Who had a nearly 19-mile procession at their funeral?
Whose was so big that people sold merch?
And whose was bigger than the entire population of the city where it was held?
Keep watching.
In 1983, upon returning to the Philippines from America, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was
assassinated, shot after he'd just set foot on the tarmac at the Manila airport.
Suddenly, the opposition party had lost their leader, and the opinion of President Ferdinand
E. Marcos — Aquino's long-time enemy — soured further as suspicions spread.
On the night of the funeral, hundreds of students rushed to the capital in frustration, throwing
rocks and crude bombs, only to clash with police.
That wasn't the scene everywhere, though.
Far from it.
The funeral itself took place after a procession that lasted over 10 hours, winding across
a 19-mile route on the outskirts of Manila.
Somewhere between one and two million people lined that procession route, occasionally
trying to force themselves past police lines.
Some held signs that called out and vilified Marcos and the government, wanting justice
for Aquino.
For the most part, though, the procession was completely peaceful, largely devoid of
political messages, grief, or anger, even.
There was singing and cheering as his coffin passed, people calling out his nickname, NoyNoy.
On the whole, it was a really positive celebration of the man who symbolized courage in the face
of oppression.
Gandhi really doesn't need much of an introduction.
As the man largely credited with Indian independence from Britain, who also utilized a famous nonviolent
civil disobedience, Gandhi is among the most important political leaders of the 20th century.
And so, when he was suddenly assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu fanatic, the nation was
shocked.
Shortly after, Gandhi's body was placed in a mansion called Birla House, where people
could pass through and pay homage; thousands of people lined up and waited through the
night to be able to do just that.
But that didn't really make the shock go away.
The procession route was about five miles long and lasted for around five hours, and
— depending on the source — between one and two million people lined the streets.
Unlike some other large funerals, this seemed to be a quietly somber affair.
All of those people walked along the procession, alongside their beloved leader, silently crying.
The heavy melancholy really seems to be the main feeling here, so impactful that those
who were there claimed that even looking at pictures decades later could bring back that
feeling of heavy sadness.
"Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood
walked upon this earth."
Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, rose to become one of the most prominent military
leaders of his time.
Fighting in the Napoleonic Wars, and winning against steep odds, he distinguished himself
as a hero by being one of the leading figures in Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
His funeral in 1852 took several months of planning, and it was a spectacle like none
that had ever been seen before.
Huge and ridiculously opulent funerals were a thing in England at the time, even for those
not of elite status, and Wellesley's funeral was the pinnacle of that.
Tens of thousands of pounds went into an 11-ton bronze funeral car with lavish decorations,
thousands of newly-installed lights, a Roman funeral arch for the procession to pass under,
and merchandise.
Literal merchandise.
His death was commercialized and kept in the public eye for months.
About 1.5 million people arrived to watch the miles-long procession, bearing the dreary
and stormy weather for a few hours, and despite the lavishness, the entire affair was really
pretty solemn and orderly.
Shortly after India gained its independence from Britain, Jawaharlal Nehru, already a
politician who had advocated for independence, was elected as the first prime minister of
India.
He won the respect of many Indians and world leaders alike, implementing a lot of social
and industrial reforms while promoting the scientific and technological fields.
Unfortunately, Cold War conflicts took a toll on his health, and led to his death in 1964.
After his 17 years in office, mourners came out in droves: About 1.5 million people lined
the six mile procession route.
Officials and dignitaries, both domestic and foreign, were in attendance, and the whole
thing was just a pretty somber affair.
Nehru had already been suffering health problems, and so his death didn't come as much of a
surprise.
It also happened at a time when India was experiencing a period of relative stability,
and the funeral seemed to fit that: mournful, but accepting.
Of course, there were some accounts of unrest.
Four people were killed as they strained against and broke through police lines, and about
100,000 others pressed up against police lines as the procession came to an end.
Overall, though, it seemed a quiet and respectful funeral, despite its huge size.
In the world of Indian politics, Bal Thackeray was a controversial figure.
The founder of an influential party — and the one who was largely responsible for its
prominence as a Hindu nationalist movement — Thackeray was both loved and feared.
He'd been behind the renaming of Bombay to Mumbai, breaking away from its colonial past.
But at the same time, he was also blamed heavily for inciting tensions and brewing conflict
between Hindus and Muslims.
So, yeah, that's a mixed bag, but his followers absolutely loved him.
And that meant that when news came of his death in 2012, they refused to believe it.
Eventually, though, reality and mourning set in and shops and businesses closed down.
When it came to the funeral, somewhere around two million people were expected, and the
guess turned out not to be that far off.
Indian media reported that about 1.5 million people did in fact pack the streets, a dense
sea of humanity surrounding the car that carried his body through the city.
Following the split that created the two countries of North and South Korea, times were tough.
Most of the country's industry was in the area that became North Korea, leaving South
Korea an underwhelming and largely agricultural nation.
