued the Bourbons as the lost son of Louis XVI, and DNA from the boy's heart ended the claim in 2000Wikipedia (English) and 2 more
  240. 1969Phillips Petroleum found Ekofisk on its last required well in 1969, and Norway saved the oil money in a fund for future generationsekofisk.industriminne.no and 2 more
  241. 1815France passed a law in 2002 to return Sarah Baartman's remains to South Africasahistory.org.za and 4 more
  242. 2000Rome's last Doria Pamphilj princess adopted two English babies, and her daughter went to court to keep her brother's surrogate-born children out of the inheritanceadvocate.com and 6 more
  243. 1944Charles Bedaux hosted the Windsor wedding at Candé, died in FBI custody awaiting treason charges, and his widow gave the château to Francedomainecande.fr and 2 more
  244. 1715Louis XIV's will gave power to his illegitimate son, and the Paris Parlement annulled it the day after he diedWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  245. 1680Louis XIV jailed Fouquet for life 19 days after his party at Vaux-le-Vicomte, and in 2019 robbers tied up its 90-year-old owner with his own necktiesthelocal.fr and 5 more
  246. 1741Antonio Vivaldi was buried in Vienna for 19 florins 45 kreuzer, and his manuscripts were sold off, then found at a school in 1926finestresullarte.info and 2 more
  247. 1946The Nazis forced Max Warburg to give up M.M. Warburg & Co in 1938; his son Eric needed until 1970 to restore the family nameInternet Archive and 6 more
  248. 1936Henry Wellcome left his drug company to trustees in 1936, and in 1995 they sold it to its rival GlaxoWikipedia (English) and 2 more
  249. 1970Grünenthal paid 100 million marks into a foundation for thalidomide victims, and a 1971 law wiped out their claims against the companyservat.unibe.ch and 4 more
  250. 1973Christabel Russell said she was a virgin when her son was conceived, and the House of Lords made him heir to the Ampthill baronyUK Parliament, Hansard and 3 more
  251. 1593Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in a Deptford house on 30 May 1593 by a man later pardoned in 28 days, and the inquest record was found in 1925archive.spectator.co.uk and 3 more
  252. 1939The Wittgenstein siblings gave the Reichsbank their Swiss-held fortune in 1939 for "half-Jewish" status, and Vienna paid Paul's heirs €7,400 in 2008entschaedigungsfonds.org and 3 more
  253. 1796Robert Burns's widow died in 1834, and local men opened his tomb at night to cast his skull for a phrenologistProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  254. 1910A duke bought Kylemore Castle with an American heiress's family money, lost it to debts, and later went to prisonThe Irish Times and 5 more
  255. 1932Ivar Kreuger shot himself in Paris in 1932, and auditors found his match empire rested on forged Italian bondsfortune.com and 5 more
  256. 2001Lord Wraxall's will gave Tyntesfield to 19 relatives and ordered a fast sale, and the public raised millions to buy itBBC News and 4 more
  257. 2012A Tetra Pak heir kept his wife's body in their London house for two monthsForbes and 7 more
  258. 1616Spain announced in March 2015 that it had found Cervantes among bones of 15 to 17 people in a Madrid convent, with no DNA to confirm itInternet Archive and 3 more
  259. 1832Jeremy Bentham willed his body to be dissected and displayed, and students stole his head in 1975ucl.ac.uk and 3 more
  260. 1875Isaac Singer left a sewing-machine fortune to children by five women, and a former partner claimed to be his widowtorbay.gov.uk and 3 more
  261. 1924Kafka told Max Brod to burn his papers; Brod saved them, and the fight over them ended in a Swiss bank vault in 2019historynewsnetwork.org and 3 more
  262. 1924Puccini's fortune passed to his son's widow, then her brother, then reportedly a butler, before the son's illegitimate daughter won it in courtcsmonitor.com and 5 more
  263. 1922Proust's sister-in-law burned his papers after her husband died in 1935, and a perfume heir bought his furniture for 1,500 francsbnf.fr and 3 more
  264. 1920Modigliani died poor, his partner jumped from a window the next day, and Italian police later closed a Modigliani show for fakesitsartlaw.org and 4 more
  265. 1917Rodin gave all his works and reproduction rights to France in 1916, and the Musee Rodin spent 18 years in court over about 1,700 casts it called fakesmusee-rodin.fr and 3 more
  266. 1911Alma Mahler held Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony for decades and first demanded a veto over Deryck Cooke's completionmahlerfoundation.org and 2 more
  267. 1910Tolstoy signed a secret will in the woods to give his copyrights to the publicProject Gutenberg and 4 more
  268. 1906Cézanne's 1902 will left everything to his son and nothing to his wife Hortense, and they sold his studio to Vollard for 275,000 francsspectator.com and 3 more
  269. 1945Hungary's crown guard handed the Holy Crown to the US Army in 1945, it sat in Fort Knox for 33 years, and Carter gave it to a communist governmenthistory.state.gov and 3 more
  270. 1941Fritz Grünbaum died at Dachau owning about 70 Schieles; his heirs won them back in New York, then one heir sued Christie's over the restpaw.princeton.edu and 2 more
  271. 1939Switzerland made bank secrecy a crime in 1934, and the night guard who took bank files from a UBS shredder in 1997 had to seek asylum in the United Statesdaily.jstor.org and 3 more
  272. 1926A Merck grandson handed the family's American shares to the US government in 1917, and the two Merck companies have fought over the name ever sinceThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 4 more
  273. 1917The Bolsheviks sold the tsars' Fabergé eggs abroad, and one sold in New York in 1964 as a gold watch turned up with a man who had bought it for scrapvam.ac.uk and 3 more
  274. 1829A duke's illegitimate son left his fortune to the United States, which used it to found the Smithsoniansiris-sihistory.si.edu and 2 more
  275. 1890William Waldorf Astor built a hotel beside his aunt's house over who was "Mrs. Astor", and her son built a taller one on hersmentalfloss.com and 3 more
  276. 1894Gustave Caillebotte left France more than 60 Impressionist works in 1894; the state refused part and hung 38 in 1897musee-orsay.fr and 3 more
  277. 1812Mayer Amschel Rothschild's 1812 will shut his daughters and sons-in-law out of the bank; the Frankfurt house closed in 1901 for lack of a male heirrothschildarchive.org and 5 more
  278. 1967Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach gave up the Krupp inheritance for 2 million marks a year so a foundation could own the companyInternet Archive and 3 more
  279. 2008Badri Patarkatsishvili died in Surrey worth over $1 billion, a relative produced a copy of a will naming himself executor, and the widow called it a forgery in courts in five jurisdictionskommersant.ru and 11 more
  280. 1981Charles Harpur-Crewe died in 1981, an £8 million tax bill fell on Calke Abbey, and the house went to the nation with everything in itUK Parliament, Hansard and 5 more
  281. 2001Daniel Wildenstein's widow said his sons hid the art fortune in trusts, and France prosecuted the heir for tax fraudArtnet News and 2 more
  282. 1957The Florio family built Sicily's largest business group and lost all of it to the banks and the state by 1935rivistameridiana.it and 5 more
  283. 1908Lord Sackville's son by a married Spanish dancer sued for Knole and the peerage, and the court ruled all her children illegitimateInternet Archive and 4 more
  284. 1860Julia Pastrana's husband sold her embalmed body after she died in 1860, and it was exhibited, stolen and stored in Oslo until Mexico buried it in 2013publicdomainreview.org and 3 more
  285. 1932Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash, his half-brother took the shoe company, and the family litigated for 15 yearszpravy.aktualne.cz and 8 more
  286. 1945Vichy expropriated the Rothschild vineyards at Pauillac, and Philippe de Rothschild's wife died at Ravensbrück before Mouton came back to the familyThe New York Times and 4 more
  287. 1830Thomas Lawrence died in debt in 1830 and the nation refused his Old Master drawings for £18,000, so a dealer who was his main creditor took themarchive.spectator.co.uk and 3 more
  288. 2016Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski sold his family's collection to Poland for €100 million, the money went to Liechtenstein, and he sued his daughternik.gov.pl and 4 more
  289. 1942Britain blew up Burmah Oil's installations in 1942, the House of Lords ruled the Crown must pay, and Parliament passed a law backdated to cancel the debtlegislation.gov.uk and 2 more
  290. 1718Peter the Great had his son tortured to death, changed the law so he could pick any heir, and died without naming oneWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  291. 1994Russborough House was robbed four times from 1974 to 2002, and Sir Alfred Beit gave his stolen Vermeer to Ireland before it was foundrte.ie and 10 more
  292. 1979Charles Clore moved to Monaco to avoid tax, and the Revenue proved after his death that he was still Englishuniset.ca and 5 more
  293. 1817Bounty mutineers' descendants argued in 2004 that burning the ship in 1790 put Pitcairn outside British law, and the Privy Council rejected it in 2006search.sl.nsw.gov.au and 4 more
  294. 1701Captain Kidd buried treasure on Gardiners Island to bargain for a pardon, and the governor who had backed his voyage dug it upEncyclopaedia Britannica and 2 more
  295. 1970Marquis Casati Stampa shot his wife, her lover and himself; his daughter inherited at 19 and sold Arcore to Berlusconi for unlisted sharescinquantamila.it and 7 more
  296. 1819Soviet soldiers emptied Blücher's mausoleum in 1945, and his family lost the Silesian estatetvn24.pl and 3 more
  297. 1940Jacques Goudstikker died fleeing the Nazis, Göring took his paintings, and the Netherlands returned 202 of them in 2006cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov and 2 more
  298. 2026Valentino left his estate to a foundation in Liechtenstein that the public had never heard ofmilanofinanza.it and 2 more
  299. 2024Mango's founder fell to his death on a hike with his son, and a judge has named the son the only suspectcatalannews.com and 3 more
  300. 2024Navalny died in an Arctic prison colony, and the state held his body for eight days while investigators pressed his mother to agree to a secret burialglobalnews.ca and 1 more
  301. 2023A 2014 letter said the four Hinduja brothers owned everything jointly, and the eldest brother's daughters fought it through his dementia and deathThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 3 more
  302. 2023Greece took its exiled king's palaces without payment, and the European Court ordered €13.7 million in compensationWikipedia (English)
  303. 2023People in the old county of Lancashire who die with no will and no kin leave their estates to the King, and the Guardian found the money refurbishing his rental propertytheconversation.com and 2 more
  304. 2022Angola's former president died in Barcelona, a daughter fought to bury him in Spain, and a Spanish court sent the body to his widow in Luandavoaafrica.com and 5 more
  305. 2022Angola's president made his daughter head of the state oil company; his successor fired her, and courts froze her assets in four countriesicij.org and 3 more
  306. 2021The Barclay twins' nephews bugged the Ritz conservatory and recorded their uncle's business talksthecaterer.com and 3 more
  307. 2021Tengelmann chief Karl-Erivan Haub vanished near the Matterhorn, and his brother bought out his widow and childrenorf.at and 7 more
  308. 2021The Order of Malta's Grand Master fired his chancellor in 2016, the Pope forced the Grand Master out, and a 30-million-franc gift from a Geneva trust sat behind the fightNBC News and 2 more
