Mausoleum of Mao Zedong
Granite hall guarding an embalmed leader's body in a crystal coffin lowered underground each night.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong follows Chairman Mao's death in September 1976 and the disastrous embalming attempt that followed, when doctors defied his wish to be cremated and searched a Beijing library for a formula after the Soviet method was off-limits. You'll hear how his body swelled within hours, and how seven hundred thousand volunteers donated the labor and stone to build the hall around his sealed crystal coffin. Consider the queue that still files past it every day.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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