But under President Park Chung-hee, the country blossomed, rising out of poverty and becoming
a respectable industrial power.
Well-respected by foreign powers, his death came as a shock, the result of a sudden assassination
in 1979.
A week of official mourning was announced, and a third of the country spent that week
burning incense and paying their respects.
After that week came the funeral, attended by dignitaries and representatives from 41
different countries.
The procession itself lasted about six hours and wound through the streets of Seoul, the
closed casket adorned with flowers and easily visible to those who attended.
An estimated two million people lined the foggy streets to say their last goodbyes,
weeping as the procession passed by.
Originally enlisted as a soldier in Pakistan's army, Ziaur Rahman was the principal leader
in an uprising that led to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan.
Upon returning home and through a series of coups, Rahman became the President of Bangladesh,
and a popular president at that, despite being generally classified as authoritarian.
He died young, though, the result of an assassination in 1981.
Nearly two million people gathered in the capitol, pouring through the streets in a
chaotic crowd.
The gathering here wasn't calm by any means, with some of Rahman's supporters fighting
against the procession and trying to take the coffin away — something that they weren't
successful in doing.
All that came of that was officials calling in the military for further assistance, and
a death among the people who had crowded into the Parliament building to see the coffin
before he was laid to rest.
Hugo Chavez was a controversial figure, to put it lightly.
At the same time he was heavily vilified as a dictator for his socialist revolution in
Venezuela, a lot of the poor really praised him for working toward Latin American unity
and funding social projects.
All that praise and love from the people was pretty clearly on display when it came to
his funeral in 2013, during which his coffin was presented with the sword of Simon Bolivar.
His body was left in state to be viewed by any who wanted to pay their respects, and
the people responded, two million of them filing by, sometimes after waiting for up
to 26 hours for the opportunity.
Some mourners sobbed at seeing him and didn't know how to express their sorrow, feeling
that they owed everything that they had to him.
Others remembered his political victories, calling him invincible and undefeated.
The outpouring of emotion after Chavez's death is hard to dispute, and people wanted him
eventually interred alongside Simon Bolivar himself.
"Chavez!"
"This feels less like a funeral, and more like a celebration of immortality."
Victor Hugo was, simply put, a hero of the working class.
His writing embodied the revolutionary spirit with stories of heroism and humanity, inspiring
the poor and oppressed.
So, fittingly, when he died in May 1885, he'd requested a poor man's funeral.
But that didn't happen.
The French government knew his death would draw crowds and prepared accordingly, placing
his body under the Arc de Triomphe, on a raised platform almost half the height of the arch
itself.
Electric lights, torches, funeral urns, and street lamps lit with green flames sat at
the base.
The government was right to set up such a spectacle, because over two million people
showed up — more than the entire population of Paris at the time.
Those same people climbed trees and buildings to get a better view of the five-mile-long
procession, filled with everything from suffragettes to gymnasts.
In the end, it became a big party, crowds made up of workers and the poor drinking and
singing through the night.
Their cups were always kept full thanks to the wine shops that stayed open, and the waiters
walking the streets with more drinks.
Originally a revolutionary who took part in the 1979 revolution in Iran, Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani eventually went a very different route.
Later in life, he advocated for better relations with the West and served as a voice for the
younger generations and middle class, seemingly the only person in government to do so.
At his state funeral in 2017, though, the government wanted to highlight his revolutionary
past and brush off his reformist later life.
But when some 2.5 million people arrived for his funeral, his supporters made their views
clear.
Protestors gathered in front of the University of Tehran, yelling and drowning out the government
officials by shouting opposition slogans, loud enough that officials had to raise the
volume of the loudspeakers and audio engineers tried to mess with the sound to try and hide
the voices of the protestors — not that they had much success on that front.
The wife of Argentinian President Juan Peron, Eva Peron had always wanted to make something
of herself: By marrying the man who would become President, she had the platform to
do just that.
Using her power, she championed social issues by helping the poor and needy, building hospitals,
and getting women the right to vote.
Her supporters absolutely loved her, seeing "Evita" as the closest thing they had to a
saint.
So when she died in July 1952 at just 33-years-old, the entire country mourned.
Her body was put on display, and over the course of two weeks some three million people
waited in line for up to 15-hours to file past and pay their respects.
Tens of thousands passed by every day, kissing the glass cover, fainting, and weeping, with
nurses constantly on standby in case anyone needed medical assistance.
Some did, and there were more than a few deaths recorded.
When the day of her funeral procession arrived, her body was loaded onto a specially made
gun carriage while two million people lined the streets, flowers being thrown down from
balconies overhead while planes flew above.
Her body wasn't immediately buried, though, and instead went on a weird trip around the
world, before she was eventually brought back to Argentina in 1974, over two decades later.
Anyone who knows racing has probably heard this name, and simply put, Ayrton Senna was
a Formula 1 world champion who's widely considered to be one of the best of all time.
