Loves that ended in death, separation or sacrifice — and that, for exactly that reason, we never forget.
Loves that ended in death, separation or sacrifice — and that, for exactly that reason, we never forget.
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Love, empire and a double suicide
The queen of Egypt and the Roman general whose romance fused love with imperial politics and ended in a double suicide that sealed the end of an era.
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3
The universal archetype of forbidden love
The teenage lovers of two feuding families whose deaths became the universal archetype of forbidden love.
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4
The poet driven mad by love
The poet driven mad with love for Layla, married off to another by force; his longing became a Sufi allegory of the soul seeking God.
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5
He went down to the underworld for love
The musician who descended to the underworld to retrieve his love and lost her by looking back one moment too soon.
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6
The elephant and the dove
The two great artists of post-revolutionary Mexico, bound by art and politics and divided by infidelity, who loved and wounded each other until Frida's death.
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7
The Liberator of the Liberator
The Quito-born revolutionary who left her husband to fight and love alongside the Liberator, saved his life in 1828, and earned the title "Liberator of the Liberator."
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9
The queen crowned after death
The lover murdered on the orders of the king's father, whom Pedro — once king — by legend exhumed and crowned queen after death.
Read the storyThe most famous love letters of the Middle Ages
The philosopher-teacher Abelard and his brilliant student Heloise; their love produced a son and a secret marriage that ended in castration and religious life — and in some of history's most celebrated love letters.
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14
Amor prohibido, the Tejano anthem
The Queen of Tejano and her band's guitarist defied her father Abraham's disapproval and eloped on April 2, 1992; she was murdered on March 31, 1995, at 23.
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17
Don't cry for her, Argentina
The colonel and the radio actress who became Argentina's most powerful political couple; Evita championed the descamisados and women's suffrage, and died of cancer at 33.
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20
The burning letters of an emperor
Napoleon's passionate, jealous letters to Joséphine de Beauharnais; he divorced her for lack of an heir, but by tradition her name was on his lips at death.
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22
An obsessive love on the moors
The obsessive, destructive love of "Wuthering Heights": "I am Heathcliff," says Catherine, in one of literature's fiercest declarations.
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23
An impossible love between geniuses
Lorca fell in love with Dalí at Madrid's Residencia de Estudiantes; the painter did not reciprocate physically, but the bond was intense and inspired the "Ode to Salvador Dalí" (1926).
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24
The Romeo and Juliet of China
Zhu disguises herself as a man to study; Liang never realizes she is a woman; she is betrothed to another; he dies of heartbreak and she throws herself into his grave, from which they emerge as butterflies.
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26
The love that created Iguazú Falls
The maiden Naipí, destined to be sacrificed to the serpent god M'Boi, flees by canoe with the warrior Tarobá; the enraged god splits the river to create the falls, turning her to rock and him to a tree leaning over the water.
Read the storyThe potion that doomed two lovers
The knight who escorts Isolde to marry his uncle, King Mark; on the voyage they mistakenly drink a love potion and fall into an impossible passion that destroys them.
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30
Forty years of mourning for love
When Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria wore mourning black for the remaining 40 years of her life.
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32
From Hollywood to a royal throne
The Oscar-winning actress who left Hollywood to become Princess of Monaco: the 20th century's fairy tale come true.
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35
The legend of betrayed love
The woman who, betrayed by her lover, drowns her children and herself and wanders weeping "Oh, my children!": the legend of love turned to damnation that all of Latin America knows.
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39
The love that toppled Camelot
The greatest knight of the Round Table and Queen Guinevere, King Arthur's wife: an adulterous love that, once discovered, sinks the ideal kingdom of Camelot.
Read the storyTopping the list is Cleopatra & Mark Antony: The queen of Egypt and the Roman general whose romance fused love with imperial politics and ended in a double suicide that sealed the end of an era.