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Timeline
Every case, newest first, 2026 to 3000 BCE
Scroll down to go back in time. The year at the side shows where you are. Tap a case to read it.
Now 2000 to 2026
2026Valentino left his estate to a foundation in Liechtenstein that the public had never heard ofRome, Italy
2026CIA officer Aldrich Ames paid cash for a $540,000 house on a salary under $70,000; he and his wife forfeited the proceeds, and she went to prison while their son lived in BogotáArlington, Virginia, USA; federal prison, Maryland, USA
2026Dolly Parton's estate company sued her nephew and former security chief one month after her death, alleging threats to ruin her brandNashville, Tennessee
2026Raymond's founder gave his son his 37 percent stake and says he was then pushed out of the family towerMumbai
2025Two half-brothers were each crowned Pakubuwono XIII in 2004, and in 2025 two of the next king's sons each took the title Pakubuwono XIVKasunanan Palace, Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, Indonesia
2025Giorgio Armani's will orders his heirs to sell 15 percent of his company to a rival group within 18 monthsMilan, Italy
2025Venezuela seized foreign oil projects in 2007, and a Delaware judge ordered its US refiner Citgo sold for $5.9 billion to pay the claimsWilmington, Delaware, USA, and Caracas, Venezuela
2025A mob demolished the house where Sheikh Hasina's father was killed, and a tribunal sentenced her to death in absentia and ordered her assets confiscatedDhaka, Bangladesh
2025Najib Razak's stepson made The Wolf of Wall Street with money from Malaysia's state fund, and Najib was given 15 more years in prisonKuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, Malaysia
2025Brian Wilson was placed in a conservatorship after his wife died, while his first wife sued for half of a $50 million rights saleCalifornia
2025A year after Ozzy Osbourne died, Sharon Osbourne asked the High Court to remove his accountant of more than 40 years as executorEngland
2025Lord Brocket was jailed for five years for insurance fraud in 1996, and his trustees leased out Brocket HallBrocket Hall, Hertfordshire
2025The Hudson's Bay Company sold Rupert's Land for £300,000 in 1869, went insolvent in 2025, and sold its 1670 charter for $18 millionToronto (Ontario Superior Court of Justice)
2025Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead a week apart, and his children are fighting wills that leave them nothingSanta Fe, New Mexico, USA
2025Sunjay Kapur died at a polo match, and his children say the will leaving his Rs 30,000 crore estate to his widow is forgedEngland, UK
2025Michael Schumacher's family has kept his condition secret since 2013, and a former guard tried to sell his medical records for €15 millionWuppertal, Germany (court); Gland, Switzerland (home)
2025Sly Stone was living in a van when a jury awarded him $5 million in stolen royalties, and the award against his manager was reversedLos Angeles, California
2025Bill Gates said in May 2025 the Gates Foundation will spend its endowment and close on 31 December 2045Seattle, Washington
2025Nick Reiner, charged with killing Rob and Michele Reiner, sues for his $1.5 million trust fundBrentwood, Los Angeles, California
2024Mango's founder fell to his death on a hike with his son, and a judge has named the son the only suspectCollbató, near Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain
2024Roberto Cavalli split his estate equally among his partner and six children, and the heirs accepted it only up to the value of his debtsFlorence, Italy
2024O.J. Simpson paid little of the $33.5 million judgment while alive, and in 2025 his executor accepted a $58 million claim from Ron Goldman's fatherLas Vegas, Nevada, USA
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 burialPenal Colony No. 3, Kharp, Russia; Salekhard, Russia; Moscow, Russia
2024Warren Buffett's will once named the Gates Foundation; he removed it in 2024 and stopped his lifetime gifts to it in 2026Omaha, Nebraska, USA
2024Norman Jewison's three children sued after he changed his will two months before his death in 2024; the claims were settled by mediation and never tested in courtLos Angeles, California
2024Alain Delon never acknowledged the son his mother raised, and French courts ruled the claim too late after both men diedDouchy-Montcorbon, Loiret, France
2024Suzuki Motor was run by four adopted sons in a row, including Osamu Suzuki, who married into the family and ran it for 43 yearsHamamatsu, Japan
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 thirdDouchy-Montcorbon, Loiret, France
2024Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou's three other children froze $1.8 billion in Hong Kong to claim trusts he wrote by handHangzhou, China
2024Liam Payne fell from a Buenos Aires hotel balcony with no will, and his £24 million went to his seven-year-old sonBuenos Aires, Argentina
2024Shannen Doherty signed her divorce settlement the day before she died of cancerLos Angeles County, California, USA
2024Ratan Tata's will gave a third of the residue to a little-known Jamshedpur businessmanMumbai, India
2024Elon Musk gave his foundation $7.9 billion in Tesla stock in two years, and its filings show it paid out less than requiredAustin, Texas
2024The Māori King's council passed over the son who had stood in for him and named his youngest child queen at his funeralTūrangawaewae Marae, Ngāruawāhia, New Zealand
2023FBI spy Robert Hanssen forfeited $1.4 million from Moscow and his pension, and his plea deal left his wife the house, three cars and a survivor annuityVienna, Virginia, USA; ADX Florence, Colorado, USA
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 diedPalermo, Castelvetrano and L'Aquila, Italy
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 propertyCounty Palatine of Lancaster, England
2023Chuck Feeney secretly handed his Duty Free Shoppers stake to a foundation in 1984, gave away more than $8 billion, and kept about $2 millionSan Francisco, California, USA
2023Tony Bennett's daughters sued their brother, his manager and trustee, saying a man who earned $100 million left under $7 millionNew York
2023Lisa Marie Presley's mother contested her trust, then resigned as trustee in exchange for $1 million and a grave near Elvis at GracelandWest Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
2023Lisa Marie Presley's trust was told it owed $3.8 million on Graceland, and the Missouri woman who forged the loan got 57 months in prisonGraceland, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
2023Jimmy Buffett left his widow a $275 million trust with his accountant as co-trustee, and each has asked a court to remove the otherSag Harbor, New York, USA
2023Rupert Murdoch tried to rewrite his family trust so Lachlan would control his companies, and a Nevada commissioner found they acted in bad faithReno, Nevada, USA
2023Harry Belafonte tried to sell Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers, King's children said they were wrongfully taken, and Belafonte sued them and kept the papersNew York, New York
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 auctionParis, France
2023A 2014 letter said the four Hinduja brothers owned everything jointly, and the eldest brother's daughters fought it through his dementia and deathLondon
2023Robert Blake was acquitted of murdering his wife, then ordered to pay her children $30 millionLos Angeles, California
2023Gina Lollobrigida left half her estate to an assistant who was convicted of exploiting her, and her son says €10 million is goneRome, Italy
2023After Mohamed Al Fayed died, more than 180 women came forward, and Harrods went to court over his estateLondon, UK
2023Matthew Perry died of ketamine, and his doctor, his assistant and a dealer called the "Ketamine Queen" were prosecutedLos Angeles, California, USA
2023Michael Oher of "The Blind Side" learned he was never adopted, and a judge ended the Tuohy conservatorshipMemphis, Tennessee, USA
2023Silvio Berlusconi left €100 million to his 33-year-old partner and €30 million to a friend convicted of mafia tiesMilan, Italy
2023Greece took its exiled king's palaces without payment, and the European Court ordered €13.7 million in compensationAthens, Greece
2023The SEC fined the LDS Church and Ensign Peak $5 million for hiding its stock portfolio behind 13 shell companiesSalt Lake City, Utah
2023LG's chairman adopted his nephew as heir; his widow and daughters sued to undo the share split and the adoption, and lost both in 2026Seoul, South Korea
2023Mohbad's father has kept the singer unburied for nearly three years until a court-ordered DNA test shows whether his grandson is his son's childLagos, Nigeria
2023Abby Choi's former husband and his father and brother are on trial for her murder over a flat she had put in her father-in-law's nameLung Mei village, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China
2023The last Nizam of Hyderabad inherited one of the world's largest fortunes and died in Turkey after losing most of itIstanbul, Turkey
2023Israeli troops shot hostage Yotam Haim as he fled his captors, and in 2026 a court let his mother use his sperm for a grandchildBeersheba, Israel
2022Angola's president made his daughter head of the state oil company; his successor fired her, and courts froze her assets in four countriesLuanda, Angola; London, UK; Dubai, UAE
2022Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky's youngest son agreed to sell his manuscripts for $7 million; his brothers said Torah law split the estate among three sons and none of the five daughtersBnei Brak, Israel
2022Naomi Judd's will named her husband executor, and her family sued to keep the police file on her death sealedher home in Tennessee
2022Sidhu Moose Wala's parents won his song copyright in court, had a son by IVF at 58, and were questioned by the state over the babyMansa district, Punjab, India
2022Jerry Lee Lewis put his ranch in his manager's name to hide it from the IRS; after he died, a judge ordered his son out and the manager's heirs listed it for $1.6 millionNesbit, Mississippi
2022Takeoff of Migos was shot dead with no will; his mother and father are fighting over the money the bowling alley paid for his death810 Billiards & Bowling, Houston, Texas
2022Bernie Worrell's widow sued George Clinton for half of 264 Parliament-Funkadelic recordings, and an appeals court sent the case to trialDetroit, Michigan (Eastern District of Michigan); Tallahassee, Florida (Northern
2022Nichelle Nichols's son became her conservator in 2019 and fought her manager in court; after her 2022 death a jury awarded her family $13 million, capped at $400,000Silver City, New Mexico
2022Leonardo Del Vecchio split his holding company into eight equal shares, and his heirs are suing in Milan and LuxembourgSan Raffaele Hospital, Milan
2022Anne Heche's ex said a 2011 email was her will, and the court gave her estate to her 20-year-old sonLos Angeles, California, USA
2022Wendy Williams has been under a guardianship since 2022 and is still asking a New York court to end itNew York, USA
2022Pelé fought a paternity case he lost, and after his death a woman claimed his estate until two DNA tests failedSão Paulo, Brazil
2022The Tata board removed Cyrus Mistry in 2016, and India's Supreme Court upheld it over the minority family's appealAhmedabad-Mumbai highway, Maharashtra, India
2022Barre Seid gave his company to a new 501(c)(4) run by Leonard Leo, a $1.6 billion political gift that avoided up to $400 million in taxChicago, Illinois
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 LuandaBarcelona, Spain, and Luanda, Angola
2022Hawaii's "last princess" was ruled unable to manage her $215 million trust, married her partner during the court fight, and the settlement gave her wife $40 millionHonolulu, Hawaii, USA
2022Gal Costa's adopted son asked to exhume her and challenged her widow's claim to half the estate, then settled for an equal splitSão Paulo, Brazil
2022Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju's family paid inheritance tax with 29.3 percent of his holding company, and the government could not find a buyerSeoul, South Korea (died in the United States)
2022A Miami businessman burned a drawing he said was Frida Kahlo's to sell 10,000 NFTs, and Mexico investigated because her work is a national monumentMiami, Florida, USA; Mexico City, Mexico
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 saleParis, France, and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
2021Alex Murdaugh renounced his murdered wife's estate, the family estate sold for $3.9 million, and in 2026 South Carolina's top court threw out his murder convictionMoselle, Colleton County, South Carolina, USA
2021Bernie Madoff died in prison, his sons' estates gave up their fortunes, and the trustee recovered $15.5 billionButner, North Carolina, USA; New York, USA
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 awayNew York, USA, and Tuscany, Italy (setting)
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 fightRome, Italy; Geneva, Switzerland
2021Larry King's handwritten 2019 will left his estate to five children, two of whom died before him, and his estranged wife Shawn contested itLos Angeles, California, USA
2021Phil Spector died in prison serving a murder sentence; his daughter sued his ex-wife, alleging she posed as the daughter to sell his memorabiliaCalifornia prison hospital
2021The widow of Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" co-writer sued for a share of his $300 million song sale and lost twiceNew York
2021Bunny Wailer's wife was missing when he died, his 13 children were told to take DNA tests, and his son sued to remove his brother as executorKingston, Jamaica
2021Vicente Fernández's widow went to court to stop Televisa using his name for a biopic, and the series aired anywayGuadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
2021Trustees for the family of Mondrian's heir Harry Holtzman sued the Philadelphia Museum of Art in December 2021 for a painting the Nazis took from a Hanover museum in 1937, valued at over $100 millionNew York (Mondrian died 1944)
2021The Barclay twins' nephews bugged the Ritz conservatory and recorded their uncle's business talksLondon
2021Melinda French Gates left the Gates Foundation with $12.5 billion from Bill Gates under their divorce agreementSeattle
2021Tengelmann chief Karl-Erivan Haub vanished near the Matterhorn, and his brother bought out his widow and childrenKlein Matterhorn, Zermatt, Switzerland
2021Argentine president Carlos Menem's son from his prison-era affair was recognised by a court only in 2006, after his mother's deathBuenos Aires, Argentina
2021Tom Girardi was put under his brother's conservatorship with Alzheimer's disease, then convicted of stealing client money and sent to prison at 86Los Angeles, California, USA
2021South Korea could not collect 86.7 billion won of Chun Doo-hwan's forfeiture after he diedYeonhui-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul
2021DMX died without a will, leaving 15 children, a fiancée the court would not recognize, and an estate valued under $1 millionWhite Plains, New York
2021The Zulu king's widow challenged his will as forged, and his successor's recognition went to South Africa's highest courtDurban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
2021Japan's Princess Mako refused a ¥140 million payout to marry a commoner and lost her royal statusTokyo, Japan; New York, USA
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 flatCombs-la-Ville and Paris, France
2021An 88-year-old Shanghai man signed his 3 million yuan home over to the fruit seller who cared for him, a court later declared him incapable, and the gift still stoodBaoshan district, Shanghai, China
2021Bitcoin pioneer Mircea Popescu drowned off Costa Rica, and no heir or keyholder has come forward for coins said to number up to a millionPlaya Hermosa, Garabito, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
2021Majid Al Futtaim died with ten heirs and a $16 billion mall group, and a court set up by Dubai's ruler gave government appointees five of nine board seatsDubai, UAE
2020A Bangkok dealer died under US indictment for selling looted Khmer statues, and his daughter gave the 125 pieces she inherited back to CambodiaBangkok, Thailand; Koh Ker, Cambodia; New York, USA
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 willParis, France
2020Hanmi Pharm's founder died owing a family tax bill of 500 billion won, his widow and daughter agreed to merge with OCI, and his sons stopped it at a shareholder voteSeoul, South Korea
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 awayLednice and Valtice, Czech Republic; Cologne, Germany; Strasbourg, France; The H
2020Venezuela's 31 tonnes of gold have sat in the Bank of England through two rival governments, a captured president and an earthquakeCaracas, Venezuela; London, England
2020Switzerland froze 700 million francs tied to Mubarak's circle in 2011, and after 11 years released the last 400 million to its ownersCairo, Egypt; Bern, Switzerland
2020MF DOOM's widow sued a former label manager for 31 notebooks of lyrics and got them back in 2025United Kingdom
2020Stanley Ho sued 11 defendants, including 2 of his wives and 5 of his children, hours after saying on television he would not sue his familyHong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, Happy Valley, Hong Kong, China
2020Little Richard's brother emailed the buyer about elder abuse and racism, the buyer withdrew its offer for the estate's rights, and the court took away his shareTullahoma, Tennessee
2020Charley Pride's son by a flight attendant was left out of the will, barred from the funeral, and sued the widow of 60 yearsDallas, Texas
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 outLondon, England
2020Kirk Douglas left most of a $61 million estate to charity and nothing to his son MichaelBeverly Hills, California
2020Chadwick Boseman died in 2020 without a will, and his widow filed in Los Angeles to run an estate first listed at $938,500Los Angeles, California
2020Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee's heirs paid 12 trillion won in inheritance tax, the largest in Korean historySeoul
2020Diego Maradona left five recognised heirs, more paternity claims, and two trials over his death and his nameDique Luján, Tigre, Buenos Aires province
2020Sumner Redstone's ex-girlfriend said he was incompetent, the judge disagreed, and his daughter took control of CBS and ViacomLos Angeles and Boston
2020Lotte's 93-year-old founder fired his younger son, the shareholders kept the son, and a court put the father under guardianshipTokyo and Seoul
2020The Marquess of Bath's trustees asked the High Court in 2026 to let his surrogate-born son into the Longleat trustsLongleat, Wiltshire; Bristol Business and Property Courts
2020The heir of the House of Hanover offered Marienburg Castle to the state for one euro, and his father sued him for gross ingratitudeSchloss Marienburg, Pattensen, Lower Saxony
2020Bulgaria sued its former tsar to take back his palaces, and the Supreme Court gave him Tsarska Bistritsa but the state got Vrana parkSamokov and Sofia, Bulgaria
2020Banco Espírito Santo collapsed in 2014 and its chief Ricardo Salgado was sentenced to eight yearsLisbon
2020Steve Bing's father asked a court to rule that Bing's two children born outside marriage were not his grandchildren, and lostCentury City, Los Angeles
2020Zappos founder Tony Hsieh died with no will, and five years later a will appeared in the mail naming a witness who may not existNew London, Connecticut, USA (house fire)
2020Deputies and firefighters shared photos of Kobe Bryant's remains, and his widow won $28.85 million from Los Angeles CountyCalabasas, California
2020Oman's sultan died childless, and his successor's name was read from a sealed envelopeMuscat, Oman
2020Joseph Safra's son sued his mother and brothers over the family bank, alleging his father had been influenced to change his will, and settled in 2024São Paulo, Brazil
2020One Sursock left his Beirut villa to the city as a museum; another Sursock palace passed to a single heiress; the 2020 port blast hit both, and she died of her injuriesAchrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon
2020A Delhi court ruled that Sushant Singh Rajput's publicity rights died with him, so his father could not stop a film about his deathMumbai, India
2020Jack Whittaker won a $314.9 million Powerball jackpot, and his granddaughter and daughter were found dead within seven yearsHurricane, Putnam County, West Virginia, USA (where the ticket was sold)
2020An unmarried Delhi man froze his sperm before chemotherapy, a court ruled it was property his parents inherit, and the government appealedNew Delhi, India
2019Kelantan's council made the sultan's son sultan while the father lay ill, and the father asked the Federal Court to give his throne backKota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia
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 itParis, France
2019El Chapo was ordered to forfeit $12.6 billion, and two of the sons who inherited his cartel faction pleaded guilty in ChicagoBrooklyn, New York, USA; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico
2019Tunisia's president proposed equal inheritance for daughters and sons, died before parliament voted, and his successor called the debate falseTunis, Tunisia
2019In Knives Out, a novelist leaves everything to his nurse, his grandson frames her so the slayer rule will cut her out, and the plan failsMassachusetts, USA (setting)
2019Doris Day's husband died in 1968 and she learned her lawyer and her husband had lost her earnings; a court awarded the couple $26,396,511Carmel Valley, California
2019MacKenzie Scott left her marriage with 4 percent of Amazon and gave Jeff Bezos the votesSeattle
2019Korean Air's "nut rage" heiress joined an activist fund to oust her brother, and lost the shareholder voteSeoul
2019Porsche tried to buy Volkswagen and ended up owned by it, and Ferdinand Piëch was later forced out of VWRosenheim, Germany, after collapsing at a restaurant in Aschau im Chiemgau
2019Nipsey Hussle was shot dead outside his store, and his family took guardianship of his daughter from her motherLos Angeles, California, USA
2019Goo Hara's mother left when she was a child and claimed half her estate; Korea changed its inheritance lawSeoul, South Korea
2019Pat Bowlen's trust was meant to keep the Broncos in his family; two daughters and his brother sued, and the team was soldDenver, Colorado
2019A London judge ordered Dubai's ruler to provide £554 million to the ex-wife whose phone he had hackedHigh Court, Family Division, London
2019The Sacklers drew $11 billion out of Purdue Pharma, museums removed their name, and the Supreme Court voided their release in 2024White Plains, New York
2019Jeffrey Epstein signed his will two days before he died in jail; victims' claims cut the $577 million estate to about $107 millionMetropolitan Correctional Center, New York
2019K.K. Modi's trust deed split his family into court cases, and his son accused his mother's side of having him assaulted at a board meetingNew Delhi, India, and Singapore
2019A Sinar Mas son was left 1 billion rupiah, sued his half-brothers over an estate he put at 649 trillion rupiah, and lost his status as a legitimate childJakarta, Indonesia
2019João Gilberto's daughter had him declared incapable while he faced eviction, and his heirs won R$150 million from his record label after he diedRio de Janeiro, Brazil
2019Tob Cohen's body was found in the septic tank of his Nairobi home, and his widow is on trial for his murder while his will leaves the estate to his sisterLower Kabete (Kitisuru), Nairobi, Kenya
2019Robert Mugabe left about $10 million and no will, and a village chief fined his widow five cows and ordered his body dug upKutama, Zvimba district, Zimbabwe
2019José José's older children searched Miami hospitals and funeral homes for his body, and two wills name different heirsMiami, Florida, USA; buried in Mexico City, Mexico
2019Gugu Liberato's will left nothing to the mother of his three children, and a chef who said he was Gugu's partner of eight years sued as wellWindermere (Orlando), Florida, USA; estate in São Paulo, Brazil
2019Tanzanian tycoon Reginald Mengi's will left his estate to his second wife and their twins, and the High Court threw it outDubai, UAE; estate in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
2018Japan hanged Aum's founder in 2018, his daughters fought over his ashes, and the state refused to hand them over until a 2026 court orderTokyo Detention House, Tokyo, Japan
2018Whitey Bulger hid $822,000 in the walls of his Santa Monica flat, and the Marshals sold his belongings for his victims' familiesSanta Monica, California, USA; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Hazelton, West Virgin
2018Avicii died at 28 without a will; his parents inherited about $25 million and sold 75 percent of his catalogMuscat, Oman
2018Aretha Franklin's 2014 will was found in a notebook under her couch cushions, a jury upheld it in 2023, and her estate was still open in 2026Detroit, Michigan, USA
2018Burt Reynolds's 2018 will named his son Quinton as intentionally omitted and routed his assets through a trust run by his nieceJupiter, Florida
2018XXXTentacion was shot dead at 20, and his son was born seven months later outside his willDeerfield Beach, Florida
2018Crypto CEO Gerald Cotten died in India holding the only keys to C$215 million, and regulators found the money was already goneJaipur, India
2018Sun Hung Kai's chairman was removed by his mother and brothers, who said he was mentally ill, and cut from the family trustHong Kong
2018Magna founder Frank Stronach sued his daughter and grandchildren over the family's racing empireOntario, Canada
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 laterPontoise, France
2018A Texas-born princess was evicted from the Roman villa with Caravaggio's only mural after six auctions drew no bidsRome
2018A Delhi court forced a former chief minister to give blood for a paternity test; his son won, and was killed a year after the father diedNew Delhi, India
2018Robert Indiana was sued the day before he died alone on a Maine island, and his LOVE estate spent years in courtVinalhaven, Maine
2018Japan's "Don Juan of Kishu" left his fortune to his town; his widow was acquitted of killing him and may still inherit halfTanabe, Wakayama, Japan
2018Stan Lee's last manager was charged with elder abuse after the Marvel creator diedLos Angeles, California, USA
2018Paul Allen's will ordered his teams sold, and his sister sold the Trail Blazers for about $4 billionSeattle, Washington, USA
2018Tom Benson's daughter and grandchildren sued to have him declared incompetent after he gave the Saints to his third wifeOchsner Medical Center, Jefferson, Louisiana
2018Ingvar Kamprad put IKEA into a Dutch foundation in 1982 that The Economist called the world's richest charity and one of its least generousSmåland, Sweden
2018New York shut down the Donald J. Trump Foundation in 2018 and Trump paid $2 million to eight charitiesNew York, New York
2018Banking heir Matthew Mellon died with $193 million in XRP, the keys hidden under other people's names, and a deal that let his estate sell only a little each dayCancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico
2017Malaysia stopped paying the Sulu sultan's heirs in 2013, and a Spanish arbitrator awarded them US$14.92 billionSabah, Malaysia; Madrid, Spain; Paris, France
2017An H. L. Hunt great-grandson took a nine-figure settlement and promised not to contest his father's will, then contested itDallas, Texas, USA
2017North Korea's leader's half-brother was killed with VX at Kuala Lumpur airport, and Malaysia traded his body for nine of its citizens held in PyongyangKuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia; Pyongyang, North Korea
2017Lil Peep's mother sued his management company for wrongful death and settled with control of his musicTucson, Arizona (tour bus)
2017Chris Cornell's widow sued Soundgarden over his last seven recordings and called their $278,000 buyout offer "villainously low"Detroit, Michigan
2017Chester Bennington left everything to his widow and six children, and his first wife's claim took half of his Linkin Park royaltiesPalos Verdes Estates, California
2017Johnny Hallyday disinherited two of his children under California law, and a French court ruled French law appliedMarnes-la-Coquette, France
2017Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi's ex-wife won a divorce payment reported near $874 million, then the largest on recordLos Angeles and London
2017Liliane Bettencourt gave a photographer about €1 billion, and her daughter's complaint ended in his convictionNeuilly-sur-Seine, France
2017Jerry Lewis's will excluded all six sons from his first marriage and their childrenLas Vegas, Nevada
2017Bill Paxton's family sued his surgeon and Cedars-Sinai after he died following heart surgeryLos Angeles, California
2017Billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife were found strangled at their pool; police first called it murder-suicide, and the case is unsolvedToronto, Canada
2017Aaron Hernandez's suicide wiped out his murder conviction, and two years later the state's top court put it backSouza-Baranowski Correctional Center, Lancaster, Massachusetts
2017Glen Campbell's wills cut out three of his eight children, and they challenged his capacity after Alzheimer'sNashville, Tennessee
2017Tom Petty's daughters sued his widow for $5 million over control of his musicSanta Monica, California
2017Romania's King Michael was forced to sign a pre-typed abdication, and his grandson was later struck from the successionAubonne, Switzerland
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 millionAugsburg, Germany, and Gstaad, Bern, Switzerland
2016Chesapeake founder Aubrey McClendon was indicted for rigging oil lease bids and died in a crash the next day, and the claims moved to his estateOklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
2016A legal secretary bought the same stocks as her bosses for decades and left more than $8 million to scholarships, and her husband may not have knownBrooklyn, New York, USA
2016David Bowie was cremated two days after he died with no one present, and his will asked for his ashes to go to BaliNew York City
2016George Michael left his £97 million estate to his sisters and nothing to his partner, who would not leave the Regent's Park houseGoring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England
2016Leonard Cohen's manager emptied his retirement fund, and after his death his children found a forged page in his trustLos Angeles, California
2016Prince died without a will, more than 45 people claimed to be his relatives, and his estate took 6 years and a tax court case to dividePaisley Park, Chanhassen, Minnesota, USA
2016Muhammad Ali's company sued Fox for more than $30 million over a 3-minute Super Bowl LI promotional video using his image, and Fox settledScottsdale, Arizona, USA
2016Glenn Frey's widow sued Mount Sinai for his death and was ordered to hand over the Eagles' contractsNew York, New York
2016Lou Pearlman built the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC on a $300 million Ponzi scheme, fled to Bali, and died in prison as investors got 6 cents on the dollarFederal Correctional Institution, Miami, Florida
2016Zaha Hadid's business partner sued her three co-executors in London over a roughly £70 million estate and lost a key ruling in November 2020Miami, Florida
2016Debbie Reynolds never raised the money for her Hollywood museum, sold her 3,500-item collection in 2011, and her estate auctioned more after she died a day after Carrie FisherLos Angeles, California
2016The Ranbaxy brothers sold their drug company for billions, owed the buyer Rs 3,500 crore, and were arrested over their lenderNew Delhi and Singapore
2016Esselunga founder Bernardo Caprotti took back the shares he had given his children and left control to his second wife and daughterMilan
2016The 6th Duke of Westminster's £9 billion estate passed in trust to his 25-year-old son over three daughtersRoyal Preston Hospital, Lancashire
2016Anton Schlecker's drugstore chain collapsed in 2012, and his son and daughter went to prison for taking 7 million euros out firstEhingen (Donau), Germany
2016A former baker bought a prince's title by adult adoption, sold it on to adopted sons, and became Zsa Zsa Gabor's heirLos Angeles, California
2016Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband ran her estate as conservator and moved most of her ashes to BudapestLos Angeles, California
2016Harper Lee's second novel was published when she was frail and her lawyer controlled her affairs; her will stayed sealed until The New York Times suedMonroeville, Alabama
2016Juan Gabriel left everything to one son, and a man claiming to be another son asked a court for part of his remainsSanta Monica, California
2016Thailand's new king changed the law to put the Crown Property Bureau's billions in his own nameBangkok, Thailand
2016Evergreen's founder left his whole personal fortune to his youngest son, the three older half-brothers removed him from the airline, and the courts upheld the willTaipei, Taiwan
2016Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski sold his family's collection to Poland for €100 million, the money went to Liechtenstein, and he sued his daughterKraków, Poland
2016Qatar's emir took power from his cousin in 1972; in 1995 his son took it from him and froze his bank accounts abroadDoha, Qatar
2016Jayalalithaa left no will; a court gave her house to her niece and nephew, and the state took 21 kilos of her goldChennai, Tamil Nadu, India
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 millionZurich, Switzerland
2016Douyin creators sold AI videos of dead actor Qiao Renliang saying he had not really left, and his father asked who gave them the rightShanghai, China
2015Yogyakarta's sultan has five daughters and no son, and all 11 of his younger brothers opposed him when he raised the eldest toward the throneKraton Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
2015Hamdard split at Partition, its Pakistani founder was shot dead in Karachi, and the Delhi heirs' fight over the waqf took Rooh Afza off Indian shelvesDelhi, India, and Karachi, Pakistan
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 manVilla Wanda, Arezzo, Italy; Castiglion Fibocchi, Italy
2015B.B. King's daughters accused his manager and his assistant of poisoning him; the coroner found no poison and the manager kept control of the estateLas Vegas, Nevada
2015Scott Weiland's 2007 will made his ex-wife executor over his widow, and she spent years settling his tax liens and lawsuitsBloomington, Minnesota
2015Joni Mitchell's friend told a court the singer was unconscious while her website said she was alert, and won control of her medical careLos Angeles, California
2015A Korean court ordered SK Group's chairman to pay his ex-wife 1.38 trillion won, and the Supreme Court threw it outSeoul
2015Samsung's founder's eldest son sued his brother Lee Kun-hee for 4.1 trillion won in shares and lostSeoul
2015A Japanese furniture founder fired his daughter, she beat him in a proxy fight, and the company was soldTokyo
2015Spain seized José María Ruiz-Mateos's Rumasa group by decree in 1983, and his second group collapsed in 2011El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz
2015Kirk Kerkorian's investigator took Steve Bing's dental floss from the trash and proved Kerkorian's "daughter" was Bing's childBeverly Hills, California
2015Lee Kuan Yew's will asked that his house be demolished, and Singapore made it a national monument over his son's objectionSingapore
2015Kirk Kerkorian left $2 billion to charity, and his 57-day wife was paid to go awayBeverly Hills, California, USA
2015Two Rothschild banks went to law over who could use the family name alone, and settled in 2018 that neither mayGeneva, Switzerland, and Paris, France
2014L'Wren Scott left her $9 million estate to Mick Jagger and wrote that she had left out her family on purposeManhattan, New York, USA
2014A Vermont gas station attendant and janitor left more than $8 million in stocks, and his stepson had no ideaBrattleboro, Vermont, USA
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 itPort-au-Prince, Haiti; Switzerland
2014After the Sewol sank with 304 dead, the man prosecutors called its real owner fled, was found dead in a plum field, and the state went after his family's assetsoff Jindo, South Korea, and Suncheon, South Korea
2014Robin Williams's widow and three children fought in a San Francisco court over his belongings, and the children got more than 85 watchesParadise Cay, Tiburon, California, USA
2014Joan Rivers's executors sued the Manhattan clinic where she stopped breathing during a throat procedure and settled in 2016 for an undisclosed sumMount Sinai Hospital, Manhattan, New York, USA
2014Philip Seymour Hoffman left an estimated $35 million to Mimi O'Donnell, whom he never married, and refused a trust for his three childrenNew York City
2014Casey Kasem's wife and children fought over his care until he died, then she took his body to NorwaySt. Anthony's Hospital, Gig Harbor, Washington
2014A London judge awarded a Russian oligarch's ex-wife £453 million, then found their son had helped hide itLondon, Dubai, Liechtenstein
2014"Putin's banker" put $100 million into New Zealand trusts for his family, and a London judge ruled the trusts were shamsLondon, New Zealand, France
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 2Moscow and London
2014Hedge fund manager Chris Hohn was ordered to pay his ex-wife about $530 million, and the judge called him a financial geniusLondon
2014The 11th Duke of Marlborough went to court in 1994 so his drug-addicted heir would never control Blenheim PalaceWoodstock, Oxfordshire
2014The Duchess of Alba gave her estate to her six children before marrying a civil servant 24 years youngerPalacio de las Dueñas, Seville
2014Spain's Supreme Court admitted a paternity suit against Juan Carlos I, then threw it out 7 votes to 3Madrid
2014Mickey Rooney worked 90 years and left an $18,000 estate to one stepsonLos Angeles, California
2014Ken Takakura's adopted daughter cremated him before his family knew he had died, and inherited his estate and film rightsKeio University Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
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 mindMunich
2014Gabriel García Márquez said his last novel must be destroyed; his sons published it on his 97th birthdayMexico City
2014Doctors declared Donald Sterling incapacitated, and his wife sold the Clippers out from under him for $2 billionLos Angeles, California
2014Spain's King Felipe renounced his father's inheritance after a $100 million Saudi payment came to light, and Juan Carlos left for Abu DhabiMadrid, Spain; Abu Dhabi, UAE
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 itLondon, England
2013Missoni's chief executive vanished in a plane off Venezuela, his father died before the wreck was found, and the family gave up the companyLos Roques, Venezuela; Sumirago, Italy
2013China's courts jail grave robbers who sell women's corpses as "ghost brides" for sons who died unmarriedShaanxi, China; also Shandong, Hebei and Gansu
2013Two brothers bought life insurance to keep their company in the family, and the Supreme Court counted the payout in the dead brother's estateSt. Louis, Missouri, USA
2013Tom Clancy signed a codicil 68 days before he died, and the top court of Maryland ruled 4 to 3 that it freed his widow's family trust from estate taxJohns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
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 taxesRome, Italy
2013An oil trader hid London houses inside his companies, and the UK Supreme Court ordered them handed to his ex-wifeLondon
2013A DNA test showed a baronet's grandfather was not his father's son, and the Privy Council gave the title to a cousinUnited Kingdom
2013Paul Walker left $25 million to his 15-year-old daughter, who then sued PorscheSanta Clarita, California
2013Amanda Bynes lived under her mother's conservatorship for nine yearsVentura County, California
2013Jerry Buss's sons tried to vote their sister off the Lakers board; she went to court and removed one of them as trusteeLos Angeles, California
2013A Belgian court ordered King Albert II to take a DNA test, and his secret daughter became a princess with inheritance rightsBrussels, Belgium
2013A granddaughter accused TV evangelists Paul and Jan Crouch in 2012 of spending their network's donations on themselvesOrange County, California
2013Rabbi Ovadia Yosef left nearly everything to his youngest son; his other children fought over the Jerusalem flat until 2016Jerusalem
2013Nelson Mandela's grandson moved three of Mandela's children's graves to his own village, and 16 relatives won a court order to return them to Qunu in 2013Qunu and Mvezo, Eastern Cape, South Africa
2013Boris Berezovsky lost his case against Abramovich, died seven months later, and a judge called his estate hopelessly insolventAscot, Berkshire, UK
2013A Chinese couple died in a car crash five days before their embryos were to be implanted, and four years later a surrogate from Laos gave birth to their sonYixing and Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
2013Mandela's eldest daughter put his ID card, shirts and a Robben Island key up for auction in New York, and the state fought the sale to the Constitutional CourtPretoria and Qunu, South Africa
2012Lacoste's chairman sued to annul his daughter's appointment, then both sides of the family sold to the Swiss partnerParis, France![René Lacoste 1927 Militaire a: Lacoste [en tenue militaire] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]](t-lacoste-s-chairman-sued-to-annul-his-daughter-s-appointment.jpg)
2012Switzerland's oldest bank took the American clients UBS dropped, pleaded guilty in New York, and closed after 272 yearsSt. Gallen, Switzerland; New York, USA
2012Roman Blum left about $40 million and no will in 2012, a Surrogate's Court threw out a will naming a disbarred lawyer, and a Moscow man says he is the great-grandsonStaten Island, New York, USA![Surrogate's Office, Richmond, Staten Island, N.Y (NYPL b15279351-104593): * Postcard categories and title comments in brackets [ ] provided by collector, Catherine Robinson.](t-roman-blum-left-about-40-million-and-no-will-in-2012-a-surro.jpg)
2012Etta James's husband and her son fought in court over her $1 million while she was dying of leukemiaRiverside Community Hospital, Riverside, California
2012Davy Jones's 2004 will left out the wife he married in 2009; she petitioned for half as a pretermitted spouse and the family sealed the fileStuart, Florida
2012Donna Summer's estate refused Kanye West permission to use "I Feel Love," sued when he used it anyway, and made him agree never to distribute the songNaples, Florida
2012Robin Gibb left a £93 million fortune to his wife and three children; his daughter with the housekeeper got a closing line in the willLondon, England
2012Gore Vidal changed his trust in 2011 to leave everything to Harvard, and his half-sister and nephew suedHollywood Hills, Los Angeles
2012Maurice Sendak's foundation and the Rosenbach Museum fought for two years in a Connecticut probate court over his rare-book collectionDanbury, Connecticut
2012Celeste Holm's sons sued her fifth husband over a 2002 trust, the fight ran about six years, and she died in 2012 with a $13 million estate and a settlement forcing him out of her apartmentNew York City
2012Whitney Houston left everything to her daughter; three years later the daughter died and the money went to Whitney's mother and brothersBeverly Hilton, Beverly Hills; hospice, Georgia
2012Harold Hamm's ex-wife refused his $974.8 million check, then cashed it and lost her appeal for moreOklahoma City
2012A Tetra Pak heir kept his wife's body in their London house for two monthsCadogan Place, Belgravia, London
2012Aldi's Theo Albrecht was ransomed for 7 million marks, and his son's widow fought the family foundation for a decadeEssen, Germany
2012Sherman Hemsley's body stayed in a funeral home refrigerator for months while a half-brother contested his willEl Paso, Texas
2012Rajesh Khanna's live-in partner sued his widow and daughters for 14 years, and his bungalow was sold for Rs 90 crore and torn downAashirwad, Carter Road, Bandra, Mumbai, India
2012Thomas Kinkade's girlfriend produced handwritten notes leaving her his mansion and $10 million, and his estranged wife said he was drunk when he wrote themMonte Sereno, California
2012Jenni Rivera's children sued their grandfather's label for exploiting her music, and the family split in courtnear Iturbide, Nuevo León, Mexico
2012Tonga's constitution lets only children born in marriage inherit the throne or a noble estate, so King George Tupou V's daughter could not succeed himHong Kong (Kingdom of Tonga)
2012A Chicago man died of cyanide the day after his $1 million lottery check was issued, and his widow and siblings fought over the estateChicago, Illinois, USA
2012A 15-year-old died under a subway train, and her parents fought Facebook for eight years to read her messagesBerlin and Karlsruhe, Germany
2011Yuli Ofer's last will gave most of his empire to his daughter; his son said he was no longer clear of mind, and the daughter wonHerzliya, Israel
2011Mike Campbell won his farm case against Zimbabwe in 2008; he was beaten, his house burned, the tribunal was shut down, and South African courts let the farmers sell Zimbabwe's Cape Town property for costsMount Carmel farm, Chegutu, Zimbabwe
2011Huguette Clark's second will cut out her relatives and left her nurse about $30 million, and the relatives settled for $34.5 millionManhattan, New York City, New York, USA
2011Gil Scott-Heron died with no will; his daughter said a DNA test showed his son was not his, and a Manhattan court ruled the son was an heirNew York City
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 childrenLondon
2011Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry sold for $137,235,575 at Christie's in December 2011, the most ever paid for a jewelry collection, with the proceeds going to her foundationLos Angeles, California
2011Steve Jobs swore he was sterile to avoid paying for his daughter, lost on a blood test, and later left her millionsPalo Alto, California
2011A singer's son by a Suharto minister changed Indonesian law: children born outside marriage can now claim their fathersGleneagles Hospital, Singapore
2011Jimmy Savile left £4.3 million to friends and his charity; abuse claims froze the estate and the courts approved paying it to his victimsLeeds, England
2011Peter Falk's daughter lost a conservatorship fight to his widow and then pushed for a lawBeverly Hills, California
2011Amy Winehouse's father sued her friends over $1.2 million from her dresses and lostCamden, London
2011The Oppenheimers sold their 40 percent of De Beers for $5.1 billion in 2011, and in 2026 Anglo American offered its 85 percent for about $1 billionJohannesburg, South Africa, and Gaborone, Botswana![Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Bestanddeelnr 901-1810: Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Sir Ernest Oppenheimer Datum : 3 december](t-the-oppenheimers-sold-their-40-percent-of-de-beers-for-5-1-b.jpg)
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 eggsLondon, England, UK
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 artistsMayfair, London, UK
2010A man says he found the only other copy of the Korean alphabet's founding book while cleaning his house, and the state that owns it cannot find itSangju, North Gyeongsang, South Korea
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 lawCrosby Garrett, Cumbria, England
2010A secretary bought three Abbott shares for $180 in 1935, never sold them, and left $7 million to Lake Forest CollegeLake Forest, Illinois, USA
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 89Bayreuth, Germany
2010LVMH secretly built a 17 percent stake in Hermès, and 52 family members locked half their shares together to stop itParis
2010Elaine Wynn's divorce left her shares voting with her ex-husband's, and she sued Wynn Resorts to break the pactLas Vegas
2010A German paper heiress's prenup held in London, and her French ex-husband's £5.85 million award was cut to £1 millionLondon
2010A polo club founder adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend after a fatal drunk-driving crash, giving her a share of his children's trustWellington, Florida
2010A Utah judge ruled Gary Coleman's ex-wife was not his common-law wife; his ashes were locked in a vaultProvo, Utah
2010Tony Curtis left everything to his wife and named his five living children to exclude themHenderson, Nevada
2010Dennis Hopper filed for divorce while dying of cancer and fought his wife over money until his deathVenice, Los Angeles, California
2010J.D. Salinger blocked an unauthorised Catcher in the Rye sequel, and his estate settled to keep it out of North America until the copyright endsCornish, New Hampshire
2010Ras al-Khaimah's ruler removed his eldest son as heir after four decades; when the ruler died in 2010 the son came home to claim the throne and his guards were arrestedRas al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
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 childrenLibreville, Gabon, and Paris and Nantes, France
2009Russia put a dead lawyer on trial and convicted him in 2013, and the European court ordered Russia to pay his widow and motherMoscow, Russia
2009The Staffordshire Hoard paid a jobless detectorist and a farmer £3.285 million between them, and the farmer banned him from his landnear Brownhills, Staffordshire, England
2009Edith Windsor paid $363,053 in estate tax because the United States did not recognise her marriage to Thea Spyer, and the Supreme Court struck the law downNew York City, New York, USA
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 abroadLos Angeles, California, USA; property in Paris, France
2009Michael Jackson's estate put its value at $5.1 million, the Tax Court set $111.5 million, and a judge later ordered $625,000 in bonuses returnedLos Angeles, California, USA
2009Michael Jackson's companies face abuse suits from Wade Robson and James Safechuck, revived on appeal in 2023 and set for trial in 2028Los Angeles, California, USA
2009Brittany Murphy's father sued the coroner for her hair samples, then said a lab found heavy metals; her mother called it a smearHollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
2009Allen Klein managed three Beatles, sued them for $19 million after they fired him, and took $5 million to settleNew York, New York
2009David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok closet in 2009; Thai police said suicide, the family's pathologist said accident, and his widow sued the film companySwissotel Nai Lert Park, Bangkok
2009A Doosan heir exposed his brothers' slush fund to win the chairmanship, was cast out of the family, and died by suicideSeoul, South Korea
2009A Saudi trading family accused its son-in-law of a $9 billion fraud, and a Cayman judge found the family had authorized himAl Khobar, Saudi Arabia; Cayman Islands
2009Steve Cohen's first wife sued him 19 years after their divorce, alleging he hid $5.5 million, and an appeals court revived the caseNew York
2009Bernie Ecclestone put his Formula One shares in his wife's Liechtenstein trust, and the divorce and tax cases followed the trustLondon, Liechtenstein
2009Kumho's board fired one founding brother, the group split in two, and the brothers sued each other for yearsSeoul
2009Indira Gandhi's government jailed Jaipur's Rajmata and searched Jaigarh Fort for treasure for five months, and found noneJaipur, Rajasthan, India
2009Two barristers bought Countess Markievicz's childhood home and spent seven years in court with Sligo County Council over its avenuesLissadell, County Sligo, Ireland
2009Franz Ulrich Kinsky sued the Czech state more than 100 times for land taken in 1945, and Strasbourg ruled his trials unfairBuenos Aires
2009Ryan O'Neal took a Warhol portrait from Farrah Fawcett's home; her university sued and lostSanta Monica, California
2009Vivian Maier was a nanny who died unknown; after her photographs sold, Cook County took over her estate to find out who owned themChicago
2009Fairuz's nephews blocked her from staging her late husband's musical without their approval, and a Beirut court stopped her performing his brother's workBeirut, Lebanon
2009A woman took over a $30 million lottery winner's money, and police found him buried under a concrete slabPlant City, Florida, USA
2008Yves Saint Laurent signed a civil union days before he died, and his collection sale included two bronze heads looted from Beijing in 1860Paris, France
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 payBeijing, China; Paris, France
2008A son used his dying mother's power of attorney to move $10 million into a partnership and a charity trust a week before she died, and the Tax Court undid itCalifornia, USA
2008A UBS banker told the US how the bank hid Americans' money, went to prison for 31 months, and the IRS paid him $104 millionGeneva, Switzerland; Washington, D.C., USA
2008A Greek Muslim left everything to his wife by notarial will, his sisters invoked sharia, and Greek courts cut her to a quarterKomotini, Western Thrace, Greece
2008Isaac Hayes lost his song royalties to a bank in bankruptcy; his heirs took one song back and sued Donald Trump over itMemphis, Tennessee
2008Robert Rauschenberg's art trust grew from $605.6 million to $2.2 billion, and a Florida judge gave his three trustees $24.6 million in feesCaptiva Island, Florida, USA
2008Michael Crichton's son was born after his death and left out of his will; in 2024 his estate sued Warner Bros., calling The Pitt an ER rebootLos Angeles, California, USA
2008Britney Spears's father ran her money for 13 years on $16,000 a month, a judge removed him, and she paid to end the fightLos Angeles, California
2008Bo Diddley's will gave his managers 30 percent of his songs forever, a judge let them sell the catalog to pay the IRS, and 22 heirs objectedArcher, Florida
2008Miriam Makeba's grandchildren fought her own trustees for her music, and the state paid their lawyers until the Public Protector ruled it unlawfulCastel Volturno, Italy
2008Heath Ledger's will was written before his daughter was born and left her nothing421 Broome Street, Manhattan
2008A Geneva court ordered a Russian fertilizer billionaire to pay his ex-wife 4 billion francs, then an appeal court cut it by 86 percentGeneva, Cyprus, Monaco
2008Jocelyn Wildenstein's divorce was reported at $2.5 billion, and the judge barred her from spending alimony on surgeryNew York and Paris
2008Formosa Plastics' founder died without a will, and his son sued to unwind $15 billion placed in Bermuda trustsTaipei and Bermuda
2008Robert Mondavi was pushed out of his family's winery after a fight with his brother, sued, and wonNapa Valley, California
2008The Red Duchess of Medina Sidonia married her secretary on the day she died, and her children sued over the palace foundationSanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Spain
2008Iceland exhumed Bobby Fischer to test a girl's paternity claim, and the DNA said noReykjavík, Iceland
2008Indonesia's Supreme Court ordered General Suharto's Supersemar foundation to pay about 4.4 trillion rupiahJakarta
2008George Carlin's estate sued a podcast over an AI-made comedy special and won its removalLos Angeles, California, USA
2008Paul Newman left his food company to a foundation run by his adviser, his daughter said the family was pushed out, and Congress changed the law for itWestport, Connecticut
2008Deutsche Post's chief hid money in a Liechtenstein foundation, a bank clerk sold the data, and he was convicted in 2009Bochum, Germany
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 jurisdictionsDownside Manor, Leatherhead, Surrey, UK; Tbilisi, Georgia
2008Choi Jin-sil's ex-husband regained rights over her children the day she died, and a fan stole her ashes from her graveSeoul; grave at Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea
2008Claus von Bülow was acquitted of trying to kill his wife, then gave up her fortune to settle her children's $56 million suitNewport, Rhode Island, and New York, New York, USA
2008Huntington Hartford had $90 million at 12, lost about $30 million on Paradise Island, and was found in a Brooklyn rental at 90Lyford Cay, Bahamas
2007Isabella Blow's father left her £5,000, and after her death her estate put her McQueen wardrobe up for auctionGloucestershire, UK
2007Pavarotti left three wills, and his daughters challenged the share of his second wife until a 2008 settlementModena, Italy
2007Ike Turner wrote two handwritten wills and revoked one; a judge found he died with no valid willSan Marcos, California
2007Anna Nicole Smith's body went to her 5-month-old daughter's guardian after a Florida judge wept through the ruling, and DNA named the girl's fatherSeminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Hollywood, Florida, USA
2007Leona Helmsley left $12 million in trust for her dog Trouble and nothing to 2 grandchildren, and a judge cut the dog's trust to $2 millionDunnellen Hall, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
2007Nina Wang won her kidnapped husband's estate in Hong Kong's top court in 2005, then her feng shui adviser was jailed for forging her willHong Kong, China
2007Evel Knievel's family company sued Disney over Toy Story 4's Duke Caboom, and two federal courts held the toy daredevil transformed his likenessClearwater, Florida, USA
2007Brooke Astor's son was convicted of looting her estate while she had Alzheimer'sHolly Hill, Briarcliff Manor, New York
2007The Gallo brothers raised their younger brother after their parents' murder-suicide, then sued him for using the family nameModesto, California
2007Dow Jones's family owners split over Murdoch's $5 billion offer, and adviser fees helped decide the voteNew York and Boston
2007Two men took a Leonardo off the wall at Drumlanrig Castle, and the lawyers who arranged its return were tried for extortionDrumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
2007Rudolf-August Oetker's eight children from three marriages split the Dr. Oetker group in two in 2021Hamburg
2007The Winnie-the-Pooh rights holder sued Disney for 13 years, and lost because its investigator took Disney's trashLos Angeles; Hartfield, England
2006Saddam Hussein was buried in his own mausoleum, the mausoleum was destroyed, and no one will say where his body isBaghdad; al-Awja, near Tikrit, Salahuddin, Iraq
2006Muriel Spark left her entire estate to her companion Penelope Jardine and took steps to leave her only son nothingOliveto, Tuscany, Italy
2006James Brown left his fortune to educate poor children, and 15 years of lawsuits came before the estate sold for about $90 millionAtlanta, Georgia
2006Thieves stole the coffin of Friedrich Karl Flick, heir to a Nazi-era fortune, from his Austrian mausoleumAuen, Wörthersee, Carinthia, Austria
2006Chile's Supreme Court forfeited Pinochet's assets in 2018 after the US Senate exposed his Riggs Bank accountsSantiago, Chile
2006Stroessner's family wealth was never prosecuted, and human bones were found in his former house in 2019Brasília, Brazil
2006The Satmar Rebbe's will named his younger son successor; New York's highest court refused to decide which son controls the congregationWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel, New York
2005Robert Kearns showed Ford his intermittent wiper, sued for decades, won about $30 million and lost his marriageBaltimore, Maryland, USA
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 2026Berlin, Germany; Madrid, Spain; Los Angeles, California, USA
2005Rosa Parks left almost all her estate to her institute, her 13 nieces and nephews contested the will, and a 2007 settlement gave them 20 percentDetroit, Michigan, USA
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 loanWarsaw, Poland
2005Arthur Miller kept his son Daniel with Down syndrome out of public view and left him an equal share of the estate six weeks before he diedRoxbury, Connecticut
2005Hunter S. Thompson's ashes were launched from a 15-story tower at his ranch in August 2005, and a lawsuit later put the cost at $3 million paid by Johnny DeppWoody Creek, Colorado
2005Johnny Carson's trust gave his foundation $156 million after his death, and no public accounting of his estate has appearedLos Angeles, California
2005Sal. Oppenheim survived the Nazis under another name, then lost its independence over loans to the Karstadt heiressCologne
2005The last Korean imperial heir divorced his American wife after relatives pressed for a son, died in the Tokyo building where he was born, and was given an adopted son after his deathAkasaka Prince Hotel, Tokyo, Japan; Seoul and Namyangju, South Korea
2005Rafik Hariri was killed in 2005; his family chose the second son as political heir, the other brothers sold him their shares of Saudi Oger, and the company closed in 2017Beirut, Lebanon
2005The Rong family's mills passed to the state in the 1950s, and the son who stayed became China's vice president and his son a billionaireShanghai, China, and Hong Kong
2004Polish colonel Ryszard Kukliński passed 40,000 pages to the CIA, was sentenced to death in absentia, and lost both sons within months in 1994Tampa, Florida, USA; Warsaw, Poland
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 flatsPark Lane, London, England; Islamabad, Pakistan; British Virgin Islands
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 yearsGreat Munden, Hertfordshire, England, UK (the daughter's home)
2004The heir to the Santos docks fortune spent it all and died on a state pension in the Rio hotel his family built and soldCopacabana Palace, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2004Ol' Dirty Bastard died without a will; his widow sued the Wu-Tang Clan for royalties while his children said they had received nothingNew York City
2004Dimebag Darrell was shot dead on stage with no will; his girlfriend of two decades was left out, later took over his estate's trust, and lost most of its suit against Dean Guitars in 2026Columbus, Ohio
2004Rick James's trust was sued for $50 million by a woman who says he raped her at 15 in a Buffalo group homeLos Angeles, California
2004Theo van Gogh was killed on an Amsterdam street on 2 November 2004, and Mohammed Bouyeri was sentenced to life without parole as a terroristAmsterdam, Netherlands
2004Stieg Larsson's partner of 30 years got nothing from the Millennium fortune because they never marriedStockholm
2004Dart Group's founder fired his son during his own divorce, then married on his deathbed and cut his children out of his willWashington, D.C.
2004The McCain brothers fought over which nephew would run their french fry empire, and one brother was removedFlorenceville, New Brunswick
2004The 10th Earl of Shaftesbury was strangled by his wife's brother in Cannes, and his heir died six months laterCannes, France
2004Portugal vetoed António Champalimaud's bank deal with Santander until Brussels overruled it for the first timeLisbon
2004Prince Bernhard denied a secret daughter to the Lockheed inquiry, then left her and a second one a sixth of his estate eachUtrecht, Netherlands
2004Marlon Brando's $21.6 million will left out one child, and a son's girlfriend scattered part of his ashesLos Angeles, California
2004Ray Charles gave each of his 12 children $500,000 and left the rest to a foundation; seven of them moved to take back his songsBeverly Hills, California
2004Priyamvada Birla's will left a Rs 5,000 crore group to her accountant; the Birla family has fought it in court since 2004Kolkata, West Bengal, India
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 finalMoscow, Russia, and The Hague, Netherlands
2003Celia Cruz left everything to her husband; one of her executors sued the other for draining his money while he had dementiaFort Lee, New Jersey
2003Elliott Smith's partner sued his estate for lifetime support, and a talent-agent law voided their whole agreementLos Angeles, California
2003Johnny Cash's trust sued Coca-Cola for using a tribute singer who sounds like himNashville, Tennessee
2003Barry White never divorced the wife he separated from in 1988; she became his executor, and 2 of his children later sued her over stopped paymentsCedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
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 rightsCarry-le-Rouet, France
2003Margherita Agnelli sued her three children over her mother's estate, and Turin prosecutors charged her son John Elkann with tax fraudTurin, Italy; Marella's declared residence in Switzerland
2003Strom Thurmond's family confirmed his Black daughter six months after his death, and South Carolina added her name to his monumentEdgefield, South Carolina
2003Anita Mui put her estate in a trust to keep it from her mother; the mother sued for 20 years, went bankrupt, and died in 2026 after Mui's ashes went missingHong Kong
2003John Ritter's family collected $14 million in settlements, then lost a $67 million suit against two doctorsBurbank, California
2003Alberto Sordi's sister left his €50 million to a foundation, relatives accused nine people of exploiting her, and all nine were acquittedhis villa at the Baths of Caracalla, Rome, Italy
2003Dayanidhi Maran alleged his brother took control of Sun TV while their father was in a coma, then withdrew the notice two months laterChennai, India
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 debtParis, France
2002An orphanage trust sold its Mumbai plot for Antilia in 2002, the waqf board called the sale illegal, and the Bombay High Court dismissed the last challenge in 2025Altamount Road, Mumbai, India
2002Ted Williams's will asked for his ashes to be scattered at sea, two of his children had him frozen in Arizona, and an ex-employee said his head was severedInverness, Florida, USA
2002Layne Staley's mother was paid his Alice in Chains share for ten years, then sued his bandmates when they ended itSeattle, Washington
2002John Entwistle's executors sold his guitars, his cars, his house and its last 700 lots within three years of his death; his ashes stayed in the groundsHard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada
2002Dhirubhai Ambani died without a will; one son became Asia's richest man and the other told a court he was worth zeroBreach Candy Hospital, Mumbai
2002A 19-year-old Pritzker heir sued her father and 11 cousins for raiding her trusts, and took about $450 millionChicago
2002Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza sued over his family's Bermuda trust and sold his collection to Spain for $350 millionSant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain
2002Freddy Heineken was kidnapped for 35 million guilders, and his only daughter inherited control of the breweryNoordwijk
2002Twins conceived after their father's death were denied his Social Security benefits by a unanimous Supreme CourtFlorida
2002Hall of Famer Mike Webster lived in his truck, died at 50, and his estate won his NFL disability pay after his deathPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2002A Jersey accountant sued to open Princess Margaret's sealed will to prove he was her secret sonKing Edward VII's Hospital, London
2002The Queen Mother left her estate to her daughter free of inheritance tax under a 1993 deal between the palace and the TreasuryRoyal Lodge, Windsor, England
2002South Africa's Constitutional Court made two Khayelitsha girls sole heirs of their father and struck down male primogeniture in 2004Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa
2001Shuji Nakamura was paid ¥20,000 for the blue LED patent, a Tokyo court awarded him ¥20 billion, and he settled for ¥840 millionTokyo, Japan
2001A doctor patented a cell line from John Moore's spleen, and California's Supreme Court ruled that Moore did not own his cellsLos Angeles, California, USA
2001A hedge fund had Argentina's navy training ship held in Ghana for 11 weeks over defaulted bondsTema, Ghana
2001A dying man in Luzhou left his savings and his ashes to the woman he lived with, and the court gave everything to his wifeLuzhou, Sichuan, China
2001Aaliyah's uncle owned her masters, and most of her music stayed off streaming for 20 years after her deathAbaco Islands, Bahamas (plane crash)
2001George Harrison's estate sued his cancer doctor for making him sign a guitar two weeks before he diedLos Angeles, California
2001Anthony Quinn bought 29 acres on Rhodes in 1960, a Greek court cancelled the sale in 1984, and he died before he was repaidBoston, Massachusetts
2001Hyundai's founder split his empire between feuding sons, and the heir he chose jumped from his office during a corruption probeSeoul, South Korea
2001Daniel Wildenstein's widow said his sons hid the art fortune in trusts, and France prosecuted the heir for tax fraudParis
2001Lord Wraxall's will gave Tyntesfield to 19 relatives and ordered a fast sale, and the public raised millions to buy itTyntesfield, Wraxall, North Somerset, England
2001The JCB founder's sons litigated in three countries over the company, then a cousin's £30 million fee claim failedLondon
2001Japan's Supreme Court struck down the half-share rule for children born outside marriage in 2013, 18 years after upholding itTokyo, Japan
2001Zhang Xueliang inherited his murdered father's Manchurian army in 1928 and spent more than 50 years in detentionHonolulu
2001Dale Earnhardt's widow got Florida to seal his autopsy photos, and 18 states copied the lawDaytona International Speedway, Florida
2001Nepal's crown prince shot dead the king, the queen and seven relatives, and was king for three days while in a comaNarayanhiti Palace, Kathmandu, Nepal
2001South Africa's Constitutional Court upheld the Valoyi community's choice of Tinyiko Shilubana as its first woman Hosi in 2008Nwamitwa, near Tzaneen, Limpopo, South Africa
2001Gwalior's Rajmata disinherited her son and barred him from her last rites; the Scindia property fight ran 40 yearsGwalior, Madhya Pradesh; Bombay and Delhi High Courts, India
2000René Favaloro, who developed coronary bypass surgery, shot himself after his foundation went unpaid by Argentina's health insurersBuenos Aires, Argentina
2000A Hong Kong buyer asked twice whether anything had happened in the flat; a boy had fallen to his death from its balconyYau Yat Chuen, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
2000Big Pun's widow sued Fat Joe for his posthumous royalties, saying payments stopped in 2005White Plains, New York
2000Hedy Lamarr's adopted son sued in Florida in 2000 over a will that left him nothing from her $3.3 million estateCasselberry, Florida
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 inheritancePalazzo Doria Pamphilj, Via del Corso, Rome
Postwar 1945 to 2000
1999Nicola Trussardi and his son Francesco died in car crashes four years apart, and the family lost the Trussardi companyMilan, Italy
1999Fred Trump's grandchildren contested his will in 2000, and Donald Trump and 2 siblings cut off health insurance for them and an ailing babyNew Hyde Park, New York, USA
1999Curtis Mayfield's manager ran his estate; his widow said the manager borrowed against the songs and took about $920,000 in commissionsRoswell, Georgia
1999U-Haul's founder lost his company to his sons, a daughter-in-law was shot dead, and a jury awarded his side $1.47 billionPhoenix, Arizona, and Telluride, Colorado
1999Banker Edmond Safra died in a fire his nurse set in Monaco while his bank was being sold to HSBCMonaco
1999The 7th Marquess of Bristol spent a fortune of up to £35 million on drugs and died at 44 after selling the Ickworth leaseLittle Horringer Hall, Ickworth estate, Suffolk
1999King Hussein of Jordan removed his brother as heir after 34 years, two weeks before he diedAmman, Jordan
1999Rabbi Joseph Halpern's family settled his estate before a Beth Din in Zurich, then fought in London over whether Jewish law governed the dealEngland (probate) and Zurich (arbitration)
1999Vineeta Sharma's father died in 1999 and the Delhi courts said she was too late to share the family property; the Supreme Court made every Hindu daughter a co-owner by birthDelhi, India
1998A couple put their Ponzi commissions in a Cook Islands trust that locked when they were sued, and a US judge jailed them for six monthsLas Vegas, Nevada, USA; Rarotonga, Cook Islands
1998Sonny Bono's widow used a 2016 copyright termination notice to stop paying Cher her half of his song royalties, and a federal judge ruled for CherHeavenly Mountain Resort, South Lake Tahoe, California, USA
1998Phil Hartman was shot dead by his wife in 1998; their wills left $1.23 million to two children, and a 1999 suit blamed ZoloftEncino, California
1998A forged will leaving £386,000 to Dr Harold Shipman exposed Britain's worst serial killerHyde, Greater Manchester
1998A German woman born in 1948 lost her father's estate to relatives he never met, and Europe's human rights court ruled for herSaarland, Germany
1998Four governments returned more than $780 million of General Sani Abacha's money to NigeriaAbuja
1998Tammy Wynette's daughters sued her husband for $50 million, and her body was exhumed for an autopsyNashville, Tennessee
1998Frank Sinatra's will disinherited any family member who challenged it, listing 13 forbidden legal actionsLos Angeles, California
1998Brunei accused the sultan's brother of taking billions as finance minister, and the Privy Council ordered him to hand over his hotelsBandar Seri Begawan, Brunei; London; New York
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 eurosHuế, Vietnam; Paris, France
1997The Notorious B.I.G.'s mother and widow co-owned his catalog; after the mother died, her trustee sued the widow and wonLos Angeles, California
1997Fela Kuti's brother announced he died of AIDS, he was buried in his own courtyard, and his estate signed with WME 26 years laterLagos, Nigeria
1997Townes Van Zandt's ex-wife ran his estate, his eldest son questioned her title to the songs, and the family spent 11 years fighting the label that held his mastersSmyrna, Tennessee
1997Willem de Kooning's Woman-Ochre was cut from a Tucson museum frame in 1985 and found in 2017 at the estate sale of a retired coupleTucson, Arizona; Cliff, New Mexico
1997James Michener gave away about $117 million and left the bulk of his estate to Swarthmore CollegeAustin, Texas
1997CBS newsman Charles Kuralt kept a second family for 29 years, and a letter from his hospital bed gave his mistress his Montana landNew York City
1997Craig McCaw's ex-wife took about $460 million, mostly in Nextel stock, and bought a California newspaper with itSeattle and Santa Barbara
1997Gianni Versace was shot dead in Miami and left half his fashion house to his 11-year-old nieceCasa Casuarina, Miami Beach, Florida
1997The Butlers sold Kilkenny Castle to the town for £50 in 1967, and the Ormonde earldoms went dormant in 1997Chicago, Illinois
1997Louis Napoléon's 1997 will passed over his son Charles and named his 11-year-old grandson head of the Bonaparte housePrangins, Vaud, Switzerland
1997Michael Hutchence left half his estate to his baby daughter, and the money went into offshore trusts she did not controlRitz-Carlton hotel, Double Bay, Sydney
1997Jack Kent Cooke's will ordered the Redskins sold to fund his foundation, and his son was outbid by Daniel SnyderWashington, D.C.