But he was a tragic figure, too, dying in a brutal 1994 crash that was televised around
the world.
His death hit the racing community — and his home country of Brazil — hard.
The Brazilian government declared three days of national mourning, and when Senna's body
was flown back home, at least a million people were waiting at the airport.
The procession wove through the city as three million people lined the streets to watch,
united in grief.
And once that procession came to a stop, the people formed a line three miles long to be
able to pay their respects; some waited around seven hours to do so.
Outside, the banners had a single word printed on them: "saudade."
It doesn't translate directly into English, but it basically refers to the feelings of
loss and sadness that come along with a realization that the one you love is no longer there.
Umm Kulthum was a singer and artist beloved in a way that is pretty much unmatched in
the western world.
Hailed as "the star of the east" and "Egypt's fourth pyramid," Kulthum was one of the most
famous singers of her time.
But she was more than just a popular singer.
She rejected the social norms of the period and managed to appeal to anyone, bringing
people together so well that the President at the time would deliver speeches right after
her televised concerts.
Just about everyone loved her, so when she died in 1975, about four million people arrived
to pay their respects, coming from all walks of life.
The procession route was planned long in advance, and traffic shut down hours before it started.
But those plans ultimately didn't really matter, and mourners broke through the police lines
to gather behind the coffin.
Officials actually gave up power in the procession to the people themselves, who took the coffin
and carried it along their own route, taking a detour to march through the poor quarter
of the city before her body was taken to the cemetery for burial.
The funeral of Pope John Paul II took place in 2005 and pulled in millions of people from
around the world.
In the days leading up to the funeral, two million pilgrims filed through St. Peter's
Basilica to view the pope's body.
Then, when the funeral itself came, four million pilgrims flooded into Rome, about doubling
the city's population.
Millions of others watched from video screens set up all across Rome, and calls could be
heard for the pope to immediately be given sainthood.
"Santo, santo, santo!"
The Mass itself lasted two and a half hours, with speeches being interrupted by applause
multiple times.
The ceremony ended with a private burial in the Vatican crypts.
But what's really interesting though, aside from the sheer numbers, is the way this funeral
touched people worldwide.
Among the millions in Rome, visitors from other countries raised their own flags from
all over the world, dignitaries flew in from many different places around the globe.
Gamal Abdel Nasser was the first President of Egypt, who incited a military coup in 1952
to overthrow the European-aligned monarchy.
Nasser was a highly and consistently popular politician, so when he died in 1970, the people
mourned.
The state had planned a relatively small ceremony in Cairo with 40 major generals and 5,000
troops, but that didn't go to plan at all.
About five million people arrived and flocked around the six-mile-long procession route.
Mourners fought against the police, trying to break through the lines as soldiers tried
to push them back with their weapons.
At that point, the dignitaries were advised to leave, and it became an event more for
the people, thousands of whom waited just at the end of the procession route, waving
handkerchiefs to say goodbye.
That said, the mourning wasn't limited to only Cairo, with many other cities around
Egypt reporting incidents and huge gatherings.
Ruhollah Khomeini completely shook up the political scene of Iran when he started speaking
out against the unpopular Shah, eventually convincing his followers to overthrow the
government and becoming Iran's political and religious leader.
Ten years of rule came to an end with his death in 1989.
Almost all of Tehran's residents were there for the funeral, along with countless more
from neighboring cities.
Two million people had already kept a nightlong vigil.
Those millions of people grieved the loss.
Intensely.
People threw dust on themselves, symbolizing their desire to be buried with Khomeini as
they cried out for their leader not to leave them.
But that wasn't the most dramatic thing to happen.
At one point, the mourners stopped the 10-hour long procession entirely, reaching into the
hearse and grabbing for Khomeini's body.
They dragged it from the car and tore at the white shroud that covered him, trying to take
pieces of what they saw as sacred relics.
At one point, the body actually fell out of the coffin in the commotion and hit the ground.
A helicopter had to be called in to retrieve the body, though even then, some people clung
to the helicopter as it tried to take off.
C.N.
Annadurai was a chief minister of India, known for his skills as an orator and leader.
His pragmatism kept the party alive, and he became something of a political icon.
And so after his death, millions flocked to Madras to pay their respects.
And this wasn't one or two or three million; this was 15 million people all converging
on a single city.
The city set up special transportation and trains just to help people get there, but
even that wasn't enough: most people traveled without a ticket and hitched a ride on top
of those trains, sometimes with tragic results.
Twenty-eight people died when the train passed across a bridge that had a roof over it.
The streets were packed tight, so badly that VIPs couldn't get to the service.
The funeral itself was actually really simple, only lasting about 15 minutes, but the wider
effect on the city was insane.
In the end, the 1969 funeral earned a strange honor: It's the Guinness World Record holder
for "most attended funeral."
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