  309. 2020The Marquess of Bath's trustees asked the High Court in 2026 to let his surrogate-born son into the Longleat trustsThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 3 more
  310. 2020The heir of the House of Hanover offered Marienburg Castle to the state for one euro, and his father sued him for gross ingratitudelto.de and 7 more
  311. 2020Bulgaria sued its former tsar to take back his palaces, and the Supreme Court gave him Tsarska Bistritsa but the state got Vrana parkvks.bg and 4 more
  312. 2020Banco Espírito Santo collapsed in 2014 and its chief Ricardo Salgado was sentenced to eight yearsobservador.pt and 9 more
  313. 2020Czechoslovakia seized the Prince of Liechtenstein's estates as German property in 1945, and when one of his paintings was lent to Cologne, every court turned him awayicj-cij.org and 3 more
  314. 2020Venezuela's 31 tonnes of gold have sat in the Bank of England through two rival governments, a captured president and an earthquakesupremecourt.uk and 4 more
  315. 2020Switzerland froze 700 million francs tied to Mubarak's circle in 2011, and after 11 years released the last 400 million to its ownerspubliceye.ch and 3 more
  316. 2019A London judge ordered Dubai's ruler to provide £554 million to the ex-wife whose phone he had hackedAl Jazeera and 1 more
  317. 2018Baron Empain was kidnapped in Paris in 1978, lost part of a finger, was held 63 days, and sold his stake in Empain-Schneider three years laterLe Monde and 4 more
  318. 2018A Texas-born princess was evicted from the Roman villa with Caravaggio's only mural after six auctions drew no bidsartribune.com and 6 more
  319. 2017Romania's King Michael was forced to sign a pre-typed abdication, and his grandson was later struck from the successionWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  320. 2017Malaysia stopped paying the Sulu sultan's heirs in 2013, and a Spanish arbitrator awarded them US$14.92 billionsagc.sabah.gov.my and 7 more
  321. 2016Esselunga founder Bernardo Caprotti took back the shares he had given his children and left control to his second wife and daughterilfattoquotidiano.it and 5 more
  322. 2016The 6th Duke of Westminster's £9 billion estate passed in trust to his 25-year-old son over three daughtersThe Guardian and 7 more
  323. 2016Anton Schlecker's drugstore chain collapsed in 2012, and his son and daughter went to prison for taking 7 million euros out firstbundesgerichtshof.de and 2 more
  324. 2016Curt Engelhorn sold Boehringer Mannheim to Roche with no German tax paid, two of his daughters were arrested, and the family settled for €135 million to €145 millionbayern.landtag.de and 4 more
  325. 2015Spain seized José María Ruiz-Mateos's Rumasa group by decree in 1983, and his second group collapsed in 2011europapress.es and 6 more
  326. 2015Two Rothschild banks went to law over who could use the family name alone, and settled in 2018 that neither mayswissinfo.ch and 3 more
  327. 2014A London judge awarded a Russian oligarch's ex-wife £453 million, then found their son had helped hide itCourts and Tribunals Judiciary and 3 more
  328. 2014"Putin's banker" put $100 million into New Zealand trusts for his family, and a London judge ruled the trusts were shamsThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 2 more
  329. 2014Hedge fund manager Chris Hohn was ordered to pay his ex-wife about $530 million, and the judge called him a financial geniusCourts and Tribunals Judiciary and 2 more
  330. 2014A Qatari collector died in 2014 owing auction houses millions; his heirs split over his blue diamond, and a cousin's company sued to buy itThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 2 more
  331. 2013An oil trader hid London houses inside his companies, and the UK Supreme Court ordered them handed to his ex-wifeThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 2 more
  332. 2013A DNA test showed a baronet's grandfather was not his father's son, and the Privy Council gave the title to a cousinbailii.org and 3 more
  333. 2013A Belgian court ordered King Albert II to take a DNA test, and his secret daughter became a princess with inheritance rightsWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  334. 2013Boris Berezovsky lost his case against Abramovich, died seven months later, and a judge called his estate hopelessly insolventThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 6 more
  335. 2013Missoni's chief executive vanished in a plane off Venezuela, his father died before the wreck was found, and the family gave up the companythelocal.it and 3 more
  336. 2012A 15-year-old died under a subway train, and her parents fought Facebook for eight years to read her messagesbundesgerichtshof.de and 3 more
  337. 2012Lacoste's chairman sued to annul his daughter's appointment, then both sides of the family sold to the Swiss partnerthelocal.fr and 2 more
  338. 2011A dying woman told her mother "I want you to carry my babies," and the Court of Appeal overruled the regulator that refused to release her frozen eggsThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 2 more
  339. 2010LVMH secretly built a 17 percent stake in Hermès, and 52 family members locked half their shares together to stop itthefashionlaw.com and 2 more
  340. 2010A German paper heiress's prenup held in London, and her French ex-husband's £5.85 million award was cut to £1 millionlawgazette.co.uk and 2 more
  341. 2010A metal detectorist found a Roman cavalry helmet in a Cumbrian field, a private buyer paid £2.3 million after the local museum dropped out at £1.7 million, and Parliament changed the lawassets.publishing.service.gov.uk and 3 more
  342. 2009Russia put a dead lawyer on trial and convicted him in 2013, and the European court ordered Russia to pay his widow and mothercsmonitor.com and 2 more
  343. 2009The Staffordshire Hoard paid a jobless detectorist and a farmer £3.285 million between them, and the farmer banned him from his landhistorynewsnetwork.org and 2 more
  344. 2008A Geneva court ordered a Russian fertilizer billionaire to pay his ex-wife 4 billion francs, then an appeal court cut it by 86 percentswissinfo.ch and 3 more
  345. 2008The Red Duchess of Medina Sidonia married her secretary on the day she died, and her children sued over the palace foundationBoletín Oficial del Estado and 5 more
  346. 2008Yves Saint Laurent signed a civil union days before he died, and his collection sale included two bronze heads looted from Beijing in 1860lalibre.be and 7 more
  347. 2008British and French troops looted the Summer Palace in 1860; Yves Saint Laurent's estate auctioned two of its bronze heads, and the winning bidder refused to payvisualizingcultures.mit.edu and 4 more
  348. 2008A Greek Muslim left everything to his wife by notarial will, his sisters invoked sharia, and Greek courts cut her to a quarterechrcaselaw.com and 3 more
  349. 2007Two men took a Leonardo off the wall at Drumlanrig Castle, and the lawyers who arranged its return were tried for extortionThe Art Newspaper and 8 more
  350. 2007Rudolf-August Oetker's eight children from three marriages split the Dr. Oetker group in two in 2021wiwo.de and 5 more
  351. 2005Sal. Oppenheim survived the Nazis under another name, then lost its independence over loans to the Karstadt heiressau.news.yahoo.com and 8 more
  352. 2004Portugal vetoed António Champalimaud's bank deal with Santander until Brussels overruled it for the first timeEuropean Commission and 10 more
  353. 2004Melita Jackson left £486,000 to animal charities and nothing to the daughter who left home at 17, and the courts argued over the daughter's share for ten yearssupremecourt.uk and 3 more
  354. 2003Arnaud Lagardère inherited control of his father's group in 2003, lost it to Vivendi in 2023, and was charged with using company money to pay inheritance debtfortune.com and 2 more
  355. 2003Russia jailed Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky and auctioned his oil company for back taxes, and the Dutch Supreme Court made a $50 billion award to its shareholders finalyahoo.com and 2 more
  356. 2001The JCB founder's sons litigated in three countries over the company, then a cousin's £30 million fee claim failedThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 3 more
  357. 1999Rabbi Joseph Halpern's family settled his estate before a Beth Din in Zurich, then fought in London over whether Jewish law governed the dealThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 3 more
  358. 1999Nicola Trussardi and his son Francesco died in car crashes four years apart, and the family lost the Trussardi companyIl Post and 3 more
  359. 1998A German woman born in 1948 lost her father's estate to relatives he never met, and Europe's human rights court ruled for herEuropean Court of Human Rights and 3 more
  360. 1997Princess Diana's executors changed her will after her death and gave each godchild one item instead of a quarter of her possessionsWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  361. 1997Bảo Đại handed his gold seal to the revolution in 1945, sued his own son for it in France, and his widow's heirs sold it for 6.1 million eurosvoatiengviet.com and 5 more
  362. 1996Titina Loizidou was kept from her Kyrenia land after 1974, won in Strasbourg, and Turkey paid in 2003 but never gave back the landlagen.nu and 3 more
  363. 1995The Duke of Northumberland agreed to sell a Raphael to the Getty for £35 million, and the government blocked itInternet Archive and 5 more
  364. 1995A British widow had her dead husband's sons abroad, then fought until Parliament let his name go on their birth certificateslegislation.gov.uk and 3 more
  365. 1994Robert Tönnies sued his uncle Clemens to take back a 5 percent gift in the family meat groupafz.fleischwirtschaft.de and 8 more
  366. 1994A German mother disinherited the son who attacked her, he killed her a month later, and two courts still awarded him his compulsory shareservat.unibe.ch and 3 more
  367. 1993The 6th Earl Cawdor left Cawdor Castle to his second wife, and a court put his son's children out of itThe Independent and 5 more
  368. 1993Albert II of Monaco acknowledged two children born outside marriage, and Monaco's constitution keeps both off the thronelegimonaco.mc and 2 more
  369. 1991A French court declared Yves Montand a girl's father after his death, and his body was exhumed to test itThe Irish Times and 2 more
  370. 1990Gloria von Thurn und Taxis auctioned the family treasures and handed 2,200 objects to Bavaria to settle her husband's estatebayerisches-nationalmuseum.de and 12 more
  371. 1990French law gave a child born of adultery half a share of his mother's estate until Europe's human rights court ruled against it in 2000European Court of Human Rights and 2 more
  372. 1989Prince Paul Esterházy made his widow sole heir, and the Esterházy family lost Burgenland's largest estate to her foundationskurier.at and 5 more
  373. 1989The Vuitton family's patriarch brought in Bernard Arnault and was fired from LVMH, and Arnault has locked his own five children into a 30-year holdingUPI and 3 more
  374. 1983Italy's crown jewels have sat in a Bank of Italy vault since 1946, and a Rome court ruled in 2025 they belong to the statewantedinrome.com and 2 more
  375. 1982Whaling magnate Anders Jahre denied owning a fortune abroad, and Norway spent 30 years after his death recovering about 1 billion kronersnl.no and 4 more
  376. 1982God's banker was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge with bricks in his pockets, and the Vatican bank paid $250 million to his bank's creditorsNBC News and 2 more
  377. 1980Norway bought shipowner Hilmar Reksten's shares in 1975 while his fortune sat hidden abroad; his estate went bankrupt and his heir paid back 60 million kronersnl.no and 3 more
