Princess Anastasia's Disappearance Stunned The World. 90 Years Later Experts Finally Have An Answer

Upon learning that he and Empress Alexandra were expecting a fourth baby girl, Tsar Nicholas was not overcome with joy. He supposedly had to go out for a walk in order to come to terms with the news. That’s because the family desperately needed a male heir. But he’s said to have quickly recovered, embracing the role of a caring father.

While Anastasia wasn’t the most fragile of the Romanov children, she still did have a few minor health problems. The princess dealt with bunions, issues with her back, and the common royal genetic disorder of hemophilia. But none of these ailments stopped her from developing a bubbly personality.

To her siblings and friends, Anastasia was probably a bit of a pest. The little stinker was known to be a bit aggressive towards other kids and was always trying to pull one over on the waitstaff. She was certainly a kid with spunk.

In fact, Anastasia was given a pretty crude nickname to match her mischievous character: Imp! But she could handle it — don’t worry. Anastasia was a tough cookie whose naughtiness often had those around her in stitches.

Natural-born rebel Anastasia hated learning. It seems she was not one to sit still and follow orders — at least not for long. On more than one occasion, she reportedly opted to climb trees to avoid going back to class. And other times she relied on flattery.

In an effort to get her teachers to fluff her grades, she would apparently try her hand at a little bribery. To butter up her English teacher, for instance, she supposedly presented a bouquet of flowers. And when her teacher refused them, word has it that Anastasia tried the same trick with her Russian instructor.

Out of all her siblings, Anastasia seemed to be closest to her eldest sister, Olga. Surviving letters document their bond, detailing their shared love of the outdoors. Diaries specifically note their adventures as a duo skiing, going for bike rides, and boating.

Royal life had its merits, but it was important for Empress Alexandra that her children didn't get spoiled. Oddly enough, she deprived her daughters of normal comforts, insisting they bathe in cold water and sleep on iron beds — just as her mother had made her do, too.

Besides their less-than-comfortable sleeping arrangements, the Romanov daughters had regular chores and household responsibilities. The Empress made sure they knew how to sew, so the little leisure time that they were allowed was supposedly spent making dolls’ clothes.

Every child of the Romanov family reportedly had their own pet. In Anastasia's case, she had Jimmy, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel who went with her everywhere, including to the execution. It's thought that she held him during the family’s final moments.

Yes, on July 17, 1918, the Romanov family met a grisly end. The Tsar of Russia Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra, their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, son Alexei, and their family pets, were all ushered into the basement.

In what could have been a last-ditch effort to save their lives, Empress Alexandra instructed her daughters to secretly sew jewels into their clothes to perhaps deflect bullets. When the executioners came calling, the Romanov children were dressed in their finest attire.

Two rounds of gunfire and bayonets were used against the Romanovs, and their bodies were later recovered in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Technological limitations halted the identification of all the family members for decades, which is why theories of Anastasia's fate went haywire.

How anyone could take the Romanov family executions and turn them into cartoon magic is difficult to understand. Yet the animated film was a success! And while the film swapped out many details about the missing duchess, there were at least some historical accuracies.

That yellow dress depicted in the animated Anastasia film was based on the real deal. Records show that the real Romanov was photographed in a gown of a similar sunny shade in the days leading up to her death.

As people were unsure about Anastasia’s fate, she became one of the most high-profile missing persons of the early 20th century. And for this reason, a lot of people claimed to be the one-and-true Anastasia. Out of all of those who tried to convince the public, the most successful was Anna Anderson.

The remaining relatives of the Romanovs absolutely refuted Anna Anderson's claims, though. Grandmother Dowager Empress Marie simply said she wouldn’t give her the time of day. And an aunt Olga who did go to meet Anderson claimed it was like “looking at a stranger.”

Tracking down the last "missing" Romanov dragged on for nearly a century. In the wake of the tragedy, over 100 people came forward alleging to be Anastasia. Relatives and former staff were called forward as witnesses to weed out the fakers.

Anna Anderson maintained that she was the long-lost Romanov daughter from 1928 to her death in 1984. But there was simply no way to validate her claim. Then, finally, after years of lawsuits, DNA proved that she wasn’t a match.

Speculation, rumors, and the capitalization of her disappearance meant that the unknown fate of Anastasia Romanov was not treated as the tragedy it was. Thankfully, closure came in 2007, when DNA testing of the mass gravesite identified Anastasia along with her brother, Alexei. Unreleased photographic evidence told the rest of their story.

The Romanov family tragedy remains one of the most horrific brutalities in recent world history. For Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children, life shifted from the trappings of royalty to the confinement of prisoners.

Nicholas II was the final emperor of Russia. His mishandling of World War I, and the dire consequences his nation faced as a result, led to his forced abdication of the crown. This portrait was taken moments later, before he understood the horrors that awaited his family.