1997Princess Diana's executors changed her will after her death and gave each godchild one item instead of a quarter of her possessionsPitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
1997Switzerland released Mobutu Sese Seko's frozen money to his heirs, and his body stays in RabatRabat, Morocco
1996Titina Loizidou was kept from her Kyrenia land after 1974, won in Strasbourg, and Turkey paid in 2003 but never gave back the landKyrenia (Girne), Cyprus; Strasbourg, France
1996Samsung's heir and his three siblings bought Everland bonds at 7,700 won a share in 1996, two executives were convicted, and their father was cleared on that chargeSeoul, South Korea
1996Bradley Nowell had registered the name Sublime to himself, and his estate got a federal injunction against his own bandmatesSan Francisco, California
1996François Mitterrand's secret daughter walked behind his coffin after the state had paid to hide herParis
1996Tupac Shakur's estate forced Drake to delete a song that used an AI copy of Tupac's voiceLas Vegas, Nevada, USA
1996Tupac's mother beat his absent father in court and built his estate; her executor was then sued by Tupac's sisterLas Vegas, Nevada
1996Shearn Moody Jr. was accused of making Moody Foundation grants to himself, and the IRS sought $14 millionGalveston, Texas
1996Lesotho's military ruler exiled King Moshoeshoe II and put his son on the throne, the son handed it back in 1995, and the father died in a car crash a year laterMaseru, Lesotho![Koning Moshoeshoe van Lesotho vertrekt van Schiphol, Bestanddeelnr 924-0658: Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Koning Moshoe](t-lesotho-s-military-ruler-exiled-king-moshoeshoe-ii-and-put-h.jpg)
1996A Lesotho chief's eldest daughter sued to inherit his chieftainship, and the courts kept it in the male lineHa Mamathe, Berea District, Lesotho
1996Kim Kwang-seok's daughter, heir to his song copyrights, died in 2007, and her mother told no one for ten yearsSeoul, South Korea
1995Nigeria hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni activists over oil-region protests, buried them without their families, and pardoned them 30 years laterPort Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
1995An IRS auditor who said she was held back as a Jewish woman left $22 million in stock to Yeshiva University, a school she had no ties toNew York City, New York, USA
1995Seymour Durst passed over his eldest son, the family bought Robert out for about $65 million, and Robert died a convicted murdererNew York, New York, USA
1995J. Howard Marshall II's widow Anna Nicole Smith won $474 million in a bankruptcy court, and after two Supreme Court cases her estate got nothingHouston, Texas, USA
1995Patricia Highsmith left her whole estate, over $3 million, to the Yaddo artists' colony, and her papers went to the Swiss Literary ArchivesLocarno, Switzerland
1995The Duke of Northumberland agreed to sell a Raphael to the Getty for £35 million, and the government blocked itLondon; Alnwick Castle, Northumberland
1995Maurizio Gucci was shot dead in Milan in 1995 on the order of his ex-wife Patrizia ReggianiVia Palestro 20, Milan
1995A British widow had her dead husband's sons abroad, then fought until Parliament let his name go on their birth certificatesNottinghamshire, England
1995Lana Turner left her daughter $50,000 and the rest of a $1.7 million trust to her maid of 45 yearsLos Angeles, California
1995Bob Ross left his name to his son, and his business partners won it in courtOrlando, Florida
1995Selena was shot by her fan club president; her father later sued her widower to stop a TV show about herCorpus Christi, Texas
1995Eazy-E married on his deathbed and left Ruthless Records to his bride; his son challenged the marriage 21 years laterLos Angeles, California
1995Jerry Garcia's widow barred his ex-wives from his funeral and stopped paying his $5 million divorce settlementSerenity Knolls treatment center, Forest Knolls, California
1994A son-in-law moved 98 percent of a dying Texan's fortune into a family partnership the day after a "Fortress Plan" seminar, and the IRS taxed all of itWaco, Texas, USA
1994A German mother disinherited the son who attacked her, he killed her a month later, and two courts still awarded him his compulsory shareCologne court district, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
1994A Yuen Long woman's brother drove her from their father's house, and village women made Hong Kong let daughters inherit New Territories land in 1994Yuen Long, New Territories, Hong Kong
1994Kurt Cobain left no will; his widow sued his bandmates for Nirvana, sold a quarter of his songs, and his Unplugged guitar went to his daughter's ex-husbandSeattle, Washington
1994Harry Nilsson's business manager stole his savings, and he died in Chapter 11 owing 75 creditorsAgoura Hills, California
1994Jack Kirby's heirs served 45 copyright termination notices on Marvel; the Second Circuit ruled his work was for hire in 2013 and the case settled in 2014Thousand Oaks, California
1994Martha Raye married a man 33 years younger and left him her $2 million estate, after her daughter sued for conservatorshipLos Angeles, California
1994Russborough House was robbed four times from 1974 to 2002, and Sir Alfred Beit gave his stolen Vermeer to Ireland before it was foundDublin
1994Robert Tönnies sued his uncle Clemens to take back a 5 percent gift in the family meat groupMünster
1994A court removed 17-year-old Frances Bean Cobain from Courtney Love's care, and she took control of her father's imageSeattle, Washington
1993A Baguio locksmith said Marcos's men seized his golden Buddha, and a Hawaii jury valued the gold he never got back at $22 billionBaguio City, Philippines; Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
1993Audrey Walton put about $200 million of Wal-Mart stock into two trusts reported as gifts worth nothing, and the Tax Court ruled for her against the IRSWashington, D.C., USA (US Tax Court)
1993Brandon Lee was killed on the set of The Crow in 1993 by a bullet fragment fired from a prop gun, and his mother and fiancee settled with the producers for an undisclosed sumWilmington, North Carolina
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 1998Levallois-Perret, France
1993Raymond Burr left everything to his partner Robert Benevides, and a judge threw out his niece's claim of undue influence in 1994his ranch on West Dry Creek Road, near Healdsburg, California
1993Doris Duke left $1.2 billion with her butler as executor, and a court-appointed lawyer said her doctor hastened her deathFalcon Lair, Beverly Hills
1993The 6th Earl Cawdor left Cawdor Castle to his second wife, and a court put his son's children out of itLondon
1993Albert II of Monaco acknowledged two children born outside marriage, and Monaco's constitution keeps both off the throneMonaco
1993Walt Disney's twin grandchildren split over a $400 million trust after the trustees paid one twin and refused the otherCalifornia, USA
1993Audrey Hepburn's two sons ended up on opposite sides of a lawsuit over who controls her imageTolochenaz, Switzerland
1993Gail Zappa left two of her children control of Frank Zappa's estate, and Dweezil was told he could not use his own surname for his bandLos Angeles, California
1993A woman claiming to be heir of the kings of Awadh lived nine years in a Delhi railway station and won a palace; she was the widow of a university registrarMalcha Mahal, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, India
1993Cantinflas's son and nephew fought over his films on the strength of a deathbed paper, and the family crypt was broken open in 2018Mexico City, Mexico
1993Pablo Escobar's four hippos outlived him, Colombia seized his ranch, and in 2026 the government approved killing their descendantsPuerto Triunfo, Antioquia, Colombia
1992The Canterbury Shakers closed membership in 1957, refused to recognize the converts at Sabbathday Lake, and the last Shaker community has three members in 2025Canterbury, New Hampshire, USA; New Gloucester, Maine, USA
1992Alex Haley died owing about $1.5 million, his estate auctioned his Pulitzer for $50,000, and Betty Shabazz sued over the Malcolm X manuscriptSeattle, Washington
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 goldTeddington, London
1992Marlene Dietrich's daughter sold her estate to Berlin in 1993, about 300,000 pages, 16,500 photographs and 3,300 garments12 avenue Montaigne, Paris
1992Gina Rinehart's children sued her for control of a $5 billion family trust, and her daughter replaced her as trusteePerth and Sydney
1992Freddie Bartholomew's parents lost a court fight with his aunt over the boy and his MGM salarySarasota, Florida
1992Francis Bacon's sole heir sued Bacon's dealer for up to £100 million, then dropped the case two weeks before trialMadrid
1992Eddie Mabo died five months before the High Court upheld Meriam title to his island, and his grave was defaced the day after his memorialMer (Murray Island), Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia
1991Electra Waggoner Biggs sued in 1991 to sell her family's oil-and-cattle ranch, and after 25 years a court receiver sold it to Stan KroenkeVernon, Wilbarger County, Texas, USA
1991Skull and Bones' alumni trust changed the locks on the Tomb in 1991 when the seniors tapped seven women, and William F. Buckley went to court to stop the initiationThe Tomb, 64 High Street, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Deer Island, St. Lawrence
1991Miles Davis's will left nothing to two of his sons, and the eldest wrote a book blaming his aunt and sisterSt. John's Hospital, Santa Monica, California
1991A lawyer sued KISS in the name of Eric Carr's estate, and Carr's family said they had never authorized itNew York, New York
1991Jerzy Kosiński was accused of plagiarism and ghostwriting in 1982 and killed himself in 1991 with a plastic bag over his headNew York City
1991The IRS seized Redd Foxx's Las Vegas home, seven vehicles and bank accounts in 1989, and his estate was still in probate with an IRS lien in 2006Los Angeles, California
1991Gene Roddenberry's first wife sued his estate for Star Trek profits and lost 2-1 on appeal in 1996; his widow's 2009 trust left their son $60 million and the dogs a $4 million home trustSanta Monica, California
1991Martha Graham left her dances to Ron Protas in 1991, and federal courts ruled from 2002 to 2006 that her own center owned themNew York City
1991Margot Fonteyn died in Panama in 1991 after her savings went to her paralysed husband's care, and a 1990 gala raised 250,000 pounds for herPanama City
1991A French court declared Yves Montand a girl's father after his death, and his body was exhumed to test itSenlis, France
1991A Los Angeles man willed 15 vials of his sperm to his girlfriend before killing himself, and his children asked the court to destroy themLas Vegas, Nevada; estate probated in Los Angeles
1991A fugitive baron died in Manila with two infant sons by two women, and the Lords gave his title to his half-brother after DNA ruled out one boy and bigamy the otherManila, Philippines
1991Publisher Robert Maxwell went overboard from his yacht, and his sons inherited companies that had used the staff pension fundsAtlantic Ocean, off the Canary Islands
1991Dr. Seuss's widow ran his licensing for 27 years; three years after her death his estate pulled six of his booksLa Jolla, California![Dr. Seuss: Children's author Ted Geisel, (Dr. Seuss), three-quarter length portrait, seated at desk, facing front] / World Telegram](t-dr-seuss-s322.jpg)
1991Freddie Mercury left his house and half his fortune to his ex-girlfriend, who buried his ashes in a place only she knowsGarden Lodge, Kensington, London
1991Travancore's last ruler died in 1991, the Kerala High Court said his brother could not inherit the temple's management, and the Supreme Court gave the family controlSree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
1990Halston sold his name with his company for $16 million and was then barred from itSan Francisco, California, USA
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 againEngland; Los Angeles, California, USA
1990A jeweller's daughter found ten 1933 gold double eagles in his safe-deposit box, handed them to the Mint to authenticate, and the government kept themPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
1990Navajo uranium miners died of radiation, and their widows had to prove marriages made by Navajo custom to collect $100,000Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, USA
1990The IRS seized Willie Nelson's ranch, studio and guitars over a $16.7 million tax bill, and fans bought them backAustin and Dripping Springs, Texas
1990Sammy Davis Jr. died owing the IRS about $7 million, and his widow lost the rights to his name and musicBeverly Hills, California
1990Stevie Ray Vaughan's mother and brother sued the helicopter company; his fiancée was left out of the estate, and thieves later took his belongings from Jimmie's storage unitEast Troy, Wisconsin
1990Paulette Goddard inherited Erich Maria Remarque's money, properties and art in 1970 and left New York University more than $20 million in 1990Switzerland
1990Netflix bought the Roald Dahl Story Company in September 2021 for a reported 500 million pounds, about $686 millionGreat Missenden, England
1990Jim Henson died during a $150 million sale to Disney, his children ended the deal and sued Disney, and the Muppets went to Disney anyway in 2004New York Hospital, New York
1990Gloria von Thurn und Taxis auctioned the family treasures and handed 2,200 objects to Bavaria to settle her husband's estateKlinikum Großhadern, Munich
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 2000France
1990Joe Robbie's nine children sued each other, his widow claimed her 30 percent, and a $47 million tax bill forced the sale of the DolphinsMiami, Florida
1990Armand Hammer built his museum with Occidental Petroleum money and died with shareholders, his son and USC in courtLos Angeles, California
1990Sun Hung Kai's eldest son was kidnapped for a record ransom, then removed as chairman by his mother, who controlled the family's sharesHong Kong
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 2018New York, USA; Saint Petersburg, Russia
1990An Wang put his son in charge of a $3 billion company, the son was out by 1989, and Wang Laboratories went bankrupt in 1992Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
1989Japan's imperial family paid 3.3 billion yen in property tax in 1947, and in 1989 the new emperor paid 428 million yen in inheritance tax while the regalia passed tax-freeFukiage Palace, Tokyo, Japan
1989Marcos drew a salary of 100,000 pesos a year, and the Philippine Supreme Court took $658 million of his Swiss depositsHonolulu, Hawaii, USA; Manila, Philippines
1989Marcos's body lay in a glass case in Batac for 23 years until a 9-5 Supreme Court vote put it in the Heroes' CemeteryBatac, Ilocos Norte, and Libingan ng mga Bayani, Taguig, Philippines
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 holdingParis, France
1989A New York court ruled the Nyack house "haunted as a matter of law" and let the buyer walk away from $650,0001 LaVeta Place, Nyack, Rockland County, New York, USA
1989Robert Mapplethorpe inherited three quarters of Sam Wagstaff's $7 million estate over the sister's challenge, left his own parents nothing, and was tried posthumously in CincinnatiBoston
1989Edward Abbey wrote instructions to be buried without a coffin or permit, and friends buried him in the Arizona desert two days after he diednear Tucson, Arizona
1989August Busch III ousted his father from Anheuser-Busch in a boardroom coup, and 33 years later the family lost the companySt. Louis
1989Faridkot's Maharaja lost his only son, and a will read three days after his death gave his forts and palaces to a trust run by his staffBatra Hospital, Delhi, India
1989Prince Paul Esterházy made his widow sole heir, and the Esterházy family lost Burgenland's largest estate to her foundationsZurich, Switzerland
1989Bette Davis wrote her daughter, her adopted daughter and two grandsons out of her will after "My Mother's Keeper"Paris, France
1989A Madrid judge had Salvador Dalí exhumed for a paternity test 28 years after his death, and the DNA said noFigueres, Catalonia, Spain
1989The Vunivalu of Bau title stood empty for 34 years after 1989 because Cakobau's clan could not agree on an heirBau Island, Fiji
1989The Dalai Lama named a six-year-old as Panchen Lama in 1995; the boy disappeared within days and China installed another boy chosen from a golden urnTashilhunpo Monastery, Shigatse, Tibet, China
1989Three Abu Dhabi rulers were killed in family feuds in six years; the survivors swore to their mother never to do it again, and in 1966 one brother removed another without bloodshedAbu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
1988Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar were born in Peshawar houses their families left at partition, the new owners refused to sell, and the province took both by compulsory purchasePeshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
1988The Binghams sold the Louisville Courier-Journal after a daughter demanded her shares be bought outLouisville, Kentucky
1988Chiang Ching-kuo never acknowledged his twin sons, and one of them took the Chiang name 63 years laterTaipei, Taiwan
1988Basquiat died at 27; his estate shut its authentication board, and the FBI later seized 25 fake Basquiats from a museumNew York
1988Luis Barragán's archive was sold in 1995 and kept closed in Switzerland, and an artist made a diamond from his ashes to trade for itMexico City, Mexico
1988Aristotle Onassis's only granddaughter inherited half his fortune at 18, after her father and the trustees fought for yearsAthens and Skorpios, Greece, and Switzerland
1987Clint Murchison Jr. inherited an oil fortune, bought the Dallas Cowboys for $550,000, and died $100 million short of his debtsDallas, Texas, USA
1987A doctor fled south in 1950 with one daughter, and 59 years later his four children left in North Korea sued their half-siblings for his estateSeoul, South Korea; Sunchon County, North Korea
1987Liberace's doctor signed a death certificate that hid AIDS; the coroner pulled his embalmed body back for an autopsyThe Cloisters, Palm Springs, California
1987Peter Tosh died without a will; his ten children fought in a Manhattan court over his royaltieshis home, Kingston, Jamaica
1987Jaco Pastorius died broke after a club bouncer beat him, his estate nearly closed with debts, and his stolen bass took four years of litigation to get backFort Lauderdale, Florida
1987Kishore Kumar's nephew agreed to sell his childhood home for Rs 14 crore, his son published a legal notice to stop it, and the house became a ruinMumbai, India
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 murderLondon
1987James Baldwin's estate sold his papers to the Schomburg Center in 2017, with part of his correspondence reported sealed for 20 yearsSaint-Paul-de-Vence, France
1987Fred Astaire's widow charged fees for clips of him, lost a federal appeal over 90 seconds of film, and licensed him to a vacuum maker over his daughter's objectionLos Angeles, California, USA
1987Andy Warhol's foundation valued his art at $95 million; a court said $390.9 million, and his estate lawyer was paid on the differenceNew York
1987Four families held Tirumala's priesthood by birth and kept the temple jewels in turns; Andhra Pradesh abolished the inheritance in 1987Tirumala, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India
1986Japanese courts cancelled auction sales of houses where owners had died by suicide, and in 2021 the state set a three-year disclosure ruleNiigata, Sendai, Sapporo, Fukuoka and Tokyo, Japan
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 poundsPerry Green, Hertfordshire
1986L. Ron Hubbard was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea within a day of his death in January 1986, after his son had sued to have him declared deadCreston, San Luis Obispo County, California
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 sketchesOpio, Alpes-Maritimes, France
1986Georgia O'Keeffe's late codicils left most of a $65 million estate to her assistant, 58 years younger, and her family suedSanta Fe, New Mexico
1986ETA killed the 17th Duke of Veragua, a descendant of Columbus and a Spanish vice admiral, in Madrid in 1986Madrid, Spain
1986Borges left everything to the woman he married seven weeks before he died; she died without a willGeneva, Switzerland
1986Max Feinberg's trust treated any grandchild who married outside Judaism as dead, and the Illinois Supreme Court let it standCook County, Illinois
1986Kenya's Court of Appeal gave S.M. Otieno's body to his brother and clan over his widow's objection, and he lay unburied for 140 daysNairobi and Nyamila, Nyalgunga, Siaya County, Kenya
1985Ricky Nelson died in a plane fire owing money; his ex-wife tried to take over the estate, lost, then fought her brother Mark Harmon for custody of their sonDe Kalb, Texas
1985Orson Welles's daughter Beatrice sued his partner Oja Kodar, fought her over The Other Side of the Wind, and lost her claim to the Citizen Kane copyrightLos Angeles, California
1985Chagall's heirs paid his death duties with 46 paintings and 406 drawings, and his granddaughters' committee seized a £100,000 fake to destroy itSaint-Paul-de-Vence, France
1985A jury found Rock Hudson hid his AIDS from his lover and awarded $21.75 million against his estateLos Angeles, California
1985Philip Larkin's secretary shredded his 30 volumes of diaries after he died, on an instruction his will did not spell outHull, England
1984Jackie Wilson spent eight years in a coma under a court-appointed guardian, died $300,000 in debt, and was buried in an unmarked graveMount Holly, New Jersey
1984A Maharana's will gave Udaipur's City Palace to his younger son, and 41 years later the heirs threw stones at its gatesCity Palace, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
1984Lord Brooke sold Warwick Castle to Madame Tussauds for £1.3 million in 1978, ending 374 years of Greville ownershipRome
1984Jackie Coogan earned $3 million as a child; $252,000 was left when he sued his motherCalifornia
1984Truman Capote's ashes were divided, stolen at a party, returned in a garden hose, and auctioned in 2016Bel Air, Los Angeles
1984Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father, left no will and $9 million in debt, and his children won the "Blurred Lines" caseLos Angeles, California
1984Anna Anderson claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia for 64 years and fought German courts for 32 years for the Romanov moneyCharlottesville, Virginia, USA
1983The FBI believed Meyer Lansky had $300 million hidden; he died in Miami with less than $35,000 in the bankMiami Beach, Florida, USA; Herzliya, Israel
1983Dennis Wilson's estranged wife had him buried at sea with White House help, against his brother's plan to bury him beside their fatherMarina del Rey, California
1983Arthur Koestler and his wife Cynthia died together in 1983; his 1 million pound estate paid for a parapsychology chair after four universities declined it8 Montpelier Square, London
1983Tennessee Williams left his $10 million estate to Sewanee and his brother $25,000; the brother sued for undue influence and settled for $100,000New York City
1983Balanchine's 1983 will split the rights to about 100 ballets among a handful of friends, and the heirs formed a TrustNew York City
1983A Johnson & Johnson heir left $400 million to the maid he married, and his six children suedFort Pierce, Florida
1983Muddy Waters' heirs spent 35 years fighting his manager over his copyrightsWestmont, Illinois
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 stateGeneva, Switzerland
1983A 40-acre allotment had 439 owners, Congress let tiny shares pass to the tribe instead of the heirs, and the Supreme Court struck the law down twiceSouth Dakota, USA
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 creditorsBlackfriars Bridge, London, England; Rome, Italy
1982Randy Rhoads's mother gave filmmakers his photos for a documentary that never came out, and an appeals court let them publish a book insteadLeesburg, Florida
1982Ayn Rand's heir kept the first and last pages of The Fountainhead manuscript; the Library of Congress took them from his home in January 2002New York
1982A helicopter killed Vic Morrow and two child actors on the Twilight Zone set in 1982, and director John Landis and four others were tried for manslaughter and acquitted in 1987Indian Dunes, Valencia, California
1982Fassbinder's first wife said the head of his foundation invented a marriage to him to control his estate, and 25 colleagues demanded she resignMunich, West Germany
1982Whaling magnate Anders Jahre denied owning a fortune abroad, and Norway spent 30 years after his death recovering about 1 billion kronerSandefjord, Norway
1982Swaziland's royal council deposed Queen Regent Dzeliwe in 1983 after Sobhuza II diedMbabane, Eswatini
1982Indian troops disarmed Sikkim's palace guard in 1975; the last king died in New York, his heir died on a mountain road, and a federal committee was still deciding which palace property the family ownsMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA; Gangtok, Sikkim, India
1982Alfred Bloomingdale's mistress sued his dying body for palimony, was beaten to death a year later, and her estate won $200,000Los Angeles, California, USA
1981Natalie Wood drowned off Santa Catalina Island in 1981, and in 2012 the Los Angeles coroner changed her death certificate to "drowning and other undetermined factors"Catalina Island, California
1981Bob Marley died without a will, and his widow forged his signature to move his companies into her nameCedars of Lebanon Hospital, Miami
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 itCalke Abbey, Ticknall, Derbyshire, England
1981Joe Louis owed the IRS more than $1 million and ended his life as a casino greeter in Las VegasLas Vegas, Nevada
1981Nigeria's Supreme Court upheld Gladys Ukeje's share of her father's Lagos estate and declared the Igbo rule excluding daughters void in 2014Lagos, Nigeria
1981The 16th Karmapa died in Illinois in 1981; two rival successors were enthroned, and the Black Crown he left at Rumtek has gone unused sinceZion, Illinois, USA; Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim, India
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 millionPolgárdi, Fejér County, Hungary
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 hoardDerrynaflan, County Tipperary, Ireland
1980Britain barred Seretse Khama from his chieftaincy for marrying an Englishwoman, and as Botswana's president he signed his people's mining land over to the state without compensationSerowe, Botswana
1980John Lennon's will left everything to a trust run by Yoko Ono, and his son Julian sued for 16 yearsNew York City
1980John Lennon's diaries and watch were stolen from Yoko Ono's home and taken to Berlin; Switzerland's top court ruled the watch hers in 2024The Dakota, New York City, New York, USA![John Lennon 1969 (cropped): Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : John Lennon en echtgenote Yoko Ono vertrekken van Schiphol naa](t-john-lennon-s-diaries-and-watch-were-stolen-from-yoko-ono-s.jpg)
1980Nina Kandinsky was strangled at her Gstaad chalet in 1980, about $2 million of her jewellery was stolen, and no one has been chargedGstaad, Switzerland
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 ownParis, France
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 kronerBergen, Norway
1980Marcel Boussac, France's richest man in 1951 and Dior's backer, died ruined; his collapsed group became Bernard Arnault's startDammarie-sur-Loing, Loiret
1980Peter Sellers signed a trust for his daughter the day he collapsed; his widow kept a £4 million estateLondon, England
1980Nicaragua's Decree 3 confiscated Somoza family property in 1979, and Somoza was killed in Asunción in 1980Asunción, Paraguay
1980Iran sued the exiled Shah in New York for billions, lost, and the tower his foundation built ended up paying terror victims $318 millionCairo, Egypt
1980H.L. Hunt's sons bought a third of the world's silver, lost more than $1 billion, and filed for bankruptcy after a Peruvian state company won in courtDallas, Texas, and New York, USA
1979The IRS valued Samuel Newhouse's newspaper shares at $1.32 billion and sought a $305 million fraud penalty, and the Tax Court sided with his sonsStaten Island, New York, USA
1979John Wayne's heirs ended an 11-year trademark fight with Duke University after agreeing that no letter of DUKE on their liquor will be blueUCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
1979Sid Vicious asked to be buried beside Nancy Spungen; her mother said no, and his mother scattered his ashes on the grave anyway63 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, New York
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 ParisParis, France
1979A French woman sued Darryl F. Zanuck's estate for $15 million in 1980, saying his son had her cut from the will; the case ended in 1988 with her claim going to a universityPalm Springs, California
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 debtRomagna, Italy (plane crash); Milan (Gardini)
1979Charles Clore moved to Monaco to avoid tax, and the Revenue proved after his death that he was still EnglishThe London Clinic, London
1979Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom drowned, his widow inherited 70 percent of the team, fired his son and moved the team to St. LouisGolden Beach, Florida
1979Conrad Hilton left his hotel shares to his foundation, and his son Barron spent 10 years in court winning them backSanta Monica, California
1979Peggy Guggenheim's grandsons sued the Guggenheim Foundation in Paris to undo her gift of the Venice collection and lostCamposampiero, near Padua, Italy
1979Iran's revolutionary court had plastics maker Habib Elghanian shot in 1979, and the state took the tower he builtTehran, Iran
1979Barbara Hutton inherited the Woolworth fortune at 21, married seven times, and died with $3,500 in the bankBeverly Wilshire Hotel, Beverly Hills, California, USA
1978Norman Rockwell's sons sued to stop the Berkshire Museum selling paintings he gave it, and Shuffleton's Barbershop went to George Lucas's museumStockbridge, Massachusetts, USA
1978Bob Crane was bludgeoned to death in 1978, left everything to his estranged second wife, and the 1994 acquittal and 2016 DNA retest never named a killerScottsdale, Arizona
1978J. Roderick MacArthur sued his late father's $1.5 billion foundation in 1984 and asked a court to liquidate itFlorida
1977A Beverly Hills oil widow's will told her brother-in-law to bury her in her Ferrari or lose his inheritance, and a court held her to itBeverly Hills, California, and San Antonio, Texas, USA
1977Maria Callas died without a valid will, her estranged husband and mother split her $8 million, and her ashes were stolenParis, France
1977Elvis Presley's probate judge ruled that Colonel Parker's 50 percent share "shocks the conscience of the court" and ordered the estate to sue himGraceland, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
1977Two men stole Charlie Chaplin's coffin for ransom, and his widow refused to payCorsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland
1977An heiress and her nurse were killed inside Glensheen, and the adopted daughter who stood to inherit $8 million was acquittedGlensheen, Duluth, Minnesota
1977Jacqueline Onassis paid to stop her aunt's eviction from Grey Gardens, and the house sold for $220,000 on condition it not be torn downGrey Gardens, East Hampton, New York
1977Joan Crawford's will left out Christina and Christopher "for reasons which are well known to them"New York City, New York
1977Groucho Marx's companion lost the fight over his estate, and his heirs lost the rights to his actLos Angeles, California
1977Bing Crosby's sons waited for a trust they could not touch until 65, and their mother's trust went brokeNear Madrid, Spain
1977Nabokov told his wife to burn his last novel; it sat in a Swiss bank vault for 32 years before their son published itMontreux, Switzerland
1977Lynyrd Skynyrd's widows and survivors used a 1988 court order to block a film about the plane crash, and lost on appealGillsburg, Mississippi
1976The Cojuangcos bought Hacienda Luisita in 1957 on a promise to sell it to tenants, and the Supreme Court ordered it handed to 6,296 farmworkers in 2011Tarlac, Philippines
1976Fort Worth oil heir Cullen Davis was tried for killing his stepdaughter and for hiring a hitman to kill his divorce judge, was acquitted, and later listed $865 million in debtsFort Worth, Texas, USA
1976A Pertamina general died with 54 million marks in Singapore accounts in his and his widow's names, and the courts gave it to the state oil company as bribesSingapore, and Jakarta, Indonesia
1976East Germany gave Junker land to new farmers in 1945, and reunified Germany took it back from their heirs without compensationSaxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Brandenburg, Germany; European Cou
1976Florence Ballard was put out of the Supremes, barred from using the name for a $139,804 payment, and was on welfare seven years laterMount Carmel Mercy Hospital, Detroit, Michigan
1976Howard Hughes left no valid will, a jury found the Mormon will naming Melvin Dummar a forgery, and Texas and California fought over his death taxesOn a flight to Houston, Texas, USA
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 themParis
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 1999Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
1976Agatha Christie gave her grandson the rights to The Mousetrap as a child, and the company holding her estate was sold three timesWallingford, England
1976Gordon Getty, sole trustee of the family trust, sold Getty Oil to Texaco, and his nieces petitioned to remove himLos Angeles and Houston
1976J. Paul Getty paid part of his kidnapped grandson's ransom and lent the rest to his son at 4% interestSutton Place, Surrey, England
1976The 7th Duke of Leinster sold his future inheritance to a moneylender and died in a London bedsitLondon (Pimlico)
1976Getty Trust chief Barry Munitz resigned in 2006 and paid back $250,000 after reports on his spendingSutton Place, Surrey, England
1975Umm Kulthum's heirs sued to pull the biopic "El Sett" from cinemas, and Egypt's Administrative Court ordered them to pay costsCairo, Egypt
1975The Three Stooges' heirs fought each other over royalties, then won the case that set the limits of a dead star's likenessLos Angeles area, California
1975Spain's Supreme Court confirmed in March 2026 that Franco's grandchildren must give the Pazo de Meirás to the stateMadrid
1975Saudi King Faisal was shot by his nephew during an audience, and the nephew was beheaded in a Riyadh squareRiyadh, Saudi Arabia
1975Ethiopia's Derg said Haile Selassie died after prostate surgery, and his bones were found under his palace office 16 years laterJubilee Palace, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
1975Beryl Buck left oil stock for Marin County, Shell's purchase made it worth $253 million, and a court kept it in MarinMarin County, California
1975Josephine Baker barricaded herself in the kitchen of her château when it was sold for her debts, and was carried out to the stepsParis; Château des Milandes, Dordogne, France
1974The Amityville house sold for $80,000 after six murders; the family that fled sued, and a judge called their story largely fiction112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, Long Island, New York, USA
1974Duke Ellington's grandchildren beat their father's estate for his royalties, then lost to EMI over foreign earningsNew York City
1974Nick Drake's estate stopped the auction of six unheard 1967 recordings claimed by his friend Beverley MartynTanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire
1974Anne Sexton's psychiatrist gave about 300 therapy tapes to her biographer after her death, with her daughter's consent as literary executor, and ethicists condemned itWeston, Massachusetts
1974Christine Chubbuck shot herself on live television in 1974, and her station's tape has been held privately sinceSarasota, Florida
1974Charles Lindbergh had seven secret children in Germany, confirmed by DNA 29 years after his deathKipahulu, Maui, Hawaii
1974Karnataka took Mysore Palace during the Emergency, lost in court in 1997, and passed a law to take it again in 1998Mysore Palace, Mysuru, Karnataka, India
1974Lord Lucan vanished the night his children's nanny was killed in 1974, and the High Court declared him dead in 2016Last seen at Uckfield, East Sussex
1974The government refused Mentmore for £2 million, and Sotheby's sold its contents for more than £6 million in 1977Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire
1974Oilman H.L. Hunt had three families with 15 children, and the wife from his bigamous marriage sued his heirs four years after his deathDallas, Texas
1974A court had ordered Sherman Gordon to support his daughter, but Illinois gave his only asset, a $2,500 car, to his parents and siblingsChicago, Illinois
1974Louis Kahn died unidentified in a Penn Station restroom, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars, with three families at his funeralPennsylvania Station, New York
1974Thieves cut the hands off Juan Perón's body in 1987 and demanded 8 million dollars, and the judge investigating died in a car crashBuenos Aires, Argentina
1974Montoneros kidnapped the Born brothers, heirs to Bunge y Born, and freed them after nine months for a reported $60 millionBuenos Aires, Argentina
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 cemeteryHerzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany
1973Jim Croce's widow sued his producers and their lawyer over the contracts he signed in 1968, and won only against the lawyerNatchitoches, Louisiana
1973Soldiers shot Víctor Jara 44 times, his widow buried him in secret, and 50 years later Chile jailed his killers and Florida deported the last oneEstadio Chile, Santiago, Chile
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 2008France; Arizona, USA
1973Pearl S. Buck left three contradictory wills, a dance instructor and her seven adopted children fought for six years, and a Vermont court found undue influenceDanby, Vermont
1973Picasso died with no will and about 43,000 works, and the French state took its tax in paintingsMougins, France
1973India's 2005 Supreme Court ruling gave the Raja of Mahmudabad's son back his palaces, and Parliament rewrote the law to take them againLondon
1973Marjorie Merriweather Post deeded Mar-a-Lago to the nation, and Congress handed it back in a Lake Tahoe land billHillwood, Washington, D.C.