  378. 1980Marcel Boussac, France's richest man in 1951 and Dior's backer, died ruined; his collapsed group became Bernard Arnault's starttbheritage.com and 4 more
  379. 1980A Hungarian soldier was found hanged beside an empty pit in 1980, and the Roman silver he is believed to have dug up sold for €43 millionplone.unige.ch and 3 more
  380. 1980A father and son found a medieval church hoard with metal detectors; the High Court gave them £5.5 million, and the Supreme Court gave the state the hoardarchivesearch.library.universityofgalway.ie and 2 more
  381. 1979Raul Gardini ran his in-laws' Ferruzzi group, was voted out in 1991 and shot himself in 1993 as it collapsed with 31,000 billion lire of debtTreccani and 6 more
  382. 1976East Germany gave Junker land to new farmers in 1945, and reunified Germany took it back from their heirs without compensationmenschenrechte.ac.at and 1 more
  383. 1975Spain's Supreme Court confirmed in March 2026 that Franco's grandchildren must give the Pazo de Meirás to the stateBoletín Oficial del Estado and 6 more
  384. 1974Puma's founder left everything to one son, the other son won control in court, and the Dassler brothers lie at opposite ends of one cemeterydeutsche-biographie.de and 4 more
  385. 1973India's 2005 Supreme Court ruling gave the Raja of Mahmudabad's son back his palaces, and Parliament rewrote the law to take them againLiveLaw and 5 more
  386. 1972Oman's sultan was counting his money when his son demanded his abdication in 1970; he fired a pistol, signed, and flew to London that nightmeforum.org and 3 more
  387. 1967Prince Janusz Radziwiłł lost about 43,700 hectares to Soviet and communist seizure, and his wife died in NKVD custodyprzystanekhistoria.pl and 6 more
  388. 1967Three days after Hyderabad surrendered in 1948, its minister moved £1 million to Pakistan's envoy; a London court gave it back to the Nizam's heirs 71 years laterThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 5 more
  389. 1965Tchibo heir Günter Herz was forced out by his family in 2001 and sold out with his sister for an estimated $5 billionForbes and 7 more
  390. 1965King Farouk left Egypt on his yacht, and one of his gold coins later sold for $18.9 millionWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  391. 1962Juan March bought Barcelona Traction bonds, had the company declared bankrupt in Reus and took Catalonia's power networklegal.un.org and 4 more
  392. 1961A Belgian police officer kept Lumumba's tooth after dissolving his body in acid; Belgium returned it in 2022, and the last suspect died before trial in 2026NBC News and 6 more
  393. 1959Cigarette heir Jan Philipp Reemtsma sold his inheritance and was kidnapped for a 30 million mark ransomdeutsche-biographie.de and 8 more
  394. 1958Baron Ferenc Hatvany came out of hiding in 1945 to find his Budapest bank vaults emptied, and a British panel recommended a looted Constable be returned to his heirsassets.publishing.service.gov.uk and 4 more
  395. 1958Count Alfred Potocki shipped about 700 crates from Łańcut to Vienna before the Red Army arrived, and the castle became a state museumipsb.nina.gov.pl and 5 more
  396. 1956Spain's gold went to Moscow in 1936; when Negrín died, his son gave Franco the receipts, and Moscow said the money was all goneenciclopedia.cat and 3 more
  397. 1953Beria was shot half an hour after his verdict in 1953; his son lived as Sergo Gegechkori and died five months after Russia's Supreme Court refused to clear his fatherarchive.kyivpost.com and 4 more
  398. 1951Pétain's property was confiscated in 1945 and his coffin was stolen from Île d'Yeu in 1973ina.fr and 3 more
  399. 1950Czechoslovakia passed a law to take one family's estate, and the Schwarzenberg heirs have lost every claim to it sincehrlibrary.umn.edu and 6 more
  400. 1924Hugo Stinnes had a hand in more than 4,000 companies when he died in 1924, and his sons lost most of them within a yeardeutsche-biographie.de and 2 more
  401. 1673Molière died in 1673 after collapsing in his own play; priests refused him last rites, and Louis XIV allowed a night burialEncyclopaedia Britannica and 2 more
  402. 1833A rumour said Kaspar Hauser was the stolen heir to the throne of Baden; he was stabbed to death in 1833, and a 2024 DNA study ruled out the Baden linebath.ac.uk and 2 more
  403. 1793The Revolution auctioned Versailles's furniture in 17,000 lots, and a top expert was convicted in 2025 of forging royal chairs for the buy-back marketThe Art Newspaper and 6 more
  404. 1940The Vestey meat brothers left Britain over income tax, set up a Paris trust and bought a peerageThe Gazette and 7 more
  405. 1905Ernst Abbe gave the Zeiss works to a foundation, and after 1945 a western and an eastern Zeiss sued each other over the name for 17 yearscarl-zeiss-stiftung.de and 2 more
  406. 44 BCEJulius Caesar's will, opened after his murder, made Octavian his son and gave every Roman 300 sestercesUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  407. 1503Pope Alexander VI built a state in central Italy for his son Cesare Borgia, and Cesare lost it after his father's deathProject Gutenberg and 4 more
  408. 1821The peerage records Lord Glamis's first son as born and dead on 21 October 1821; a legend says he lived, hidden in the castle, and each heir was told the secretmikedashhistory.com and 2 more
  409. 1661France sold its crown jewels in 1887 to stop a king returning; the Louvre bought one back for €6.72 million, and thieves took it in eight minutes in 2025gia.edu and 6 more
  410. 1860Napoleon annulled his brother's Baltimore marriage, and Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's son lost his claim to the Bonaparte inheritance in a Paris courth-france.net and 2 more
  411. 1087William the Conqueror's funeral stopped when a man said the church stood on his father's stolen landUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  412. 1807The last Stuart heir lost his fortune to the French, lived on a pension from George III, and left the Stuart jewels to the Prince of Walescol.rct.uk and 3 more
  413. 1936Franco's side shot Blas Infante in 1936, a tribunal fined him 2,000 pesetas in 1940, and his widow paidpublico.es and 3 more
  414. 1942A ploughman and his employer kept the Mildenhall Treasure at home for four years, used the dishes, and got a reduced rewardmildenhallmuseum.co.uk and 2 more
  415. 1795A doctor stole the heart of the boy king Louis XVII, and DNA in 2000 ended 200 years of impostorsJournal article (DOI) and 1 more
  416. 1618James I gave Walter Raleigh's Sherborne estate to his favourite over a missing phrase in a trust deed, and Raleigh's widow kept his embalmed head for 29 yearsSmithsonian Magazine and 5 more
  417. 1476Vlad III Dracula's head was sent to the sultan, and the grave at Snagov opened in 1933 held no bodyresearch.library.kutztown.edu and 5 more
  418. 1883France seized Chambord in 1915 because its owner served Austria, while his half-brothers, who fought for the Allies, sued him for a bigger sharechambord.org and 6 more
  419. 1822The Ottoman state killed Ali Pasha of Ioannina in 1822 and confiscated more than 950 farmsislamansiklopedisi.org.tr and 2 more
  420. 1797Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill collection was sold off over 24 days in 1842 after heirs spent the family fortuneThe Guardian and 1 more
  421. 108An orator ruined two brothers' father, made them his heirs, and the fortune passed down a chain of adoptions to Marcus Aurelius's motherProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  422. 1947The Soviets said Raoul Wallenberg died in a Moscow prison in 1947; Sweden's tax agency declared him dead in 2016, and a Moscow court refused his family the prison recordsCBS News and 2 more
  423. 1947A colonel took the trousers off the solicitor who wrote himself into a client's will, went to prison, then beat him in the House of Lords without a lawyeralrc.gov.au and 2 more
  424. 1945Hitler willed his property to the Nazi Party, a Munich court gave it to Bavaria, and Bavaria used his copyright to block Mein Kampf for 70 yearsjewishvirtuallibrary.org and 3 more
  425. 1945The Gestapo took the Ephrussi palace in Vienna in 1938; the family says a maid hid the netsuke in her mattress, and the Jewish Museum says it cannot be provedjmw.at and 2 more
  426. 1944Louis Renault died in custody before trial, and France took his company without paying his heirsconseil-etat.fr and 6 more
  427. 1944Banker Fritz Gutmann was killed at Theresienstadt, and his heirs sued an American collector to get back his DegasDutch Restitutions Committee and 6 more
  428. 1942Thessaloniki destroyed its 450-year-old Jewish cemetery in December 1942, used the stones to build, and put a university on the landtheworld.org and 2 more
  429. 1941Franz Koenigs lost his drawings to a bank five weeks before the German invasion; Hitler bought 528 and the Dutch state has refused his heirs four timesDutch Restitutions Committee and 5 more
  430. 1941The Kaiser's heirs claimed thousands of artworks and compensation, dropped the suits over the Nazi question, and settled after 99 yearspreussischer-kulturbesitz.de and 2 more
  431. 1941Thailand's finance ministry sued its abdicated king for 6.27 million baht in 1939 and won an order freezing everything he ownedth.wikisource.org and 4 more
  432. 1940German units emptied the French Masonic headquarters in June 1940, the Red Army took the archives to Moscow, and France got them back in 2001gadlu.info and 3 more
  433. 1939Banker Fritz Mannheimer died ten weeks after his wedding, his bank failed, and Hitler bought his collection from the creditorsresources.huygens.knaw.nl and 2 more
  434. 1939The Wertheims lost Berlin's Leipziger Platz store under Nazi laws, Germany gave the land to Karstadt in 1991, and Karstadt paid €88 million in 2007jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com and 3 more
  435. 1938Brașov gave Bran Castle to Queen Marie in 1920, her daughter lost it in 1948, and Romania returned it to her grandchildren's generation in 2006bran-castle.com and 5 more
  436. 1938Bukharin made his wife memorise his last letter before his arrest, and she carried it through 20 years of camps and exile until he was cleared in 1988colinshindler.com and 2 more
  437. 1936Lenin's 1918 decree took Sergei Shchukin's 258 paintings, and his heirs' claims in Paris and Los Angeles failedkommersant.ru and 6 more
  438. 1936Franco's forces seized the Masonic temple of Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 19 July 1936, used it for interrogations, and Spain moved to declare it a memorial in 2025Boletín Oficial del Estado and 2 more
  439. 1935The Nazi state forced Hugo Junkers to give up his patents and his company, and he died under house arrest on his 76th birthdaystories.technik-museum.de and 3 more
  440. 1935Moïse de Camondo left his Paris house to France in memory of his son; the Nazis deported his daughter and grandchildren, and his ex-wife sold her Renoir portraitmadparis.fr and 6 more
  441. 1934Hungary seized Baron Herzog's collection of 2,000 artworks in 1944, and US courts ended his heirs' 15-year lawsuit in 2026CourtListener and 5 more
  442. 1934Hindenburg's Neudeck estate was put in his son's name, and Hitler's government added tax-free landtext-message.blogs.archives.gov and 5 more
  443. 1934Göring took over "the Petschek question" in 1938, Flick's companies got the mines, and the Nuremberg court said the seizure was outside its jurisdictiondeutsche-biographie.de and 5 more
  444. 1932Portugal's last king left his collections to the nation, and Salazar's government put the whole Bragança estate into a state foundation over the claimant's protestfiles.diariodarepublica.pt and 4 more
  445. 1928Earl Haig was given £100,000 by Parliament and an estate by public subscription, and his earldom has no heir in 2026The Gazette and 3 more
