Six excruciatingly long projects that were worth the wait

A 17-volume dictionary of medieval Latin has finally been completed – after more than a century spent accumulating entries.

As the old saying goes, though, good things come to those who wait…

1. Cinema

Terry Gilliam’s struggle to adapt Don Quixote for the big screen has lasted over two decades; a 2002 documentary – Lost in La Mancha – chronicled his doomed attempts to get the project off the ground.

2. Architecture

Started by Archbishop Walter de Gray in 1220, the construction of York Minster was not finished until 252 years later in 1472.

3. Science

An experiment at Trinity College, Dublin, which began in 1944, was completed last year when researchers filmed the fall of a single drop of tar pitch, showing it was not a solid, but a very slow-moving liquid at room temperature.

4. Lawsuit

Raja Rajkrishna Deb died in 1823 bequeathing his Indian estate to his sons. An executor of the will lodged a case to try to stop them selling it off; the lawsuit dragged on for 175 years.

5. Driving tuition

In 2008, Norfolk grandmother Teresa Clarke finally passed her driving test – 27 years and 450 hours of tuition after she first got behind the wheel.

6. Real estate

Vera Coking resisted ‘maggot’ Donald Trump for 17 years after he tried to buy her property in Atlantic City to use for his Trump Plaza complex in 1993. She moved into a retirement home in 2010.

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