1973Christabel Russell said she was a virgin when her son was conceived, and the House of Lords made him heir to the Ampthill baronyEngland; buried at Chenies, Buckinghamshire
1973Mario Lalli called Robert "my son" in a notarized paper, and the Supreme Court still let New York shut him out of the estateNew York
1973Chile dug up Pablo Neruda 40 years after the 1973 coup, and scientists found botulism bacteria in his toothSantiago, Chile
1973About 50 distant cousins of Henry Darger sued the landlords who saved his art, 49 years after his deathChicago
1973The Tolkien estate sued New Line for $150 million, saying it had received nothing from three films that earned billionsBournemouth, England
1973Gram Parsons' road manager stole his body from Los Angeles airport and burned it in Joshua TreeJoshua Tree Inn, Yucca Valley, California
1973An Ohio doctor's will gave his son seven years to marry a Jewish woman or lose his share to the State of Israel, and the court upheld itMahoning County (Youngstown), Ohio
1973Guerrillas killed Eugenio Garza Sada in a kidnapping attempt in 1973, and his family split the Monterrey Group into fourMonterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
1973A Chinese fast-food chain used a Bruce Lee figure as its logo for 15 years, and his daughter sued for 210 million yuanHong Kong; buried in Seattle, Washington, USA
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 paidVenice, Italy
1972A car bomb killed Ghassan Kanafani and his 17-year-old niece in Beirut on 8 July 1972, and Mossad is reported to have claimed responsibilityBeirut, Lebanon
1972Edward VIII gave up the throne, sold Sandringham and Balmoral to his brother, and hid how much money he hadParis, France
1972Marie Robertson's heirs sued Princeton over her $35 million gift in 2002 and settled in 2008 with $40 million in legal fees repaidNew York
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 nightSalalah, Oman; London, England
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 makerHôtel Ritz, Paris, France
1971RCA fought Philo Farnsworth for the television patent, lost, paid him royalties, and he died in debt while television made others richHolladay, near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
1971Arbenz's land law took 234,000 acres from United Fruit; after the 1954 coup the junta seized the Arbenz family farm, and Guatemala apologised to his family in 2011Guatemala City and Finca El Cajón, Escuintla, Guatemala
1971Stravinsky's widow and children litigated his estate for four years, and the dispute over the royalties reached a New York appeals court in 2003New York, United States
1971Louis Armstrong's will said he had no children, his widow's nieces contested her will, and his letter called a girl born in 1955 his "Little Satchmo"Queens, New York
1971Jim Morrison left everything to Pamela Courson; she died three years later without a will, and both sets of parents fought for The Doors' moneyParis, France
1971Idi Amin seized the Madhvani sugar estate in 1972; the widow came back to one working tractor, and the heirs split again in 2020Kakira, Jinja, Uganda
1970Grünenthal paid 100 million marks into a foundation for thalidomide victims, and a 1971 law wiped out their claims against the companyStolberg and Aachen, Germany
1970Two brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave their grandfather's heirs' property on Silver Dollar Roadnear Beaufort, Carteret County, North Carolina, USA
1970Janis Joplin changed her will two days before she died and left $2,500 for her friends to throw a partyLandmark Motor Hotel, Los Angeles, California
1970Barnett Newman's "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III" was slashed in Amsterdam in 1986; a $400,000 restoration was judged to have destroyed itNew York City
1970Mishima's widow boycotted Paul Schrader's 1985 film, and his children won a copyright suit over his lettersIchigaya, Tokyo
1970Mark Rothko's executors sold 798 of his paintings to a gallery one of them worked for, and his 19-year-old daughter suedNew York City
1970Jimi Hendrix died with no will, and his father's will later cut his brother out of an $80 million estateSamarkand Hotel, Notting Hill, London
1970Marquis Casati Stampa shot his wife, her lover and himself; his daughter inherited at 19 and sold Arcore to Berlusconi for unlisted sharesVia Puccini 9, Rome
1970A Korean family gave away 300 years of wealth to found a college, and the government merged it and named Park Chung-hee its founderGyeongju and Daegu, South Korea
1969Phillips Petroleum found Ekofisk on its last required well in 1969, and Norway saved the oil money in a fund for future generationsOslo, Norway, and North Sea block 2/4
1969Ho Chi Minh's will asked for cremation and his ashes split three ways; the Politburo embalmed him, cut the request from the published will and moved his death date by a dayHanoi, Vietnam
1969Judy Garland's fifth husband buried her in New York; 48 years later her children moved her to HollywoodCadogan Lane, Belgravia, London
1969John Kennedy Toole's mother got A Confederacy of Dunces published, then fought a bookseller and Toole's relatives over The Neon Bible until 1989Biloxi, Mississippi
1969After Sharon Tate's murder her mother Doris backed California's 1982 Victims' Bill of Rights and became the first victim's relative to speak at a state parole hearing10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles
1969A Florida judge ruled that the will giving Jack Kerouac's estate to his widow's family was forged, and the ruling changed nothingSt. Petersburg, Florida
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 itLondon
1969The Kabaka of Buganda climbed his palace wall to escape the army, and died in a London flat three years laterLondon, England
1969Kerala tradition says Parashurama gave the land to Brahmins; only eldest Namboodiri sons could marry so estates never split, and land reform took them in 1969Kerala, India
1968Three women claimed to be Frankie Lymon's widow, and New York courts had to decide who owned his share of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love"New York City
1968Martin Luther King Jr.'s estate sued his daughter in 2014 to take his Nobel medal and Bible for sale, and a judge locked both in a bank boxMemphis, Tennessee, USA
1968Marcel Duchamp worked in secret for 20 years on Étant donnés; it was moved to Philadelphia under his 1966 instructions after he died in 1968Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
1968Ezra Vincent signed a paper acknowledging his daughter, and in 1971 the Supreme Court let his brothers and sisters take his whole estateRapides Parish, Louisiana
1968A jury awarded John Steinbeck's stepdaughter more than $13 million against his son's family for blocking films of his novelsNew York
1968Assis Chateaubriand had Vargas change the law to win custody of his daughter, gave his media empire to 22 employees, and that daughter lost the fight to recover it in 2014São Paulo, Brazil
1967Mossadegh nationalised Iran's oil, was overthrown in a CIA and MI6 coup, and was buried under the floor of his own houseAhmadabad, Iran
1967A cousin with only a life estate sold John Coltrane's Philadelphia house for $100,000, and his sons sued to take it backHuntington, New York
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 trustLondon, England![Brian Epstein: Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Aankomst Brian Epstein (manager Beatles) op Schiphol (Grand Gala du Disque](t-brian-epstein-photo.jpg)
1967Jo Hopper left the Whitney more than 3,000 Edward Hopper works in 1968; a critic alleges a Nyack minister who shared the residue took hundreds more, and the museum has declined to pursue itNew York City
1967Jayne Mansfield's estate was appraised at $600,000 in 1967; by 1977 her children found about $500,000 in debts and the estate insolventU.S. Highway 90 near the Rigolets Bridge, Louisiana
1967Alfried Krupp was convicted at Nuremberg, got his property back in 1951, and left the firm to a foundation instead of his sonEssen, West Germany
1967Prince Janusz Radziwiłł lost about 43,700 hectares to Soviet and communist seizure, and his wife died in NKVD custodyWarsaw
1967Prince Felix Yusupov sold two Rembrandts to Joseph Widener with a buy-back option, raised the money, and lost them in courtParis
1967The Lobkowicz family lost its castles to the Nazis in 1939 and the Communists in 1948, and a grandson spent 12 years recovering the Prague palaceDover, Massachusetts
1967China's last emperor kept his title and palace after abdicating, and soldiers blew open his ancestors' tombsBeijing, China
1967Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach gave up the Krupp inheritance for 2 million marks a year so a foundation could own the companyEssen, West Germany
1967Oil on an 11-year-old Creek Freedwoman's allotment brought her $300 a day, a white guardian took charge, and W. E. B. Du Bois wrote to her judge about reports she was being cheatedTaft, Oklahoma, USA
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 laterHyderabad, India; NatWest (formerly Westminster Bank), London
1967Bolivian officers cut off Che Guevara's hands in 1967, a minister had them smuggled toward Cuba in a jar, and his body was found under an airstrip 30 years laterLa Higuera and Vallegrande, Bolivia
1967Mohammed bin Laden's sons ran his construction group for decades, and three of them signed their shares over to the state while detainedJeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
1967Bill Koch sold his stake for $1.1 billion, sued his brothers for more, lost, and settled after 20 yearsWichita, Kansas, USA
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 sentencesChur, Switzerland![Alberto Giacometti: Title [Giacometti] PK-F-A.06801 Creator/other Andriesse, Emmy (1914-1953) Shelfmark PK-F-A.06801 Subject (topical) PortraitsMen (male humans)ArtistsSculptors Su](t-alberto-giacometti-photo.jpg)
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-ArtsVernon, France
1966Lenny Bruce died broke in 1966 with an appeal pending, and New York pardoned him in 2003Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles
1966The Nawab of Rampur's eldest son took all his private property in 1966; after 53 years the Supreme Court split it among 16 heirsRampur, Uttar Pradesh, India
1966Guinness heir Tara Browne died at 21 before his £1 million inheritance, and his mother won custody of his sonsRedcliffe Gardens, South Kensington, London, England
1965Syria hanged Israeli spy Eli Cohen in 1965 and kept his body; 60 years later the Mossad brought back his will and the keys to his Damascus flat, but not his remainsDamascus, Syria; Jerusalem
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 adoptionFrance
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 dayLondon, England
1965Tchibo heir Günter Herz was forced out by his family in 2001 and sold out with his sister for an estimated $5 billionHamburg
1965King Farouk left Egypt on his yacht, and one of his gold coins later sold for $18.9 millionRome, Italy
1964Italian fishermen netted a Greek bronze in 1964, Italy's courts acquitted the sellers, and decades later ordered it confiscated from the GettyAdriatic Sea off Pedaso and Fano, Italy; Malibu, California, USA
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 heirsMoscow, Russia
1964Ian Fleming had two heart attacks during the Thunderball trial, settled, and died nine months laterCanterbury, England
1964Philippine Executive Order No. 1 paid MacArthur $500,000 in 1942, and the payment stayed secret until 1979Washington, D.C.
1964Sam Cooke was shot by a motel manager who then sued his estate, and his manager's company already owned his recordingsHacienda Motel, Los Angeles
1964Seibu's founder left his railway empire to his third son over the eldest, and that son was convicted in 2005 over shares kept in other people's namesTokyo, Japan
1963Edith Piaf's body was driven secretly from Grasse to Paris so her death could be announced there, and her husband inherited her debtsPlascassier, Grasse, France
1963Patsy Cline's brother sued her sister over Patsy's stage clothes, and a judge ordered the dresses sold to pay the lawyernear Camden, Tennessee (plane crash)
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 hoaxOxford, England
1963Sylvia Plath died separated but not divorced, so Ted Hughes inherited her work and destroyed her last journalLondon
1963Rikidōzan hid that he was Korean, died of a yakuza stab wound, and left his 22-year-old widow president of five companies and a reported 3 billion yen of debtTokyo, Japan
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 probateOregon, USA; East Germany
1962Marilyn Monroe's executor told tax officials she lived in New York, so a court barred her estate's company from claiming California image rightsBrentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA
1962Juan March bought Barcelona Traction bonds, had the company declared bankrupt in Reus and took Catalonia's power networkMadrid
1962Ernie Kovacs's mother sued his widow, Edie Adams, over how she paid his tax debtsLos Angeles, California
1962Solomon Linda sold "Mbube" for 10 shillings, and his daughters seized Disney's South African trademarks to win a share of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"Johannesburg, South Africa
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 2026Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Brussels, Belgium; Kinshasa, Democrat
1961Ranch heiress Sarita Kenedy East left her fortune to a foundation controlled by a Trappist monk, and more than 200 people claimed to be her heirsKenedy County, Texas, USA (died in New York City)
1961The US government seized Dashiell Hammett's royalties for back taxes, and after he died Lillian Hellman took control of his copyrightsNew York
1961The Dominican Republic confiscated the Trujillo family's property by law in 1962, and his remains lie in a cemetery near MadridNear Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
1961Ernest Hemingway's widow gave his Cuban house to Castro's government in 1961 and shipped his papers and paintings out on a shrimp boatSan Francisco de Paula, Havana, Cuba
1960Mary Roy's brother told her to leave their father's cottage, she sued, and the Supreme Court gave Kerala's Syrian Christian daughters equal shares back to 1951Kottayam, Kerala, India
1960A yardman burned Zora Neale Hurston's belongings after she died in a county welfare home in 1960, and a deputy sheriff put out the fireFort Pierce, Florida
1960Richard Wright died in a Paris clinic in 1960; his daughter and friends said the US government may have had him killedEugene Gibez clinic, Paris
1960Bhopal's heiress left for Pakistan, her sister's line took the palaces, and in 2025 a court reopened Saif Ali Khan's inheritanceBhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
1960Loretta Young hid her daughter by Clark Gable in orphanages, then "adopted" her, and admitted the truth only in a book published after her deathLos Angeles, California
1960Fausto Coppi's son was born in Argentina so he could carry the Coppi name, because Italian law made him another man's sonTortona, Italy
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 yearsPeredelkino, USSR
1960Cuba seized the Havana docks in 1960, a US company won more than $100 million from each of four cruise lines, and the Supreme Court revived its claim in 2026Havana, Cuba
1959Thailand executed Si Quey in 1959 and a hospital museum displayed his embalmed body as a "cannibal" for 60 years before he was crematedBangkok and Nonthaburi, Thailand
1959Robert Kaufmann left his fortune to the man he lived with, and two New York juries gave it to his brothersNew York City, New York, USA
1959Buddy Holly's widow charged Lubbock to use his name, and the city renamed its festival and walk of famenear Clear Lake, Iowa
1959Cigarette heir Jan Philipp Reemtsma sold his inheritance and was kidnapped for a 30 million mark ransomHamburg
1959A Kentucky man adopted his own wife so she could inherit from his mother's trust, and the court refusedLouisville, Kentucky
1959Frank Lloyd Wright's grave in Wisconsin was emptied 26 years after his burial, and his body was cremated for ArizonaPhoenix, Arizona
1959Billie Holiday died under arrest in a hospital bed with 70 cents in the bankMetropolitan Hospital, New York
1959Cuba seized the Arechabala family's Havana Club rum company in 1959, and the family's lapsed US trademark has been in court ever sinceCárdenas, Cuba
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 1989Budapest, Hungary
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 heirsLausanne, Switzerland
1958Count Alfred Potocki shipped about 700 crates from Łańcut to Vienna before the Red Army arrived, and the castle became a state museumGeneva
1958Jack Warner took control of Warner Bros. in 1956 after his brothers sold out; Harry died two years laterLos Angeles, California
1958Iraq's 23-year-old king and his family were shot in the palace courtyard, and the regent's body was dragged through BaghdadRihab Palace, Baghdad, Iraq
1958Mahar families inherited village land in return for hereditary service; Ambedkar told them to give it up, and Bombay abolished the watans in 1958Bombay Presidency (Maharashtra and northern Karnataka), India
1957Laura Ingalls Wilder left her book royalties to a Missouri library after her daughter's death; the daughter's heir renewed the copyrights, and a 2001 settlement paid the library $875,000Mansfield, Missouri
1957The Florio family built Sicily's largest business group and lost all of it to the banks and the state by 1935Palermo
1957Mexico's Supreme Court annulled Pedro Infante's second marriage six days before he died in a plane crashMérida, Yucatán, Mexico
1957Gabriela Mistral left her South American royalties to the poor children of her village, and Pinochet's government let anyone publish her work in Chile from 1979Montegrande, Coquimbo, Chile
1957The Aga Khan's will passed over his son Aly Khan and made his 20-year-old grandson imamVersoix, near Geneva, Switzerland
1956Spain's gold went to Moscow in 1936; when Negrín died, his son gave Franco the receipts, and Moscow said the money was all goneCartagena, Spain; Odessa and Moscow, USSR; Paris, France
1956Taiwan's leading landlord Lin Hsien-tang left for Japan "for treatment" in 1949 and never came back, and the 1953 land-to-the-tiller law paid landlords in bonds and sharesTokyo, Japan; Wufeng, Taichung, Taiwan
1956Jackson Pollock's mistress Ruth Kligman claimed he painted Red, Black & Silver for her weeks before his 1956 crash, and his widow Lee Krasner and the Pollock-Krasner board rejected itEast Hampton (Springs), New York
1956Angela Merkel returned two Emil Nolde paintings to the Berlin museum foundation in April 2019, as a Nationalgalerie show detailed his Nazi loyaltySeebüll, Germany
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 1962Herisau, Switzerland
1956Bela Lugosi's widow and son sued Universal over Dracula merchandise and lost in 1979Los Angeles, California
1955Einstein gave his Nobel money to his first wife and asked to be cremated in secret, and the pathologist kept his brain for decadesPrinceton, New Jersey, USA
1955Albert Einstein's publicity rights ended in 2005, a judge ruled, defeating Hebrew University's suit over a GM ad with his face on a muscled bodyPrinceton, New Jersey, USA
1955James Dean died without a will, his father inherited, his wrecked Porsche vanished in 1960, and his estate sued Twitter over @JamesDeannear Cholame, California
1955The Nazis held Louis de Rothschild hostage in Vienna in 1938 and released him for the family's assetsMontego Bay, Jamaica
1955Calouste Gulbenkian left his oil fortune to a Lisbon foundation and his son Nubar about $2.5 millionAviz Hotel, Lisbon
1955Peary and Henson each fathered a son in Greenland, and Henson was moved beside Peary at Arlington in 1988New York; Washington, D.C.
1955Charlie Parker's wife, his partner and his mother fought over his body, and he was buried where he asked not to beNew York
1955Ann Woodward shot her husband, the owner of Nashua, a grand jury cleared her in 30 minutes, and both her sons later killed themselvesOyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA
1954Edwin Armstrong jumped from his apartment after years of suing RCA over FM radio, and his widow, once Sarnoff's secretary, won the casesNew York City, New York, USA
1954The Quandt fortune behind BMW used about 50,000 forced labourers, a 2011 family-funded study foundCairo
1954Diego Rivera locked Frida Kahlo's bathroom after she died, and her clothes and papers stayed sealed for 50 yearsCoyoacán, Mexico City
1954Hitler paid his field marshals 4,000 Reichsmarks a month and gave Guderian a confiscated Polish estateSchwangau, West Germany
1953A landowner whose family gave the Viet Minh 700 taels of gold was shot as the land reform's first example in 1953, and her family found her bones in 1990Đồng Bẩm, Thái Nguyên, Vietnam
1953The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953, child-care agencies petitioned for custody of their sons and the boys' trust fund, and the sons have spent 70 years on their mother's caseSing Sing prison, Ossining, New York, USA
1953The CIA gave Army scientist Frank Olson LSD without telling him, he fell from a New York hotel nine days later, and the $750,000 his family accepted later blocked their murder suitHotel Statler, New York City, USA
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 fatherMoscow, Russia; Kyiv, Ukraine
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 returnCullinan, Gauteng, South Africa; London, England
1953Eugene O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona in 1943, and his widow Carlotta released Long Day's Journey Into Night in 1956 against his 25-year banBoston, Massachusetts
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 debtEndsleigh estate, Devon
1953Dylan Thomas lost the Under Milk Wood manuscript in a Soho pub, his producer found it and sold it for £2,000, and his widow Caitlin lost her suit to get it backSt Vincent's Hospital, New York
1953Jim Thorpe's widow sold his body to two Pennsylvania towns, which renamed themselves after himLomita, California
1953Hank Williams' daughter was born five days after his death, made a ward of the state, and won half his estate 34 years laterOak Hill, West Virginia
1952Argentina's military seized Eva Perón's embalmed body and buried it in Milan under a false nameUnzué Palace, Buenos Aires
1952The author of Goodnight Moon left her royalties to a neighbour's nine-year-old son, who spent the millionsNice, France
1952A devadasi singer spent her fortune on a temple for the saint Thyagaraja, was barred from singing at his festival, and held her ownThiruvaiyaru, Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu, India
1951Doctors took Henrietta Lacks's cells without her knowledge in 1951, and her estate has settled with Thermo Fisher and NovartisBaltimore, Maryland, USA
1951Iraq took the property of the Jews who left in 1951, US troops found their community's books in a flooded secret-police basement in 2003, and the books have stayed in AmericaBaghdad, Iraq; Washington, D.C., USA
1951Hearst's will locked his company in a trust until every relative alive in 1951 dies, and the company gave his castle to CaliforniaBeverly Hills, California
1951Fritz Thyssen paid for Hitler's rise, lost his fortune to him in 1939, survived the camps and emigrated on his book royaltiesMartínez, near Buenos Aires
1951Pétain's property was confiscated in 1945 and his coffin was stolen from Île d'Yeu in 1973Port-Joinville, Île d'Yeu, France
1951A Pennsylvania judge let the Barnes Foundation move Albert Barnes's art to Philadelphia in 2004, against his indenturenear Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
1950Calumet Farm passed to a widow for life, then to a grandson-in-law who ran up $127 million in debt and went to prisonLexington, Kentucky, USA
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 2020Ayot St Lawrence, England
1950The 10th Duke of Devonshire died in 1950 before his tax plan matured, and his heirs took 17 years to pay 80 percent death dutyCompton Place, Eastbourne, Sussex
1950Czechoslovakia passed a law to take one family's estate, and the Schwarzenberg heirs have lost every claim to it sinceBordighera, Italy
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 1979University College Hospital, London
1950The Lubavitcher Rebbe's grandson sold books from the movement's library as his inheritance; a federal court ruled the library was never the Rebbe's to leave770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
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 dukeChalfont, England (fictional dukedom)
1949Landlord Liu Wencai died before land reform reached him, his manor became a museum of his crimes, and in 1988 its "water dungeon" was relabelled an opium storeAnren, Dayi County, Sichuan, China
1949Lead Belly's family trust sued his publishers in 2026 over 49 songs it took back by copyright terminationNew York City
1949Margaret Mitchell's estate sued to stop a novel retelling Gone With the Wind from the view of a slave, and ended up funding a Black collegeAtlanta, Georgia
1948The Smithsonian got the Wright Flyer for $1 on a contract that returns it to the Wright heirs if the museum says anyone flew firstDayton, Ohio, USA
1948Iraq hanged its richest Jew, Shafiq Ades, outside his own house in Basra in 1948 and took his estateBasra, Iraq
1948Cecil Harris lay pinned under his tractor for 10 hours and scratched his will into the fenderSaskatchewan, Canada
1948Zelda Fitzgerald died locked in a fifth-floor room when fire destroyed Highland Hospital in 1948; nine women died and no one was chargedAsheville, North Carolina
1948The government ordered opencast mining up to Wentworth Woodhouse, and the Fitzwilliam earldom ended in 1979Saint-Bauzile, Ardèche, France
1948US Army papers show Hideki Tojo's ashes were scattered over the Pacific in 1948Sugamo Prison, Tokyo
1948Jinnah left his Bombay house to his sister; India took it as evacuee property, and his daughter died with her claim still pendingSouth Court (Jinnah House), Malabar Hill, Mumbai, India
1948Yemen's Imam Yahya groomed his son to inherit an office meant to go to the most able; rebels killed him in 1948, and the tribes that won the throne back for the son looted Sanaanear Sanaa, Yemen
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 recordsBudapest, Hungary; Moscow, Russia; Stockholm, Sweden
1947Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion and paid every cent, a live TV search for his vault found nothing, and his family sold his pistol for $860,000Palm Island, Miami Beach, Florida, USA; Chicago, Illinois, USA
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 lawyerBrighton, England, UK (the solicitor's practice)
1947The Hope Diamond's curse story was sold with the stone in 1911; its owner's will put it in trust for her grandchildren, and her trustees sold it to pay her debtsWashington, D.C., USA
1947The Collyer brothers died in their inherited Harlem house under more than 100 tons of hoarded goods, and 56 people claimed the estate2078 Fifth Avenue, Harlem, New York City, USA
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 themNetherwood, Hastings, England; California, USA
1947Pierre Bonnard's wife had four unknown nieces; a French court ruled in 1951 that he forged her will, and the family won on appealLe Cannet, France
1947The Fords put 90% of Ford Motor into a foundation and kept the votes, and Henry Ford II quit its board in 1976Dearborn, Michigan
1947Joan Irvine Smith fought the foundation that controlled her grandfather's Irvine Ranch for 33 years and left with $256 millionCalifornia
1947Bolivia seized the tin king's mines in 1952, and his heir offered the government a 5 million dollar loan for a law that would let him divorceBuenos Aires, Argentina
1947The regent who found the 14th Dalai Lama handed power to a rival in 1941, was arrested for plotting to take it back, and died in a Potala cellPotala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet, China
1947Simón Patiño built a tin fortune from one Bolivian vein, and five years after his death the revolution took his minesBuenos Aires, Argentina, and Llallagua, Bolivia
1947Harry Thaw's mother spent the family fortune to free him after he shot Stanford White, and his will left Evelyn Nesbit $10,000Miami Beach, Florida, USA
1947Evalyn Walsh McLean wore the Hope Diamond through a son's death, a husband's insanity and the Lindbergh hoax, and her estate sold itWashington, D.C., USA
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 2015Carinhall, Germany; Cologne, Germany; Munich, Germany
1946Japan's largest landlord told reporters in 1945 he would not regret going from 1,500 chō to 5, and the 1946 law left a resident landlord about oneSakata, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan
1946W.C. Fields paid his son's mother $20,000 to deny he was the father, and his will's orphan college lost to the wife he never divorcedPasadena, California
1946William S. Hart left his only son nothing and his ranch to Los Angeles County; the son fought for a decadeNewhall, California
1946Thailand's 20-year-old king was found shot in his bed, and three palace servants were executed nine years laterBoromphiman Throne Hall, Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand
1946The Nazis forced Max Warburg to give up M.M. Warburg & Co in 1938; his son Eric needed until 1970 to restore the family nameNew York; bank in Hamburg
1945Workers in Tokyo dug up the bones of at least 62 people at the old Army Medical School in 1989, and Japan has never identified themToyama, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
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 votesMilan; Cerro Maggiore; Predappio, Italy
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 governmentMattsee, Austria; Fort Knox, Kentucky, USA; Budapest, Hungary
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 yearsBerlin, Germany; Munich and Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany
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 provedVienna, Austria
1945Vichy expropriated the Rothschild vineyards at Pauillac, and Philippe de Rothschild's wife died at Ravensbrück before Mouton came back to the familyChâteau Mouton Rothschild, Pauillac, Gironde, France; Ravensbrück, Germany
1945German troops packed the Amber Room into 27 crates in 1941, and it has been missing since 1945Catherine Palace, Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), Russia; Königsberg (Kaliningrad)
1945The Anne Frank Fonds named Otto Frank a co-author of the diary to extend its copyright past 2016Bergen-Belsen; Basel
1945The Hershey school trust voted to sell Hershey Foods to Wrigley for $12.5 billion in 2002, and a Pennsylvania court stopped itHershey, Pennsylvania
1945The Hershey school paid $12 million for a failing golf course, and the attorney general twice demanded reforms of its boardHershey, Pennsylvania
1945Anton Webern was shot dead by a US Army cook in Mittersill on 15 September 1945, and the record shows no trialMittersill, Austria
1945Béla Bartók's New York estate was in court for 22 years, and the trustee claimed his manuscriptsNew York City
World wars 1914 to 1945
1944Japan hanged Soviet spy Richard Sorge and Moscow refused to claim him; his Japanese partner moved his body to her own grave plot and tended it until she diedSugamo Prison and Tama Cemetery, Tokyo, Japan
1944Revolutionaries demolished Reza Shah's mausoleum in 1980 and could not find his body, and a mummified body turned up on the site in 2018Johannesburg, South Africa; Cairo, Egypt; Rey (Tehran), Iran
1944Glenn Miller vanished over the English Channel; his widow licensed his name for $1, and his children lost it in courtover the English Channel
1944Charles Bedaux hosted the Windsor wedding at Candé, died in FBI custody awaiting treason charges, and his widow gave the château to FranceChâteau de Candé, Monts, Indre-et-Loire, France; Miami, Florida
1944Louis Renault died in custody before trial, and France took his company without paying his heirsParis clinic, after detention at Fresnes prison
1944Banker Fritz Gutmann was killed at Theresienstadt, and his heirs sued an American collector to get back his DegasTheresienstadt
1944Rommel took poison on 14 October 1944 in exchange for a state funeral and pensions for his familyIn a car between Herrlingen and Wippingen, Württemberg
1944Armed men took Munch's The Scream and Madonna from Oslo's Munch Museum in 2004, a court ordered two thieves to pay the city 750 million kroner, and police recovered both in 2006Oslo
1944The last emir of Bukhara fled across a river on a raft in 1920 and left three sons behind; two were shot and the third publicly renounced himQalai Fatu, near Kabul, Afghanistan
1943The US government sealed Nikola Tesla's papers after he died, his nephew took them to Belgrade, and the church and scientists later fought over his ashesHotel New Yorker, New York City, USA
1943Oscar Hartzell sold shares in a $22 billion Sir Francis Drake estate that did not exist, and about 70,000 Midwesterners paidMedical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield, Missouri
1943Russia's culture minister demanded Rachmaninoff's remains back from New York, and his descendants said noBeverly Hills, California
1943Beatrix Potter left more than 4,000 acres and 14 or 15 farms to the National Trust, with a life interest for her husbandNear Sawrey, Lake District, England
1943Credit Suisse demanded a death certificate for a banker killed at Majdanek; his daughter waited until 1998 for his accountCredit Suisse, Geneva
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 debtBurma (Myanmar), and London, UK
1942A ploughman and his employer kept the Mildenhall Treasure at home for four years, used the dishes, and got a reduced rewardWest Row, near Mildenhall, Suffolk, England
1942Thessaloniki destroyed its 450-year-old Jewish cemetery in December 1942, used the stones to build, and put a university on the landThessaloniki, Greece
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 IsraelDrohobych (then in German-occupied Poland, now Ukraine)
1942L.M. Montgomery's death certificate said coronary thrombosis; her granddaughter wrote in 2008 that she took her own lifeToronto, Ontario
1941Thailand's finance ministry sued its abdicated king for 6.27 million baht in 1939 and won an order freezing everything he ownedBangkok, Thailand; Compton House, Wentworth, Surrey, England
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 restDachau, Germany; Vienna, Austria; New York, USA
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 timesCologne railway station
1941Oklahoma oilman E.W. Marland annulled his adoption of his wife's niece and married her, then lost his company to J.P. Morgan's bankersPonca City, Oklahoma
1941James Joyce's grandson destroyed his aunt Lucia's letters and threatened scholars until the copyrights ran out in 2012Zurich
1941The Kaiser's heirs claimed thousands of artworks and compensation, dropped the suits over the Nazi question, and settled after 99 yearsHuis Doorn, Netherlands
1941Rabindranath Tagore's 1913 Nobel gold medal and 49 other items were stolen from the Visva-Bharati museum in March 2004 and have not been recoveredCalcutta, India
1940Stalin's agents killed Trotsky and members of his family; he sealed his exile papers at Harvard until 1980, and the grandson who survived kept his house as a museumCoyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
1940German units emptied the French Masonic headquarters in June 1940, the Red Army took the archives to Moscow, and France got them back in 2001Paris, France; Berlin, Germany; Česká Lípa, Czech Republic; Moscow, Russia![Hôtel du Grand Orient [de France], rue Cadet [9e arrondissement] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]: Sujet : Hôtels particuliers -- Paris (France) Paris (France) -- Arrondis](t-german-units-emptied-the-french-masonic-headquarters-in-june.jpg)
1940Jacques Goudstikker died fleeing the Nazis, Göring took his paintings, and the Netherlands returned 202 of them in 2006aboard the SS Bodegraven, English Channel
1940The Vestey meat brothers left Britain over income tax, set up a Paris trust and bought a peerageGerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire
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 yearsMuralto, Switzerland
1940F. Scott Fitzgerald left an estate of about $35,000 in 1940, and the Catholic church refused his burial plot until his daughter petitioned in 1975Los Angeles, California
