The cellar where Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family were killed, 1918

When the royal family and their servants went into the cellar, they had no idea that they were about to be shot. The bullets ricocheted off of them and it seemed to the assassins that they were being protected by some miraculous power. The victims died a slow and agonizing death, and the girls who survived the bullets, were bayoneted until they died.  They say that so much shooting was done in that small room that an hour later, smoke still hung in the air. 

When the smoke cleared, the bodies of the eleven victims were hauled to an empty mine shaft in Ekaterinburg. The girls’ corpses were stripped and the reason for their ability to withstand the bullets was discovered: eighteen pounds of the Romanov diamonds had been sewn into their undergarments, causing the bullets to ricochet. 

The gems were confiscated and the clothing burned. To this day, it is uncertain what became of the Romanov treasure the girls had guarded.