Today -100: August 25, 1926: It’s what he would have wanted

30,000 people show up at the funeral home to see Rudolph Valentino’s corpse for two seconds at a time, getting a tad unruly at times. “They were merely curious, and looked it. Hardly one looked even sorrowful much less reverent.” 10 black-shirt-wearing Fascists set themselves up to guard the coffin, on the orders of Mussolini himself. Except they will turn out actually to be a bunch of actors hired by the funeral home. Mounted police charge the crowd, as was the custom.

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