The worst of the worst: this is where history's most infamous dictators are buried

Their stories fascinate us in the most terrible way. Cruel, violent, despicable revolutionaries and unquestionably megalomaniacs - where are the bodies of these dictators buried?

The tomb of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was in the Valle de los Caídos, a pharaonic basilica erected in the Madrid mountains, where the far right is used to going very often. After months of legal battle initiated by the Spanish government, then in the hands of the socialists, the remains of Franco were exhumed and placed in a more discreet tomb, in the cement plant of Pardo, in Madrid.

For 12 years the body of Benito Mussolini was moved from place to place, after he was shot and his head hung in a street in Milan, to let the people know he was quite dead. Eventually, the Italian authorities stopped playing hide and seek with the remnants of the fascist leader. They therefore handed over the body to his family and he was buried in the San Cassiano cemetery in the town of Predappio.

Hitler killed himself and his remains were burned and buried by the Soviet authorities who had besieged Berlin. In 1970, the Soviets dug them up and dumped them in the waters of the Biederitz River, a tributary of the Elbe.

In Moscow's Red Square still stands the mummy of the leader of the Soviet revolution. Since it is a part of the history of of Russia, Lenin's remains will most likely always stay there.

Stalin also stayed for many years in Red Square. But in the early 1960s, his popularity declined, he was estranged from Lenin. Stalin's body was transported to the necropolis of the Kremlin Wall where his supporters go to visit him.

The leader of the Chinese revolution body is in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square where he is still revered.

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was buried with full honors and remains in a family chapel in Valparaiso.

Photo:  En Todos Lados !!'s. - 07, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Idi Amin Dada, the dictator who inspired the film 'The Last King of Scotland', is buried in Saudi Arabia, where he went into exile. Some Ugandan politicians have claimed his legacy and advocated for the remains of Idi Amin Dada to be returned to his home country. But a majority of the Ugandan population does not have very good memories of his mandate.

Exile led the Dominican dictator Leonidas Trujillo (pictured on the right) to be buried in Madrid's Pardo cemetery.

Another case of an exiled dictator: the tomb of the Paraguayan Alfredo Stroessner is in the municipal cemetery of Brasilia. His family tried, unsuccessfully, to have his body repatriated in order to organize a state funeral.

In the cemetery of the Memorial Park of Buenos Aires, one can find the tomb of Jorge Videla, the Argentine dictator. But his name is not on the tombstone. There is only the Olmos Family inscription. You could say that shame pursued him, even to his grave.

The body of Eva Peron was embalmed and displayed at the headquarters of the Argentinian CGT union, until  soldiers stole it in 1955. They hid it in different places, transported it to Italy and, in 1971, they sent it back to Madrid, where her widower, General Peron, went into exile. Her body eventually returned to Argentina and now rests in the Recoleta Cemetery where she receives a multitude of visits.

Augusto Sandino, a pro-guerrilla Nicaraguan national hero, was shot in 1934 by dictator Anastasio Somoza and his remains have never been found. As revenge, when the Sandinistas regained power after a successful revolution, his opponents dumped his body in a landfill.

The leader of the Cuban Revolution has been buried in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia, in Santiago de Cuba, since 2016.

Terrorist Osama Bin Laden was captured and killed by US Special Forces. According to several testimonies, his body was thrown into the ocean in order to avoid erecting a tomb that could become a place of pilgrimage for his fanatical followers.