Not only Elizabeth of England: here are the funerals that made history
From Karol Wojtyla to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, from Martin Luther King to Evita Peron, from Mahatma Gandhi to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The special ranking of the most followed (and moving) ceremonies is led by ...
Watch the most watched funerals ever Photo Video Nobody like Elizabeth. No funeral, in particular, so followed live. Because in the past, record-breaking parades have certainly not been missed. Although TV, web and social networks have multiplied the effect in the last 30 years - Photo | video
THE POLISH POPE - For Pope's funeral John Paul II , Karol Wojtyla, on April 8, 2005, the Holy See had to limit the number of participants for each representation, except Italy and Poland. For this reason, perhaps, in the end they were 349 against the 500 of the British sovereign, to which must be added 19 religious leaders and several political leaders outside the official delegations. And it is certainly easier to say who was not there than who was present: in Europe, only Moldova did not send anyone. The ceremony was attended by about 250,000 people.
IN ARGENTINA - As for attendance, the more than two million people on the streets for the (failure) vice president of Argentina and (occult) leader of Peronism Eva Duarte Peron , undoubtedly constitute a record: the wife of the president Juan Domingo Perón died on July 26, 1952. After the funeral, as happened for Lenin , in Moscow, his embalmed corpse was exhibited in a glass coffin for months and the subject of a 'religious' pilgrimage, only to disappear and end up in an intricate international thriller. It was only in 1976 that his remains returned to their homeland and were buried in the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires.
GANDHI'S INDIA - About two million people also attended the funeral of the father of India, the Mahatma Gandhi , killed January 30, 1948. The subsequent suicides, out of desperation, were dozens. THE His body was cremated on a clearing on the banks of the Yamuna River. L and his ashes were divided among various urns and scattered in the major rivers of the world. The last one was emptied in 2008, in the sea in front of Mumbai.
Elizabeth of England, queuing up all night (the last) to say goodbye to the queen - guard
TEARS FOR DIANA - As for the participation 'on video' before Elisabetta, the record was reached by the restless daughter-in-law, Lady Diana . The funeral it began on 6 September 1997 with the procession from Kensington Palace. 2,000 people took part in the actual ceremony. Over 32 million Britons watched the event on TV. It is estimated that around the world 2.5 billion people did it: so far it had been one of the most followed events. For her marriage to the current sovereign Charles III, it had been 700 million.
NOT ONLY POLICY - In Italy there are two funeral ceremonies with the most participation, and for very different figures. For Totò , who died of a heart attack in Rome on April 15, 1967, there were three funeral processions. The first in Rome, the other two in the Rione Sanità of Naples (the second in the thirtieth): both saw 250,000 people on the street. For the PCI secretary, Enrico Berlinguer , who had felt ill on 7 June 1984 at the closing rally for the European electoral campaign. About 1.5 million people participated in the three processions that, on June 13, characterized the funeral ceremony. About 50 foreign delegations, which included the then Chinese premier Ziyang , the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the Palestinian one Yasser Arafat .
THE SAINT - Four kilometers of queue to pay homage to Mother Teresa of Calcutta , two days after her death, September 5, 1997. The corpse of the little Albanian nun had been embalmed and exposed in a glass coffin. Mother Teresa was granted a state funeral: a million people and authorities from all over the world, including several queens and Hillary Clinton, came and the ceremony was broadcast worldwide.
THREE AMERICAN SYMBOLS - In the United States, the most impactful funerals were those of John and Robert Kennedy , one president and the other candidate president. And the most charismatic figure in the anti-racist movement, Martin Luther King. The body of John F. Kennedy, assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, was greeted by 300,000 people during the procession that transported it from the White House to the Capitol in Washington. Another 250 thousand paid tribute to her during the 18 hours of exposure. About a million people lined up along the road accompanied JFK from the Capitol to St. Matthew's Cathedral and then to Arlington Cemetery. Millions watched the funeral procession on television. Many authorities were present: on behalf of Queen Elizabeth, there was her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Elizabeth of England, at the wake the last hug of all eight grandchildren - guard
ALIGNED ALONG THE TRACKS - More than the funeral, on June 8, 1968, of Robert Kennedy , killed during the presidential campaign three days earlier in Los Angeles, the multitude of people who lined up along the route of the train that carried the body of the Democratic candidate from Penn Station in New York to Union Station in Washington are remembered. The body had been on display for two days in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York before his funeral. Particular: the magnificent photos, taken by Paul Fusco, of the crowd along the 328 kilometers of railway, nobody wanted to publish them for 30 years. George Magazine, the monthly of young John John Kennedy, Bobby's nephew, did it in 1998.
HE HAD A SOOGNO - In the two funeral ceremonies for Martin Luther King , on April 9, 1968, in Atlanta, the most touching moment was when Aretha Franklin sang Precious Lord . The procession was followed by a hundred thousand people but it would have been more if the police, backed by local authorities, had not prevented and blocked many who wanted to pay homage to the anti-racist leader. Among those present was Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, widow of the president. There were riots and riots in over 120 US cities.
Source: oggi.it
