Dig Deep Into This "Famous Disinterments" Quiz

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

Big Jim Kenally assembled his gang of graverobbers, and they were John Hughes, Terrence Mullen, Lewis C. Swegles and wagon driver William Nealy. Little did Kenally know however was that Swegles was operating undercover as an informant for the U.S. Secret Service to snitch out counterfeiters.

In 1876, Kenally was back in Chicago while the other four entered Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln and his sons (wife Mary would join them later) were entombed. The gang was sure there would be a payday inside, but they faced difficulties with the lock, and even then after breaking in, the lead-lined coffin proved too heavy for them to remove.

The cover was screwed in very securely and they were running out of time. Swegles went outside, ostensibly to get Nealy the coachman to help out, but instead he signaled the authorities. Hughes and Mullen however, managed to elude everyone and get away.

They would be arrested later in Chicago and stand trial in 1877. Lincoln's body would be removed and moved to various graves until finally entombed in that same Springfield cemetery.

Answer: William the Conqueror

After the fall from his steed in France, William the Conqueror's funeral was delayed in order that dignitaries and mourners could pay respects, and also for those who needed to see that he was truly deceased for the sake of political stability. A problem occurred, however, when doctors tried to embalm him.

They didn't remove all of the internal organs, so on the day of the funeral, gases had built up and swelled the corpse grotesquely. The officials tried to force the oversized body into its coffin and shut the lid.

At some point though, the gases were too much and the body exploded.

Answer: Italy

The first lady of Argentina had died in 1955 at the age of 33. The military opposition to Peron took Eva's corpse and at first put her in a radio equipment box in an attic. Later they took her body to Italy and buried her under a false name. But the pro-Peronist movement rose up, and, in 1971, she was found and disinterred from her Italian grave and returned to Argentina.

Her nose was a little worse for wear, having been flattened, and her hair was dirty, but morticians fixed her up as best they could and she was put on display once again, helping Juan Peron win the presidency in 1973.

He died the following year, however. Evita is buried in Buenos Aires in what is claimed to be a robbery-proof tomb.

Answer: Oliver Cromwell

Despite his military success during the English Civil War in 1642, Cromwell was a controversial figure to many. After his political opponents seized power back, they dug him up and mistreated his corpse, dragging it around on a wooden sled, and it was finally hanged and decapitated. They then stuck the head on a pole outside Westminster Hall. It stayed there rotting away for 20 years.

Answer: John Wilkes Booth

So although Booth's exhumation was thwarted by the courts in 1996, it is not to say that his body was never disinterred. After the Union Army trapped him in a barn and slayed him, John Wilkes Booth was buried in the Washington Arsenal in Washington, D.C. Back in 1869 his body was disinterred and moved to the Booth family plot in the Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. Rumor mongers had badgered the family over the years, saying that Booth had actually escaped capture and the man buried was not him. That was why the family sought to have him exhumed--so that an end could be put to the conspiracy theorists' claims. Cemetery officials stated the overwhelming evidence that he was killed by soldiers and buried in a plot upon the family's request.

Answer: A Soviet spy

Eddowes, the author of "The Oswald File" and also "Kruschev Killed Kennedy", asserted in both books that it was a Soviet spy that had switched places with Oswald during Oswald's visit to the Soviet Union several months before the assassination. In 1981, Oswald's widow granted permission that his body be disinterred so that officials could confirm the identity of the corpse. As expected, dental records revealed that it was indeed Lee Harvey Oswald in the grave.

Answer: Jesse James

Jesse James was shot by one of his own gang members in 1882 at the age of 34. At first he was buried in his mother's backyard so that grave robbers wouldn't get to him. After that he was dug up and reburied next to his wife in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The DNA test was performed on scraps of bone and strands of his hair. Because he was a Confederate Army soldier during the Civil War before becoming a bank robber, James was reburied as Robert L.Hawkins III, a former commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Answer: Zachary Taylor

Those other fellows were proponents of extending slavery to the Western territories, but the 12th president, Zachary Taylor, who had actually been in fine health when he died, was opposed to it. But he died in 1850 after attending a Fourth of July event at the groundbreaking of the Washington Monument.

The exhumation and study thereof by the medical examiner determined that Taylor's death was due to "a myriad of natural diseases which could have produced the symptoms of gastroenteritis." Whatever small amounts of arsenic that were detected were regarded as occurring naturally according to nuclear tests.

Answer: Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone was buried next to his wife Rebecca originally, on his son Nathan's farm in Marthasville, Missouri. That was back in 1820 after he died at age 85 of natural causes. In 1845 however he was disinterred and transported to Frankfort Cemetery because local judge Mason Brown wanted to have the second incorporated memorial park in America, and he felt Daniel Boone's burial site would do the trick. And so his bones were disinterred and reburied in a grave overlooking the Kentucky River. But speculation arose that the exhumed body was not actually Boone's but that of a slave, since there were many buried in nearby graves. Examinations of the skull have raised doubts that it is Boone. So as a result, both Frankfort Cemetery and Old Bryan Farm in Missouri claim to be the final resting place of Daniel Boone.

Answer: Christopher Columbus

The Dominican Republic claims that the remains of Christopher Columbus are housed in a Santo Domingo lighthouse, while Spain claims that Columbus is buried in Seville. Spain disinterred their Columbus and conducted DNA tests matching his DNA to the DNA of his brother, Diego.

The results were somewhat confirming. It revealed a 95% likelihood that the bones belonged to Columbus. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the Caribbean body disinterred to see if he was murdered or indeed the victim of tuberculosis as originally believed.

They were not, however, able to determine the cause of death.