Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (1901–18) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna. Anastasia had three older sisters (Olga, Tatiana, and Maria), and a younger brother (Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia). She was executed with her family in an extrajudicial killing by members of Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, on 17 July 1918. Persistent rumors of her possible escape circulated, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during Communist rule. Several women falsely claimed to have been Anastasia, the most notorious of whom was Anna Anderson; DNA testing after Anderson's death showed no link between her and the Imperial family. Anastasia's possible survival has been conclusively disproved. The mass grave near Ekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three daughters was revealed in 1991, but the bodies of Alexei Nikolaevich and one of his sisters—either Anastasia or Maria—were not discovered there. However, the charred bodies of the two missing siblings were found in 2007 and identified using DNA testing.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Anastasia_Nikolaevna_of_Russia
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1453:
The Battle of Castillon, the last conflict of the Hundred Years' War, ended with the English losing all landholdings in France, except Calais. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castillon
1771:
Dene men, acting as a guide to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about 20 Copper Inuit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Falls_Massacre
1918:
Russian Revolution: Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II and his family at Yekaterinburg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_the_Romanov_family
1973:
Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last King of Afghanistan, was ousted in a coup by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Zahir_Shah
1981:
A structural failure caused a walkway at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, US, to collapse (damage pictured), killing 114 people and injuring 216 others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
disconsolate: 1. Cheerless, dreary. 2. Seemingly beyond consolation; inconsolable. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disconsolate
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all. --Isaac Watts https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Watts
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