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6 Notoriously Bad Mothers-in-Law
1. Bona Sforza Born around 1494 into a powerful family that ruled Milan, Bona Sforza was married off to an older widower, King Sigismund I of Poland. Well-educated and clever, she involved herself in...
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4 Mistresses Who Changed History
1. Diane de Poitiers Born into a noble French family in 1499, the celebrated beauty Diane de Poitiers received a humanist education fit for a Renaissance king. At 15 she married Louis de Brézé, a royal...
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6 Child Monarchs Who Changed History
1. Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator Hulton Archive/Getty Images The 13th ruler of Egypt’s Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemy XIII rubbed elbows with some of ancient history’s most towering figures during his...
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7 Historical Figures Famous for Something They Never Did
1. Abner Doubleday (for inventing baseball) Abner Doubleday was a Civil War general and abolitionist who famously ordered the first Union shots in defense of Fort Sumter. But while he had a...
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7 Things You May Not Know About Caligula
DEA/G. Nimatallah/De Agostini/Getty Images 1. Caligula wasn’t his real name. Think of it as the ancient equivalent of miniature Nikes and tuxedo-imprinted onesies: Even in Roman times, parents liked to...
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7 People Who Pretended to be Royals
1. Anna Anderson as Anastasia Romanov Anna Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia (Credit: Getty Images) In 1918, Bolshevik revolutionaries murdered the Russian princess Anastasia, along with the rest of...
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7 Amazing Rags to Riches Stories
1. Catherine I The life of Empress Catherine I of Russia could easily be confused with something out of a fairy tale. The future queen was born in 1684 into a family of Lithuanian peasants, and was...
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7 Surprising Facts about Royal Births
1. William and Kate’s firstborn will be third in the line for the throne, regardless of its gender. Until recently, centuries-old laws of succession gave male heirs priority and required that the...
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10 (Allegedly) Mad Monarchs
1. Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (604-562 B.C.) William Blake's painting of Nebuchadnezzar's bout with madness. The granddaddy of all mad kings is King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian ruler whose...
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8 Things You May Not Know About Henry VIII
1. In his youth, Henry VIII was one of the Catholic Church’s staunchest supporters. In 1521 Henry VIII published a book-length excoriation of the German Protestant reformer Martin Luther, referring to...
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