32 Noble Facts About Kings You Didn’t Know About – Part 2

Henry the Young King was crowned junior king while his father still reigned. He had revolted wanting the throne. Defeated once, Henry rebelled again but suddenly died of dysentery. Upon hearing news of his son's death, Henry II remarked “He cost me much, but I wish he had lived to cost me more.”

2. In 1193, King Philip II of France married Ingeborg of Denmark. On their wedding night, he discovered that she had such horrible breath that he refused to let her be crowned the Queen of France.

3. In 2017, it was revealed that the King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, had been serving as the First officer on Dutch airline KLM flights twice a month for 21 years, even after his ascension to the nation's throne in 2013.

4. Prussian King Frederick William I had a regiment of very tall men, known as the "Potsdam Giants". The taller they were, the more they were paid - and they were paired with tall women, to breed giant soldiers. However, they were never sent on active service, as they were considered too valuable.

5. When Sassanid (Iranian) King Hormizd II died, his oldest son reigned for a few months and was killed by the empire's nobles, who then blinded the second son, and imprisoned the third son. The crown was placed upon the pregnant queen's womb, crowning the unborn son, who later ruled for 70 years.

King Christian VII of Denmark would randomly slap diplomats mid-sentence as they discussed affairs of state and leapfrog visiting dignitaries when they bowed to him.

7. King George III had a reply to the Declaration of Independence sent back called An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress. It picked apart the Declaration at length, including pointing out that one cannot claim "all men are created equal" when the Colonies still allowed slavery.

8. King Leopold of Belgium had between 1-15 million Congolese people murdered while he exploited their area for rubber.

9. King Frederick II used reverse psychology on his peasants who refused to eat potatoes because they tasted horrible. To stop the food famine he sent his guards to guard fields of potatoes and the peasants started stealing them and growing their own.

10. When William the Conqueror was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066, guards outside Westminster Abbey thought the celebration around the village was an assassination attempt, so they burned the village and accidentally started a riot.

King Bela I of Hungary died as a result of serious injuries which he sustained when his throne broke beneath him.

12. Charles II of Spain, the Habsburg ruler, who was the result of an uncle-niece relationship, was described by historians as “short, lame, epileptic, senile and completely bald before 35, always on the verge of death but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live.”

13. King Offa of Mercia once minted copies of dinars of the Abbasid caliphate in the heart of England. He intended to increase trade and relations with Islamic Spain, the global superpower at the time.

14. King George V had two tattoos: a dragon and a tiger representing the East and the West.

15. In 1953, Henry V's grave was opened. They discovered he shared a grave with Richard Courtenay, leading to speculation that they were lovers. However, Courtenay's grave was found in the base of Henry's chantry and could have been disturbed when the King's memorial was built.

King Eric of Pomerania, the ruler of the Kalmar Union (Denmark/Sweden/Norway), imposed a tax on all ships entering or leaving the Baltic Sea, but a war forced him to exempt ships from major trade cities. After he was deposed in 1439, he lived as a pirate, attacking merchant ships in the Baltic Sea.

17. King George I of Great Britain at the time of his accession to the British throne in 1714 spoke no English, and his ministers spoke no German, hence they had to communicate with each other in French. His grandson George III was the first Hanoverian ruler who spoke English as a mother tongue.

18. King Louis XIV of France was also a ballet dancer. He performed 80 roles in 40 major ballets, which approaches the career of a professional dancer.

19. In the 18th century, the King of Denmark-Norway ordered clergy to walk the lands as "potato priests" to promote the cultivation of potatoes by the peasants. The campaign was a success and the potato became "more important than the constitution."

20. Serial killer Todd Kohlhepp left honest online reviews of items he purchased to use for his crimes before being apprehended including padlocks, a shovel, targets, knives, and gun accessories.

Australian serial killer Ivan Milat once cut off his own finger with a plastic knife with the intention of sending it to the High Court of Australia. He also once went on a hunger strike during his incarceration, in an attempt to be given a Playstation.

22. Serial killer Randy Woodfield was actually drafted by the NFL to play for the Green Bay Packers but was cut due to a series of indecent exposure arrests. He would go on to become the I-5 Killer and is thought to have been responsible for over 40 murders along Interstate 5 from 1980-81.

23. When Canadian serial killer Wayne McGray was sentenced, he said “Just because I’m locked up in segregation doesn’t mean I can’t kill somebody”. Ten years into his sentence, he killed a cellmate.

24. Jane Toppan was a serial killer nurse who confessed to killing 31 people. She was caught in 1901. She would poison patients, then lay with them and hold them close as they died. She also fondled them as they died. She even poisoned herself to evoke the sympathy of men she was courting.

25. Samuel Green was America’s first known serial killer. Born in 1796 and executed in Boston in 1822, Green killed people all over New England but his total body count is unknown. Later, he was the first killer whose crimes psychologists attributed in part to horrific abuse during childhood.