The most bizarre aspect of this tale is that it is true. Eva Perón, Argentina's much-loved First Lady, died of cancer in 1952 at the age of thirty-three. Juan Perón, who was weeping, commissioned a renowned embalmer to preserve her body for exhibition, and Argentines came to be near "Evita." Perón fled the country three years later, when his administration was deposed in a military coup, before he could arrange for the shipment of his wife's body. The military dictatorship that had taken control of the country stole the corpse; they were so scared of Eva's symbolic significance that they made it illegal to utter her name. Thus began Eva's body's two-decade odyssey across Europe and eventually back to Argentina.
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The most bizarre aspect of this tale is that it is true. Eva Perón, Argentina's much-loved First Lady, died of cancer in 1952 at the age of thirty-three. Juan Perón, who was weeping, commissioned a renowned embalmer to preserve her body for exhibition, and Argentines came to be near "Evita." Perón fled the country three years later, when his administration was deposed in a military coup, before he could arrange for the shipment of his wife's body. The military dictatorship that had taken control of the country stole the corpse; they were so scared of Eva's symbolic significance that they made it illegal to utter her name. Thus began Eva's body's two-decade odyssey across Europe and eventually back to Argentina.
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