On June 20, 1940, Soviet archaeologists uncovered the tomb of Tamerlane in what is now Uzbekistan. Tamerlane, who saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. A warning inscription on his tomb read "Whomsoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I." Clearly not superstitious, the Soviet archaeologists ignored the warning and opened the tomb anyway. 3 days later, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion of all time, upon the Soviet Union. (source: wikipedia)