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 2008Vienna, Austria; Switzerland; New York, USA
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 StatesZurich, Switzerland; Brooklyn, New York, USA
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 2007Berlin, Germany
1939Sir Henry Pellatt built Casa Loma with Home Bank loans, the bank failed, and Toronto took the castle for unpaid taxesMimico, Toronto, in his former chauffeur's house
1939Banker Fritz Mannheimer died ten weeks after his wedding, his bank failed, and Hitler bought his collection from the creditorsVaucresson, France
1938Mexico expropriated the foreign oil companies in 1938, crowds brought chickens and jewelry to help pay, and Mexico paid the companies in fullMexico City, Mexico
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 1988Moscow, Russia
1938Comstock heir Clarence Mackay cut his daughter out of his will for marrying Irving Berlin, and after her baby died he took her backNew York, New York, USA; Harbor Hill, Roslyn, New York
1938Atatürk left his İş Bankası shares to his party, and the state took them twiceDolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul
1938Robert Johnson died in 1938 with nothing, and a Mississippi court found his heir 62 years laternear Greenwood, Mississippi
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, Brașov County, Romania
1937J.M. Barrie gave Peter Pan to a children's hospital, and Parliament made the hospital's royalty permanentLondon
1937George Gershwin died at 38 without a will, and the Gershwin trusts lobbied Congress for 20 more years of copyrightLos Angeles, California, United States
1937H. P. Lovecraft's literary executor died in 1951, his papers went to August Derleth, and no court has settled who owns his copyrightsProvidence, Rhode Island
1937Brazil's largest industrial group lost its chosen heir in a car race, passed to the founder's twelfth child, and filed for court protection in 1983São Paulo, Brazil
1936Franco's side shot Blas Infante in 1936, a tribunal fined him 2,000 pesetas in 1940, and his widow paidSeville, Spain
1936John Ringling left his Venetian mansion and art museum to Florida and died with $311 in the bank, and the state fought his creditors for ten yearsNew York City
1936Lenin's 1918 decree took Sergei Shchukin's 258 paintings, and his heirs' claims in Paris and Los Angeles failedParis
1936George V's doctor injected him with morphine and cocaine so his death would make the morning papersSandringham House, Norfolk, England
1936Henry Wellcome left his drug company to trustees in 1936, and in 1995 they sold it to its rival GlaxoLondon
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 2025Calle San Lucas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain; Salamanca, Spain
1936Federico García Lorca was shot with three other men in August 1936, and a 2009 dig at the supposed grave in Alfacar found no remainsAlfacar, near Granada, Spain
1936The 1938 Moscow trial charged Yagoda and doctors with murdering Maxim Gorky and his son; 18 defendants were sentenced to be shotGorki-10, near Moscow
1936Robert E. Howard shot himself in June 1936 and his mother died a day or two later; a will naming a friend was reportedly lost, and the Conan rights passed to a nurse's daughterCross Plains, Texas
1936Four states and the United States claimed $37.7 million in death taxes from Hetty Green's son's $36 million estateLake Placid, New York, USA
1935The Nazi state forced Hugo Junkers to give up his patents and his company, and he died under house arrest on his 76th birthdayGauting, near Munich, Germany
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 portraitParis, France; Auschwitz, Poland
1935A US consul bought Chichén Itzá for 200 pesos and shipped the Sacred Cenote's offerings to Harvard; his heirs won the land back in Mexico's Supreme CourtChichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico
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 heirsBerlin
1935Kazimir Malevich's heirs sued Amsterdam over 84 works held since 1958; in April 2008 the city returned five paintingsLeningrad, USSR
1935Alban Berg's widow kept the third act of Lulu unfinished for 41 years, and a composer finished it in secret for the publisherVienna
1935Carlos Gardel's will said he was born in Toulouse and left everything to his mother, and his estate passed from her to his agent's family while Uruguay says he was born thereMedellín, Colombia
1935Venezuela confiscated dictator Juan Vicente Gómez's fortune after his death in 1935, after first letting more than 90 relatives leave with moneyMaracay, Aragua, Venezuela
1934Göring took over "the Petschek question" in 1938, Flick's companies got the mines, and the Nuremberg court said the seizure was outside its jurisdictionAussig (Ústí nad Labem), Czech Republic; Prague, Czech Republic; Germany
1934Hungary seized Baron Herzog's collection of 2,000 artworks in 1944, and US courts ended his heirs' 15-year lawsuit in 2026Hungary
1934Hindenburg's Neudeck estate was put in his son's name, and Hitler's government added tax-free landNeudeck, East Prussia (now Ogrodzieniec, Poland)
1934A woman married "the world's richest Indian", the Interior Secretary gave away $1.1 million of his oil money, and the courts took it backLos Angeles, California, USA (allotment in Creek County, Oklahoma)
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 CarraMoore Hall, Carnacon, County Mayo, Ireland
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 protestFulwell Park, Twickenham, England
1932Ivar Kreuger shot himself in Paris in 1932, and auditors found his match empire rested on forged Italian bondsParis
1932Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash, his half-brother took the shoe company, and the family litigated for 15 yearsOtrokovice, near Zlín, Czechoslovakia
1932A recluse died in a New York hotel with a fortune in cash, 1,103 people claimed it, and the 10 real heirs had never met herHerald Square Hotel, New York
1932Paul Bern was found shot two months after marrying Jean Harlow, his common-law wife Dorothy Millette drowned days later, and a judge made Harlow executor of his estate9820 Easton Drive, Beverly Hills, California
1932A tobacco heir was shot at Reynolda, his pregnant widow was indicted for murder, and their son was paid $6.25 millionReynolda, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
1931John Wendel kept his sisters from marrying to hold the family's Manhattan land together, and more than 2,000 people claimed the last sister's estate442 Fifth Avenue, New York City, USA
1931Shanghai's richest landlord left everything to his Eurasian Buddhist widow, his Iraqi relatives sued, and the People's Republic closed the case in 1957Shanghai, China
1931Lillian Leitzel fell to her death in 1931, and her widower Alfredo Codona shot his third wife and himself in 1937 during a property splitCopenhagen, Denmark; Long Beach, California
1931The British demanded the Asante Golden Stool in 1900 and never obtained itKumasi, Ghana
1930Sakichi Toyoda sold his loom patents to a British firm, the money started Toyota, and the loom company went to an adopted son-in-lawNagoya, Japan
1930A Philadelphia widow left $17 million and no will, and 26,000 people claimed to be her heirsPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
1930Arthur Conan Doyle's heirs charged licence fees for Sherlock Holmes until a court ruled the character was free to useCrowborough, England
1930Henrietta Garrett died in 1930 with $17 million and no will; more than 25,000 people claimed to be her kin, ten went to jail, and three cousins she never met inheritedPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
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 awayVence, France
1929The oil heir who carried $100,000 to the Interior Secretary was shot dead in his new mansion five months after moving inGreystone, Beverly Hills, California
1928Earl Haig was given £100,000 by Parliament and an estate by public subscription, and his earldom has no heir in 2026London
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 heartMax Gate, Dorchester, England
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 sinceRahway, New Jersey, USA, and Darmstadt, Germany
1926Rudolph Valentino's will gave his ex-wife $1, and his body went into a borrowed cryptNew York City, New York
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 ownaboard the yacht Liberty, off Jersey
1926Charles Vance Millar left his estate to the Toronto mother with the most babies in 10 years, and 4 mothers with 9 children each split itToronto, Canada
1926Houdini's great-nephew and two authors announced a 2007 plan to exhume his body to test for poisonDetroit, Michigan
1925Siam's 1924 succession law barred princesses, so King Vajiravudh's only child, born as he lay dying, could not inherit his throneGrand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand
1925The Hagiwara family kept San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden for 47 years; the 1942 removal orders took it, and the city paid two survivors $5,000 each in 1983Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, USA
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 2006Vienna
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 fortuneParis
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 graveHotel Angleterre, Leningrad, USSR
1925A judge took 10-year-old Gloria Vanderbilt from her mother and gave her and her trust to her auntManhattan, New York, USA
1924Baku oil baron Taghiyev lost his mansion to the Bolsheviks in 1920 and died two days after learning his daughter had fled to PersiaMardakan, Baku, Azerbaijan
1924Kafka told Max Brod to burn his papers; Brod saved them, and the fight over them ended in a Swiss bank vault in 2019Kierling, Austria; Tel Aviv
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 courtBrussels, Belgium
1924When the Bogd Khan died in 1924, Mongolia's government took his seal, declared a republic and banned the search for his reincarnationUrga (Ulaanbaatar), Mongolia
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 floorRed Square, Moscow, Russia
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 yearBerlin and Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany
1923Nan Britton lost her libel suit over Warren Harding's daughter in 1931, and DNA proved the daughter was his in 2015San Francisco, California
1923Villa's soldiers took Luis Terrazas's son from the British consulate for ransom, and Mexico bought the family's estates for 13.6 million pesos in 1922Chihuahua, Mexico
1923Egypt kept every object from Tutankhamun's tomb and paid the Carnarvon heirs their costs in 1930Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
1923Pancho Villa's grave was opened in 1926 and his head taken, and his widows' court fight ended with the government seizing his haciendaHidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico
1922Sarah Winchester inherited a rifle fortune and built a San Jose mansion; the medium who supposedly ordered it was invented in 1967San Jose, California, USA
1922Shackleton died about £40,000 in debt, his widow chose his grave on South Georgia, and his brother went to prison for fraudaboard Quest, Grytviken, South Georgia
1922Proust's sister-in-law burned his papers after her husband died in 1935, and a perfume heir bought his furniture for 1,500 francsParis, France
1921Pink Chaffin said his dead father led him to a second will hidden in Genesis 27, and a North Carolina court admitted it in 1925Mocksville, Davie County, North Carolina, USA
1921Princess Isabel sued Brazil for her Rio palace in 1895, and her heirs lost the case 125 years laterRio de Janeiro, Brazil
1921Ivan Morozov's great-grandson sued Yale and the Met for a Van Gogh and a Cézanne seized by the Bolsheviks, and lost both casesKarlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Czechoslovakia
1921Police raided Dan Cranmer's 1921 potlatch, and the masks surrendered to keep people out of prison went to museums, a collector and an official's own collection'Mimkwamlis, Village Island, British Columbia, Canada
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 reopenedHotel Vesuvio, Naples
1921Oil made each Osage headright worth a fortune, at least 24 Osage were killed in the early 1920s, and Congress stopped non-Osage from inheriting headrights in 1925Fairfax, Osage County, Oklahoma, USA
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 itBasel, Switzerland![Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche: [Porträt von Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche]](t-fritz-hoffmann-la-roche-s1092.jpg)
1920Prince Paolo Borghese lost the family fortune in the Rome building crash, and the state bought the Borghese collection for 3.6 million lireVenice
1920Modigliani died poor, his partner jumped from a window the next day, and Italian police later closed a Modigliani show for fakesParis
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 MaryPetrograd (Saint Petersburg), Russia; Moscow, Russia; London, UK
1920The Dodge brothers sued Henry Ford for dividends, sold him their shares for $25 million, and both died within a yearDetroit, Michigan, USA
1919Germany paid the last interest on its 1920s reparation loans on 3 October 2010, 92 years after the First World War endedBerlin, Germany
1919Griffith J. Griffith gave Los Angeles a 3,015-acre park, shot his wife and went to prison, and used his will to build the Griffith ObservatoryLos Angeles, California, USA
1919Anenecuilco gave Zapata its colonial land titles in 1909; the man he left them to was killed in a land fight with Zapata's sonAnenecuilco, Morelos, Mexico
1919Confucius's 77th-generation heir was made a duke as a baby, and Red Guards later dug up his father and hung the body from a treeQufu, Shandong, China; Taipei, Taiwan
1918Singapore took the Ong clan's burial hill for a public cemetery, then dug up more than 4,000 of its graves for a highway, and unclaimed remains were to be scattered at seaBukit Brown, Singapore
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 eachVienna, Austria
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 2007Yekaterinburg, Russia; Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg, Russia
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 cityFriedrichshafen, Germany
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 cathedralParis, France
1917Hawaii's last queen was imprisoned in an upstairs bedroom of her own palace, and the building served as the capitol of the government that removed her until 1969ʻIolani Palace, Honolulu, Hawaii
1917Queen Liliʻuokalani sued the United States for Hawaii's crown lands and lostHonolulu, Territory of Hawaii
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 orderRennes-le-Château, Aude, France
1917Scott Joplin died in a state hospital without a will, his papers were lost in a trustee's estate, and his widow's trust won $177,980 in 1977Manhattan State Hospital, Ward's Island, New York, United States
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 fakesMeudon, France
1917Buffalo Bill's 1913 will gave everything to Louisa; Denver newspaper owners held his $20,000 debt, and Wyoming has claimed his body since 1917Denver, Colorado
1917Mata Hari's body went unclaimed after her 1917 execution, and the embalmed head kept in a Paris anatomy museum was found missing in 2000Vincennes, near Paris
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 scrapMoscow, Russia; New York, USA; London, UK
1917Henry Flagler's widow left $5 million to her new husband in a codicil signed eight days before she died, and her family dug up her bodyLouisville, Kentucky, USA
1916King Thibaw handed Burma's crown jewels to a British colonel in 1885, and the Nga Mauk ruby was never seen againMandalay, Myanmar; Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India
1916Ishi asked to be cremated by Yahi custom, and the university sent his brain to the Smithsonian, which returned it 84 years laterSan Francisco, California, USA
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 himPentonville Prison, London; Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland; Murlough Bay, C
1916Jack London left nearly his entire estate to his wife Charmian in 1916; she kept the ranch, evicted a biographer, and her 1938 will turned it into a state parkGlen Ellen, California
1915Talaat asked the US ambassador for the list of Armenians insured by American companies, and 89 years later New York Life paid $20 million to their heirsOttoman Empire (Turkey); Los Angeles, California, USA
1914George Vanderbilt's widow sold most of Biltmore's land to the United States, and his grandsons split the house from the dairyWashington, D.C.
1914Senator Bacon left Macon a park for white people only; when the courts opened it to all, it went back to his heirs and became a strip mallMacon, Georgia, USA
1914Ambrose Bierce vanished in Mexico in 1913 or 1914, and a priest put a plaque in a Sierra Mojada cemetery in 2004 for the grave a witness describedMexico, location unconfirmed
1914Nigeria vested ownership of the looted Benin Bronzes in the Oba of Benin in 2023Calabar, Nigeria
Industry and empire 1800 to 1914
1913Rudolf Diesel vanished from a Channel steamer in 1913 and left his wife a bag of money with papers showing his debtsaboard the steamer Dresden between Antwerp, Belgium, and Harwich, England
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 homeVilla Lilly, Bad Schwalbach, Germany; St. Louis, Missouri, USA
1913Under the 1913 Natives Land Act a farmer named Kgobadi was ordered off his land by sunset, and his baby died on the road and was buried at night in a stolen graveOrange Free State, near the Transvaal border, South Africa
1913Menelik II's death was kept secret in 1913, and his named heir Lij Iyasu was deposed in 1916 and died a prisonerAddis Ababa, Ethiopia
1912Scott's last plea raised £76,000: widows were paid by their husbands' rank, and £10,000 founded the Scott Polar Research InstituteRoss Ice Shelf, Antarctica
1912Bram Stoker's widow sued over Nosferatu, and a German court ordered every copy of the film destroyedLondon
1911Nine Americans won $41.3 million from China on 1911 imperial railway bonds, and the judgment was set aside after Beijing protestedNorthern District of Alabama, USA
1911Alma Mahler held Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony for decades and first demanded a veto over Deryck Cooke's completionVienna
1910Tolstoy signed a secret will in the woods to give his copyrights to the publicAstapovo railway station, Russia
1910A duke bought Kylemore Castle with an American heiress's family money, lost it to debts, and later went to prisonKylemore, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland
1910A prince left the family emeralds to his mistress in 1910, and every senior British royal will has been sealed sinceLondon and Windsor, England
1910On Yap, a family stayed rich for generations on a stone coin lying at the bottom of the seaYap, Federated States of Micronesia; Palau
1910Dr Crippen was hanged for killing his wife, and the court refused to let his mistress take the wife's estate through his willHilldrop Crescent, London, UK
1910Mark Twain fired his secretary Isabel Lyon in 1909 and wrote 429 pages accusing her and her husband, a text kept private until 2015Redding, Connecticut
1909Leopold II owned the Congo personally, married his 26-year-old mistress five days before he died, and his daughters sued for the moneyLaeken, Belgium
1909Geronimo's descendants sued Skull and Bones in 2009 for the skull a member's 1918 letter says was taken from his grave, and a federal judge dismissed the caseFort Sill, Oklahoma, USA; the Tomb, 64 High Street, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
1909A Bengal prince was cremated in 1909, a holy man claimed to be him, and the Privy Council confirmed it in 1946; he died two days laterDarjeeling; Bhawal estate, Joydebpur (Gazipur), Bangladesh
1908A Nawab of Dhaka pledged the Daria-i-Noor to the British in 1908, and Bangladesh has not opened the vault to see if it is still thereLahore, Pakistan; Kolkata, India; Dhaka, Bangladesh
1908Lord Sackville's son by a married Spanish dancer sued for Knole and the peerage, and the court ruled all her children illegitimateKnole, Sevenoaks, Kent
1908Cyrus Teed's followers watched his body waiting for him to rise, until the county health officer ordered him buried; a hurricane later took the tombEstero, Lee County, Florida, USA
1907Cassie Chadwick said she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter, borrowed against forged Carnegie notes, and broke an Ohio bankOhio State Penitentiary, Columbus
1907Ilia Chavchavadze was shot dead on the road to his Saguramo estate in 1907, and the Georgian church made him a saint in 1987Road from Tbilisi to Saguramo, near Mtskheta, Georgia
1906John D. Rockefeller's father lived 50 years as "Dr. Levingston" with a second wife and was buried under the false nameFreeport, Illinois
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 francsAix-en-Provence, France
1906Marshall Field's son was shot two months before he died, and his will locked his fortune away for the grandsons until 1943Chicago, Illinois, USA
1905Jane Stanford, sole funder of Stanford University, died of strychnine in 1905 and the university president said it was natural causesMoana Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii
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 yearsJena, Germany
1905The celibate Harmony Society dwindled to eight members, the US Supreme Court refused the heirs a share in 1902, and the last trustees split the fortune with PennsylvaniaEconomy (Ambridge), Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA
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 1989Amiens, France
1905The Bishop Museum lent 83 burial objects to a Hawaiian group for one year, the group sealed them in a cave, and a federal judge jailed its leader until they came outKawaihae, Hawaii, USA
1905Savva Morozov's mother pushed him out of the family mills, he was found shot in Cannes, and his insurance went to a Bolshevik actressCannes, France, and Orekhovo-Zuevo, Russia
1904Germany sent the heads of Herero and Nama prisoners to Berlin for race research, and the Charité returned 20 skulls to Namibia in 2011Shark Island, Lüderitz, Namibia, and Berlin, Germany
1904Stanley was refused burial beside Livingstone in Westminster Abbey, and his papers were sold to Belgium in four partsLondon
1904Three Lemps shot themselves in the family mansion, Prohibition closed the brewery, and the house now sells haunted toursLemp Mansion, 3322 South 13th Street, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
1904Herzl's testament asked for his children to lie beside him; Israel buried his suicide son and his daughter there 76 years after their deathsVienna, Austria; Bordeaux, France; Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Israel
1903Paul Gauguin died in the Marquesas with no will, the colony auctioned his paintings for a few francs, and his widow Mette got about 4,000 francsAtuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
1902Parliament cancelled the Kaiser's 15 Rhodes Scholarships in 1916, and Zimbabwean officials called for Rhodes's body to be removedMuizenberg, Cape Colony
1902In Brewster's Millions, a man must spend a $1 million inheritance in a year with nothing to show for it in order to inherit $7 millionNew York City, USA (setting)
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 DreyfusParis, France
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 appraisalMilan
1900Nietzsche's sister took control of his papers while he was insane, published The Will to Power, and Hitler came to her funeralWeimar, Germany
1900Oscar Wilde died bankrupt in Paris; his friend Robbie Ross bought back the rights and gave the income to Wilde's sonsParis
1900A lawyer and a valet killed William Marsh Rice in 1900 to take the fortune he left to found Rice InstituteNew York City
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 out36 Blythe Road, Hammersmith, London, England
1899Horace Tabor left his wife for Baby Doe, lost his silver fortune in 1893, and Baby Doe was found frozen at his last mineDenver, Colorado
1899The House of Lords gave the Poulett earldom to the 6th Earl's 15-year-old son over the elder son the Earl disownedHinton St George, Somerset (family seat)
1899Johann Strauss II gave up Austrian citizenship and his church to remarry, then left his fortune to a music society instead of his familyVienna, Austria-Hungary
1898Peary brought six Inuit to New York in 1897, and the museum faked a funeral and kept Minik's father's skeleton until 1993New York; Pittsburg, New Hampshire
1898A Wapping butcher's son claimed the Tichborne baronetcy, and a 188-day perjury trial sent him to prison for 14 yearsLondon
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 1928Guildford, England
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 exileChantilly, Oise, France
1897Diamond magnate Barney Barnato went overboard from a mail steamer in 1897, a blackmailer shot his nephew Woolf Joel dead the next year, and his son inherited at twoat sea near Madeira; Johannesburg, South Africa
1897George Pullman's will cut his twin sons to $3,000 a year for lacking "a sense of responsibility," and his family buried him under steel rails and concreteChicago, Illinois, USA
1896Alfred Nobel gave 94 percent of his fortune to prizes, and his relatives and the King of Sweden tried to stop itSanremo, Italy
1896The British Museum bought the Broighter gold boat for £600, and the Crown sued the Museum in 1903 to send it to DublinBroighter, near Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland; London; Dublin,
1896Baron Maurice de Hirsch left his fortune to his widow, who gave it away and passed the rest to an adopted sonnear Érsekújvár, Hungary (now Nové Zámky, Slovakia)
1895Dutch troops took a quarter tonne of gold from the Lombok palace in 1894, and with it the only manuscript of Majapahit's royal chronicleCakranegara, Lombok, Indonesia
1895The Dukes of Hamilton sold Hamilton Palace's collections in 1882 and 1919, then demolished the palace over mining subsidenceAlgiers
1894California's last Mexican governor signed what he said was a mortgage, the courts called it a sale, and he lost his last ranch at 90Whittier and Los Angeles, California, USA
1894Senator James Fair locked his fortune in a trust, a school principal produced a pencil will and a marriage contract, and his children turned on herSan Francisco, California, USA
1894Gustave Caillebotte left France more than 60 Impressionist works in 1894; the state refused part and hung 38 in 1897Gennevilliers, France
1894A widow inherited a Kobe sugar trader, her manager made it bigger than Mitsui, rioters burned it, and it failed in 1927Kobe, Hyōgo, Japan
1893A 10-year-old Sikh maharaja signed away the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria, and other countries still claim itParis, France
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 dayBerlin, Germany; Munich, Germany
1892The 3rd Duke of Sutherland left his fortune to his second wife, and she went to Holloway prison for contemptDunrobin Castle, Sutherland
1892Lizzie Borden was acquitted of killing her father and stepmother, inherited his fortune with her sister, and wrote her sister out of her willFall River, Massachusetts, USA
1892A widow left her inherited fortune to a Lincoln charity home; her family said a planchette and her dead husband's spirit guided her, and Nebraska upheld the will in 1895Brownville, Nemaha County, Nebraska, USA
1892Borley Rectory passed from father to son for 64 years, drew ghost hunters for a decade, and burned in 1939 with the insurers suspecting arsonBorley, Essex, England
1892Walt Whitman's brain was removed at his autopsy for a brain club and was destroyed within a yearCamden, New Jersey
1891Moltke bought Kreisau with his 1866 war grant; his great-grandnephew was hanged in 1945 and the family lost the estateBerlin
1891Jacob Waltz died in 1891 and his carer sold maps to his supposed gold mine; searchers have died looking for it sinceSuperstition Mountains, near Apache Junction, Arizona, USA
1891Herman Melville's widow tied his unpublished papers in bundles in 1891, and Billy Budd stayed in a breadbox until a biographer opened it in 1919New York City
1891P.T. Barnum's will paid a grandson to take the Barnum name; sources give the sum as $25,000 or a share of the estateBridgeport, Connecticut
1891Pedro II's heirs still collect 2.5 percent of every land sale in central Petrópolis, 137 years after the empire fellPetrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1890The Dominican landlords evicted José Rizal's family from Calamba in 1890, and the United States bought the friar estates in 1903Calamba, Laguna, Philippines
1890Richard Burton's widow burned his manuscript of The Scented Garden and his diaries after he diedTrieste, Austria-Hungary
1890Van Gogh's brother died six months after him, and Theo's widow built the reputation from the paintings she inheritedAuvers-sur-Oise, France
1890Louis Le Prince filmed moving pictures in 1888, vanished from a train in 1890, and his son died after testifying against EdisonDijon, France
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 graveWhitechapel, London, England, UK
1890A widow at 19 promised to guard her family's two great bronze cauldrons, hid them through seven Japanese raids, and gave them to the stateBeijing; Suzhou, Jiangsu; Shanghai, China
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 yearsHisarlik (Troy), Turkey; Berlin, Germany; Moscow, Russia
1890William Waldorf Astor built a hotel beside his aunt's house over who was "Mrs. Astor", and her son built a taller one on hersFifth Avenue, New York City, USA, and Cliveden, England
1889Austria's crown prince shot his 17-year-old lover and himself at Mayerling, and the throne passed to the man killed at SarajevoMayerling hunting lodge, Lower Austria
1889Antonio Meucci could not pay $10 to renew his telephone caveat, Bell got the patent, and Meucci died before the courts ruledStaten Island, New York, USA
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 1995Kalawao, Molokai, Hawaii, USA, and Leuven, Belgium
1888John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, sold it off in pieces while addicted to morphine, and died poor in 1888, leaving his widow a pauperAtlanta, Georgia, USA
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 OilBaku, Azerbaijan; St Petersburg, Russia; Stockholm, Sweden
1887Carlsberg's founder gave his brewery to a foundation after a feud with his son, who built a rival brewery beside itRome
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 weeksLake Starnberg, near Berg Castle, Bavaria
1886Emily Dickinson's poems were edited by her brother's mistress, and her sister sued the mistress for a strip of landAmherst, Massachusetts
1885Sarah Althea Hill produced a marriage contract and a will from San Francisco's richest man, federal judges ruled them forged, and her husband was shot dead attacking a Supreme Court justiceSan Francisco, California, USA
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 peopleParis, France
1885Jumbo the elephant was killed by a train in 1885; his skeleton, hide, heart and ashes went to four different ownersSt. Thomas, Ontario
1885Kitchener had the Mahdi's tomb destroyed in 1898 and his skull taken, and Parliament debated it before the skull was buried at Wadi HalfaOmdurman, Sudan
1885Glenveagh's builder evicted 244 people in three days, a later owner vanished in a storm, and the last owner gave the castle to IrelandGlenveagh, County Donegal, Ireland
1885A Georgia planter left his estate to his daughter by an enslaved girl, and his white relatives lost their challenge in 1887Hancock County, Georgia
1885Grant lost his savings in the Grant & Ward fraud and wrote memoirs that paid his widow about $450,000Mount McGregor, New York
1884The last Kamehameha princess left her lands to a school, and a judge removed its trustees for self-dealing 115 years laterHonolulu, Kingdom of Hawaii
1884A 1997 essay called "Broken Trust" led a Hawaii court to remove the Bishop Estate trustees, who were paid up to $900,000 a yearHonolulu, Kingdom of Hawaii
1883Emperor Tự Đức's will called his heir unfit, and his regents crowned four emperors in just over a year and poisoned twoHuế, Vietnam
1883France seized Chambord in 1915 because its owner served Austria, while his half-brothers, who fought for the Allies, sued him for a bigger shareChâteau de Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France
1882A 16-year-old poisoned his grandfather to stop him changing his will, and New York's highest court took the farm from him in 1889rural northern New York, USA; New York Court of Appeals
1882Robert Lincoln had his mother declared insane the day after detectives saw $56,000 in bonds sewn into her petticoatsChicago, Illinois, USA
1880Japanese scientists dug up more than 1,600 Ainu remains for study, and Ainu groups sued universities to bring them homeUrahoro, Hokkaido, Japan; Shiraoi, Hokkaido
1880Edwin Drake drilled the first US oil well in 1859, lost his savings by 1866, and lived on a Pennsylvania state pensionTitusville and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
1880Gold was found on John Sutter's land in 1848, his son built Sacramento on it against his wishes, and he died in a Washington hotel waiting for Congress to pay himWashington, D.C., USA; Sacramento, California, USA
1879Thérèse Humbert borrowed for 20 years against an inheritance from an American millionaire who never existed, and the safe held almost nothingParis, France
1879A widow said the Duke of Portland had faked his own death as a London shopkeeper, and the coffin was opened to settle itLondon
1877Caroline Norton's husband claimed her book earnings and her inheritance from her mother, and her campaign changed English property lawLondon, England, UK
1877The church claimed $999,000 of Brigham Young's estate, his heirs sued, and the three apostles who were his executors went to the penitentiarySalt Lake City, Utah, USA
1877Gustave Courbet was billed 323,000 francs to rebuild the Vendôme Column and died in Swiss exile in 1877La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland
1877Nepal's Rana prime ministers passed the office brother to brother by a roll; in 1934 the ruler struck off the sons of low-caste mothers, and their sons joined the party that opposed itKathmandu, Nepal
1877Cornelius Vanderbilt left nearly all of $100 million to one son, and the son he passed over argued spiritualism had unhinged him10 Washington Place, New York City
1877Argentina confiscated Rosas's property and sentenced him to death; he died a tenant farmer in England and was reburied in 1989Southampton, England
1876Thieves stole A. T. Stewart's body from his New York vault, and his widow paid $20,000 for a satchel of bonesNew York City, New York, USA
1876Santa Anna sold La Mesilla to the United States for $10 million, mortgaged his estates from exile, and Illinois keeps his legMexico City
1875Cixi made her sister's son emperor, an official killed himself to object to the adoption, and the emperor died of arsenic in 1908Beijing and Jizhou (Tianjin), China
1875Isaac Singer left a sewing-machine fortune to children by five women, and a former partner claimed to be his widowOldway, Paignton, Devon, England
1874James Addison Reavis forged a Spanish barony covering 12 million acres of Arizona, presented a ranch girl as its heiress, and went to prisonPhoenix, Arizona, USA
1874Two Hawaiian kings died without naming heirs, the 1874 election ended in a riot that killed a legislator, and King Lunalilo left his lands to a home for poor HawaiiansHonolulu, Hawaii, USA
1873Johns Hopkins left $7 million in railroad stock to found a hospital, the stock stopped paying, and records found in 2020 showed he had owned slavesBaltimore, Maryland, USA
1873The Army hanged Captain Jack, shipped his head to Washington in a barrel marked "specimens of natural history," and exiled his people to OklahomaFort Klamath, Oregon, USA
1873Trustees holding a dead man's bank shares for his daughters were made personally liable when the City of Glasgow Bank failedGlasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland
1873The Native Land Court declared Ōrākei inalienable, the Crown took or bought almost all of it, and 800 police and soldiers ended a 506-day occupation with 222 arrestsŌrākei and Bastion Point (Takaparawhau), Auckland, New Zealand
1873Livingstone's heart was buried in Zambia, his body was carried 1,000 miles to Westminster Abbey, and his son died in a Confederate prison under a false nameChitambo's village, Ilala (now Zambia)
