World leaders whose bodies have been preserved and put on perpetual display:

Vladimir Lenin: Body of Soviet Union’s founder has been displayed since January 1924 in a mausoleum at Red Square. His tomb is one of Moscow’s most famous symbols and Communists consider it almost a shrine.

Josef Stalin: Soviet dictator’s embalmed body was put on display next to Lenin on March 9, 1953. Soviet authorities ordered it removed from the tomb Oct. 31, 1961, and had it buried during a period of “de-Stalinization.”

Ho Chi Minh: Corpse of the Vietnamese revolutionary leader was put on display on Aug. 29, 1975. It rests in a glass sarcophagus in the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi.

Mao Zedong: Embalmed body of the founding father of the People’s Republic of China was unveiled on Sept. 9, 1977. It rests in the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in the center of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Kim Il Sung: Preserved body of the man considered the founding father of North Korea was unveiled on July 8, 1995. It lies under glass for viewing purposes in the Kumsusan mausoleum.

Kim Jong Il: The North Korean leader’s body, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, was unveiled on Dec. 17, 2012, the anniversary of his death. It rests a few floors below the body of his father, Kim Il Sung.