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> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