1870Joseph Davis sold his plantations to the man he had enslaved, and his brother Jefferson Davis sued the family for Brierfield and wonDavis Bend (now Davis Island), Warren County, Mississippi, USA
1870Eliza Lynch buried Paraguay's dictator and their son in 1870, was expelled when she came back for his lands, and Paraguay voted in 2025 to move her bones to its Pantheon of HeroesCerro Corá, Paraguay
1870Dickens left £1,000 to the actress he hid for 12 years, and burned 20 years of letters in his gardenGad's Hill Place, Kent
1868William Morton patented ether anaesthesia, never collected a royalty, and died in debt while his rivals died by suicide and in an asylumNew York City, USA
1868Eilley Bowers took mining claims for unpaid board, became one of the first Comstock millionaires, and lost her mansion at auctionGold Hill and Washoe Valley, Nevada, USA
1868Tewodros II shot himself at Maqdala in 1868, Britain auctioned his treasury and took his son, and in 2023 Buckingham Palace refused to return the son's remainsMaqdala, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
1867Juárez refused to hand over Emperor Maximilian's body after the 1867 execution, and his widow's fortune went home to Belgium with her under her brother's controlQuerétaro, Mexico
1867Maximilian made the two-year-old grandson of Mexico's first emperor a prince and his ward, and the boy died a Georgetown language teacher with no childrenMexico City, Mexico
1866Bombay Khoja dissidents sued the first Aga Khan for control of the community's funds, and a British judge ruled in 1866 that he was their hereditary imamBombay (Mumbai), India
1865John Banks believed devils and a dead man were pursuing him, left his cottages to his niece, and the court upheld the willKeswick, Cumberland (Cumbria), England, UK
1865Hetty Robinson produced a will page giving her all of her aunt's $2 million, and a Harvard mathematician testified the signature was tracedMassachusetts, USA
1864David Sassoon's sons split his firm in two, his daughter-in-law Flora was pushed out, and his great-grandson Victor lost ShanghaiBombay (Mumbai), India, and Shanghai, China
1863Khedive Ismail sold Egypt's Suez Canal shares to Britain for £4 million in 1875, and the Ottoman sultan deposed him four years laterCairo, Egypt
1862Samuel Colt left $15 million, and the "nephew" in his will was the son of his brother, who died in his cell on his execution dayHartford, Connecticut, USA
1862A British officer shot the last Mughal emperor's sons in 1857, and in 2025 India's Supreme Court threw out his great-grandson's widow's claim to the Red FortDelhi, India; Rangoon (Yangon), Myanmar; Howrah, West Bengal, India
1862Uriah Levy willed Monticello to the United States, the Confederacy auctioned it, and New York's highest court voided the giftNew York City; Monticello, Albemarle County, Virginia
1861The 2nd Duke of Buckingham owed £1.46 million, fled his creditors, and Christie's sold the contents of Stowe in 1848Great Western Hotel, Paddington, London
1860Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber, spent the profits in court, and died $200,000 in debt on the way to his dying daughterNew York City, New York, USA
1860In Great Expectations, Pip's secret fortune comes from a transported convict, and the Crown takes it when the convict is condemnedKent and London, England (setting)
1860Napoleon annulled his brother's Baltimore marriage, and Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's son lost his claim to the Bonaparte inheritance in a Paris courtBaltimore, Maryland, USA; Paris, France
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 2013Moscow
1859The British refused the last Peshwa's adopted son his father's pension, and after 1857 dug his treasure out of the wells at BithurBithur and Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India; Nepal
1859Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy's baronetcy fund pays only an heir who gives up his own name, and every holder since 1859 has taken hisBombay (Mumbai), India
1858Maniram Dewan, the first Indian to plant tea commercially in Assam, was hanged in 1858, and the British auctioned his tea gardensJorhat, Assam, India
1857Insurers paid for the SS Central America's gold in 1857 and claimed it again when it was found in 1988; the finder spent ten years jailed over 500 missing coinsAtlantic Ocean, about 160 miles off South Carolina, USA; Columbus, Ohio
1857The Lee family lost Arlington over a $92.07 tax, the Army buried soldiers on it, and the Supreme Court awarded $150,000Arlington, Virginia
1856Sayyid Said died at sea in 1856, his sons split Oman and Zanzibar, and his daughter Salme was refused her inheritanceAt sea between Oman and Zanzibar; buried at Zanzibar, Tanzania
1856The 17th Earl of Shrewsbury left his estates to the Duke of Norfolk's baby son; a distant cousin won the earldom and Alton TowersAlton Towers, Staffordshire
1855Prince Diponegoro was arrested at peace talks in 1830, and the kris the Dutch returned in 2020 had been missing for decadesFort Rotterdam, Makassar, Indonesia
1854A violin dealer was found dead on a farm with 144 Italian instruments, and his heirs sold the unplayed "Messiah" StradivariCremona, Italy; Fontaneto, Piedmont, Italy; Paris, France; Oxford, England
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 firstoff Beachy Head, East Sussex, England
1853The East India Company refused the Raja of Jhansi's deathbed adoption, took the state, and kept the boy's inheritance in trust for goodJhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India; Indore, Madhya Pradesh
1852In Dickens's Bleak House, the Jarndyce will case runs for generations until the legal costs have swallowed the estateLondon, England (Court of Chancery)
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 missingMoscow, Russia
1852Belgium bought out the Duke of Wellington's "perpetual" Waterloo rent in 1988 and kept a right to take back the landWalmer Castle, Kent
1852Parliament bought Wellington an estate, and the 7th Duke gave Apsley House to the nation in 1947 while keeping a family flatWalmer Castle, Kent
1851Audubon's widow sold the Birds of America copper plates in 1870 and buyers melted most of them for scrapNew York City
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 collegeSardhana, Uttar Pradesh, India; London
1850John McDonogh left two cities a fortune for free schools, his heirs said Louisiana law voided the gift, and New Orleans pulled down his statue in 2020McDonoghville, Louisiana, USA
1850Margaret Fuller, her husband and their son drowned 100 yards from Fire Island in 1850, and her manuscript history of the Roman Republic was lostoff Fire Island, New York
1850Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson's daughter was ruled illegitimate, and a Kentucky court gave his estate to his brothersFrankfort, Kentucky
1849Edgar Allan Poe's self-appointed literary executor was his enemy, who wrote his obituary under a false name and rewrote his lettersBaltimore, Maryland
1849Chopin's sister smuggled his heart into Warsaw, an SS officer took it in 1944, and scientists examined it in 2014 without opening the jarParis, France; heart at Holy Cross Church, Warsaw, Poland
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 upWest Yorkshire moors, England (setting)
1847The Navy declared Franklin's crews dead in 1854 while his wife paid for the search, and the wrecks found 160 years later belong partly to the InuitKing William Island, Nunavut, Canada
1847Kenesary Khan was beheaded in 1847 and his skull sent to Omsk as a trophy; in 2021 Putin promised to return itKeklik-Sengir valley, Kyrgyzstan
1845Karl Wilhelm Naundorff sued the Bourbons as the lost son of Louis XVI, and DNA from the boy's heart ended the claim in 2000Delft, Netherlands
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 prisonerChâteau d'If, Marseille, France, and the island of Montecristo, Italy (sett
1842Families who had inherited unpaid Mississippi bonds for 90 years gave them to the Prince of Monaco to sue, and the Supreme Court said a foreign state cannotJackson, Mississippi, USA
1842Mexico seized the Jesuit mission fund for California in 1842, and the claim ran 125 years through the first case at The HagueMexico City, Mexico; California, USA; The Hague, Netherlands
1842A Bellary liquor contractor died without a will, his brother claimed the estate as a Hindu joint family, and the Privy Council asked how the family livedBellary (Ballari), Karnataka, India
1840Beau Brummell spent his inheritance on clothes and cards, fled London by night, and died in a paupers' asylum in CaenCaen, France
1840The Church refused Paganini burial, and his embalmed body was moved from cellar to cellar for 36 yearsNice, Kingdom of Sardinia
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 permissionLondon, England; Paris, France; Washington, D.C., USA
1839Stephen Van Rensselaer III's will ordered $400,000 in back rents collected, and his tenants answered with the Anti-Rent WarAlbany, New York
1838The Maryland Jesuits sold 272 people for $115,000 in 1838 to pay Georgetown's debts, and in 2021 the order pledged $100 million to their descendantsWashington, DC, USA; Iberville and Ascension parishes, Louisiana, USA
1835Raffles made Hussein sultan without the regalia, and in 1897 a court ruled his grandsons' palace land belonged to the CrownKampong Glam, Singapore
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 BuildingsMont-l'Évêque, France; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
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 replyLondon
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 2022Porto, Portugal
1833Nicéphore Niépce died before photography paid, his partner named it the daguerreotype, and France gave Niépce's son the smaller pensionSaint-Loup-de-Varennes, Burgundy, France
1833The Korean tale of Heungbu and Nolbu says the elder brother took the whole inheritance and threw the younger out, and a swallow reversed their fortunesNamwon, North Jeolla, South Korea (villages that claim the story)
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 lineAnsbach, Bavaria, Germany
1833Settlers cut off Yagan's head for a £30 reward, it was shown in London and buried in a Liverpool grave, and Noongar elders buried it in the Swan Valley in 2010Upper Swan, Western Australia, Australia
1832Heirs of a Mexican land grant raided the Tierra Amarilla courthouse in 1967 to arrest the district attorneyTierra Amarilla, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, USA
1832Jeremy Bentham willed his body to be dissected and displayed, and students stole his head in 1975Queen's Square Place, Westminster; University College London, England
1832Walter Scott owed £130,000 when his printer failed, refused bankruptcy, and wrote until he died to pay itAbbotsford, Scotland
1832The British deposed the last king of Kandy, barred his family from the throne forever, and kept his throne at Windsor until 1934Kandy, Sri Lanka; Vellore Fort, Tamil Nadu, India; Windsor Castle, England
1831Stephen Girard left $7.5 million for "poor white male orphans", and courts fought over the word "white" until 1968Philadelphia
1830Hawaiʻi's young king inherited the chiefs' sandalwood debt, and the governor who sailed to cut more sandalwood never came backHonolulu, Oʻahu, Hawaii, USA; Erromango, Vanuatu
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 themLondon
1830Simón Bolívar's will left only the Aroa copper mines, his sisters sold them in 1832, and Hugo Chávez had his bones dug up in 2010Santa Marta, Colombia
1829A Tehran mob killed Russia's envoy in 1829, and the Shah paid for it with a diamond carved with the names of three kingsTehran, Iran; St Petersburg and Moscow, Russia
1829A duke's illegitimate son left his fortune to the United States, which used it to found the SmithsonianGenoa
1828Goya's grave in Bordeaux was opened in 1888 and his skull was missing; he was reburied in Madrid in 1919 without itBordeaux, France
1828Dingane and Mhlangana killed their half-brother Shaka in 1828, and their brother Mpande took the Zulu throne with Boer help in 1840KwaDukuza (Stanger), KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
1827Rose Hall's heir died in debt, his widow sold her rights for £200, and a novel later made her the "White Witch" who killed three husbandsRose Hall, near Montego Bay, St James, Jamaica
1827Jamaican legend says the mistress of Rose Hall murdered her husbands; the records say her husband died in debt and she sold her claim for £200Rose Hall, near Montego Bay, Jamaica
1827George Hudson inherited £30,000 from a great-uncle in "suspicious circumstances," became the Railway King, and died with less than £200York, England
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 childScotland
1827Beethoven took his nephew from the boy's mother in court; the nephew shot himself, then inherited everythingVienna, Austria
1826Worrall held Fisher's power of attorney, said Fisher had sailed for England, and sold his property; Fisher was in a grave on Worrall's landCampbelltown, New South Wales, Australia
1826Masons took William Morgan from a New York jail in 1826 to stop his exposé, and a stranger's body was buried in his nameCanandaigua and Batavia, New York, USA; Fort Niagara, New York, USA
1826The Sultan abolished the Bektashi order in 1826 and gave its lodges away, Atatürk closed the rest in 1925, and in 2024 Albania proposed a sovereign state for its leaderIstanbul, Turkey; Hacıbektaş, Turkey; Tirana, Albania
1826Thomas Jefferson's will freed his two youngest sons by Sally Hemings, and his debts sent 130 enslaved people to auctionMonticello, Albemarle County, Virginia
1825France refused to take back Jacques-Louis David's body in 1825, so he lies in a Brussels cemetery under an obeliskBrussels
1825France made Haiti pay 150 million francs in 1825 to compensate its former slaveholders, and Haitians paid on the debt until 1947Port-au-Prince, Haiti
1825Alexander I sealed his brother's renunciation of the throne in envelopes, Russia swore allegiance to the wrong heir, and the guards revoltedTaganrog, Russia; crisis in Saint Petersburg, Russia
1824Byron's friends tore up and burned his memoirs in his publisher's fireplace four weeks after he diedMissolonghi, Greece
1822An 1885 pamphlet says a buried treasure in Virginia belongs to 30 men and their heirs, named in a cipher nobody has solvedBedford County, Virginia, USA
1822Shelley's father would fund his widow only if she published no biography, and she kept the remains of his heart in her deskat sea off Viareggio, Italy
1822The Ottoman state killed Ali Pasha of Ioannina in 1822 and confiscated more than 950 farmsPandeleimon Monastery, Ioannina
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 secretGlamis Castle, Angus, Scotland
1821Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne were published in 1878 over objections and sold at Sotheby's in 1885 for £543 17sRome, Papal States
1821Napoleon's will left 10,000 francs to the man who tried to shoot the Duke of WellingtonLongwood, Saint Helena
1820Settlers seized Demasduit to recover stolen property and killed her husband; their remains sat in Edinburgh until 2020Red Indian Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
1820Haiti's King Henry shot himself, rebels bayoneted his 16-year-old heir ten days later, and the queen took her daughters into exile in PisaMilot (Sans-Souci Palace), Haiti
1819Soviet soldiers emptied Blücher's mausoleum in 1945, and his family lost the Silesian estateKrieblowitz, Silesia (now Krobielowice, Poland)
1817Kelly Clarkson bought Jane Austen's ring for 152,450 pounds in 2012, and Britain barred export until a museum raised the same sumWinchester, England
1817Bounty mutineers' descendants argued in 2004 that burning the ship in 1790 put Pitcairn outside British law, and the Privy Council rejected it in 2006Bond Street, London
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 existedRoss-shire and the Isle of Lewis, Scotland
1815France passed a law in 2002 to return Sarah Baartman's remains to South AfricaParis, France
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 GolspieStrathnaver, Sutherland, Scotland
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 2021Charenton asylum, France
1813Myra Clark Gaines sued for 51 years over her father's lost will and the New Orleans land sold from his estate, and her heirs collected after she diedNew Orleans, Louisiana, USA
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 heirFrankfurt am Main
1812William Clark became court guardian of Sacagawea's two children in 1813 and freed York only years after the expeditionManuel Lisa's fort, upper Missouri River
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 2026Gray's Inn, London; St Ives, Cornwall, England
1810The Earl of Berkeley's eldest son was ruled illegitimate in 1811 after the church register entry for a secret 1785 marriage proved forgedEngland
1809Thomas Paine's bones were dug up by an admirer, shipped to England and lost59 Grove Street, Greenwich Village, New York
1809Meriwether Lewis died insolvent with his drafts refused by the War Department, and 198 relatives have not been allowed to exhume his bodyGrinder's Stand, Natchez Trace, Tennessee
1809Phrenologists stole Haydn's head after burial, and it was reunited with his body 145 years laterVienna, Austria
1807Zheng Yi's widow took command of his pirate fleets, married his adopted heir, and surrendered to the Qing in 1810 keeping her plunderCanton (Guangzhou), China
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 WalesFrascati, Lazio, Italy
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 suicideParis, France
1805Weimar buried a skull as Friedrich Schiller's in 1827; DNA tests in 2008 showed it and the skeleton were not hisWeimar, Germany
1805Nelson left Emma Hamilton to the nation; Parliament paid his brother and Emma died in debt in CalaisHMS Victory, off Cape Trafalgar
1804A Spanish frigate blew up in 1804 with Captain Alvear's wife and seven children aboard, and in 2007 his descendants sued for its silveroff Cape Santa Maria, Portugal; coins now in Cartagena, Spain
1804Bavaria banned the Illuminati in 1785 and published their seized papers, and a duke's will sent the rest to Sweden to keep them secretMunich, Germany; Gotha, Germany; Stockholm, Sweden; Berlin, Germany
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 serfsSaint Petersburg and Moscow, Russia
1801A sea captain's son willed his Manhattan farm to retired sailors, a Loyalist's son sued as heir to the Supreme Court, and the ground rents housed 1,000 sailorsGreenwich Village, Manhattan, and Staten Island, New York City, USA
1801Benedict Arnold was paid £6,315 for changing sides and died in debt; his widow paid the debtsLondon
1800When the last Jesuit in Canada died in 1800 the Crown took the order's estates, and 88 years later the Pope divided the compensationQuebec City, Quebec, Canada
1800Georgia's last king asked Russia for protection, Russia abolished his dynasty, and his heirs were suing each other over the royal name in 2019Tbilisi, Georgia
Empires and conquest 1500 to 1800
1799China's new emperor arrested his father's favourite five days after the old emperor died, let him hang himself, and seized a fortune put at up to 800 million taelsBeijing, China
1799Washington's will freed 123 people, his heir sold 54 more, and the family sold Mount Vernon for $200,000Mount Vernon, Virginia
1799The British army broke up Tipu Sultan's gold throne to divide as prize money; his sword sold for £14 million in 2023 while descendants pulled rickshawsSeringapatam (Srirangapatna), Karnataka, India
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 2001Valletta, Malta; Aboukir Bay, Egypt; Fort St Angelo, Birgu, Malta
1798William Jennens died with an unsigned will in his pocket, and claimants fought over his fortune until 1915Acton Place, Suffolk
1797Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill collection was sold off over 24 days in 1842 after heirs spent the family fortuneLondon, England
1797Peter Thellusson locked his fortune away for three generations, and Parliament changed the law to stop anyone copying himPlaistow Lodge, Bromley, Kent
1796Burma took Ayutthaya's former king prisoner in 1767, and in 2013 a Thai team dug up the tomb said to hold his ashesLin Zin Gon cemetery, Amarapura, Mandalay, Myanmar
1796Robert Burns's widow died in 1834, and local men opened his tomb at night to cast his skull for a phrenologistDumfries, Scotland
1796Chica da Silva, born enslaved, made a will naming 14 children as heirs and divided enslaved people among themArraial do Tejuco (Diamantina), Minas Gerais, Brazil
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 againSaint Petersburg, Russia
1795A doctor stole the heart of the boy king Louis XVII, and DNA in 2000 ended 200 years of impostorsTemple prison, Paris, France
1794The Revolution guillotined Lavoisier and seized his notebooks, and his widow fought until she got back the property and nearly all his papersParis, France
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, Midhurst, West Sussex, England
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 marketPalace of Versailles, Yvelines, France; Tribunal correctionnel de Pontoise
1792Gia Long dug up the Tây Sơn emperors in 1802, pounded their bones and locked their skulls in a prisonPhú Xuân (Huế), Vietnam
1792Portugal's 1792 sentence declared Tiradentes's children and grandchildren infamous, and Brazil later paid pensions to people who said they descended from himRio de Janeiro, Brazil
1791Mozart's widow passed off a Requiem finished by his student as his own and sold it twiceVienna, Austria
1790Benjamin Franklin left Boston and Philadelphia £1,000 each for 200 years, and his heirs, a school and the state fought over itPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts, USA
1788The House of Lords convicted the Duchess of Kingston of bigamy, and she left England with the Duke's fortuneParis
1783Charles Byrne arranged to be buried at sea to escape the anatomists, and John Hunter got his body and displayed his skeleton for 200 yearsLondon, England, UK
1782General Chakri took Taksin's throne in 1782 while Taksin's son and heir was away at war, and dug up Taksin's body two years laterThonburi (Bangkok), Thailand; Cambodia
1782Kalaniʻōpuʻu left Hawaiʻi Island to his son and the war god to his nephew Kamehameha, and the chiefs who got no land started the war that made Kamehameha kingHōnaunau, Kona, Hawaii, USA
1781Virginia confiscated Lord Fairfax's Northern Neck, and his heir's land claim reached the Supreme Court twiceGreenway Court, Virginia
1781A Cuzco chief sued for four years to be recognised as the last Inca's heir, then led the 1780 rebellion with the case still undecidedCuzco, Peru
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 homeKealakekua Bay, Hawaiʻi Island, USA; London, England; Wellington, New Zealand; H
1779Captain Cook's body was returned in pieces, and his widow outlived all six children and destroyed his letters before she died in 1835Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii
1778The future Rama I took the Emerald Buddha from conquered Vientiane, and it has stayed in Bangkok for two centuriesVientiane, Laos; Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand
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 1814Paris, France
1776John Harrison solved longitude at sea, the Board of Longitude withheld the £20,000 prize, and his son took the case to the kingRed Lion Square, London, England
1775A Bengali official accused Warren Hastings of bribery, was charged weeks later with forging a dead banker's bond, and was hanged under an English statuteCalcutta (Kolkata), India
1775The Pope suppressed the Jesuits in 1773 and their Superior General died a prisoner in Castel Sant'Angelo, declaring the Society innocentCastel Sant'Angelo, Rome, Italy
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 pensionKholmogory, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia; Horsens, Denmark
1773Raghunathrao's men killed the 17-year-old Peshwa in his palace, his widow bore a son who took the throne back, and Pune says the boy still cries for his uncleShaniwar Wada, Pune, Maharashtra, India
1771Lord Baltimore was acquitted of rape in 1768, left Maryland to his illegitimate son in 1771, and the son lost it to the RevolutionNaples
1770William Beckford inherited a Jamaican sugar fortune at 10, built Fonthill Abbey, and sold it before its tower fellFonthill, Wiltshire, England
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 awayMadrid and over 120 Spanish towns; Civitavecchia, Italy; Corsica, France
1764Jean-Marie Leclair was found stabbed three times at his Paris door in October 1764, and his ex-wife sold his belongings and unpublished musicRue Carême-Prenant, Le Marais, Paris
1764Jamaica granted Cudjoe's Maroons 1,500 acres by treaty in 1739, then shipped them to Nova Scotia in 1796 and auctioned the landTrelawny Town (later Maroon Town and Flagstaff), St James, Jamaica
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 1764Shlisselburg Fortress (Oreshek), Leningrad Oblast, Russia
1763The Jagat Seths financed the British at Plassey; six years later the Nawab had the two heads of the bank killed and their bodies thrown from a fortMurshidabad, West Bengal; Munger Fort, Bihar, India
1762King Yeongjo locked his heir in a rice chest until he died, and the heir's son became king and moved the body into a new fortressChanggyeong Palace, Seoul, South Korea
1760Kent inherited his dead lover's money, and her "ghost" accused him of poisoning her; a London jury convicted the ghost's handlers in 1762Cock Lane, Smithfield, London, England
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 1743Lee, near London
1757Admiral John Byng was shot under the Articles of War, his family kept his estate, and no pardon has been grantedHMS Monarch, Solent
1747Nader Shah's Indian jewels cost his blind grandson his life under torture, and a deposed shah took them into the Russian legationMashhad and Tehran, Iran
1741Okiku broke one of ten heirloom dishes, was killed and thrown into a well, and Himeji Castle still shows the wellHimeji Castle, Hyogo, Japan; Bancho, Edo (Tokyo), Japan
1741Antonio Vivaldi was buried in Vienna for 19 florins 45 kreuzer, and his manuscripts were sold off, then found at a school in 1926Vienna
1738Descendants of a 1640s settler sued Trinity Church for downtown Manhattan, and courts ruled the church's 230 years of possession beat their claimNew York City
1738Württemberg hanged Joseph Süß Oppenheimer in a cage in 1738 and auctioned his property months before the verdictgallows outside Stuttgart
1737The last Medici left the Florentine Diamond to Tuscany, the Habsburgs took it to Vienna, and it surfaced in a Quebec bank vault in 2025Florence, Italy; Vienna, Austria; Quebec, Canada
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 sonPutney, London, England
1727Isaac Newton died without a will, and his heirs held his alchemy and theology papers for 209 years before selling them for £9,000London, England
1727Moulay Ismail of Morocco died in 1727 with hundreds of sons, and his army made and unmade sultans for thirty yearsMeknes, Morocco
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 1936Raynham Hall, Norfolk, England
1724Thomas Guy sold his South Sea stock at the top of the 1720 bubble and left the profit to found Guy's HospitalSouthwark, London, England, UK
1722Marlborough's £5,000 Post Office pension was paid to his heirs for 178 years, and Blenheim's builders went unpaid in 1712Windsor Lodge
1722The Kangxi Emperor deposed his heir twice, and the son who followed him hid the next heir's name behind a palace plaqueChangchun Garden and the Palace of Heavenly Purity, Beijing, China
1721Edward Colston's charities carried his name for 300 years, until protesters threw his statue in Bristol harbourMortlake, Surrey; Bristol, England
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 annuityRuscombe, Berkshire
1718Peter the Great had his son tortured to death, changed the law so he could pick any heir, and died without naming oneSt Petersburg, Russia
1716The child shogun died in 1716 and the Tokugawa main line ended, so a branch lord whose three elder brothers had died took the titleEdo Castle, Tokyo, Japan
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 castleTower Hill, London; Dilston, Northumberland, England
1715Louis XIV's will gave power to his illegitimate son, and the Paris Parlement annulled it the day after he diedPalace of Versailles, France
1714The Ottomans beheaded Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu and his four sons in Istanbul in 1714 after four months of torture over his fortuneIstanbul (Constantinople), Turkey
1710Christopher Codrington willed his Barbados plantations to a Church of England missionary society, which held enslaved people on them from 1710 to 1836Barbados
1708The galleon San José sank off Cartagena in 1708 with nearly 600 people, and Colombia, Spain, a US salvage company and a Bolivian people all claim its cargooff Cartagena, Colombia
1707Aurangzeb was buried under a plain stone as he willed, and his sons fought for the throne; one said "a throne or a bier"Khuldabad, near Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India; battle at Jajau near Agra
1705The shogunate confiscated Osaka's richest merchant house in 1705 for living beyond its stationOsaka, Japan
1704Danjūrō I was stabbed to death in his dressing room by a rival actor, and his 15-year-old son took the name that is now in its 13th generationIchimura-za theatre, Edo (Tokyo), Japan
1703Robert Hooke said he would endow the Royal Society, died without a will, and cousins he barely knew took the moneyLondon, England
1703The Habsburg state owed Samuel Oppenheimer millions when he died in 1703; it declared his firm bankrupt and his estate was auctioned in 1763Vienna
1701The shogunate confiscated Lord Asano's 53,000-koku domain the day he drew his sword, and his retainers waited 21 months to take revengeEdo (Tokyo) and Akō, Hyōgo, Japan
1701Captain Kidd buried treasure on Gardiners Island to bargain for a pardon, and the governor who had backed his voyage dug it upGardiners Island, New York, USA; Wapping, London, England
1700Spain's childless Charles II left his whole empire to a French prince in his will, and Europe went to war for 13 yearsMadrid, Spain
1694Mitsui's 1722 house code barred any branch from dividing or selling its share, and the US occupation took the families' property in 1946Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo), Japan
1693The Sabarna Roy Choudhury family sold three villages to the East India Company in 1698, and their descendants won a 2003 ruling that Job Charnock did not found KolkataKolkata, India
1692Salem pressed Giles Corey to death under stones for refusing a jury trial, and his land went to his sons-in-law under a will he had already signedSalem, Massachusetts, USA
1688Henry Morgan left his plantations and 131 enslaved people to his wife and nephews, and four years later his grave went under the seaPort Royal, Jamaica
1683The Chamberlen family kept the obstetric forceps secret for over a century, and their instruments were found hidden in the family house two centuries laterWoodham Mortimer, Essex, England, UK
1682Tibet's regent hid the Fifth Dalai Lama's death for 15 years; a Mongol khan later deposed the Sixth and put his own candidate in the PotalaPotala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet, China
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 debtsToulouse, France
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 necktiesVaux-le-Vicomte, Maincy, Seine-et-Marne, France
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 showFalun, Dalarna, Sweden
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 perpetuitiesPadua, Italy; estates in England, UK
1676Plymouth put Metacom's head on a pole for about 20 years and sold his wife and nine-year-old son into slaveryMount Hope (Bristol), Rhode Island, USA
1675Vermeer died with 11 children and debts; his widow paid creditors in paintings and petitioned for bankruptcyDelft, Dutch Republic
1673Molière died in 1673 after collapsing in his own play; priests refused him last rites, and Louis XIV allowed a night burialParis, France
1666Mughal prince Aurangzeb jailed his father for eight years and executed his brother to take the throneAgra Fort and Delhi, India
1665Elisabetta Sirani died at 27 in Bologna in 1665; her father charged the maid with poisoning her and then withdrew the chargeBologna, Papal States
1664A Sikh guru disinherited his elder son for changing one verse for Aurangzeb, and rival claimants sat at Bakala waiting to be namedKiratpur and Bakala, Punjab, India; Dehradun, Uttarakhand
1662Koxinga ordered his heir and his own wife killed over a child born to a wet nurse, and died before his generals obeyedTainan, Taiwan
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 2025Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
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 1960Westminster Hall, London, England; Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, England
1651Bhutan's founder died in 1651, and his officials kept the death secret for 54 years while issuing orders in his namePunakha, Bhutan
1648A Dutch water board still pays interest on dike bonds sold in 1638 and 1648, and Yale collected 12 years of it in 2015Utrecht, Netherlands
1648The last male of the Ottoman house would not leave his room when told he was sultan, and eight years later his mother agreed to his depositionTopkapı Palace, Istanbul, Turkey
1642The Church refused Galileo a tomb for 95 years, and when his body was moved in 1737 admirers cut off three fingers and a toothFlorence, Italy
1642Saskia's will let Rembrandt use their son's inheritance only if he never remarried, and he lived unmarried and went bankruptAmsterdam, Netherlands
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 relativesNaples
1636Oiwa's shrine says she and her adopted-heir husband restored the Tamiya fortunes; the 1825 play has him betray her for a richer matchYotsuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
1635Champlain named the Virgin Mary as his heir in 1635; his cousin sued in Paris and the will was annulled in 1639Quebec
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 claimsLondon
1629Shah Abbas had one son killed and two blinded, and died with no son able to ruleMazandaran, Iran
1627Asaf Khan crowned a Mughal prince to hold the throne for Shah Jahan, and Shah Jahan had him imprisoned and killedLahore, Pakistan
1622Mel Fisher lost his son and daughter-in-law hunting the Atocha, found its main treasure ten years to the day later, and beat Florida in the Supreme Courtabout 40 nautical miles west of Key West, Florida, USA
1621The Dutch East India Company executed 44 Banda chiefs in 1621 and gave the nutmeg groves to Dutch planters, and one planter family says it has held its grove for 13 generationsBanda Islands, Maluku, Indonesia
1620Burton Agnes Hall has passed by inheritance since 1610, and its builder's daughter is said to be bricked into a wallBurton Agnes Hall, East Riding of Yorkshire, England
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 yearsOld Palace Yard, Westminster
1617Pocahontas's son inherited Virginia land, and Virginia's 1924 race law made an exception that kept families claiming descent from her legally whiteGravesend, England (family land on the James River, Virginia, USA)
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 itMadrid, Spain
1616Shakespeare left his wife his "second best bed" and struck his new son-in-law out of the willStratford-upon-Avon
1613Tokugawa Ieyasu's mine magistrate died rich in 1613, and the shogunate made his seven sons kill themselves and seized everything he ownedIwami Ginzan, Ōda, Shimane, Japan
1611England's richest commoner left his fortune to a hospital, and his nephew and Francis Bacon tried to break the willHackney and the Charterhouse, London, England
1608King Gwanghae's officials killed his eight-year-old half-brother in exile, and the boy's mother gave her name to the coup that deposed himGanghwa Island, Incheon, and Seoul, South Korea
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 SibirskyIrmen River on the Ob, near Novosibirsk, Russia
1601Tycho Brahe's heirs were never paid for his observations, so they took them back from Kepler and won the right to censor his booksPrague, Czech Republic
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 princeDenmark (setting)
