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08.05.

1980: Funeral of Josip Broz Tito

1980: Funeral of Josip Broz Tito
Photo Credit To Wikipedia Commons

Story Highlights

  • Historical event:
  • 08 May 1980
  • Well-known foreign dignitaries Margaret Thatcher, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Leonid Brezhnev, Indira Gandhi, and Erich Honecker were present at the event. By the number of attending statesmen, the funeral of Josip Broz was surpassed only by the funeral of Pope Saint John Paul II in 2005.

Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito was buried on this day, in Belgrade’s House of Flowers in Dedinje.



He died four days earlier in Ljubljana, and in the meantime the body was transported from Ljubljana to Belgrade in a special train.

The funeral gathered the hitherto largest number of foreign statesmen in history. There were 209 delegations from 127 countries present, among them 4 kings, 31 presidents of state, 22 prime ministers, and 47 ministers.

Well-known foreign dignitaries Margaret Thatcher, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Leonid Brezhnev, Indira Gandhi, and Erich Honecker were present at the event.

Interestingly, the funeral of Josip Broz was prepared for months in advance, during Tito’s illness. By the number of attending statesmen, the funeral of Josip Broz was surpassed only by the funeral of Pope Saint John Paul II in 2005.




There was much speculation around the fact that there is no five-pointed star on Tito’s grave.

Some take that as proof that Tito was a Freemason, while others believe it was a simple oversight due to haste. But how could there be a hurry when the funeral had been prepared for months?

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