Before the bleakness, life was good for the Romanovs. Nicholas and Alexandra welcomed four daughters. The two eldest, Olga and Tatiana, were dubbed "The Big Pair." The two youngest, Maria and Anastasia, were logically called "The Little Pair."

At the time, the most discussed was Tatiana. She inherited her mother's good looks, with steely blue-grey eyes and auburn hair. Apart from the attention she attracted from her beauty, Tatiana was respected for her wartime efforts, serving as a nurse with the Red Cross.

The arrival of Alexei, their only son, gave the Romanovs a collective sigh of relief. He was the male heir that they'd so desperately needed. Though, they soon discovered the boy was plagued with health problems — suffering from the rare blood clotting disorder hemophilia.

Politics and illness aside, the Romanovs lived like most other kids: playing with their cousins, running round outside, older sisters simultaneously bossing around and doting on their brother. Their parents whisked them around the country to various royal estates as contemporary royals do.

Nicholas II was the picture-happy dad behind the camera. As an amateur photographer, his favorite subject was his family. Six full albums packed with candids were recovered years later, containing gems like this beach day outing.

Everyone was hyper protective of Alexei given his illness and succession to the throne. A hovering mother and sisters couldn't keep Alexei from goofing off like a normal little boy. Flopping around in the sand, or riding a sled down a staircase, he could've give a hoot about safety.

"Took the elephant to our pond with Alexei today and had fun watching him bathe," wrote the Tsar in a 1914 journal entry. The Romanovs owned an entire zoo full of exotic creatures, until the war and subsequent Russian revolution in 1917 resulted in its closure.

Their favorite retreat was aboard their yacht, The Standart. The ship was a picture of lavishness, chandeliers glittering from the rocking waves, top notch interiors flanked in mahogany. It made a fitting location to soften the blow when Nicholas II learned of the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand.

While Nicholas II attempted to entangle the strategies of war, his children balanced time at home with their mother versus their own wartime responsibilities. Olga, in her nurses veil, volunteered to assist wounded soldiers. Anastasia was too young for nursing, so she and Maria played checkers with the injured.

As monarchs, wartime relief was encompassing family affair. Everyone pulled their weight, visiting soldiers to boost moral together presented a united front. However, Tsarina Alexandra's ties to Germany, she was a German born princess, didn't bode well with the rest of the country.

In spite of the tension, the Romanovs stuck to their duties. Tsar Nicholas was joined by Maria and Anastasia at the beside of wounded soldiers. Less than a year later, the family would be held captive at the hands of their own soldiers.

In the days before the shoe dropped for the royals, the girls dealt with a case of the measles. Alexandra lined her daughters up and shaved each of their heads.Yet they smiled through it, not knowing their entire family was about to be placed under house arrest.

Revolution erupted, and Nicholas II was forced to relinquish his and Alexei's claim to the monarchy. The guards who once protected the Romanovs turned cruel and vindictive. This picture was taken during their captivity, with Anastasia holding Tatiana's pet bulldog Ortipo, a gift from a smitten soldier.

Tatiana wrote to a fellow nurse friend in 1917 expressing her frustrations with sitting idle in captivity: "It is strange to sit in the morning at home, to be in good health and not go to change the bandages!"

Royal functions and etiquette fell by the wayside. Tatiana rose to the action in the midst of the crisis, keeping a level head. For a period the family was separated, the parents and son at one location, the daughters at another.

They avoided prison cells, though their house arrest conditions were far from cushy. Alexei, weakened from his inherited hemophilia, was still expected to execute hard labor. All their food was restricted to solider rations.

One saving grace was the Romanovs were allowed to keep their dogs for company. Of the three family pets, Joy, Alexei's dog, was the only one of that appealed to the sympathies of the guards on the day of their final tragedy.

The last year of their lives was an isolated waiting game. Moved roughly from location to location, exile weighed on their spirits. Nicholas acted as the glue for his family, maintaining an "internal calm" during crisis, taking pictures like this in their final months together.

End of the road for the Romanov's was the Yekaterinburg's Ipatiev House. Soldiers woke the family, and ushered them to the basement, supposedly to shield them from a nearby riot. Instead, the family was executed by gunfire, and when that didn't work, by bayonets.

Murmurs that one or two of the daughters survived the executions swirled for decades. Anastasia was primarily the focus. DNA testing debunked that theory years later, and the entire Romanov family was buried in a mass grave located in 1991.

It took until 1998 for the family to be properly laid to rest. A funeral, attended by the Russian prime minister at the time, Boris Yeltsin, acted as a symbolic acknowledgment of wrongdoings by the government.

Misinformation about the Romanov case leaked for decades. People gathered false facts from fictional accounts in movies.The delay in determining DNA identification inspired hundreds of people to claim they were the elusive long lost Romanov. In actuality, all the victims were long since murdered.