1598Hideyoshi took over Nobunaga's house by backing a two-year-old heir, and after he died Tokugawa Ieyasu did the same to his own five-year-old sonFushimi Castle, Kyoto and Osaka Castle, Osaka, Japan
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 nephewPetrella Salto and Rome, Italy
1596Francis Drake promised his estates to his wife, then signed them to his brother 2 days before dying at sea, and the brother won the lawsuitsat sea off Portobelo, Panama
1596The Inquisition burned the heir to Nuevo León's governorship with his mother and three sisters in 1596, and his stolen memoir went back to Mexico in 2017Mexico City, Mexico
1595Hideyoshi's adopted heir was forced to kill himself after a son was born, and 39 of his wives, children and servants were beheaded in KyotoMount Kōya (Kōyasan), Wakayama, Japan; Sanjō riverbank, Kyoto, Japan
1595Ottoman Sultan Mehmed III had his 19 brothers strangled on the day he took the throneTopkapı Palace, Istanbul
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 1925Deptford, England
1592Their mother produced a letter naming the younger son, Hideyoshi removed the elder as head of the Honganji, and Ieyasu gave the elder land for a rival temple in KyotoKyoto, Japan
1591Hideyoshi ordered his tea master to kill himself in 1591, and the Sen family won back the name that three tea houses still carryKyoto, Japan
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 1614Uglich, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia
1583Gaelic law gave Gráinne O'Malley nothing from two husbands, so she sailed to Elizabeth I and won a pension from her sons' landsRockfleet (Carraigahowley), County Mayo, Ireland
1581Ivan the Terrible struck his heir on the head in November 1581, and his dynasty ended with his surviving son in 1598Aleksandrova Sloboda (Aleksandrov), Vladimir Oblast, Russia
1579Thomas Gresham left London a free college, and Parliament sold the building for a tax office in 1768Bishopsgate, City of London, England
1569Gracia Nasi's sister Brianda sued her in Venice for half the Mendes fortune and denounced her as a secret JewConstantinople
1568On Luther's advice the last Grand Master in Prussia dropped his vows in 1525, made the Order's state his hereditary duchy, and marriedKraków, Poland; Königsberg and Tapiau, Prussia (now Kaliningrad region, Russia)
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 planRome, Papal States
1562Süleyman paid the Shah of Persia to hand back his son Bayezid, who was strangled in Qazvin with his four sonsQazvin, Iran
1560Burma's king offered a fortune for the Buddha's tooth, Goa's archbishop ground it to powder, and two new teeth appeared within six yearsJaffna, Sri Lanka; Goa, India; Kandy, Sri Lanka
1560An impostor lived as Martin Guerre for three years, took his wife and land, and was hanged when the real Martin walked into courtArtigat, County of Foix, France
1560An Inca princess was married to the captain who captured her uncle, their daughter got a Spanish marquisate with the Inca estate of Yucay, and Inca claimants fought for it after the line died outYucay, Cuzco, Peru
1560Malinche's daughter sued her father's widow for the encomienda of Xilotepec, citing her mother's service to the Crown in the conquestXilotepec (Jilotepec), State of Mexico, Mexico
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 ruinChâteau de Chenonceau, Indre-et-Loire, France
1558England made Conn O'Neill's son by a blacksmith's wife his heir, and Conn's son Shane had the heir killedDungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, UK
1554The Popol Vuh says twin boys found their dead father's ballgame gear hidden in the roof, and it led them to the lords of the underworld who had killed himChichicastenango, Guatemala (where the book was kept)
1553Süleyman had his eldest son Mustafa strangled in the imperial tent in 1553 after his grand vizier produced a letter in the prince's name to the ShahAktepe camp near Ereğli, Konya, Turkey
1553Pedro de Valdivia's wife waited 27 years in Spain, learned on her voyage that he was dead, and the governor married to his former mistress did not pay her pensionTucapel, Chile
1552A Nahua healer's 1552 herbal was sent to Spain, passed through a royal pharmacist and a cardinal to the Vatican, and a pope returned it to Mexico in 1990Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico
1550Pedrarias's grandsons killed the bishop of Nicaragua and raided Panama in 1550 to recover their father's lost wealthnear Panama
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-oldGenoa, Italy
1547Henry VIII's will was signed with a stamp, not his hand, and its validity was disputed for 20 yearsPalace of Whitehall, London
1547Cortés's heir was tried for treason, Mexico seized and sold the estate, and Lucas Alamán hid his bones from 1823 to 1946Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville
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 1546El Tocuyo, Venezuela, and Augsburg, Germany
1542De Soto's body was sunk in the Mississippi, and his widow governed Cuba and fought his business partner over the estate until 1546 to 1550Guachoya, on the Mississippi River
1541Pizarro's daughter and heir married her imprisoned uncle, his skull was found in a lead box in 1977, and Spain reissued his marquisate in 2019Lima, Peru
1541Pedro de Alvarado's widow took over his governorship of Guatemala and died in a mudflow two days laterSantiago de los Caballeros (Almolonga valley), Guatemala
1540Ethiopia's emperors held their brothers and sons on Amba Geshen for life until Ahmad ibn Ibrahim's army took the mountain in 1540Amba Geshen (Amba Gishen), South Wollo, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
1539The Inquisition burned a lord of Texcoco in 1539 after his own relatives testified against him, and the map drawn for the fight over his land is in the Library of CongressTexcoco and Mexico City, Mexico
1538Diego de Almagro willed his governorship of New Toledo to his mestizo son, Pizarro ignored the will, and the son's followers killed PizarroCuzco, Peru
1537James V burned Lady Glamis in 1537, took Glamis Castle and its silver, and the legend says she still kneels in the chapelCastle Hill, Edinburgh; Glamis Castle, Angus, Scotland
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 1540York, England, UK
1537A 1636 chronicle says the heir of Guatavita fasted six years in a cave and was covered in gold dust to take his uncle's lordship, and the rite gave the world El DoradoLake Guatavita, Cundinamarca, Colombia
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 upTower Hill, London; St Dunstan's Church, Canterbury, England
1530Babur's son Kamran held his infant nephew Akbar on the walls of Kabul under fire, and Humayun had Kamran blindedAgra and Kabul; blinding in the Punjab (Pakistan)
1527Atahualpa's captains hanged Huáscar's wives and children on the Cuzco road, burned a dead king's mummy, and killed Huáscar so Pizarro could not free himCuzco, Peru
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 familyJáchymov (Joachimsthal), Karlovy Vary Region, Czech Republic
1526Elcano was granted 500 ducats a year for the first circumnavigation, was never paid, and left church bequests payable only from what the King owed himPacific Ocean, aboard the Santa María de la Victoria
1525Jakob Fugger paid for Charles V's election, and his heirs lost much of the fortune when the Spanish crown stopped payingAugsburg
1525Jakob Fugger fixed the Fuggerei's rent at one guilder a year in 1521, and the rent has not changed in 505 yearsAugsburg, Bavaria, Germany
1524Vasco da Gama was ordered out of his home town of Sines in 1507 and asked to leave Portugal before the King made him a count in 1519Cochin, India
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 yearRhodes, Greece; Viterbo, Italy; Birgu, Malta
1521Magellan left a hereditary governorship to his son, but his wife and sons died, and his brother-in-law was still claiming the estate in 1540Mactan, Philippines
1520Spain and then Mexico paid Moctezuma's heirs for Tacuba lands until a 1934 decree, and a Spanish dukedom still carries his nameTenochtitlan
1519Pedrarias Dávila had Balboa, his son-in-law by proxy, beheaded at Acla in 1519 for treasonAcla, Darién, Panama
1519Leonardo da Vinci's legitimate half-brothers cut him out of their father's estate, and his will still left them money and landClos Lucé, Amboise, France
1518Tradition says Hindus and Muslims fought over Kabir's body and found only flowers under the sheetMaghar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, India
1517The Prophet's mantle and relics passed from dynasty to dynasty as proof of title, and the Ottomans shipped them from Cairo to Istanbul in 1517Cairo, Egypt; Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, Turkey
1510The eunuch who ran the Ming government was searched in front of the emperor, who found millions in silver and false sealsBeijing, China
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 1509Moscow, Russia
1508Isaac Abravanel lost an inherited fortune in Portugal, offered Spain 30,000 ducats to stop the expulsion, and lost everything again in NaplesLisbon, Portugal; Toledo, Spain; Naples, Italy; Venice, Italy
1506Columbus's 1502 will disappeared while his descendants fought over the Veragua estate from 1578 to a final ruling in 1793Valladolid, Castile
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 yearValladolid; Montalbán
1506Spain and the Dominican Republic both claim Columbus's body; a 2006 DNA test matched the Seville bones, and Santo Domingo refused testingValladolid, Castile
1504Isabella of Castile's will made her daughter Joanna queen, and Joanna's father and son kept her locked in Tordesillas for 46 yearsTordesillas, Spain
1503Pope Alexander VI built a state in central Italy for his son Cesare Borgia, and Cesare lost it after his father's deathRome, Italy
1502The last Byzantine emperor's nephew signed his imperial rights over to the King of France in 1494 for 4,400 ducats a yearRome, Italy
1500The Inca chose a 13-year-old girl for sacrifice a year before her death, fed her elite food, and gave her coca and alcohol until she died on Llullaillacosummit of Volcán Llullaillaco, Salta, Argentina
1500Hawaiian tradition says Līloa left the kingdom to his son Hākau and the gods to his low-born son ʻUmi, and ʻUmi killed Hākau and took the islandWaipiʻo Valley, Hawaii, USA
Medieval 500 to 1500
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 FranceCastel Capuana, Naples, Italy; buried Bursa, Turkey
1492Lorenzo de' Medici took 53,643 florins from his cousins' inheritance, and two years after his death Florence seized the insolvent Medici bankFlorence, Italy
1490A childless shogun adopted his brother as heir in 1464, then his wife bore a son, and the quarrel burned Kyoto for 11 yearsKyoto, Japan
1487Queen Charlotte of Cyprus lost her throne to her father's illegitimate son and signed her crowns of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia over to SavoyRome, Italy; Kyrenia, Cyprus
1485Malory says Uther's heir was raised in secret, the lords refused the boy who pulled the sword, and the common people made him kingLondon, England (the churchyard of "the greatest church of London" in
1485Richard III's bones were found under a car park, and his distant relatives sued the government over where to bury himBosworth Field, Leicestershire, England
1483Parliament declared Edward IV's sons illegitimate, they vanished in the Tower, and two child skeletons found in 1674 have never been DNA-testedTower of London, England
1481A Turkish court ruled in 2020 that Mehmed II's endowment deed still bound Hagia Sophia as a mosque, while an Armenian foundation could not recover its confiscated Istanbul innIstanbul, Turkey
1478Florence seized the Pazzi bank's property the day after the cathedral murder and ordered the family's name and arms erased foreverFlorence, Italy
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 HabsburgsGhent and Bruges, Belgium
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 LadyVienna, Austria; Český Krumlov and Jindřichův Hradec, Czech Republic
1476Vlad III Dracula's head was sent to the sultan, and the grave at Snagov opened in 1933 held no bodySnagov and Comana, Romania
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 MarcoMalpaga (Bergamo) and Venice, Italy
1472The chronicles say Nezahualcóyotl had his bride's betrothed killed in battle, executed their son for treason, and named a 7-year-old heir on his deathbedTexcoco, State of Mexico, Mexico
1471The dead Inca kings kept their palaces, servants and estates, and the Spanish seized their mummies in 1559 and lost them in a Lima hospitalCuzco, Peru (mummies taken to Lima)
1467The Teutonic Knights could not pay their mercenaries, so the mercenaries sold the Order's capital, Marienburg, to the King of Poland in 1457Marienburg (Malbork), Poland; Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Russia
1459John Paston claimed Sir John Fastolf's lands under a deathbed spoken will, and the Duke of Norfolk besieged Caister Castle to take themCaister, Norfolk, England
1457Danjong's uncle took his throne, and three Joseon records give three accounts of how the 16-year-old died in exileYeongwol, Gangwon Province, South Korea
1456Jacques Coeur financed Charles VII's war, then the king charged him with poisoning the royal mistress and confiscated everythingBourges, France
1455Gutenberg's investor sued him in 1455 while the Bible was being printed, and Soviet officers carried one of the Bibles to Moscow in 1945Mainz, Germany; Leipzig, Germany; Moscow, Russia
1450Kyoto Imperial University took bones from a Ryukyuan royal tomb, descendants sued for them, and the university gave them to the village in 2025 on condition they never be buriedUnten, Nakijin, Okinawa, Japan; Kyoto, Japan
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 uncleSt Mary's Abbey, York, and the greenwood, England
1449Ulugh Beg kept back his son's share of the treasury, and the son defeated him, had him sentenced, and let the emirs kill him on the road to Meccanear Samarkand, Uzbekistan
1443Zeami lost his son and the leadership of his Noh troupe to the shogun's favourite, and was exiled to Sado at about 72Kyoto and Sado Island, Japan
1441Sejo dug up Queen Hyeondeok's tomb after her son's fall; the legend says her coffin was thrown into the sea, and her rank came back 56 years laterSoreung, Ansan, Gyeonggi, South Korea; Hyeolleung, Donggureung, Guri, South Kore
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 backNantes, Brittany, France
1439A lady-in-waiting stole the Holy Crown of Hungary in 1440 so a baby born hours later could be crowned kingVisegrád, Hungary
1438Sarmiento records that Inca Viracocha named his illegitimate son Urco heir, fled the Chanca attack, and died stripped of his property after his other sons killed UrcoCuzco and Caquia Xaquixahuana, Peru
1431Joan of Arc's mother sued to clear her daughter's name, and in 1456 the church declared the 1431 trial nullRouen, France
1430Polish lords stopped the crown sent for Vytautas in 1430, he died uncrowned, and his grave in Vilnius Cathedral has never been foundTrakai, Lithuania
1428A Highland family kept St Fillan's crozier for 500 years, took it to Canada, and sold it back to Scotland for $500Glendochart, Perthshire, Scotland; Plympton, Ontario, Canada
1426Tezozómoc named one son heir; another son took the throne and killed him, and the cities he had ruled destroyed AzcapotzalcoAzcapotzalco, Mexico City, Mexico
1426A Hanseatic merchant was jailed for debt in Bruges for years, died weeks after release, and his widow was sued out of her houseBruges, Belgium, and Lübeck, Germany
1425Moscow's grand prince was blinded by his cousin in 1446, after his mother tore a disputed gold belt from another cousin at his weddingMoscow, Russia![ChistyakovP SofVitovNaSvGRM: At the wedding of Vasilii the Dark Sofia Vitovtovna pulls the belt from Prince Vasilii Kosoi. Original title: see [1]](t-moscow-s-grand-prince-was-blinded-by-his-cousin-in-1446-afte.jpg)
1424Japan's Southern Court gave up the sacred regalia in 1392 on a promise to share the throne, the promise was broken, and loyalists stole the jewel back in 1443Yoshino, Nara and Kyoto, Japan
1424Two princes of Ayutthaya killed each other on elephants in 1424, and looters robbed their crypt in 1957Than Forest Bridge (Saphan Pa Than), Ayutthaya, Thailand
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 bunkerNuremberg, Germany; Vienna, Austria
1423Richard Whittington left no children and his fortune to London; his executors rebuilt Newgate prison and founded almshouses that still operateCity of London, England
1418Nicolas Flamel left his property to his Paris parish church, a 1612 book made him an alchemist, and treasure hunters ransacked his house for goldParis, France
1410The merchant of Prato rewrote his will five weeks before he died and left 100,000 florins to the poor, under the town's controlPrato, Tuscany, Italy
1409France's grand master was beheaded and hung at Montfaucon; his son won back his name and body, then died at AgincourtParis and Marcoussis, Essonne, France
1407A royal in-law took Vietnam's throne from his own grandson in 1400, and China invaded claiming to restore the true heirThăng Long (Hanoi) and Tây Đô, Thanh Hóa, Vietnam; Nanjing, China
1406Two heirs of Majapahit went to war, 170 Ming soldiers died in the crossfire, and China billed the winner 60,000 liang of goldMajapahit (Trowulan) and Blambangan, East Java, Indonesia
1405Soviet scientists opened Timur's tomb on 19 June 1941 over the objections of Samarkand's clerics, and the keeper who read out its warning was ordered arrestedGur-e Amir mausoleum, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
1405Timur's will named a grandson in Kandahar, but another grandson took Samarkand and the treasury firstOtrar, Kazakhstan; Samarkand, Uzbekistan
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 2010Hamburg, Germany
1398The Yongle Emperor took his nephew's throne in 1402, and the deposed emperor's two-year-old son was held for 55 yearsNanjing, Jiangsu, China
1393The last king of Armenia was ransomed from Cairo, made lord of Madrid for life, and his title passed to the kings of CyprusParis, France
1379The History of Ming says a rich man paid for a third of Nanjing's walls, offered to pay the emperor's army, and was exiled to YunnanNanjing, Jiangsu, China
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'sArquà Petrarca, Padua, Italy
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 crownTablada, near Seville, Spain; London, England
1361Plague estates paid for Sultan Hasan's Cairo mosque, a minaret fell and killed about 300, and the sultan was murdered and never buried in his tombCairo, Egypt
1355Venice beheaded Doge Marino Faliero in 1355, seized his palace, painted a black shroud over his portrait, and later voided his widow's willVenice, Italy
1349A Jewish moneylender's silver lay under his Erfurt cellar from the 1349 massacre until archaeologists found it in 1998Michaelisstraße 43, Erfurt, Germany
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 examinedAvignon, France; Naples and Aversa, Italy
1343Edward III did not repay the Bardi and Peruzzi, and both Florentine banks failed in the 1340sFlorence
1340The sultan had his viceroy of Syria arrested, killed and stripped of his fortune; three years later the viceroy's grandson was sultan and his body came home to DamascusAlexandria, Egypt; Damascus, Syria
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 1331Zvečan fortress, Kosovo
1330Edward III hanged Roger Mortimer without a trial and took his lands, and Mortimer's grandson won them back in 1354Tyburn, London; Wigmore, Herefordshire, England
1330Korean thieves stole a Buddha from a Japanese island temple, a Korean temple claimed pirates had stolen it first, and Korea's Supreme Court sent it backKannonji, Tsushima, Nagasaki, Japan; Buseoksa, Seosan, South Korea
1328France kept two kings' daughters off the throne, passed over Edward III, and later cited a Frankish land rule to justify itParis, France
1324Mansa Musa said he took Mali's throne because his predecessor sailed into the Atlantic and never came backMali Empire (modern Mali and Guinea)
1324Marco Polo's son-in-law kept his daughter's third of the Polo estate, and she won it back in court 42 years laterVenice
1321Florence demanded Dante's bones for 200 years; friars took them out of the tomb, and a worker found them in 1865Ravenna, Italy
1316Malik Kafur read out a will that made a six-year-old sultan of Delhi, blinded the heirs, and was beheaded 35 days laterSiri, Delhi, India; Gwalior Fort
1315Philip IV's treasurer was hanged on the Montfaucon gallows he had built, and the king who let him hang left legacies to his childrenMontfaucon, Paris, France
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 livresParis, France
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 fleetPoitiers, France; Paris, France
1300In the Yuan play The Chalk Circle, a wife poisons her husband and claims his concubine's son to take the fortune, and Judge Bao tests the two mothersKaifeng, Henan, China (court of Bao Zheng in the play)
1297A Colonna cardinal kept his brothers' lands, the pope razed Palestrina in the fight, and a Colonna seized the pope at AnagniRome and Palestrina, Italy
1296Edward I took Scotland's coronation stone in 1296; four students took it back on Christmas Day 1950 and broke it in twoScone, Perthshire, Scotland; Westminster Abbey, London, England; Perth, Scotland
1290Sultan Qalawun built Cairo's great hospital with forced labour after a vow in a Damascus hospital funded by a captured European king's ransomCairo, Egypt, and Damascus, Syria
1275Nun Abutsu travelled to Kamakura in 1279 to claim her son's inheritance, died waiting, and the case ended 30 years laterKamakura, Japan; Hosokawa estate, Harima province (Hyōgo), Japan
1275A widowed nun rode from Kyoto to Kamakura in 1279 to sue her stepson for her son's estate, and her son's family still owns the archive she fought forKyoto and Kamakura, Japan; Hosokawa estate, Miki, Hyōgo
1268Conradin, the last legitimate Staufer, willed his lands to his Bavarian uncles and was beheaded in Naples at 16Naples, Campania, Italy
1259When Möngke died at a siege, two of his brothers were proclaimed Great Khan in the same year and fought for four yearsDiaoyu Fortress, Hechuan (Chongqing); Kaiping (Inner Mongolia), China; Karakorum
1258Hulagu took Baghdad and killed the last Abbasid caliph in 1258, chroniclers gave seven different deaths, and a surviving kinsman was made caliph in CairoBaghdad, Iraq; Cairo, Egypt
1256The last lord of Alamut surrendered to the Mongols in 1256, the Persian historian Juvayni burned the castle's library, and the imam was killed on his way home from the KhanAlamut and Maymun-Diz, Qazvin province, Iran; Mongolia
1250Six men leased Spiro's burial mound for $300 from the guardian of the heirs, tunnelled in, sold the grave goods worldwide, and tried to blow up the restSpiro, Le Flore County, Oklahoma, USA
1250The Völsunga saga says Fafnir killed his father for a cursed gold hoard and refused his brother any shareIceland (where the saga was written)
1249Shajar al-Durr hid the death of Sultan al-Salih Ayyub in 1249, became sultan after his heir was killed, and was beaten to death in 1257al-Mansura, Egypt
1248Ögedei named a grandson as heir, two widows put other men on the throne, and Möngke executed the grandson's mother for sorceryKarakorum and the Onon River, Mongolia
1247The Pararaton says a smith cursed the kris that killed him, and that it killed three rulers of Singhasari in turnTumapel (Singhasari), Malang, East Java, Indonesia
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 herVienna and Hainburg an der Donau, Austria
1244Henry III took a third of David of Oxford's estate in 1244 and held his widow Licoricia in the Tower until it was settledOxford; Tower of London; Winchester
1238A bankrupt emperor of Constantinople pawned the Crown of Thorns to Venetian lenders, and a fire chaplain carried it out of burning Notre-DameConstantinople; Venice, Italy; Paris, France
1236Sultan Iltutmish named his daughter Razia heir over his sons; the nobles crowned a son, and the people of Delhi put her on the throneDelhi, India; killed near Kaithal, Haryana
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 itConstantinople; Jerusalem; Paris, France; New York, USA
1227Genghis Khan's sons fought over the eldest son's birth before he named a successor, and his grave was never recordedBurkhan Khaldun, Khentii Mountains, Mongolia (reputed burial site)
1226Vietnam's only reigning empress was made to hand the throne to her child husband in 1225, and the chronicle says the Lý clan was buried alive in 1232Thăng Long (Hanoi), Vietnam
1224The Sundiata epic says the king wanted his crippled son to rule, the council crowned his half-brother, and the exiled son came back to found MaliManden, Mali
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 FranceToulouse, France
1220Mapungubwe's royal dead were dug up in 1933 and reburied on their hill in 2007, but the gold rhinoceros stayed in a university museumMapungubwe Hill, Limpopo, South Africa
1219The shogun's nephew killed him on the shrine steps in 1219 to avenge his father, and the Minamoto line of shoguns ended that nightTsurugaoka Hachimangū, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan
1213Georgia's King George III had no son and crowned his daughter Tamar co-ruler, and the place of her grave is still disputedGelati Monastery, near Kutaisi, Georgia
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 homeConstantinople (Istanbul), Turkey; Venice, Italy; Paris, France
1200The Nibelungenlied says Hagen sank a widow's bridal treasure in the Rhine, and she had her brother beheaded trying to learn whereWorms, Germany, and the court of Etzel (setting)
1199Richard I's nephew Arthur disappeared in his uncle King John's prison, and Arthur's sister was held for 39 years until she diedRouen, France
1193Saladin left a gold ingot and 47 silver dirhams, not enough for his grave, and his brother took the empire from his sonsDamascus, Syria
1193A waqf fed Maghrebi pilgrims in Jerusalem for 774 years, and its quarter was bulldozed in one night in June 1967Maghrebi (Moroccan) Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem
1189The Ōshū Fujiwara grew rich on northern gold, the fourth lord turned on the fugitive his father told him to protect, his own vassal beheaded him, and his head lies in the family's gold hallHiraizumi, Iwate, Japan
1187Two Muslim families have opened the Church of the Holy Sepulchre every day for centuries, and dispute which of them came firstChurch of the Holy Sepulchre, Old City, Jerusalem
1186When Aaron of Lincoln died in 1186, Henry II took his whole estate and set up a separate exchequer to collect his debtsLincoln, England
1185A six-year-old emperor drowned at Dan-no-ura in 1185 in his grandmother's arms, and the sacred sword went down with himDan-no-ura, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan
1176The Tale of the Soga Brothers says a guardian took his ward's estate, the ward killed the guardian's son, and the son's boys killed him 17 years laterItō estate, Izu, and the Fuji hunting grounds, Shizuoka, Japan
1164Emperor Sutoku lost the throne to his brothers, died in exile, and was brought home as a spirit in 1868Sanuki Province (Sakaide, Kagawa), Japan; Shiramine Jingu, Kyoto, Japan
1156A retired emperor and his brother went to war over the throne in 1156, and the winning side made a son behead his own fatherKyoto, Japan; Sanuki (Kagawa), Japan
1150Tradition says a dying Lady Tichborne crawled round 23 acres for a bread dole and cursed the family if it ever stoppedTichborne, near Alresford, Hampshire, England
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 diedWest Smithfield, London, England, UK
1142Song China killed its leading general on a charge its chancellor admitted might not exist, held his family 20 years, then restored his name and reburied himLin'an (Hangzhou), Zhejiang, China
1142The Haudenosaunee Great Law vests the chiefs' titles in the women of each family, who can take back the antlersOnondaga, New York, USA
1138Bolesław III had his half-brother blinded, then split Poland among his sons in 1138, and the country stayed divided for about two centuriesPłock, Poland
1138Yemen's Queen Arwa ruled for half a century and left her jewels by will to a boy imam who had vanished in CairoDhu Jibla, Yemen
1137Eleanor inherited Aquitaine at about 13, took it back when France annulled her marriage, and married the future king of England eight weeks laterBordeaux, France
1136A bishop's son ran England's oldest almshouse for decades on an income Trollope turned into The WardenSt Cross, Winchester, Hampshire, England
1135The Jurchens took two Song emperors north in 1127; a 1142 treaty brought home the father's coffin and left the son, a crowned emperor, in captivity until he diedKaifeng, Henan, China; Wuguocheng (Yilan, Heilongjiang), China; Lin'an (Han
1135Henry I's barons swore to make his daughter queen, and his nephew Stephen took the crown within weeks of his deathLondon, England
1134Tradition says conjoined twins left Biddenden 20 acres for bread and cheese, and the rector sued to take the landBiddenden, Kent, England
1129Li Qingzhao lost her late husband's collection to war and thieves, then reported her second husband to the courts and went to jail for itJiankang (Nanjing) and Hangzhou, China
1124Hasan-i Sabbah had both his sons executed and left Alamut to a lieutenant from another castleAlamut Castle, Qazvin province, Iran
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 diedCanossa, Italy, and Rome
1115The Mixtec codices record that Lord Eight Deer killed his wife's father to take Tilantongo, and that the boy he spared later killed him and married his daughterTilantongo, Oaxaca, Mexico
1100Wuhsha the broker was thrown out of synagogue on Yom Kippur for her son by a lover, and her will gave the lover "not one penny"Fustat (Old Cairo), Egypt
1099El Cid's widow carried his body out of Valencia, and his bones were moved five times between 1102 and 1921Valencia and Burgos, Spain
1097The princes of Rus' agreed at Liubech in 1097 that each would keep his father's lands, and two of them then blinded a thirdLiubech, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine
1094The vizier al-Afdal put al-Musta'li on the Fatimid throne in 1094 over his elder brother Nizar, and the Ismailis splitCairo, Egypt
1087William the Conqueror's funeral stopped when a man said the church stood on his father's stolen landPriory of Saint-Gervais, Rouen
1066Joseph ibn Naghrela inherited his father's place as vizier of Granada and was killed in the massacre of 1066Granada, Spain
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 AlanWilton Abbey, Wiltshire, and Cambridgeshire, England
1063Al-Bakri wrote that Ghana's king took every gold nugget and his heir was his sister's son, and in 1063 a nephew took the throne over the dead king's Muslim sonKoumbi Saleh, Hodh Ech Chargui, Mauritania (probable capital of Ghana)
1052Fan Zhongyan's 1050 clan trust fed every member a daily rice ration, and within a few years his son had to ask the emperor to let courts enforce itSuzhou, Jiangsu, China
1050At Cahokia a man and woman were buried on 10,000 shell beads, and the same mound held 53 young women who had been strangledCahokia, near Collinsville, Illinois, USA
1041Empress Zoe adopted Michael V as her heir, he exiled her, and the people of Constantinople had him blinded in 1042Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
1030Britain carried gates from Mahmud of Ghazni's tomb to India in 1842 as the stolen gates of Somnath; they were Afghan cedar and are still in Agra FortGhazni, Afghanistan; Somnath, Gujarat, India; Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
1030Mahmud of Ghazni left his throne to one son; the other blinded him, and the blind brother's son later killed the victorGhazni, Afghanistan
1025Basil II left 200,000 pounds of gold and no son; his successors spent it, and the gold coin was debased to almost nothing by the 1080sConstantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
1021Sitt al-Mulk set aside the Fatimid heir after the caliph al-Hakim disappeared in 1021 and put his son al-Zahir on the throneMuqattam hills, Cairo, Egypt
1020Tradition says Sultan Mahmud's gold for the Shahnameh reached Ferdowsi's town as his coffin left it, and his daughter refused itTus, Khorasan, Iran
1015The Primary Chronicle says Sviatopolk had his brothers Borys and Hlib killed in 1015, and Yaroslav buried them as saints after taking KyivVyshhorod, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine
1011The saga says Freydís Eiríksdóttir had her partners killed in Vinland, axed their five women herself and sailed home in their larger shipVinland (Newfoundland, Canada, is the only confirmed Norse site) and Greenland
1010The Shahnameh says King Faridun gave Iran to his youngest son, and the two elder sons killed him and sent his head to their fatherIran (the kingdom of Iran in the epic)
1003Kalhana's chronicle says Queen Didda of Kashmir killed three grandsons on the throne and chose her heir with a heap of applesSrinagar, Kashmir, India
1000Beowulf says a dying king won a dragon's hoard with no son to leave it to, and his people buried the gold with himland of the Geats, Scandinavia (setting)
995An emperor gave Japan's oldest medical book to one physician family, and the author's descendants spent centuries trying to get it backKyoto and Tokyo, Japan
976Song records say the founder's mother made him leave the throne to his brother, and on the night he died the messenger fetched the brother instead of the sonKaifeng, Henan, China
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 ordersKyiv and Ovruch, Ukraine; Novgorod, Russia
969The Chola heir Aditya Karikala was murdered, and his brother Rajaraja seized the killers' lands and their relatives' lands years laterUdaiyargudi (Kattumannarkoil), Tamil Nadu, India
944Qarmatian raiders took the Black Stone from Mecca in 930 and held it for about 20 years before dropping it in a mosque in KufaMecca, Saudi Arabia; Hajar (al-Ahsa), Saudi Arabia
940Masakado fought his uncles for land, called himself the new emperor, and his head mound in Tokyo moved the Finance MinistryOtemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan (mound); Kanto region, Japan
937China's Heirloom Seal passed to every usurper for 1,100 years, and the last Later Tang emperor carried it into the fireLuoyang, Henan, China
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 outGulathing (Gulen), Norway, and Mosfell, Iceland
930Aleppo's Jews were told their 1,000-year-old Bible was burned in 1947; it reached Israel in 1957, and the community sued for itTiberias; Jerusalem; Cairo; Aleppo, Syria; Jerusalem, Israel
926The Liao History says Abaoji's widow cut off her right hand and put it in his coffin instead of following him into deathZuzhou (Bairin Left Banner, Inner Mongolia), China
912Leo VI married his mistress as his fourth wife to make their son legitimate, and the patriarch who refused was forced outConstantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
903Japan's court exiled Michizane on a rival's charge, then restored his offices and made him Chancellor 90 years after his deathDazaifu, Fukuoka, Japan; Kyoto, Japan
900The Laguna Copperplate of 900 AD cleared the children of Namwaran of a debt in gold, and warned anyone who later said it was unpaidLumban, Laguna, Philippines
899Alfred the Great's will answered his nephews' claim to their father's land, and one nephew rose against Alfred's sonWinchester, England, UK
879Two detectorists sold a Viking-age hoard with coins showing Alfred the Great beside Ceolwulf II of Mercia, and about 270 coins are still missingEye, near Leominster, Herefordshire, England
850Jain tradition says Bahubali beat his elder brother for the kingdom, gave it up, and stood a year in meditation troubled that he stood on his brother's landAyodhya and Podanapur (legendary); Shravanabelagola, Karnataka, India
842Tibetan Buddhist histories say a monk shot Emperor Langdarma in 842; his two sons by different queens split the empireLhasa, Tibet, China
841Jang Bogo ruled the seas between China, Korea and Japan, tried to make his daughter a queen, and was stabbed over wine by an envoy who said he had fled the courtCheonghaejin, Wando, South Korea
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 GermanyVerdun, France
828The Bukhtishu physicians served the caliphs for six generations: one was sentenced to death, one died in exile, and one great-grandson was disinherited by his stepfatherBaghdad, Iraq