  446. 1926A shipowner's widow reportedly tore up a will leaving her £1 million, inherited about £5.5 million, and died without a will of her ownTime and 2 more
  447. 1924Lenin's widow opposed embalming him and gave the party his letter asking it to remove Stalin; the party put the body on display and kept the letter from the congress floormarxists.org and 5 more
  448. 1924Baku oil baron Taghiyev lost his mansion to the Bolsheviks in 1920 and died two days after learning his daughter had fled to Persiaazer.com and 3 more
  449. 1921Ivan Morozov's great-grandson sued Yale and the Met for a Van Gogh and a Cézanne seized by the Bolsheviks, and lost both casesCourtListener and 7 more
  450. 1920The Soviet state sold the Romanov jewels by the kilogram in 1926, while a British antiquarian helped a grand duchess get her jewels out and her daughter sold the tiara to Queen MaryInternet Archive and 2 more
  451. 1920Roche's founder lost control of his company in the 1919 crisis, and his heirs used a voting pool and a $20.7 billion buyback from Novartis to hold itassets.roche.com and 3 more
  452. 1919Germany paid the last interest on its 1920s reparation loans on 3 October 2010, 92 years after the First World War endedpeacepalacelibrary.nl and 2 more
  453. 1918Russia buried the last tsar's family 80 years after the shooting, the Church has not accepted the bones, and two of the children's remains have been in archive boxes since 2007meduza.io and 3 more
  454. 1917Germans gave Count Zeppelin 6 million marks after his airship burned, and his great-grandson has spent ten years trying to take the foundation back from a cityaerointernational.de and 5 more
  455. 1917Russia repudiated the tsar's bonds, France settled for $400 million in 1997, and the holders' association tried to seize a Russian sailing ship and a cathedralmoneyvox.fr and 3 more
  456. 1910A prince left the family emeralds to his mistress in 1910, and every senior British royal will has been sealed sinceCourts and Tribunals Judiciary and 4 more
  457. 1909Leopold II owned the Congo personally, married his 26-year-old mistress five days before he died, and his daughters sued for the moneyWikipedia (English) and 2 more
  458. 1905Savva Morozov's mother pushed him out of the family mills, he was found shot in Cannes, and his insurance went to a Bolshevik actressgw2ru.com and 3 more
  459. 1904Germany sent the heads of Herero and Nama prisoners to Berlin for race research, and the Charité returned 20 skulls to Namibia in 2011thenationalnews.com and 2 more
  460. 1904Herzl's testament asked for his children to lie beside him; Israel buried his suicide son and his daughter there 76 years after their deathshnn.us and 2 more
  461. 1900The Golden Dawn expelled its founder in 1900, his envoy Aleister Crowley tried to seize the London vault in a mask, and Yeats and the landlord threw him outholythornpress.com and 2 more
  462. 1892Borley Rectory passed from father to son for 64 years, drew ghost hunters for a decade, and burned in 1939 with the insurers suspecting arsonpsi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk and 2 more
  463. 1890Louis Le Prince filmed moving pictures in 1888, vanished from a train in 1890, and his son died after testifying against Edisonmuseumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk and 4 more
  464. 1703Robert Hooke said he would endow the Royal Society, died without a will, and cousins he barely knew took the moneymathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk and 2 more
  465. 1810The Earl of Berkeley's eldest son was ruled illegitimate in 1811 after the church register entry for a secret 1785 marriage proved forgedInternet Archive and 3 more
  466. 1897The last Prince of Condé was found hanged after willing Chantilly to an 8-year-old prince, who later gave it to the Institut de France while in exileWikipedia (English) and 5 more
  467. 1601Tycho Brahe's heirs were never paid for his observations, so they took them back from Kepler and won the right to censor his bookscambridge.org and 3 more
  468. 1718William Penn went to debtors' prison while he owned Pennsylvania, and his heirs later traded 24 million acres for £130,000 and a £4,000 British annuitybedsarchivescat.bedford.gov.uk and 11 more
  469. 1737The last Medici left the Florentine Diamond to Tuscany, the Habsburgs took it to Vienna, and it surfaced in a Quebec bank vault in 2025theglobeandmail.com and 4 more
  470. 1898A Wapping butcher's son claimed the Tichborne baronetcy, and a 188-day perjury trial sent him to prison for 14 yearsUK Parliament, Hansard and 4 more
  471. 1483Parliament declared Edward IV's sons illegitimate, they vanished in the Tower, and two child skeletons found in 1674 have never been DNA-testedwestminster-abbey.org and 3 more
  472. 1847In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff takes both families' estates through a mortgage, a marriage and a dying boy's will, and a lawyer showed in 1926 the law holds uplegislation.gov.uk and 3 more
  473. 1856The 17th Earl of Shrewsbury left his estates to the Duke of Norfolk's baby son; a distant cousin won the earldom and Alton TowersUK Parliament, Hansard and 6 more
  474. 1870Dickens left £1,000 to the actress he hid for 12 years, and burned 20 years of letters in his gardengresham.ac.uk and 3 more
  475. 1849Chopin's sister smuggled his heart into Warsaw, an SS officer took it in 1944, and scientists examined it in 2014 without opening the jarSmithsonian Magazine and 1 more
  476. 1840The Church refused Paganini burial, and his embalmed body was moved from cellar to cellar for 36 yearshekint.org and 3 more
  477. 1827Beethoven took his nephew from the boy's mother in court; the nephew shot himself, then inherited everythingInternet Archive and 2 more
  478. 1824Byron's friends tore up and burned his memoirs in his publisher's fireplace four weeks after he diedamdigital.co.uk and 3 more
  479. 1821Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne were published in 1878 over objections and sold at Sotheby's in 1885 for £543 17slibrary.harvard.edu and 3 more
  480. 1814The manuscript of Sade's 120 Days of Sodom was smuggled into Switzerland in 1982, sold for 7 million euros in 2014, and bought by France for 4.55 million euros in 2021thelocal.ch and 3 more
  481. 1809Phrenologists stole Haydn's head after burial, and it was reunited with his body 145 years laterclassical-music.com and 2 more
  482. 1842Mexico seized the Jesuit mission fund for California in 1842, and the claim ran 125 years through the first case at The Haguehistory.state.gov and 3 more
  483. 1774Ivan VI's brothers and sisters were born in prison, held at Kholmogory for 36 years, and sent to Denmark in 1780 on a Russian pensionru.wikisource.org and 4 more
  484. 1137Eleanor inherited Aquitaine at about 13, took it back when France annulled her marriage, and married the future king of England eight weeks laterfontevraud.fr and 2 more
  485. 1675Vermeer died with 11 children and debts; his widow paid creditors in paintings and petitioned for bankruptcyWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  486. 1343Edward III did not repay the Bardi and Peruzzi, and both Florentine banks failed in the 1340sbritish-history.ac.uk and 4 more
  487. 2000 BCEBronze Age farmsteads in Germany's Lech valley kept a rich core family and poor unrelated dependants side by side for 700 yearsJournal article (DOI) and 1 more
  488. 1890Schliemann smuggled Priam's Treasure out of the Ottoman Empire and gave it to Berlin, the Red Army took it in 1945, and Moscow kept it secret for 50 yearssmb.museum and 2 more
  489. 1495Mehmed II's younger son lost the throne to his brother and spent 13 years as a paid captive of the Knights of Rhodes, the Pope and the King of FranceEncyclopaedia Britannica and 2 more
  490. 1861The 2nd Duke of Buckingham owed £1.46 million, fled his creditors, and Christie's sold the contents of Stowe in 1848Google Books and 5 more
  491. 204 BCEFrench soldiers found the Rosetta Stone in 1799, General Menou claimed it as his own, and Britain took it under the 1801 surrenderProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  492. 1324Marco Polo's son-in-law kept his daughter's third of the Polo estate, and she won it back in court 42 years laterhistorywalksvenice.com and 7 more
  493. 1877Caroline Norton's husband claimed her book earnings and her inheritance from her mother, and her campaign changed English property lawthegenealogist.com and 2 more
  494. 1852Parliament bought Wellington an estate, and the 7th Duke gave Apsley House to the nation in 1947 while keeping a family flatThe Gazette and 5 more
  495. 1525Jakob Fugger paid for Charles V's election, and his heirs lost much of the fortune when the Spanish crown stopped payingEncyclopaedia Britannica and 7 more
  496. 1736Parliament confiscated South Sea director Edward Gibbon's £106,543 in 1721 and left him £10,000; he rebuilt the fortune and willed it past his sonProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  497. 1891Moltke bought Kreisau with his 1866 war grant; his great-grandnephew was hanged in 1945 and the family lost the estatekrzyzowa.pl and 4 more
  498. 1509Ivan III crowned his grandson Dmitry as heir in 1498, then made his son Vasily heir and kept the grandson under guard until he died in 1509azbyka.ru and 2 more
  499. 1658England dug up Oliver Cromwell, hanged his corpse and put his head on a pole, and collectors sold the head for 300 years until a college buried it in secret in 1960olivercromwell.org and 2 more
  500. 1851Begum Samru's heir was declared insane on his wife's petition, and after his death she contested his will leaving £200,000 to an Indian collegeUK Parliament, Hansard and 3 more
  501. 1776John Harrison solved longitude at sea, the Board of Longitude withheld the £20,000 prize, and his son took the case to the kingRoyal Museums Greenwich and 2 more
  502. 1827George Hudson inherited £30,000 from a great-uncle in "suspicious circumstances," became the Railway King, and died with less than £200british-history.ac.uk and 2 more
  503. 19 BCEVirgil asked for the Aeneid to be burned, and Augustus ordered it publishedlivingpoets.awh.durham.ac.uk and 1 more
  504. 1537James V burned Lady Glamis in 1537, took Glamis Castle and its silver, and the legend says she still kneels in the chapelInternet Archive and 4 more
  505. 1770William Beckford inherited a Jamaican sugar fortune at 10, built Fonthill Abbey, and sold it before its tower felllbs.ucl.ac.uk and 3 more
  506. 1559Chenonceau was taken for a royal debt, taken from a king's mistress by his widow, and auctioned to a bank after its owner's ruinchenonceau.com and 2 more
  507. 1440Gilles de Rais sold his castles to the Duke of Brittany, seized a priest in church, and was hanged; his heirs then claimed the lands backfamous-trials.com and 1 more
  508. 1832The British deposed the last king of Kandy, barred his family from the throne forever, and kept his throne at Windsor until 1934sundaytimes.lk and 4 more
  509. 1879A widow said the Duke of Portland had faked his own death as a London shopkeeper, and the coffin was opened to settle itUniversity of Nottingham and 2 more
  510. 1854A violin dealer was found dead on a farm with 144 Italian instruments, and his heirs sold the unplayed "Messiah" Stradivariashmolean.org and 2 more
  511. 1099El Cid's widow carried his body out of Valencia, and his bones were moved five times between 1102 and 1921encyclopedia.com and 4 more
  512. 1143Rahere founded St Bartholomew's Hospital after a vow in Rome, Henry VIII seized its income in 1539, and the City of London saved it weeks before the king diednationalarchives.gov.uk and 2 more
