richard burtons rock for elizabeth taylor Sure their relationship was a roller-coaster—they married and divorced each other twice—but wouldn't you be somewhat forgiving of a guy who liked to shower you with expensive jewelry like, say, a 69.42-carat diamond? Burton bid on this Harry Winston wonder at an auction in 1969, but lost out to business tycoon Robert Kenmore, who coughed up just over a million bucks for the beauty. Burton didn't take the auctioneer's hammer for an answer, though, and after some heated haggling on the phone, Kenmore sold the gem to Burton for an undisclosed sum. The Taylor-Burton diamond, as it's called, ended up being a gift that kept on giving: After the couple parted ways, Liz sold the gem in 1979 for a whopping $5 million.
the taj mahal India's most popular tourist attraction is actually a tomb, created for emperor Shah Jahan's wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died while giving birth to their 14th child in 1631. Heartbroken, the Shah commanded 20,000 workmen to spend 22 years building this marble-and-jewel-studded effigy. As if that weren't enough blood, sweat and tears spent, rumor has it that upon its completion, the Shah ordered that the right hand of the chief mason get chopped off so the building could remain truly one of a kind. Let's just say that when an emperor's in pain, his subjects feel it, and how.
posh spice What do you get for a toned, tan, highly-swooned-over metrosexual millionaire who has everything? If you are Posh Spice, you get your husband—soccer superstar David Beckham (see photo above)—the world's most exclusive cologne. The one-of-a-kind, $50,000 bottle of Clive Christian No. 1 fragrance took six months to produce, and came encased in a crystal bottle shaped like—what else?—a soccer shoe.
dimaggios flowers for marilyn Marilyn Monroe may have dated some pretty powerful guys, but no man showed her more TLC than her husband of nine months, baseball player Joe DiMaggio. After Marilyn's death in 1962, Joe placed a 20-year standing order with a local flower shop to have long-stemmed roses placed on her grave three times a week. Talk about touching.
gift of the magi This author crafted what many consider to be the most generous—albeit cheapest—romantic gesture ever. In this short story, a poor-in-pocket but rich-in-love couple secretly makes huge sacrifices in order to buy each other Christmas gifts: He sells his grandfather's gold watch to buy his wife a set of tortoise-shell combs for her beautiful hair; she cuts off that beautiful hair and sells it to a wig-maker to buy her hubby a platinum chain for his watch. When they realize what's happened, they're wise enough to just be thankful that they have each other.
Carole Lombards car giftHollywood hunk Clark Gable loved fancy cars, and screen siren Carole Lombard could afford to buy him the best. Ain't it quaint, then, that on their first official date in 1936, she bought him a beat-up Model T Ford for just fifteen bucks? Quainter still that she had it painted white with red hearts all over it, delivered with a note saying, "You're driving me crazy"? Thoroughly swept off his feet, Gable got to return the favor to his future wife that evening when he picked her up in his newest set of wheels to go dancing at the legendary Trocadero Ballroom.
do you have any stories of your own ?