814Charlemagne's 811 division left two-thirds of his treasure to 21 archbishoprics and a silver table engraved with Constantinople to St Peter'sAachen, Germany
803Harun al-Rashid had his vizier Ja'far killed in one night in 803, hung his body in Baghdad, and took the Barmakid fortuneal-Anbar, Iraq; Baghdad, Iraq; Raqqa, Syria
800Pueblo Bonito's richest crypt held one maternal line for 330 years, and scientists sequenced it without asking the Pueblo tribesPueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA
797Empress Irene had her son Constantine VI blinded in the room where he was born and ruled Byzantium alone from 797Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
790Bonampak's king had his heir presented on the painted walls of his temple, and the heir never ruledBonampak, Chiapas, Mexico
756An empress gave her dead husband's treasures to a temple in 756, took back two swords, and they were found under the Great BuddhaTōdai-ji, Nara, Japan
750Looters had dug all around it, but the Wari tomb at Castillo de Huarmey held 58 noblewomen and their queens, untouchedEl Castillo de Huarmey, Áncash, Peru
742Yaxchilan had no recorded king for ten years after Shield Jaguar died, and the son of his foreign second wife took the throneYaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico
722The last Sogdian king of Panjikent claimed the throne of Samarkand, was captured on Mount Mugh in 722 and executed; his archive survived in the castle ruinsMount Mugh, Zeravshan valley, Tajikistan
718A Japanese inn passed father to son for 46 generations since 718, and the heir's death put a daughter in line for the first timeAwazu Onsen, Komatsu, Ishikawa, Japan
711Justinian II lost his throne and his nose in 695, took Constantinople back in 705, and was killed with his son in 711Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
705Wu Zetian deposed one son, had another forced to kill himself, made herself emperor, and was buried as an empress in her husband's sealed tombLuoyang, Henan; buried at Qianling, Shaanxi, China
683Pakal took Palenque's throne at 12 after an enemy sacked the city and the king died, and his son cut three rulers out of the official king listPalenque, Chiapas, Mexico
680Mu'awiya made his son Yazid heir to the caliphate; Muhammad's grandson al-Husayn refused to swear and was killed at Karbala with most of his family's menKarbala, Iraq
671Emperor Tenji passed over his brother for his son in 671, and the brother raised an army, won the throne and had the official history written by his own sonŌtsu, Shiga, Japan; Yoshino, Nara
660The exilarch Bostanai married a Persian princess; after his death his other sons claimed her and her children as slavesBabylonia (Iraq)
656Tradition says Caliph Uthman was killed while reading this Quran; Russia took it as a trophy, and Lenin gave it backSamarkand and Tashkent, Uzbekistan; St Petersburg, Russia; Ufa, Bashkortostan, R
649A Tang emperor sent an agent in disguise to take Wang Xizhi's Orchid Pavilion Preface from an old monk, and took it into his tombZhaoling, Liquan County, Shaanxi, China
645Prince Naka no Ōe cut down Soga no Iruka at court in 645, Iruka's father burned the court histories as he died, and a 646 edict abolished private estatesAsuka Itabuki Palace, Asuka, Nara, Japan
634Full brothers left with nothing asked the caliph Umar to treat their father as a donkey, and he changed his rulingMedina, Saudi Arabia
632Jabir, with only sisters to inherit, asked Muhammad how to leave his estate; the last verse revealed answered him, and the caliph Umar said he never fully understood itBanu Salimah quarter, Medina, Saudi Arabia
632While Muhammad's family prepared his body, a meeting in a Medina courtyard chose Abu Bakr as successor over the people of Medina's own candidateSaqifa of the Banu Sa'ida, Medina, Saudi Arabia
632Fatima asked Abu Bakr for her inheritance from Muhammad; he refused, she did not speak to him again, and caliphs returned and seized the land of Fadak for 200 yearsFadak oasis and Medina, Saudi Arabia
628Persia's crown prince overthrew his father to stop a half-brother's succession, executed him, killed his brothers, and died of plague within monthsCtesiphon, Iraq
626Li Shimin killed his two brothers at the Xuanwu Gate, executed their ten sons and had the throne from his father within two monthsXuanwu Gate, Chang'an (Xi'an), Shaanxi, China
625Sa'd ibn al-Rabi' was killed at Uhud and his brother took everything; his widow brought their two daughters to Muhammad, and the Koran's inheritance verse followedUhud, Medina, Saudi Arabia
624A 1939 inquest ruled the Sutton Hoo ship burial was Edith Pretty's property, and she gave it to the nationSutton Hoo, Suffolk, England
615The Koran says a servant of God holed a poor family's ship and rebuilt a stranger's wall for free, to save the ship from a king and two orphans' treasure from a townMecca, Saudi Arabia (where the surah was revealed); the sea and the town in the
610The Quran says a servant of God rebuilt a wall in an inhospitable town so two orphans could recover their father's buried treasurean unnamed town (Quran 18:77)
578The Kongō family built temples for 40 generations from 578, and lost the company to debt in 2006Osaka, Japan
567Avar family trees show widows taken by their husband's son or brother, and one male line that vanished from its own cemeteryRákóczifalva, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, Hungary (with three other cemeteries on the
524Theodoric had Boethius clubbed to death and seized his estates, and the king's daughter gave them back to his sonsPavia (the Calventian estate), Italy
524Clovis's sons sent their mother scissors and a sword, then killed two of their dead brother's sons and split his kingdomParis, France
520The exilarch Mar Zutra II ruled a Jewish state at Mahoza for seven years and was crucified on its bridge; his son was born the same dayMahoza, near Ctesiphon, Iraq
Ancient world to 500
473The Culavamsa says Kassapa walled up his father alive after the king showed him a reservoir as his only treasureAnuradhapura and Kala Wewa, Sri Lanka
450The Lady of Cao was buried with war clubs and a crown, the first Moche woman found with a ruler's emblems, with a teenage girl beside herHuaca Cao Viejo, El Brujo, Magdalena de Cao, La Libertad, Peru
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 seizedRome, Italy; Jerusalem
425Rome stripped the last patriarch of the house of Hillel, let no son succeed him, and took the patriarch's tax for the imperial treasuryLand of Israel (Roman Palestine)
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 2012Ukok Plateau, Altai Republic, Russia
314A Sogdian merchant's wife left in Dunhuang wrote that she would rather be a dog's wife than his; her daughter added that the family's debts had made them servantsDunhuang, Gansu, China
300The Markandeya Purana says King Harishchandra gave the whole earth to a Brahmin sage, then sold his wife, his son and himself to pay the feeAyodhya and Benares (Varanasi), Uttar Pradesh, India
267Palmyra's ruler and his heir were murdered in 267, and his widow Zenobia ruled for her own son; one Roman history says she was in on the plotEmesa (Homs), Syria
250Looters emptied a Moche tomb at Sipán in 1987, police shot their leader, and the archaeologist called in found the Lord of Sipán untouched below itHuaca Rajada, Sipán, Lambayeque, Peru
220The Talmud says a dying man left everything to his one true son out of ten, and a rabbi found him by telling the sons to beat their father's graveLand of Israel (Tiberias tradition)
211Severus left Rome to two sons, their mother stopped them dividing the empire, and Caracalla had his brother killed in her armsEboracum (York), England; Palatine, Rome, Italy
208Cao Cao had his physician Hua Tuo put to death, and Hua Tuo burned his book of methods in prison when the jailer would not take itXu (Xuchang), Henan, China
193The Praetorian Guard sold the Roman Empire to Didius Julianus for 25,000 sesterces a soldier, and he lasted 66 daysRome, Italy
193The praetorian guard killed the emperor Pertinax and sold the empire to the highest bidder for 25,000 sesterces a soldierPraetorian camp, Rome, Italy
192The Hou Han Shu says Cai Yong begged to be mutilated so he could finish his history, died in prison, and his ransomed daughter rewrote 400 of his 4,000 books from memoryChang'an (Xi'an), China
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' debtsAthens and Marathon, Greece
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 MarathonMarathon and Athens, Greece
158Apuleius married a rich widow, her family charged him with winning her by magic, and he read her will aloud in court to show her son was the heirOea (Tripoli) and Sabratha, Libya
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 dieRome, Italy
132Babatha hid her lawsuits over her son's guardianship and her dead husband's orchards in a cave during the Bar Kokhba revoltCave of Letters, Nahal Hever, Judean Desert
108An orator ruined two brothers' father, made them his heirs, and the fortune passed down a chain of adoptions to Marcus Aurelius's motherRome, Italy
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 wasSarmizegetusa Regia, Hunedoara County, Romania
104Pliny says an 80-year-old father disinherited his daughter 11 days after remarrying, and 180 judges in four panels split two against twoRome, Italy
100Pliny tells of an Athens house let cheap because of its ghost; the philosopher who took it found a chained skeleton in the yardAthens, Greece
92Ban Gu died in a magistrate's prison with the Book of Han unfinished, and the emperor ordered his sister Ban Zhao to complete itLuoyang, China
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 PragueThebes, Greece; Padua, Italy; Prague, Czech Republic
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 themJerusalem; Rome, Italy; Carthage (Tunis), Tunisia; Constantinople (Istanbul), Tu
70The Talmud says Kalba Savua disinherited his daughter for marrying the shepherd Akiva, then gave him half his fortuneJerusalem
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 willRome, Italy
66Petronius's will listed Nero's sex partners by name, and Pliny says he smashed a 300,000-sesterce basin to keep it from NeroCumae, Campania, Italy
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 willRome, Italy
60King Prasutagus left half his kingdom to Nero to protect his daughters, and Tacitus says Roman officers flogged his widow Boudica and raped his daughtersTerritory of the Iceni (Norfolk), England
54Claudius's will was never read in public, and Nero poisoned Claudius's son Britannicus four months after taking the thronePalatine, Rome, Italy
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 littleRome, Italy; Africa Proconsularis (Tunisia)
41Suetonius says Caligula ignored Tiberius's will, killed his co-heir, and haunted the gardens he inherited until his sisters reburied himHorti Lamiani, Esquiline Hill, Rome, Italy
40Cleopatra's grandson Ptolemy inherited Mauretania from his father Juba, and Caligula summoned him to Rome and had him killedRome, Italy; kingdom of Mauretania (Algeria and Morocco)
33Tacitus says Tiberius had Spain's richest man thrown from the Tarpeian Rock and kept his gold and copper mines for himselfRome, Italy; mines in Hispania (Spain)
30The Gospel of John says soldiers diced for the executed Jesus's seamless robe, and three churches claim to have itJerusalem; Trier, Germany; Argenteuil, France; Mtskheta, Georgia
30Luke's parable of the prodigal son: a younger son took his inheritance while his father lived, spent it, came home, and the elder son objectedJudea (Luke 15 names no place)
29Livia left Galba 50 million sesterces in figures, and her son Tiberius read it as 500,000 and paid nothingRome, Italy
25Suetonius says Tiberius frightened a man worth 400 million sesterces into suicide to inherit, and Caligula sent poisoned sweets to men who named him heirRome, Italy
23The Han shu records that Wang Mang took the throne from a Han child, declared all land the "king's fields", repealed it three years later, and his head was kept for 272 yearsChang'an (Xi'an), Shaanxi, China
14Augustus's will, read to the Senate by the Vestal Virgins, barred his daughter and granddaughter from his tombNola, Campania, Italy
1On the Xiongnu frontier the great tombs were built for women, each flanked by commoner men in simple gravesTakhiltyn Khotgor, Mankhan, Khovd Province, Mongolia
1A nomad chief and five women were buried with 20,000 gold objects in Afghanistan; keyholders hid the hoard for 14 years, and in 2021 it went out of sight againTillya Tepe, near Sheberghan, Jowzjan, Afghanistan; Kabul
2 BCEA slave woman sent from Rome persuaded the Parthian king to send his four sons to Rome, then her son killed him and married herParthian Empire (Iran and Iraq)
4 BCEHerod the Great executed three sons, changed his will in his last days, and died five days after the last execution; Augustus split his kingdom among the survivorsJericho; buried at Herodium, West Bank
19 BCEVirgil asked for the Aeneid to be burned, and Augustus ordered it publishedBrundisium (Brindisi)
27 BCESepticia married an old man to spite her sons and left them nothing, and Augustus gave them her estateAriminum (Rimini), Italy
30 BCECleopatra filled her tomb with treasure and torchwood so Octavian could not take it from her, and the tomb has never been foundAlexandria, Egypt
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 VenusAlexandria, Egypt; Rome, Italy
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 heirsCroton (Crotone), Italy (setting of the Satyricon episode)
30 BCEMark Antony gave Cleopatra's children kingdoms in 34 BC, and after 30 BC Octavian killed Caesarion and gave the others to his sister to raiseAlexandria, Egypt
41 BCECleopatra's sister Arsinoe IV fought Caesar, walked in chains in his triumph and was killed at a temple on Antony's orders, and the skeleton said to be hers was a boy'sEphesus (near Selçuk, Turkey)
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 downPalatine, Rome, Italy
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 400Rome, Italy
43 BCEOctavian traded Cicero to Antony for the proscription list, and Antony's wife pierced the dead orator's tongue with her hairpinsnear Formiae (Formia), Italy
44 BCEJulius Caesar's will, opened after his murder, made Octavian his son and gave every Roman 300 sestercesCuria of Pompey, Rome
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 cablesMisenum (Miseno), Italy
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 themRome, Italy![Laudatio Turiae col2 Terme: So-called “Laudatio Turiæ”, col.2 (2.2a to 2.11a). Latin inscription: “[varia et ampla subsi]dia fugae meae praestitisti ornamentis / [me instruxisti] c](t-a-roman-husband-s-funeral-inscription-says-relatives-tried-t.jpg)
50 BCECato gave his pregnant wife Marcia to the orator Hortensius, and took her back as Hortensius's rich widowRome, Italy
51 BCEPtolemy XII's will named Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII joint heirs under Roman protection, and the heirs went to warAlexandria, Egypt
55 BCEBerenice IV took her father's throne, had one husband strangled within days, and was executed when Rome restored her father for 10,000 talentsAlexandria, Egypt
59 BCELiu He was emperor for 27 days, was removed for 1,127 offences, and his gold-filled tomb was found after tomb robbers dug into itHaihun (Nanchang), Jiangxi, China
74 BCENicomedes IV left Bithynia to Rome, Mithridates said the queen had borne him a son, and Mithridates invadedNicomedia (İzmit), Turkey
75 BCEPublius Annius Asellus left everything to his only daughter, and the praetor Verres wrote an edict to take it from herRome, Italy
80 BCESulla sent Ptolemy XI to marry Queen Berenice III, he had her killed within three weeks, the Alexandrians killed him, and Rome produced a will leaving Egypt to RomeAlexandria, Egypt
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 fatherRome and Ameria (Amelia, Umbria), Italy
87 BCEEmperor Wu chose his youngest son as heir and had the boy's mother put to death, according to a supplement to the ShijiGanquan Palace (Yunyang, Shaanxi), China
91 BCEA Roman soldier came home from war to find that his father, told he was dead, had willed the family estate to othersRome, Italy
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 ruledRome, Italy
96 BCEPtolemy VIII willed Cyrene to Rome in 155 BC, and his son Ptolemy Apion's will handed it over in 96 BCCyrene (Shahat), Libya
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 feetAlexandria, Egypt, and Cyprus
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 rewardRome, Italy
133 BCEKing Attalus III left his kingdom to Rome in his will, and a man claiming to be a royal bastard fought Rome for itPergamon, Asia Minor (modern Turkey)
140 BCEAn iron magnate swore his widowed daughter would get not one coin after she eloped, then gave her 100 servants and a million cash when she sold wine in his townLinqiong (Qionglai), Sichuan, China
157 BCEEmperor Wen gave his favourite a copper mountain and the right to mint coins; the next emperor took everything, and he died owning nothingYandao, Shu (Ya'an, Sichuan), and Chang'an (Xi'an), China
175 BCESecond Maccabees says a king's minister came to seize the widows' and orphans' deposits in the Jerusalem Temple; a stele pieced together in 2005 and 2006 names the minister and a royal order on temple fundsJerusalem; Maresha, Israel; Antioch, Turkey
176 BCEThe Shiji says a physician with five daughters and no son was sentenced to mutilation, and his youngest daughter's petition ended the punishmentChang'an (Xi'an), Shaanxi, China
204 BCECourtiers hid Ptolemy IV's death, killed his queen, read out a will naming themselves regents, and the Alexandrian crowd killed them and their familyAlexandria, Egypt
204 BCEFrench soldiers found the Rosetta Stone in 1799, General Menou claimed it as his own, and Britain took it under the 1801 surrenderRashid (Rosetta), Egypt, and London, England
210 BCEThe Shiji says the First Emperor's chancellor and his seal-keeper forged his last letter, and his eldest son killed himself on the forged orderShaqiu (Guangzong, Hebei), China
235 BCESima Qian writes that a merchant bought a hostage prince the throne of Qin, then drank poison when the new king turned on himHandan, Hebei, and Xianyang, Shaanxi, China
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 dividedSparta, Laconia, Greece
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 brotherCassandreia (Kassandreia, Greece) and Alexandria, Egypt
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 downAthens, Greece
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 siteAthens, Greece
318 BCEAthens executed Phocion at about 80, banned his burial in Attica, and Plutarch says his wife buried his bones under her hearthAthens, Greece; burned beyond Eleusis near Megara, Greece
322 BCEAristotle's heirs hid his library in a trench to keep it from the kings of Pergamum, and Sulla carried it to RomeChalcis, Greece; Scepsis, Troad (Turkey); Athens and Rome
323 BCEAlexander the Great left his empire "to the strongest", and his general Ptolemy hijacked his bodyBabylon
335 BCEAlexander razed Thebes and sold its people into slavery, but spared the house and descendants of the poet PindarThebes (Thiva), Greece
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 AlexanderAlexandria, Egypt, and London, England
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 heirPiraeus, Athens, Greece
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 lifeAthens, Greece
350 BCEClaimants to Hagnias's estate in Athens produced a forged will, lost, and then took the estate by three or four votesAthens, Greece
370 BCEThe freed-slave banker Pasion willed his widow and his bank to his own freed slave Phormio; his son Apollodorus sued and was finedAthens and Piraeus, Greece
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 emptiedAthens and Piraeus, Greece
376 BCEDemosthenes's guardians handed back the house, 14 slaves and 30 minae of a 14-talent estate, and he sued them at 20Athens, Greece
400 BCEThe Mahabharata says the blind elder brother lost the throne, and his cousin staked the kingdom, his brothers, himself and his wife at diceHastinapura and Kurukshetra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, India
400 BCEThe Mahabharata says Bhishma gave up the Kuru throne and vowed never to marry so his father could wed, and the line ran out of heirsHastinapura, Uttar Pradesh, India
400 BCEThe Mahabharata says King Yayati passed over four sons who refused to take his old age, and made the youngest his heirKingdom of the Lunar dynasty (legendary), northern India
401 BCECyrus the Younger's mother argued he was born to a reigning king; his elder brother got the throne, killed him at Cunaxa and cut off his head and handCunaxa, near Babylon, Iraq
404 BCEAthens's Thirty Tyrants arrested rich foreign residents for their money, took Polemarchus's 700 shields and 120 slaves, and made him drink hemlockAthens and Piraeus, Greece
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 courtAthens, Greece
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 landSyracuse, Sicily, Italy; Athens, Greece
415 BCEAthens condemned Alcibiades, auctioned his property item by item on marble slabs, ordered priests to curse him, then gave the property backAthens, Greece
456 BCELegend: Aeschylus died at Gela in 456 or 455 BC when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his headGela, Sicily
459 BCEAthens condemned Themistocles for treason, Persia gave him three cities, and his relatives buried his bones in Attica in secretMagnesia on the Maeander, Turkey; Attica, Greece
474 BCEThe Book of Esther says the king hanged Haman on his own gallows and gave his house to Queen Esther the same daySusa (Shush), Iran
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'sVix, at the foot of Mont Lassois, Côte-d'Or, France
480 BCEThe Pali canon says eight peoples demanded the Buddha's ashes; one share, found in 1898, was pulled from auction in 2025Kusinara (Kushinagar), Uttar Pradesh, India; Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh
486 BCEDarius passed over his eldest son for Xerxes, grandson of Cyrus, on an argument supplied by an exiled Spartan kingSusa (Shush) and Persepolis, Iran
490 BCEPythagoras's daughter Damo would not sell his writings for any price, and Plato is said to have paid 100 minae for Pythagorean booksCroton and Metapontum, Italy
508 BCEA Babylonian business house split its father's estate on one clay tablet, and its records stop when Babylon revolted against XerxesBabylon and Borsippa, Iraq
522 BCECambyses killed his brother Bardiya in secret; a man ruled Persia under the dead brother's name until Darius killed him and took the throneSikayauvatiš, Nisaya, Media, Iran; inscription at Behistun, Kermanshah, Iran
525 BCEA boy king of Sidon cursed anyone who moved his coffin; in 1855 it was dug up, fought over and shipped to the LouvreSidon, Lebanon
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 lineEberdingen-Hochdorf and Asperg-Grafenbühl, Ludwigsburg district, Baden-Württembe
530 BCEAlexander found Cyrus the Great's tomb robbed and the body thrown out, and tortured its hereditary guards, who named no onePasargadae, Fars province, Iran
539 BCEBabylon took the Temple vessels; Daniel says Belshazzar drank from them the night he was killed, and Ezra says Cyrus returned 5,400Jerusalem; Babylon (near Hillah), Iraq
543 BCEZheng's minister was killed in the sheep market, his rivals died on the days his ghost named, and Zichan gave his son office to stop the hauntingXinzheng, capital of the state of Zheng, Henan, China
583 BCEThe Zuo zhuan and the Shiji give two accounts of how Jin destroyed the Zhao clan and gave its lands back to the one surviving boyState of Jin, Shanxi, China
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 wasCorinth, Greece; Corcyra (Corfu), Greece
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 himAthens, Greece
660 BCEThe Kojiki says the Sun Goddess sent her grandson to rule Japan with a mirror, a jewel and a sword, and the law still passes them with the throneIse Grand Shrine, Mie, Japan; Atsuta Shrine, Nagoya; Imperial Palace, Tokyo
681 BCESennacherib named his younger son Esarhaddon heir; his elder sons killed him, and Esarhaddon then bound the empire by oath to his own chosen heirNineveh (Mosul), Iraq
687 BCEThe Bible says King Hezekiah showed Babylon's envoys his treasury, and Isaiah told him his heirs would lose it; Babylonian tablets record rations for a captive king of JudahJerusalem, Israel; Babylon, Iraq
690 BCEThe Han Feizi says two kings cut off Bian He's feet for calling a stone jade, and the Shiji says Qin later offered 15 cities for the discState of Chu, Hubei, China; Handan (Zhao), Hebei, China
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 oneLeicester, England
750 BCEThe Ramayana says a queen used two old promises to disinherit the heir, and his brother ruled for 14 years in the name of his sandalsAyodhya and Nandigrama, Uttar Pradesh, India
750 BCEGenesis says Jacob bought Esau's birthright for a bowl of stew and took his blind father's blessing in disguiseBeersheba, Israel (Genesis 26:23; 28:10)
750 BCEGenesis says Abraham paid 400 shekels for a family tomb at Hebron; the Talmud says Esau blocked Jacob's burial there and was killed at the caveCave of Machpelah, Hebron, West Bank
750 BCEGenesis says the dying Jacob took the firstborn's double share from Reuben and gave it to Joseph's sons, putting the younger firstEgypt; burial at Hebron, West Bank
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 heirsAlba Longa (Alban Hills, near Rome), Italy
814 BCEKing Pygmalion of Tyre killed his sister's husband for his buried gold, and she sailed away with it after dumping sacks of sand into the seaTyre, Lebanon, and Carthage, Tunisia
860 BCEKings says Naboth refused to sell King Ahab "the inheritance of my fathers," and Queen Jezebel had him and his sons killed for itJezreel, Israel
950 BCEThe Kebra Nagast says Menelik I, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, took the Ark to Aksum and that only his male line may rule EthiopiaJerusalem and Aksum, Ethiopia
970 BCEKings says Solomon's mother and the prophet Nathan had the dying David name Solomon over his elder brother Adonijah, who was later executedJerusalem
1000 BCEThe Abd el-Rassul brothers sold royal mummies from a hidden tomb for a decade, until the eldest confessed in 1881Deir el-Bahari, Luxor, Egypt
1090 BCEThe Adoption Papyrus says an Egyptian stable master adopted his wife as his daughter to keep his estate from his siblings, and the widow freed and adopted their slave's childrenSepermeru, south of Herakleopolis (near Beni Suef), Egypt
1100 BCEThe tribe of Dan lost the coastal land the lot gave it, stole a household's gods and priest, and burned the town of Laish to take a new inheritanceTel Dan (biblical Laish), Israel
1100 BCEJudges says Gilead's sons drove their half-brother Jephthah out of the inheritance, then made him their chief, and his vow cost him his only daughterMizpah, Gilead, Jordan
1110 BCEEight thieves confessed to stripping the gold from the mummies of king Sobekemsaf and queen Nubkhas, and an inquiry under Ramesses IX recorded itTheban necropolis, west bank of Thebes (Luxor), Egypt
1144 BCENaunakhte of Deir el-Medina cut the children who did not support her out of her willDeir el-Medina, Thebes (Luxor), Egypt
1147 BCEAn Egyptian papyrus says the gods argued for 80 years over whether the dead king Osiris's throne went to his son Horus or his brother SethDeir el-Medina, Thebes (Luxor), Egypt (where the papyrus was kept)
1157 BCEQueen Tiye plotted to put her son Pentawere on the throne of Ramesses III, and a 2012 CT scan found the king's throat had been cutThebes (Luxor), Egypt
1180 BCEThe Odyssey says 108 suitors ate through Odysseus's estate while he was away, and planned to kill his son and divide his propertyIthaca, Greece
1192 BCEChancellor Bay put a boy king on the throne and was given a tomb among the kings, and a potsherd records that the king had him killedThebes (Luxor), Egypt
1200 BCEFu Hao led the Shang king's armies, the oracle said her childbirth was "not good" because she had a girl, and hers is the only Shang royal tomb found intactYinxu, Anyang, Henan, China
1200 BCEJoseph made Israel swear to carry his bones out of Egypt; Exodus says Moses took them, and his reputed tomb in Nablus was smashed in 2022Joseph's Tomb, Nablus (Shechem), West Bank
1213 BCERamesses II outlived his first three crown princes, his thirteenth son succeeded him, and his sons' tomb KV5 has more than 130 roomsValley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
1250 BCETheseus forgot to change his black sail, his father Aegeus threw himself down from the Acropolis, and Theseus became king of AthensAthens, Greece
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 themThebes (Thiva), Greece
1250 BCEA king of Ugarit divorced his Hittite-born queen, made their son choose between his mother and the throne, then had her killedUgarit (Ras Shamra), Syria
1261 BCEMes sued to recover land granted to his ancestor Neshi under Ahmose I, after a court ruled against his mother on a false registerSaqqara and Memphis, Egypt
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 itValley of the Kings, Egypt, and London, England
1291 BCEA mummy sold in Luxor around 1860 spent over a century in a Niagara Falls curiosity museum before it was identified as Ramesses I and sent homeValley of the Kings, Egypt; Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada; Atlanta, Georgia, US
1319 BCEAy had himself painted burying Tutankhamun and took the throne, and Horemheb then erased Ay and dated his own reign from Amenhotep IIIThebes (Luxor), Egypt
1323 BCEDNA tests in 2010 found that Tutankhamun's parents were brother and sister, and that the two stillborn girls buried in his tomb were his daughtersValley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
1323 BCEHoward Carter's team cut Tutankhamun's body apart to free it from his coffin in 1925, and Carter's published account left it outValley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
1327 BCEThe Deeds of Suppiluliuma say a widowed Egyptian queen asked the Hittite king for a son to marry, and the prince Zannanza died on the wayThebes (Luxor), Egypt, and Hattusa (Boğazkale), Turkey
1336 BCEA king's coffin in tomb KV55 had its gold face hacked off and its names cut out, and the gold from its base turned up in a Munich museumValley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
1340 BCEThe Nefertiti bust left Egypt in 1913 listed as a plaster princess, and Berlin has kept it through a century of Egyptian demandsAmarna, Egypt, and Berlin, Germany
1353 BCEAmenhotep III promised the king of Mittani solid-gold statues for his daughter, and after Amenhotep died his son sent gold-plated woodThebes (Luxor), Egypt, and Mittani (northern Syria and Iraq)
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 EgtvedEgtved, Vejle Municipality, Jutland, Denmark
1400 BCEThe Book of Joshua says Achan hid silver and gold from Jericho in his tent, and Israel stoned him in the Valley of Achor with his sons and daughters presentValley of Achor, near Jericho, West Bank
1400 BCEGenesis says Rachel stole her father's household gods as Jacob fled, and Jacob unknowingly swore death on the thiefRachel's Tomb, Bethlehem, West Bank
1450 BCENuzi law kept land inside the family, so the landowner Tehip-tilla had himself adopted by seller after sellerNuzi (Yorghan Tepe), near Kirkuk, Iraq
1458 BCEHatshepsut took the throne from her stepson Thutmose III, who had her statues smashed and her images erased two decades after her deathThebes (Luxor), Egypt
1500 BCEAfter four reigns of Hittite princes killing each other, King Telipinu wrote the order of succession into law and spared the men who had plotted against himHattusa (Boğazkale), Turkey
1550 BCEDNA showed a woman in Mycenae's royal Grave Circle B was buried beside her brother, by right of birth, not as a wifeGrave Circle B, Mycenae, Argolis, Greece
1555 BCEKing Seqenenre Tao died with his hands tied and his skull broken by Hyksos weapons, and his sons finished his warThebes (Luxor), Egypt
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 hotelMittelberg near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
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 herLa Almoloya, Pliego, Murcia, Spain
1750 BCEGenesis says the Philistines filled Abraham's wells with earth after he died, and Isaac dug them out and gave them back his father's namesGerar and Beersheba, Israel
1750 BCEGenesis says Sarah demanded that Hagar's son "shall not be heir with my son," and Abraham sent mother and child into the desertBeersheba, Israel; Mecca, Saudi Arabia (Islamic tradition)
1800 BCEAt Mokrin a rich mother's teenage son was buried with nothing, and a poor mother's son was buried with an axeMokrin, Kikinda, Vojvodina, Serbia
1800 BCEAround 1800 BC an Egyptian priest left everything to his wife and named a guardian for his son, in one of the oldest wills knownLahun (Kahun), Faiyum, Egypt
1962 BCEAmenemhat I was attacked by his own guards after supper, and his son raced back from a war in Libya to take the thronethe royal residence, Egypt
2000 BCEBronze Age farmsteads in Germany's Lech valley kept a rich core family and poor unrelated dependants side by side for 700 yearsLech valley, south of Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany
2180 BCEHerodotus says Queen Nitocris drowned the men who killed her brother the king at a banquet, and a modern scholar argues she never existedMemphis, Egypt
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 sonAmesbury, Wiltshire, England
2550 BCEQueen Puabi of Ur was buried in gold, and the attendants Woolley said drank poison were killed with blows to the headRoyal Cemetery, Ur (Tell el-Muqayyar), Dhi Qar, Iraq
2580 BCEThe hidden tomb of Khufu's mother Hetepheres held her organs in a sealed chest, but her sealed sarcophagus was empty when it was opened in 1927Giza, Egypt
2600 BCEAt Eulau a mother, father and two sons killed in a raid were buried facing each other, the oldest family proven by DNAEulau, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
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 themKoszyce, southern Poland
2950 BCEMerneith ruled for her young son Den, was buried at Abydos in a king's tomb ringed by servants' graves, and later king lists left her outUmm el-Qa'ab, Abydos, Egypt
3000 BCEThe man buried in the inner chamber of Newgrange was the son of a brother and sister or a parent and childNewgrange (Brú na Bóinne), County Meath, Ireland
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 rewardTisenjoch (Giogo di Tisa), Ötztal Alps, South Tyrol, Italy
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 halvesHazleton North long cairn, Hazleton, Gloucestershire, England
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 bodiesVarna, Bulgaria
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 daughtersGurgy "Les Noisats", Yonne, France
5950 BCEÇatalhöyük buried its dead under the house floor along the mother's line, and baby girls got five times the grave gifts of boysÇatalhöyük East Mound, Konya, Turkey
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 laterKurpark, Bad Dürrenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
7000 BCEScientists and five tribes fought for 20 years over a skeleton about 9,000 years old, a court gave it to the scientists, and Congress gave it to the tribesKennewick, Washington, USA
8600 BCENevada held Spirit Cave Man for decades against his tribe, a judge called it arbitrary, and the tribe agreed to DNA to prove he was theirsSpirit Cave, near Fallon, Nevada, USA
10700 BCEConstruction workers found the Clovis child on the Anzick family ranch in 1968, the family's geneticist sequenced him, and six tribes reburied him in 2014Anzick site, Shields River valley near Wilsall, Montana, USA
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 redEl Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain
32000 BCETwo disabled boys at Sungir were buried head to head with 10,000 ivory beads, and DNA showed they were not brothersSungir, near Vladimir, Russia
40000 BCEMungo Man and Mungo Lady, Australia's oldest known people, came home after decades in Canberra, and their reburial split the three nations who own themLake Mungo, Willandra Lakes, New South Wales, Australia
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