  513. 1844In The Count of Monte Cristo, a cardinal poisoned for his money left his heir only a breviary, and the will hidden in it passed to a prisonerProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  514. 1757Admiral John Byng was shot under the Articles of War, his family kept his estate, and no pardon has been grantedRoyal Museums Greenwich and 3 more
  515. 1852Belgium bought out the Duke of Wellington's "perpetual" Waterloo rent in 1988 and kept a right to take back the landBoletín Oficial del Estado and 3 more
  516. 1598Beatrice Cenci and her family killed her father at his castle, Rome beheaded them, and most of the Cenci fortune went to the pope's nephewebsco.com and 2 more
  517. 193The Praetorian Guard sold the Roman Empire to Didius Julianus for 25,000 sesterces a soldier, and he lasted 66 daysUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  518. 1560An impostor lived as Martin Guerre for three years, took his wife and land, and was hanged when the real Martin walked into courtInternet Archive and 3 more
  519. 1547Andrea Doria's chosen heir was shot at a Genoa gate in the Fieschi coup, the coup's leader drowned in the harbour, and the admiral's fortune passed to an eight-year-oldTreccani and 2 more
  520. 1616Shakespeare left his wife his "second best bed" and struck his new son-in-law out of the willnationalarchives.gov.uk and 3 more
  521. 1726Dorothy Walpole married the man her father forbade, died of smallpox at Raynham in 1726, and became the Brown Lady photographed on its stairs in 1936derehamtimes.co.uk and 2 more
  522. 1949In Kind Hearts and Coronets, a disowned daughter's son sets out to kill the eight relatives ahead of him in line and becomes a dukeProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  523. 1899The House of Lords gave the Poulett earldom to the 6th Earl's 15-year-old son over the elder son the Earl disownedUK Parliament, Hansard and 6 more
  524. 1896Baron Maurice de Hirsch left his fortune to his widow, who gave it away and passed the rest to an adopted sonjewishencyclopedia.com and 4 more
  525. 1896The British Museum bought the Broighter gold boat for £600, and the Crown sued the Museum in 1903 to send it to DublinInternet Archive and 2 more
  526. 1893Bismarck's banker Gerson von Bleichröder left a fortune to his sons; his son's painting went to Göring, and Bavaria returned it in 2017 and bought it back the same daydeutsche-biographie.de and 2 more
  527. 1892The 3rd Duke of Sutherland left his fortune to his second wife, and she went to Holloway prison for contemptUK Parliament, Hansard and 4 more
  528. 1889Austria's crown prince shot his 17-year-old lover and himself at Mayerling, and the throne passed to the man killed at SarajevoWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  529. 1888The Nobel brothers built Russia's largest oil company in Baku; Ludvig's son fled the Bolsheviks disguised as a peasant and sold half the shares to Standard Oilaapg.org and 4 more
  530. 1887Carlsberg's founder gave his brewery to a foundation after a feud with his son, who built a rival brewery beside itJournal article (DOI) and 3 more
  531. 1885Glenveagh's builder evicted 244 people in three days, a later owner vanished in a storm, and the last owner gave the castle to Irelandnationalparks.ie and 5 more
  532. 1879Thérèse Humbert borrowed for 20 years against an inheritance from an American millionaire who never existed, and the safe held almost nothingcomplaintes.criminocorpus.org and 2 more
  533. 1877Argentina confiscated Rosas's property and sentenced him to death; he died a tenant farmer in England and was reburied in 1989infobae.com and 3 more
  534. 1873Trustees holding a dead man's bank shares for his daughters were made personally liable when the City of Glasgow Bank failedvlex.co.uk and 4 more
  535. 1865John Banks believed devils and a dead man were pursuing him, left his cottages to his niece, and the court upheld the willThe Gazette and 2 more
  536. 1853One wave took a Manchester family off the wreck of the Dalhousie, and their estates went to strangers because no one could say who died firstThe National Archives, Find Case Law and 2 more
  537. 1834A house painter's daughter claimed to be a royal princess, and a jury ruled her proofs forged in 1866 without hearing the Crown's full replyWikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  538. 1834Pedro I left his heart to Porto, the city council and a church brotherhood fought over where to keep it, and Brazil borrowed it in 2022repositorio-aberto.up.pt and 3 more
  539. 1833Nicéphore Niépce died before photography paid, his partner named it the daguerreotype, and France gave Niépce's son the smaller pensionhrc.utexas.edu and 2 more
  540. 1829A Tehran mob killed Russia's envoy in 1829, and the Shah paid for it with a diamond carved with the names of three kingsgemdat.org and 3 more
  541. 1827Lady Jane Douglas said she gave birth to twins in Paris at 50, and the Duke of Hamilton sued to prove her son was a stolen childWikisource (primary text) and 3 more
  542. 1825Alexander I sealed his brother's renunciation of the throne in envelopes, Russia swore allegiance to the wrong heir, and the guards revoltedru.wikisource.org and 4 more
  543. 1814Patrick Sellar burned houses in Strathnaver for the Sutherland estate, a jury acquitted him of culpable homicide in 1816, and the duke's statue still stands over Golspieher.highland.gov.uk and 4 more
  544. 1811John Knill's will pays ten girls to dance round his empty tomb in St Ives every five years, and they danced again in July 2026stivestowncouncil-cornwall.gov.uk and 2 more
  545. 1806The Revolution guillotined Nicolas Leblanc's patron, seized his soda works and published his patent, and the state paid his heirs 49 years after his suicidethechemicalengineer.com and 2 more
  546. 1805Nelson left Emma Hamilton to the nation; Parliament paid his brother and Emma died in debt in CalaisUK Parliament, Hansard and 7 more
  547. 1804A Spanish frigate blew up in 1804 with Captain Alvear's wife and seven children aboard, and in 2007 his descendants sued for its silvermedia.ca11.uscourts.gov and 4 more
  548. 1804Bavaria banned the Illuminati in 1785 and published their seized papers, and a duke's will sent the rest to Sweden to keep them secretbitterwinter.org and 4 more
  549. 1803Russia's richest count married his serf actress in secret, she died weeks after their son's birth, and the boy inherited about 150,000 serfsru.wikisource.org and 5 more
  550. 1800Georgia's last king asked Russia for protection, Russia abolished his dynasty, and his heirs were suing each other over the royal name in 2019acgs.ug.edu.ge and 5 more
  551. 1296Edward I took Scotland's coronation stone in 1296; four students took it back on Christmas Day 1950 and broke it in twoperthmuseum.co.uk and 4 more
  552. 1343King Robert's will left Naples to Joanna, her husband was strangled, and she sold the city of Avignon to the pope while the murder was examinedTreccani and 3 more
  553. 624A 1939 inquest ruled the Sutton Hoo ship burial was Edith Pretty's property, and she gave it to the nationnationaltrust.org.uk and 3 more
  554. 1764Jean-Marie Leclair was found stabbed three times at his Paris door in October 1764, and his ex-wife sold his belongings and unpublished musicinterlude.hk and 2 more
  555. 1525Jakob Fugger fixed the Fuggerei's rent at one guilder a year in 1521, and the rent has not changed in 505 yearsblogs.loc.gov and 2 more
  556. 1791Mozart's widow passed off a Requiem finished by his student as his own and sold it twicedme.mozarteum.at and 2 more
  557. 1779Hawaiʻi's ruling chief put his feather cloak on Captain Cook in 1779, and it took 237 years and a New Zealand museum to bring it homeSmithsonian Magazine and 2 more
  558. 1676Plymouth put Metacom's head on a pole for about 20 years and sold his wife and nine-year-old son into slaveryapps.lib.umich.edu and 3 more
  559. 1617Pocahontas's son inherited Virginia land, and Virginia's 1924 race law made an exception that kept families claiming descent from her legally whiteUS National Park Service and 3 more
  560. 1564Michelangelo's nephew smuggled his body out of Rome to Florence in a bale of goods in March 1564, ahead of the pope's tomb plandailyartmagazine.com and 3 more
  561. 1418Nicolas Flamel left his property to his Paris parish church, a 1612 book made him an alchemist, and treasure hunters ransacked his house for golduniversalis.fr and 3 more
  562. 1238A bankrupt emperor of Constantinople pawned the Crown of Thorns to Venetian lenders, and a fire chaplain carried it out of burning Notre-Damenewadvent.org and 4 more
  563. 1721Edward Colston's charities carried his name for 300 years, until protesters threw his statue in Bristol harbourCourts and Tribunals Judiciary and 3 more
  564. 524Theodoric had Boethius clubbed to death and seized his estates, and the king's daughter gave them back to his sonsUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  565. 1485Richard III's bones were found under a car park, and his distant relatives sued the government over where to bury himle.ac.uk and 1 more
  566. 1229Monks scraped Archimedes off the page in 1229, a Paris family kept the book in a damp cellar, and a judge let them sell it hours before a church's claim could stop itarchive.archaeology.org and 4 more
  567. 1477Charles the Bold died at Nancy, the King of France seized Burgundy from his 19-year-old heiress, and her marriage gave the Netherlands to the Habsburgsdeutsche-biographie.de and 2 more
  568. 1340 BCEThe Nefertiti bust left Egypt in 1913 listed as a plaster princess, and Berlin has kept it through a century of Egyptian demandspreussischer-kulturbesitz.de and 2 more
  569. 1330Edward III hanged Roger Mortimer without a trial and took his lands, and Mortimer's grandson won them back in 1354Wikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  570. 1760Kent inherited his dead lover's money, and her "ghost" accused him of poisoning her; a London jury convicted the ghost's handlers in 1762Project Gutenberg and 2 more
  571. 1794The Revolution guillotined Lavoisier and seized his notebooks, and his widow fought until she got back the property and nearly all his papersnews.cornell.edu and 2 more
  572. 2021In HBO's Succession, the children's veto over the family company sat in their parents' divorce deal, and their father and mother renegotiated it awaynyunews.com and 3 more
  573. 1506Columbus's 1502 will disappeared while his descendants fought over the Veragua estate from 1578 to a final ruling in 1793revistas.ucm.es and 4 more
  574. 1600 BCETreasure hunters sold the Nebra sky disc for 32,000 marks, and the museum director who posed as a buyer had the dealers arrested in a Basel hotelarchive.archaeology.org and 2 more
  575. 1321Florence demanded Dante's bones for 200 years; friars took them out of the tomb, and a worker found them in 1865Wikipedia (English)
  576. 1508Isaac Abravanel lost an inherited fortune in Portugal, offered Spain 30,000 ducats to stop the expulsion, and lost everything again in Naplesplato.stanford.edu and 3 more
  577. 1492Lorenzo de' Medici took 53,643 florins from his cousins' inheritance, and two years after his death Florence seized the insolvent Medici bankcambridge.org and 5 more
  578. 1314Philip IV arrested every Templar in France in one morning, the pope gave their property to the Hospitallers, and the Hospitallers paid the king 200,000 livresblogs.loc.gov and 3 more
  579. 1860In Great Expectations, Pip's secret fortune comes from a transported convict, and the Crown takes it when the convict is condemnedlegislation.gov.uk and 2 more
  580. 1579Thomas Gresham left London a free college, and Parliament sold the building for a tax office in 1768gresham.ac.uk and 2 more
