Hugo Chavez Exhumes Simon Bolivar’s Bones

This is truly crazy: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has exhumed the 180-year-old grave of South American hero Simon Bolivar to see if he was poisoned by Colombian enemies. Chavez does not believe the traditional account of Bolivar’s death, which is that he died of tuberculosis in Colombia in 1830. Chavez believes he was murdered by a Colombian rival and is so sure of his theory that he created a state forensics laboratory to test it. “I tell them: this glorious skeleton must be Bolivar because you can feel his presence. My God,” Chavez tweeted after the casket was opened. John Hopkins University Professor Paul Auwaerter agrees that Bolivar probably died of arsenic poisoning, but think that it probably came from contaminated drinking water or attempting to use the substance as a medication. He says Chavez is misconstruing his research.