Traditions aren’t traditions if they’re not a little weird, right?
“We have decided to prepare the body of our “Comandante President,” to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people,” Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro declared on Thursday, in announcing plans to preserve Hugo Chávez’s body and showcase it in a glass tomb at a military museum near the presidential palace.
“Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong.”
In fact, it turns out Maduro was missing a few names. The practice of embalming national (mainly communist) leaders and boxing their bodies in glass for posterity may have gone out of vogue with the end of the Cold War, but Chávez still has distinguished company.
Here are the most notable members of the exclusive club:
Vladimir Lenin, Russia. Died: Jan. 21, 1924
