The line that gave us most of the Holy Roman Emperors–including Charles V, before whom Luther confessed his faith at the Diet of Worms, who was presented the Augsburg Confession, and who battled the Reformation with the sword–is now extinct.
The eldest son of the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian empire has died in Germany at the age of 98.
Otto von Habsburg was born in 1912, as the heir to the empire, but it collapsed at the end of World War I and the Habsburg family went into exile.
After World War II, Mr Habsburg became a champion of European unity during its Cold War division.
He served as a member of the European parliament for two decades. He is to be buried in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
Mr Habsburg only officially relinquished his claim to inherit the empire in 1961 and five years later was allowed to return to Austria for the first time since the family fled in 1919.
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