The heart was sealed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw where it has been ever since. One of his final wishes was for his actual heart to be taken to Poland, which his sister fulfilled by smuggling it into the country in an urn. Sadly, his incredible career was cut short when he passed away at age 39, probably from tuberculosis, while living in Paris.Ĭhopin had made it clear that his heart belonged in Warsaw. A virtuoso pianist and composer, Chopin was born outside of Warsaw in 1810. This guy could show any modern-day hipster how it’s done. We know artist types can be a bit dramatic, but you’ve got to give it up for Chopin. Chopin’s Heart – Holy Cross Church, Warsaw Anyone got any insider info? We’d love to know. The bits of brain are somewhere in the Princeton Hospital, although we’re not sure exactly where. 40 years later, Harvey returned the brain, in pieces, to the pathology lab in Princeton. His tragic tale ends with a cross-country road trip intended to return Einstein’s brain to his granddaughter, only for her to tell him she didn’t want it. He traveled to any research facility or lab that agreed to perform tests on the brain. And here’s where things really get weird: after a divorce and a downward spiral that brought him across the Midwest, Harvey ended up losing his medical license. Harvey left New Jersey and went on a wild scientist goose chase. Images: mansionwb/ cogdogblog/Flickr (P.S.: this isn’t actually his brain!) And after Harvey became frighteningly obsessed with the brain and refused to relinquish possession of the specimen, he was fired from the Princeton Hospital and left in shame. Harvey was not granted permission to remove Einstein’s brain, but he did it anyway, which landed him in some pretty hot water. Harvey thought that careful study of Einstein’s brain would help him figure out what made the guy so gosh darn smart. When Einstein died in 1955, his brain was removed by Thomas Harvey, a doctor working in the Princeton Hospital in New Jersey where the scientist passed away. Einstein’s Brain – University Medical Center, Princeton, New JerseyĪll of us have one, some are a lot more developed than others, and Einstein’s was incredible. But with careful planning and a discerning eye, there are some pretty incredible body parts to be seen out there. While some are proudly on display, many are decidedly better hidden. But 20th-century cultural icons and ancient historical figures? Yeah, those get around too. Reliquaries containing the hands, feet, teeth, and other parts of holy people have been touted around the globe for thousands of years. Check out this episode about the President Heads.The tradition of putting body parts on display is almost as old as religion itself. The Atlas Obscura Podcast is a short, daily celebration of all the world’s strange and wondrous places. A short documentary, called All the Presidents’ Heads, showcases the heads and Hankins’ efforts. There is a crowdfunding campaign in the works to raise money to relocate the statues to a place where they can be visited by all. With each bust weighing 22,000 pounds, it took nearly a week to move them all just a few miles to the large field where they now sit, and some of the heads sustained minor damage to the backs of their heads and noses.įor years the giant heads have sat tucked away on the farm, which is private property and not open to tourists. Instead of allowing the busts to be demolished, Howard Hankins, who helped construct the park, adopted all 42 heads and lugged them back to his private family farm for safekeeping until someone can think of what to do with them. They were open to the public at Presidents Park alongside the Presidential Pet Museum, and received thousands of visitors until 2010 when a company bought the plot of land. The huge presidential heads had to move. The statues were sculpted by Houston artist David Adickes, who was inspired after driving past Mount Rushmore on a trip back from Canada. This was the problem that Howard Hankins found himself facing in 2010, after Presidents Park in Williamsburg, Virginia-where the giant busts had been on display-closed down.

What to do when you have dozens of 20-foot-tall busts of nearly every U.S.

Famous heads on display