YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU: Say you've got a very large pile of money and want to make sure that your worthless children don't get any of it. Also, your worthless grandchildren. And, also, everyone you might have ever met in your entire life. You write your will like lumber baron Wellington R. Burt, who made sure that no one got any of his money until twenty-one years after his last grandchild (then living at the time he wrote his will) was dead and buried.
Some of the press is calling this "bizarre." It is nothing of the sort. Mr. Burt could push his estate no further into the future than now due to a important little bit of law -- the Rule Against Perpetuities -- which prevents someone from keeping control over their estate long after death. Mortmain -- the dead hand -- isn't something the law favors. And Mr Burt's lawyers knew -- as every student studying for their first year property exam or bar exam knows -- that "No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than 21 years after some life in being at the creation of the interest."
What this means is that none of his leeches spawned from his loin got at his $100M until 92 years after he died. And a dozen or so people who never met the cheap bastard are now set for life.