  581. 133 BCETiberius Gracchus tried to enforce a 500-iugera cap on public land, senators clubbed him to death, and his brother's head was filled with lead for a rewardUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  582. 1370 BCEThe Egtved girl was buried at 16 to 18 with a child's cremated bones, and scientists still disagree on whether she came from Germany or from Egtvedeuropepmc.org and 4 more
  583. 840Louis the Pious's sons deposed him twice and fought a battle at Fontenoy, and the Treaty of Verdun split the empire into the lands that became France and Germanysourcebooks.web.fordham.edu and 5 more
  584. 1547Cortés's heir was tried for treason, Mexico seized and sold the estate, and Lucas Alamán hid his bones from 1823 to 1946Boletín Oficial del Estado and 8 more
  585. 4340 BCEAt Varna on the Black Sea, one old man was buried with a third of all the gold in a 6,000-year-old cemetery, and the richest graves held no bodiesjournals.uni-lj.si and 2 more
  586. 1771Lord Baltimore was acquitted of rape in 1768, left Maryland to his illegitimate son in 1771, and the son lost it to the RevolutionMaryland State Archives and 6 more
  587. 1297A Colonna cardinal kept his brothers' lands, the pope razed Palestrina in the fight, and a Colonna seized the pope at AnagniTreccani and 2 more
  588. 1431Joan of Arc's mother sued to clear her daughter's name, and in 1456 the church declared the 1431 trial nullarchive.joan-of-arc.org and 2 more
  589. 1205Venice took four bronze horses from Constantinople in 1204, Napoleon took them and Veronese's Wedding at Cana in 1797, and in 1815 only the horses went homehaaimagehosting.omeka.fas.harvard.edu and 4 more
  590. 1599In Shakespeare's Hamlet, an uncle kills the king, marries the widow and is chosen king over the son, and the crown ends with a foreign princeProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  591. 40Cleopatra's grandson Ptolemy inherited Mauretania from his father Juba, and Caligula summoned him to Rome and had him killedUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  592. 66Petronius's will listed Nero's sex partners by name, and Pliny says he smashed a 300,000-sesterce basin to keep it from NeroWikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  593. 1478Florence seized the Pazzi bank's property the day after the cathedral murder and ordered the family's name and arms erased foreverTreccani and 2 more
  594. 60King Prasutagus left half his kingdom to Nero to protect his daughters, and Tacitus says Roman officers flogged his widow Boudica and raped his daughtersWikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  595. 1798William Jennens died with an unsigned will in his pocket, and claimants fought over his fortune until 1915Journal article (DOI) and 5 more
  596. 1798Napoleon took Malta from the Knights in three days in 1798, his flagship blew up with the island's treasure by legend, and Malta gave the Order part of its old fort back in 2001Project Gutenberg and 4 more
  597. 1797Peter Thellusson locked his fortune away for three generations, and Parliament changed the law to stop anyone copying himlbs.ucl.ac.uk and 3 more
  598. 1796Catherine the Great tried to pass over her son Paul for the throne, and Paul made a law that no ruler could choose an heir againru.wikisource.org and 2 more
  599. 1788The House of Lords convicted the Duchess of Kingston of bigamy, and she left England with the Duke's fortuneWikisource (primary text) and 4 more
  600. 1783Charles Byrne arranged to be buried at sea to escape the anatomists, and John Hunter got his body and displayed his skeleton for 200 yearsThe Irish Times and 2 more
  601. 1775The Pope suppressed the Jesuits in 1773 and their Superior General died a prisoner in Castel Sant'Angelo, declaring the Society innocentnewadvent.org and 3 more
  602. 1767Spain opened sealed orders in every Jesuit town on one night in 1767, seized the order's property, and the Pope's cannon turned the exiles' ships awaynewadvent.org and 2 more
  603. 1764Russia's infant emperor Ivan VI was deposed at 15 months, held prisoner for 23 years, and killed by his guards under standing orders in 1764Wikisource (primary text) and 3 more
  604. 1760An uncle shipped his 12-year-old nephew to America as a servant to take the Anglesey titles, and a Dublin jury found for the nephew in 1743Internet Archive and 2 more
  605. 1738Württemberg hanged Joseph Süß Oppenheimer in a cage in 1738 and auctioned his property months before the verdictdeutschlandmuseum.de and 5 more
  606. 1724Thomas Guy sold his South Sea stock at the top of the 1720 bubble and left the profit to found Guy's Hospitalkingspast.kcl.ac.uk and 2 more
  607. 1722Marlborough's £5,000 Post Office pension was paid to his heirs for 178 years, and Blenheim's builders went unpaid in 1712UK Parliament, Hansard and 3 more
  608. 1716The Earl of Derwentwater was beheaded in 1716, Parliament gave his estates to Greenwich Hospital, and in 1868 a woman calling herself his heir moved into the ruined castlenorthumberlandarchives.com and 4 more
  609. 1703The Habsburg state owed Samuel Oppenheimer millions when he died in 1703; it declared his firm bankrupt and his estate was auctioned in 1763deutsche-biographie.de and 4 more
  610. 1700Spain's childless Charles II left his whole empire to a French prince in his will, and Europe went to war for 13 yearsWikipedia (English) and 1 more
  611. 1683The Chamberlen family kept the obstetric forceps secret for over a century, and their instruments were found hidden in the family house two centuries laterdaily.jstor.org and 3 more
  612. 1680Pierre-Paul Riquet spent his fortune on the Canal du Midi, died eight months before it opened, and left his heirs the canal and its debtsstructurae.net and 3 more
  613. 1677A Falun copper miner vanished in 1677, his body came out of the mine 42 years later, his old fiancée named him, and he was put on showsok.riksarkivet.se and 2 more
  614. 1677The Earl of Arundel's heir went insane in Padua, his younger brothers fought over the family settlement, and the case created the rule against perpetuitieslegislation.gov.uk and 4 more
  615. 1648A Dutch water board still pays interest on dike bonds sold in 1638 and 1648, and Yale collected 12 years of it in 2015coinbooks.org and 2 more
  616. 1642Saskia's will let Rembrandt use their son's inheritance only if he never remarried, and he lived unmarried and went bankruptassets.cambridge.org and 4 more
  617. 1642The Church refused Galileo a tomb for 95 years, and when his body was moved in 1737 admirers cut off three fingers and a tootharchive.archaeology.org and 2 more
  618. 1632The House of Lords ruled the Earl of Banbury's sons were not his, and the Knollys family lost the earldom after 152 years of claimsInternet Archive and 2 more
  619. 1620Burton Agnes Hall has passed by inheritance since 1610, and its builder's daughter is said to be bricked into a wallburtonagnes.com and 2 more
  620. 1611England's richest commoner left his fortune to a hospital, and his nephew and Francis Bacon tried to break the willthecharterhouse.org and 3 more
  621. 1605Siberia's last khan lost his capital to Cossacks in 1582 and his family to Moscow in 1598; his descendants served the tsars as Princes Sibirskysipec.aoyama.ac.jp and 2 more
  622. 1591Tsarevich Dmitry died at Uglich in 1591, a man using his name took the throne in 1605, and Moscow hanged his widow's small son in 1614Wikisource (primary text) and 5 more
  623. 1583Gaelic law gave Gráinne O'Malley nothing from two husbands, so she sailed to Elizabeth I and won a pension from her sons' landsliverpoolmuseums.org.uk and 2 more
  624. 1581Ivan the Terrible struck his heir on the head in November 1581, and his dynasty ended with his surviving son in 1598ru.wikisource.org and 3 more
  625. 1568On Luther's advice the last Grand Master in Prussia dropped his vows in 1525, made the Order's state his hereditary duchy, and marrieddeutsche-biographie.de and 2 more
  626. 1558England made Conn O'Neill's son by a blacksmith's wife his heir, and Conn's son Shane had the heir killedlibraryireland.com and 4 more
  627. 1546Charles V gave the Welser bank Venezuela for its loans, and a Spanish governor had the head of the firm's son killed there in 1546deutsche-biographie.de and 4 more
  628. 1537Robert Aske's rebels demanded the repeal of the law that stopped landowners leaving land by will; Aske was hanged in chains, and Henry VIII gave way in 1540familyrecords.awh.durham.ac.uk and 5 more
  629. 1526Count Stephan Schlick minted the first thalers from his silver mine, vanished at Mohács in 1526, and the new king took the mint from his familymachogalleries.com and 2 more
  630. 1523The Knights of St John surrendered Rhodes in 1522, sailed away with 4,000 islanders, and rented Malta from the Emperor for a falcon a yearProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  631. 1519Leonardo da Vinci's legitimate half-brothers cut him out of their father's estate, and his will still left them money and landTreccani and 2 more
  632. 1506Columbus's heirs sued the Spanish Crown for 28 years over his promised tenth and viceroyalty, and settled for a dukedom and 10,000 ducats a yearEncyclopaedia Britannica and 4 more
  633. 1506Spain and the Dominican Republic both claim Columbus's body; a 2006 DNA test matched the Seville bones, and Santo Domingo refused testinghistorynewsnetwork.org and 4 more
  634. 1504Isabella of Castile's will made her daughter Joanna queen, and Joanna's father and son kept her locked in Tordesillas for 46 yearscapillarealgranada.com and 2 more
  635. 1502The last Byzantine emperor's nephew signed his imperial rights over to the King of France in 1494 for 4,400 ducats a yearhfrir.jvolsu.com and 4 more
  636. 1015The Primary Chronicle says Sviatopolk had his brothers Borys and Hlib killed in 1015, and Yaroslav buried them as saints after taking Kyivencyclopediaofukraine.com and 6 more
  637. 1423Richard Whittington left no children and his fortune to London; his executors rebuilt Newgate prison and founded almshouses that still operatethe-orb.arlima.net and 2 more
  638. 1180 BCEThe Odyssey says 108 suitors ate through Odysseus's estate while he was away, and planned to kill his son and divide his propertyProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  639. 1428A Highland family kept St Fillan's crozier for 500 years, took it to Canada, and sold it back to Scotland for $500journals.socantscot.org and 3 more
  640. 1374Venice gave Petrarch a house for his library, the library went to his enemies' heirs and then to France, and the skull in his tomb is a woman'sbnf.fr and 4 more
  641. 1852In Dickens's Bleak House, the Jarndyce will case runs for generations until the legal costs have swallowed the estateProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  642. 1279 BCESeti I's empty sarcophagus was sold to the architect John Soane in 1824, and Soane obtained an Act of Parliament so his son could not inherit itUK Parliament, Hansard and 5 more
  643. 1401Hamburg beheaded the pirate Störtebeker, legend put his gold in a church spire, and a skull said to be his was stolen from the city museum in 2010historynewsnetwork.org and 2 more
  644. 3700 BCEAncient DNA from a Cotswold tomb shows five generations of one man's family, buried by father's line, with his sons by four women in separate halvesebi.ac.uk and 1 more
  645. 130 BCEPtolemy VIII married his sister Cleopatra II and then her daughter, and when his sister held Alexandria against him he sent her their son's head, hands and feetUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  646. 269 BCEArsinoe II married her half-brother Ptolemy Keraunos to protect her sons, he had two of them killed in her arms, and she then married her full brotherUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  647. 1459John Paston claimed Sir John Fastolf's lands under a deathbed spoken will, and the Duke of Norfolk besieged Caister Castle to take themthisispaston.co.uk and 4 more
  648. 1138Bolesław III had his half-brother blinded, then split Poland among his sons in 1138, and the country stayed divided for about two centurieszpe.gov.pl and 2 more
  649. 177Herodes Atticus paid out his father's legacy to Athens by deducting debts, gave his son only his mother's property, and the Athenians took his body from MarathonInternet Archive and 2 more
  650. 480 BCEThe Vix grave held the largest metal vessel of the ancient world, buried with a woman, and some scholars questioned whether the body was a woman'smusee-vix.fr and 2 more
  651. 32000 BCETwo disabled boys at Sungir were buried head to head with 10,000 ivory beads, and DNA showed they were not brotherscam.ac.uk and 3 more
  652. 1136A bishop's son ran England's oldest almshouse for decades on an income Trollope turned into The Wardenbritish-history.ac.uk and 6 more
  653. 1186When Aaron of Lincoln died in 1186, Henry II took his whole estate and set up a separate exchequer to collect his debtsJournal article (DOI) and 4 more
  654. 1355Venice beheaded Doge Marino Faliero in 1355, seized his palace, painted a black shroud over his portrait, and later voided his widow's willhistorywalksvenice.com and 3 more
  655. 530 BCEDNA showed the Celtic prince of Hochdorf was the uncle of the prince of Asperg, through his sister, and power passed down the mother's lineeuropepmc.org and 3 more
  656. 1917The priest of Rennes-le-Château put his buildings in his servant's name, a restaurant owner spread a treasure story in 1956, and Pierre Plantard tied it to an invented secret ordercesnur.org and 2 more
  657. 439Melania the Younger sold estates across the Roman West and freed 8,000 slaves, and a later account says opponents tried to have her estates seizedtertullian.org and 2 more
  658. 1487Queen Charlotte of Cyprus lost her throne to her father's illegitimate son and signed her crowns of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia over to Savoymedievalists.net and 3 more
  659. 1476Perchta of Rožmberk was married off for money in 1449, refused her dying husband's plea for forgiveness, and the legend made her the White Ladyencyklopedie.ckrumlov.cz and 2 more
  660. 1475Colleoni left Venice 100,000 ducats for a statue of himself in Piazza San Marco; Venice took the money and put the statue in front of the Scuola di San MarcoTreccani and 2 more
  661. 1467The Teutonic Knights could not pay their mercenaries, so the mercenaries sold the Order's capital, Marienburg, to the King of Poland in 1457deutsche-biographie.de and 2 more
  662. 1456Jacques Coeur financed Charles VII's war, then the king charged him with poisoning the royal mistress and confiscated everythingWikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  663. 1455Gutenberg's investor sued him in 1455 while the Bible was being printed, and Soviet officers carried one of the Bibles to Moscow in 1945gutenberg-gesellschaft.de and 2 more
  664. 1439A lady-in-waiting stole the Holy Crown of Hungary in 1440 so a baby born hours later could be crowned kinggermanhistorydocs.org and 5 more
  665. 1430Polish lords stopped the crown sent for Vytautas in 1430, he died uncrowned, and his grave in Vilnius Cathedral has never been foundold.lituanus.org and 2 more
  666. 1426A Hanseatic merchant was jailed for debt in Bruges for years, died weeks after release, and his widow was sued out of her housedeutsche-biographie.de and 2 more
  667. 1425Moscow's grand prince was blinded by his cousin in 1446, after his mother tore a disputed gold belt from another cousin at his weddingru.wikisource.org and 3 more
  668. 1423An emperor gave Nuremberg the crown jewels "for permanent custody" in 1423; Vienna took them in 1800, Hitler took them back, and an American found them walled in a bunkertext-message.blogs.archives.gov and 3 more
  669. 1410The merchant of Prato rewrote his will five weeks before he died and left 100,000 florins to the poor, under the town's controlTreccani and 4 more
  670. 1409France's grand master was beheaded and hung at Montfaucon; his son won back his name and body, then died at Agincourtherodote.net and 4 more
  671. 1393The last king of Armenia was ransomed from Cairo, made lord of Madrid for life, and his title passed to the kings of Cypruspublications.gov.cy and 5 more
  672. 1349A Jewish moneylender's silver lay under his Erfurt cellar from the 1349 massacre until archaeologists found it in 1998juedisches-leben.erfurt.de and 3 more
  673. 1331Serbia's King Milutin ordered his son blinded, and that son was later deposed by his own son and died in prison at Zvečan in 1331tib.oeaw.ac.at and 3 more
  674. 1328France kept two kings' daughters off the throne, passed over Edward III, and later cited a Frankish land rule to justify itavalon.law.yale.edu and 4 more
  675. 1315Philip IV's treasurer was hanged on the Montfaucon gallows he had built, and the king who let him hang left legacies to his childrenEncyclopaedia Britannica and 2 more
  676. 1268Conradin, the last legitimate Staufer, willed his lands to his Bavarian uncles and was beheaded in Naples at 16de.wikisource.org and 2 more
  677. 1246The last Babenberg duke died without sons in 1246, his widowed sister of about 47 married a 19-year-old Ottokar and handed him her title deeds, and he divorced herdeutsche-biographie.de and 3 more
  678. 1244Henry III took a third of David of Oxford's estate in 1244 and held his widow Licoricia in the Tower until it was settledmajw.uvic.ca and 5 more
  679. 1222The Church gave Raymond VI's county to the crusade leader and refused his body burial, and his granddaughter's childless marriage handed Toulouse to Francenewadvent.org and 4 more
  680. 1213Georgia's King George III had no son and crowned his daughter Tamar co-ruler, and the place of her grave is still disputedgeorgianencyclopedia.ge and 3 more
  681. 1199Richard I's nephew Arthur disappeared in his uncle King John's prison, and Arthur's sister was held for 39 years until she diedbritish-history.ac.uk and 4 more
  682. 1135Henry I's barons swore to make his daughter queen, and his nephew Stephen took the crown within weeks of his deathavalon.law.yale.edu and 4 more
  683. 1115Matilda of Tuscany gave her lands to the papacy, a historian says the surviving deed is a forgery, and the emperor took the lands the year after she diedTreccani and 3 more
  684. 1097The princes of Rus' agreed at Liubech in 1097 that each would keep his father's lands, and two of them then blinded a thirdru.wikisource.org and 6 more
  685. 1066Joseph ibn Naghrela inherited his father's place as vizier of Granada and was killed in the massacre of 1066fordham.edu and 3 more
  686. 1066Domesday shows Count Alan holding 33 of the 40 estates of Edith the Fair, and in 1094 Archbishop Anselm wrote to her daughter, King Harold's daughter, who had left Wilton Abbey with Alanpase.ac.uk and 4 more
  687. 972Sviatoslav split Rus' among three sons, and within eight years one had died in battle with his brother and another was killed on the third brother's ordersencyclopediaofukraine.com and 3 more
  688. 899Alfred the Great's will answered his nephews' claim to their father's land, and one nephew rose against Alfred's sonbl.uk and 3 more
  689. 879Two detectorists sold a Viking-age hoard with coins showing Alfred the Great beside Ceolwulf II of Mercia, and about 270 coins are still missingthehistoryblog.com and 2 more
  690. 814Charlemagne's 811 division left two-thirds of his treasure to 21 archbishoprics and a silver table engraved with Constantinople to St Peter'ssourcebooks.fordham.edu and 2 more
  691. 567Avar family trees show widows taken by their husband's son or brother, and one male line that vanished from its own cemeteryeuropepmc.org and 2 more
  692. 524Clovis's sons sent their mother scissors and a sword, then killed two of their dead brother's sons and split his kingdomsourcebooks.fordham.edu and 4 more
  693. 400Archaeologists flew the Ukok princess to Novosibirsk in 1993, the Altai people blamed her removal for an earthquake, and she came home to a museum mausoleum in 2012culturalsurvival.org and 2 more
  694. 211Severus left Rome to two sons, their mother stopped them dividing the empire, and Caracalla had his brother killed in her armsUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  695. 193The praetorian guard killed the emperor Pertinax and sold the empire to the highest bidder for 25,000 sesterces a soldierUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  696. 177A father found a treasure in his Athens house and willed every citizen a mina a year; his son paid it by collecting their grandfathers' debtsInternet Archive and 2 more
  697. 136Hadrian forced his 90-year-old brother-in-law and the man's 18-year-old grandson to die, and the old man prayed Hadrian would long for death and not be able to dieUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  698. 106Cassius Dio says Dacia's king buried his gold under a diverted river and killed the diggers, and a companion told the Romans where it wasUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  699. 104Pliny says an 80-year-old father disinherited his daughter 11 days after remarrying, and 180 judges in four panels split two against twoattalus.org and 2 more
  700. 100Pliny tells of an Athens house let cheap because of its ghost; the philosopher who took it found a chained skeleton in the yardProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  701. 70Rome carried the Temple treasures in triumph, the Vandals took them to Carthage, and Procopius says Justinian sent them to Jerusalem because a Jew warned they brought down every palace that held themsourcebooks.web.fordham.edu and 3 more
  702. 69A senator was accused of biting the severed head of Galba's heir, and years later he swore on his son's life to get into the heir's widow's willUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 1 more
  703. 65Seneca offered Nero his 300-million-sesterce fortune, was refused, and three years later was ordered to die and denied the tablets to write his willWikisource (primary text) and 4 more
  704. 54Claudius's will was never read in public, and Nero poisoned Claudius's son Britannicus four months after taking the throneUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  705. 54Pliny says six men owned half of Roman Africa when Nero had them killed, and Suetonius says Nero seized the estates of anyone whose will left him too littleperseus.tufts.edu and 3 more
  706. 41Suetonius says Caligula ignored Tiberius's will, killed his co-heir, and haunted the gardens he inherited until his sisters reburied himUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  707. 33Tacitus says Tiberius had Spain's richest man thrown from the Tarpeian Rock and kept his gold and copper mines for himselfUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  708. 29Livia left Galba 50 million sesterces in figures, and her son Tiberius read it as 500,000 and paid nothingUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  709. 25Suetonius says Tiberius frightened a man worth 400 million sesterces into suicide to inherit, and Caligula sent poisoned sweets to men who named him heirProject Gutenberg and 5 more
  710. 14Augustus's will, read to the Senate by the Vestal Virgins, barred his daughter and granddaughter from his tombUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  711. 27 BCESepticia married an old man to spite her sons and left them nothing, and Augustus gave them her estateattalus.org and 2 more
