This Day in History: Frédéric Chopin died on this day in 1849 at the age of 39. Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. FC was so fearful of being buried alive that he asked that his heart be cut out of his chest and preserved elsewhere. His body was buried in Paris, but his heart was laid to rest inside Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. (It was removed by the Germans in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising, and later returned.)
In history, the body parts of celebrated individuals have had an interesting and lively afterlife. Noted philosopher Rene Descartes' skull traveled Europe posthumously. His remains were exhumed 16 years after his death with the purpose of returning them to his native France. Before the body could be moved one of the guards supervising the exhumation removed Descartes’ skull as a memento and so during the next 150 years, the head made its way throughout the continent, bought and sold like a commodity.
Albert Einstein's brain was stolen by the doctor conducting his autopsy. John Kennedy's brain was also stolen, and some claim it was stolen by his brother Bobby. Beethoven's ear bones were removed during an autopsy and later stolen by an orderly who allegedly sold them. Galileo's middle finger was snapped off 95 years after his death and was passed around for a few hundred years. Rasputin's penis made it to Paris in the 1920's, and Napoleon's penis made its travels as well, until it was sold to a US doctor in the 70's.
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