Venezuela’s government announced Thursday that late president Hugo Chavez’s body is to be embalmed and displayed inside a glass coffin at a military museum not far from the country’s presidential palace, Miraflores. This sort of prominent public display not only of a dead leader’s final resting place, but of the dead leader’s preserved corpse, places Chavez in the company of revolutionary leaders such as Lenin and Mao, North Korea’s dictatorial father-and-son team, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and others. Here, TIME takes a look at a number of world leaders whose remains have been placed on perpetual display down through the years.
Hugo Chavez and Other Dead World Leaders on Display
HOLGER BENNEWITZ / handout / REUTERS
A supporter of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gestures as she views his coffin during a wake at the military academy in Caracas in this March 7, 2013 picture provided by Miraflores Palace. Chavez died on March 5, and his body is slated to be embalmed and put on permanent display.