  712. 30 BCEPliny says Cleopatra drank one of the two greatest pearls she inherited from eastern kings, and Rome cut the other in half for a statue of VenusUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  713. 30 BCEHorace's Tiresias tells Ulysses to court rich old men's wills, and Petronius's Eumolpus wills his body to be eaten by his heirsProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  714. 43 BCERome's triumvirs ordered the 1,400 richest women to value their property for a war tax, and Hortensia's speech cut the list to 400University of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  715. 43 BCEOctavian traded Cicero to Antony for the proscription list, and Antony's wife pierced the dead orator's tongue with her hairpinsUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  716. 43 BCEClodius burned Cicero's house and built a shrine to Liberty on the site, and Cicero's son was consul the year Antony's statues came downUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  717. 48 BCEPompey's son held the sea, feasted Antony aboard his flagship, called it the only family house Antony had left him, and refused to cut the cablesUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  718. 49 BCEA Roman husband's funeral inscription says relatives tried to void his wife's father's will after her parents were murdered, and she stopped themdroitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr and 2 more
  719. 50 BCECato gave his pregnant wife Marcia to the orator Hortensius, and took her back as Hortensius's rich widowUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  720. 75 BCEPublius Annius Asellus left everything to his only daughter, and the praetor Verres wrote an edict to take it from hercts.perseids.org and 3 more
  721. 81 BCESulla's freedman bought a murdered man's estate of 6 million sesterces for 2,000, and the son was charged with killing his fatherUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  722. 91 BCEA Roman soldier came home from war to find that his father, told he was dead, had willed the family estate to othersattalus.org and 2 more
  723. 93 BCEA Roman wrote his will for a son who was never born, and Rome's two leading lawyers fought over whether the words or the intention ruledcts.perseids.org and 3 more
  724. 241 BCESpartan king Agis IV gave his estate and 600 talents to a land division, and was strangled with his mother and grandmother before any land was dividedUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  725. 270 BCEEpicurus willed his Garden to his school for ever, and two centuries later a Roman exile owned the ruins of his house and planned to pull it downWikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  726. 287 BCETheophrastus left the Lyceum garden to ten men in common, Athens briefly banned unlicensed schools on pain of death, and Sulla's army wrecked the siteWikisource (primary text) and 3 more
  727. 318 BCEAthens executed Phocion at about 80, banned his burial in Attica, and Plutarch says his wife buried his bones under her hearthUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 2 more
  728. 322 BCEAristotle's heirs hid his library in a trench to keep it from the kings of Pergamum, and Sulla carried it to Romeperseus.tufts.edu and 2 more
  729. 335 BCEAlexander razed Thebes and sold its people into slavery, but spared the house and descendants of the poet Pindarlivingpoets.awh.durham.ac.uk and 2 more
  730. 343 BCEThe last native pharaoh fled the Persians and never used his sarcophagus, and the British took it from Alexandria in 1801 as the tomb of AlexanderInternet Archive and 2 more
  731. 345 BCEA merchant died owing money on a Black Sea wine voyage, and his brother, a pupil of Isocrates, told the Athenian court he was not the heircases.som.yale.edu and 3 more
  732. 347 BCEPlato's will left two farms and three minae to a boy, the Academy went to his nephew, and the nephew was carried to class paralysed until he took his own lifeWikisource (primary text) and 3 more
  733. 350 BCEClaimants to Hagnias's estate in Athens produced a forged will, lost, and then took the estate by three or four votescts.perseids.org and 2 more
  734. 370 BCEThe freed-slave banker Pasion willed his widow and his bank to his own freed slave Phormio; his son Apollodorus sued and was finedperseus.tufts.edu and 5 more
  735. 376 BCEDemosthenes's guardians handed back the house, 14 slaves and 30 minae of a 14-talent estate, and he sued them at 20University of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  736. 376 BCEA 96-year-old Athenian moved into his brothel, tried to make a former prostitute's son his heir, and lay dead for two days while his house was emptiedperseus.tufts.edu and 3 more
  737. 404 BCEAthens's Thirty Tyrants arrested rich foreign residents for their money, took Polemarchus's 700 shields and 120 slaves, and made him drink hemlockperseus.tufts.edu and 6 more
  738. 406 BCECicero says Sophocles' son sued to take his estate on the ground that he was senile, and Sophocles read his new play to the courtlivingpoets.awh.durham.ac.uk and 3 more
  739. 413 BCENicias rented 1,000 slaves into Athens's silver mines, Syracuse executed him, the Thirty killed his son, and his nephew went to court to keep the family landperseus.tufts.edu and 5 more
  740. 415 BCEAthens condemned Alcibiades, auctioned his property item by item on marble slabs, ordered priests to curse him, then gave the property backperseus.tufts.edu and 5 more
  741. 459 BCEAthens condemned Themistocles for treason, Persia gave him three cities, and his relatives buried his bones in Attica in secretProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  742. 490 BCEPythagoras's daughter Damo would not sell his writings for any price, and Plato is said to have paid 100 minae for Pythagorean booksWikisource (primary text) and 2 more
  743. 587 BCEHerodotus says Periander killed his wife, lost his heir over it, and stripped the women of Corinth to get her ghost to say where a deposit wasProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  744. 594 BCEPlutarch says Solon's friends borrowed to buy estates before his debt cancellation, and Solon cleared his name by writing off five talents owed to himUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more
  745. 1550 BCEDNA showed a woman in Mycenae's royal Grave Circle B was buried beside her brother, by right of birth, not as a wifemanchester.ac.uk and 2 more
  746. 1650 BCEA woman in a silver diadem was buried under the council hall of La Almoloya, and most of the grave's wealth was hers, not the man's buried with herthe-past.com and 2 more
  747. 1800 BCEAt Mokrin a rich mother's teenage son was buried with nothing, and a poor mother's son was buried with an axeresearchconnect.stonybrook.edu and 1 more
  748. 2300 BCEA man from the Alps was buried near Stonehenge with Britain's oldest gold; the younger man beside him shared a rare foot bone, but DNA rules out father and sonwessexarch.co.uk and 2 more
  749. 2600 BCEAt Eulau a mother, father and two sons killed in a raid were buried facing each other, the oldest family proven by DNAbristol.ac.uk and 2 more
  750. 2776 BCEFifteen members of one family were killed with blows to the head at Koszyce, and the fathers who were missing from the grave appear to have buried themeuropepmc.org and 2 more
  751. 3000 BCEThe man buried in the inner chamber of Newgrange was the son of a brother and sister or a parent and childeuropepmc.org and 2 more
  752. 3300 BCETwo hikers found Ötzi in 1991, a survey put him 92 metres inside Italy, and the finders fought South Tyrol in court until 2010 over the rewardarchive.archaeology.org and 5 more
  753. 4500 BCEOne founding father's bones were carried to Gurgy and reburied, and his descendants over seven generations lie around him, with almost no adult daughterseuropepmc.org and 2 more
  754. 6800 BCEThe infant buried with the shaman of Bad Dürrenberg was not her son but a descendant four or five generations down, added to her grave decades lateridw-online.de and 2 more
  755. Hermès heir Nicolas Puech planned to adopt his gardener, then said his $15 billion in shares was goneThe Guardian and 3 more
  756. 16700 BCEThe Red Lady of El Mirón was buried behind an engraved rock, then her skull and long bones were taken away and the rest re-painted redarchaeology.org and 2 more
  757. 456 BCELegend: Aeschylus died at Gela in 456 or 455 BC when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his headperseus.tufts.edu and 2 more
  758. 1000Beowulf says a dying king won a dragon's hoard with no son to leave it to, and his people buried the gold with himProject Gutenberg and 2 more
  759. 1362Tradition says Pedro the Cruel took the "Black Prince's Ruby" from a Granadan sultan he killed with his own lance; it is a spinel in the front of Britain's crowngia.edu and 4 more
  760. 1815A Highland prophecy says the last Seaforth chief would be deaf and outlive his sons, Lord Seaforth's death in 1815 matched it, and historians say the seer may never have existedInternet Archive and 2 more
  761. 1641Legend: Domenichino died in Naples in April 1641 and was said to have been poisoned by rival painters; the one early biographer cited blames his relativesArtnet News and 3 more
  762. 1200The Nibelungenlied says Hagen sank a widow's bridal treasure in the Rhine, and she had her brother beheaded trying to learn whereProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  763. 1793Legend says a monk cursed the family given Battle Abbey's lands to end by fire and water; in 1793 Cowdray burned and its young owner drowned in the Rhine within weekscowdray.co.uk and 3 more
  764. 30The Gospel of John says soldiers diced for the executed Jesus's seamless robe, and three churches claim to have itbiblegateway.com and 2 more
  765. 1250The Völsunga saga says Fafnir killed his father for a cursed gold hoard and refused his brother any sharemorrisarchive.lib.uiowa.edu and 3 more
  766. 1450The Gest of Robyn Hode says a knight pledged his lands to an abbot for £400 and Robin paid the debt; a 1598 play made Robin an earl robbed by his uncleboldoutlaw.com and 4 more
  767. 935Egil's saga says a queen's men cut the court ropes to stop Egil's inheritance suit, and Egil later won the land by biting a man's throat outviking.ucla.edu and 6 more
  768. 1134Tradition says conjoined twins left Biddenden 20 acres for bread and cheese, and the rector sued to take the landengland.prm.ox.ac.uk and 2 more
  769. 1485Malory says Uther's heir was raised in secret, the lords refused the boy who pulled the sword, and the common people made him kingProject Gutenberg and 3 more
  770. 1308One Templar said under torture in 1308 that he saw a brother leading 50 horses and heard of 18 galleys, and that is the only medieval source for a Templar treasure fleetjasoncolavito.com and 2 more
  771. 1150Tradition says a dying Lady Tichborne crawled round 23 acres for a bread dole and cursed the family if it ever stoppedhistoric-uk.com and 4 more
  772. 656Tradition says Caliph Uthman was killed while reading this Quran; Russia took it as a trophy, and Lenin gave it backcambridge.org and 3 more
  773. 80Christian tradition says the body of Luke "the beloved physician" was moved from Thebes to Constantinople and Padua, and an emperor took the head to Praguebiblegateway.com and 2 more
  774. 750 BCEGeoffrey of Monmouth says King Leir split Britain between two flattering daughters, who took all of it and cut his household from 60 knights to oneyorku.ca and 4 more
  775. 753 BCELivy says Amulius broke his father's will, took the throne of Alba Longa, and made his niece a Vestal virgin so his brother would have no heirsperseus.tufts.edu and 3 more
  776. 1250 BCEThe plays say Oedipus's sons agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years, then killed each other, and the new king forbade burial of one of themclassics.mit.edu and 2 more
  777. 1250 BCETheseus forgot to change his black sail, his father Aegeus threw himself down from the Acropolis, and Theseus became king of AthensUniversity of Chicago, LacusCurtius and 3 more