The Romanovs: A modern mystery?

On this day in 1993, British forensic scientists announce that they have positively identified the remains of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II; his wife, Czarina Alexandra; and three of their daughters. The family's bones, which had been excavated from a mass grave near Yekaterinburg in 1991, were finally analysed using modern DNA techniques to put the mystery to rest.

Early in the Russian Revolution, the battles raged between the Communist Red Army and the Czarist White Army. Historians suggest that the White Army wasn't really intent on maintaining the Czarist regime that had lasted 300 years and, in 1918, the Czar and his family were taken prisoner by the Red Army.

In the end, on the night of July 16, 1918, under the orders of Lenin, Red Army troops executed Nicholas and his family, shooting them at close range in a small room. Much effort was taken to ensure they were dead, but apparently less care was taken to ensure they were buried together and all corpses were accounted for. The details of the execution and the location of their final resting place had remained a Soviet secret for more than six decades.

Lacking physical evidence, rumors spread through Europe in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, telling of a Romanov child, usually the youngest daughter, Anastasia, who had survived the carnage. There is even a Disney movie named after her.

In 1991, Russian amateur investigators, using recently released government records, found what they thought to be the Romanov burial site. Even after they were found, there were questions whether they were the Romanovs and whether Alexi and Anastasia were among the dead.

To prove that the remains were indisputably those of the Romanovs, the Russians enlisted the aid of British DNA experts.

In 1995, a Russian government commission studying the remains presented what it claimed was proof that one of the skeletons was in fact Anastasia's, and that the missing Romanov daughter was, in fact, Maria.