Abdication (from the Latin abdicatio, disowning, renouncing, from ab, away from, and dicare, to declare, to proclaim as not belonging to one) is the act of renouncing and resigning from a formal office, especially from the supreme office of state. In Roman law the term was also applied to the disowning of a family member, as the disinheriting of a son. The term commonly applies to monarchs, or those who have been formally crowned. A similar term for an elected or appointed official is resignation.
Abdications in Classical Antiquity
Among the most memorable abdications of antiquity were those of Lucius Cornelius Sulla the Dictator in 79 BC, Emperor Diocletian in AD 305, and Emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476.
The British Crown
Probably the most famous abdication in recent memory is that of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom in 1936. Edward abdicated the British throne in order to marry American divorcÊe Wallis Simpson, over the objections of the British establishment, the go
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdicate