Royal power has produced some of history’s bravest acts, strangest traditions, and most disastrous decisions. This third collection follows kings across centuries as they faced battles, betrayals, political upheaval, and the unexpected consequences of their own choices. For more royal history, read 50 Fascinating Facts About Kings Through History and 35 Fascinating Facts About Kings – Part 2.
1 John of Bohemia Died Charging
During the Battle of Crecy on August 26, 1346, the completely blind King John of Bohemia insisted on fighting despite having lost his sight a decade earlier. He asked his knights to lead him far enough into the battle to strike the enemy with his sword, so they tied their horses’ reins together and placed him at the front. John reportedly landed several blows before the charge ended with the 50-year-old king and his entire company dead. The following day, soldiers found them lying around John with their horses still tied together.
2. On January 30, 1649, many people gathered at Whitehall in London for King Charles I’s execution but didn’t believe that officials would actually behead him. They viewed the king as semi-divine, making his death almost unthinkable. After the axe fell, members of the stunned crowd rushed forward and dipped clothing and handkerchiefs in his blood, believing its magical properties would protect them from future illness or disaster.
3. The Robing Room at the Palace of Westminster contains a copy of King Charles I’s 1649 death warrant, positioned where the monarch prepares for the State Opening of Parliament. There, the sovereign puts on the Parliament Robe of State and Imperial State Crown before proceeding to the House of Lords. Amid the royal ceremony, the warrant provides a blunt reminder of what can happen when a monarch attempts to interfere with Parliament.
4. According to Roman biographer Suetonius, Roman emperor Vitellius executed nearly every moneylender, contractor, and tax collector who had ever demanded that he repay a debt in Rome or pay a toll while traveling. Officials once recalled one such man’s execution, prompting those present to praise the emperor’s mercy. Vitellius instead ordered his men to kill the man in front of him, declaring that he wished to “feast his eyes.”
5. On March 25, 1807, British King George III granted royal assent to the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which banned trading enslaved people across the British Empire. George never personally owned enslaved people. In a private essay written as Prince of Wales during the late 1750s, he called the justifications for enslaving Indigenous Americans absurd and argued that the reasons used to defend enslaving Africans should make people hold the practice in “execration.”
6 Henry II Fathered Five Sons
French queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Louis VII had two daughters but no male heir during their 15-year marriage. In 1152, the Church annulled their marriage on the formal grounds of consanguinity, declared their daughters legitimate, gave Louis custody, and restored Eleanor’s lands to her. Eleanor married Henry, Duke of Normandy, later that same year, and they became king and queen of England in 1154. She and Henry II had five sons and three daughters, including future kings Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland.
7. On September 12, 1683, Polish king John III Sobieski led what historians describe as the largest known cavalry charge in history during the Battle of Vienna. At around 6:00 p.m., he ordered 18,000 Polish and Holy Roman Empire horsemen to charge down the hills in four contingents, personally leading 3,000 Polish Winged Hussars. The assault shattered the exhausted and demoralized Ottoman lines and drove the cavalry directly toward their camp and commander Kara Mustafa Pasha’s headquarters. Less than three hours later, the allied forces had won the battle and saved Vienna.
8. According to a likely legendary account by Greek historian Herodotus, the famously wealthy King Croesus of Lydia consulted the Oracle of Delphi after Persian king Cyrus the Great overthrew his brother-in-law in 550 BC. The oracle told Croesus that attacking Cyrus would “destroy a great empire,” which he interpreted as a promise of Persian defeat. Croesus launched the war, but Cyrus defeated him at Pteria and Thymbra before capturing the Lydian capital of Sardis. The prophecy came true, but the great empire Croesus destroyed was his own.
9. After Spain’s conquests in the Americas and the Philippines, Spanish planners developed the Empresa de China, a proposed 16th-century invasion and assimilation of Ming China. A faction within the Society of Jesus, led by a Spanish Jesuit and diplomat named Alonzo Sanchez, pushed a plan involving Iberian, Visayan, and Japanese troops alongside potential Chinese allies. After conquering China, the planners intended to convert its population to Christianity, encourage marriage between Iberian conquistadors and Chinese women, and use the new Spanish-controlled territory to open an eastern front against the Ottoman Empire. King Philip II authorized an official council for the project in March 1588, but the Spanish Armada’s defeat and opposition from Dominicans, Franciscans, and other Jesuits brought the scheme to a halt.
10. After King Richard the Lionheart returned from the Third Crusade, Duke Leopold of Austria captured him near Vienna and eventually handed him to Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in 1193. The emperor imprisoned Richard at Trifels Castle and demanded a ransom of 150,000 silver marks, worth two to three times the English Crown’s annual income. Richard’s younger brother John Lackland and French king Philip II jointly offered Henry 80,000 marks to keep Richard imprisoned until Michaelmas 1194, but the emperor rejected their proposal. England raised the ransom, and Richard regained his freedom on February 4, 1194.
11 Juan Carlos Accidentally Shot Alfonso
On March 29, 1956, the future Spanish king Juan Carlos I, then 18, was involved in the fatal shooting of his 14-year-old brother, Infante Alfonso, at their family home in Estoril, Portugal. The brothers were playing with a .22-caliber pistol when it discharged, and the bullet struck Alfonso in the forehead. Accounts differ over exactly how the gun fired, although several state that Juan Carlos pulled the trigger without knowing it was loaded. In his 2025 memoir, Juan Carlos described the shooting as an accident and said he thought about his brother’s death every day.
12. Medieval Europeans considered excess weight incompatible with military life, while wealthy members of the chivalric class were expected to practice restraint despite having abundant food. Tenth-century King Sancho I of Leon reportedly weighed as much as 240 kilograms and became unable to ride a horse, wield a sword, walk, or bed his wife. After he took the throne in 956, nobles led by Count Fernan Gonzalez of Castile deposed him in 958 because his extreme obesity prevented him from fulfilling his royal duties. Sancho later underwent treatment in Cordoba, lost more than 100 kilograms in 40 days, and regained his throne with military assistance in 960.
13. In 1173, King Henry II’s sons Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey launched a revolt against him, while their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, encouraged her vassals to support them. Henry’s forces captured Eleanor as she traveled toward Paris to join her sons and secretly confined her. After defeating the revolt, Henry forgave his sons under the Treaty of Montlouis in 1174 but kept Eleanor under varying degrees of house arrest for nearly 16 years. She regained her freedom only after Henry died in 1189 and Richard became king.
14. In 2001, Swazi king Mswati III imposed a five-year ban on sex with girls under 18 to combat the country’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. Two months later, he took a 17-year-old as his ninth wife and fined himself one cow for breaking his own decree. He married his 18-year-old 12th wife in June 2005, then ended the ban one year early that August. Within weeks, he selected a 17-year-old girl named Phindile Nkambule as his 13th wife-to-be.
15. In 1920, Greek king Alexander tried to separate his German Shepherd, Fritz, from a domestic Barbary macaque at the Tatoi estate when a second monkey bit him deeply on the leg and torso. Infection spread through his wounds, and sepsis killed the 27-year-old king a few weeks later. His death helped destabilize the Prime Minister of Greece’s government, after which monarchists restored Constantine I, and Greece lost Allied support and the Greco-Turkish War. British statesman Winston Churchill later wrote that the monkey’s bite had cost a quarter of a million lives.
16 Robert Bruce Killed Bohun Instantly
At the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Scottish king Robert the Bruce killed English knight Sir Henry de Bohun with a single strike from his battle-axe. De Bohun charged with a lowered lance after spotting the lightly armored king on a small horse, but Robert swerved aside at the last moment and drove his axe through the knight’s helmet. Robert reportedly expressed only sadness that the blow had broken his axe handle.
17. King James VI of Scotland and I of England (1566-1625) enjoyed the company of handsome young men, sometimes shared his bed with his male favorites, and often expressed passionate love for them. Yet James fiercely condemned sodomy and listed it among the treasonous crimes warranting death in his book Basilikon Doron. Most modern historians consider at least some of his relationships sexual, although others argue that bed-sharing and kissing could signal friendship in 17th-century court culture. The influence and wealth James granted his favorites became major political issues during his reign.
18. During World War II, British King George VI was at war with Nazi Germany as king of the United Kingdom but at peace with it as king of neutral Ireland. Ireland’s 1936 External Relations Act left him a limited role in foreign affairs, under which he formally accredited German diplomats on the Irish government’s advice. After British India split into the independent dominions of India and Pakistan in August 1947, George became king of both, and the Indo-Pakistani War later that year technically put him at war with himself.
19. Around 700 BC, Assyrian king Sennacherib, who reigned from 705 to 681 BC, widened the Royal Road through his capital, Nineveh, to 78 feet. His decree warned, “Royal Road, let no man decrease it,” and prohibited residents from rebuilding homes in ways that narrowed the route. Anyone who violated the order faced impalement on a pole outside his own home.
20. Crusader king Baldwin IV of Jerusalem repeatedly checked Saladin’s forces despite suffering from leprosy, which gradually robbed him of movement. Diagnosed around age nine, he became king at 13 and led from the front during his decisive victory over Saladin at Montgisard in 1177, when he was 16. Baldwin continued resisting invasions after losing the use of one hand and later commanded his forces from a litter when he could no longer ride. He died in the spring of 1185 at age 24.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Charles II Chartered Royal Society
In 1660, scientists and thinkers began meeting in London to test ideas through observation and experiment rather than accepting dogma, and English King Charles II gave them royal patronage. In 1662, Charles personally signed the charter that formally established the Royal Society of London and later attended its meetings. Members included English physicist Isaac Newton and English architect Christopher Wren, while the Society published Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Now considered the world’s oldest scientific institution, it adopted the motto Nullius in verba, meaning “Take nobody’s word for it.”
22. In 1487, a working-class boy known as Lambert Simnel claimed to be Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick and a Yorkist claimant to England’s throne. Yorkist rebels crowned him “King Edward VI” at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin on May 24, then used him to front an uprising against English king Henry VII. After royal forces crushed the rebellion at the Battle of Stoke Field on June 16, Henry pardoned Simnel because adults had manipulated him and employed him as a spit-turner in the royal kitchen.
23. English king Eadwig, who reigned from 955 to 959, allegedly left his coronation feast at Kingston upon Thames in January 956 to have a threesome with his future wife, Aelfgifu, and her mother, Aethelgifu. He was about 15 years old at the time. An early account claimed that English abbot Dunstan pulled Eadwig from the couch, replaced his crown, and marched him back to the assembled nobles.
24. In the first such disclosure by a reigning Spanish monarch, the reigning king of Spain from 2014, Felipe VI voluntarily revealed a personal fortune of 2.57 million euros, possibly making him Europe’s poorest king. His declaration showed that he owned no property or land, kept no money abroad, and had no pension plan. About 2.26 million euros sat in bank accounts and investment funds, while jewelry, antiques, and artworks accounted for nearly 306,000 euros.
25. On October 7, 1763, British King George III issued the Royal Proclamation, temporarily forbidding new colonial settlements west of a boundary along the Appalachian Mountains and designating the territory as an Indian Reserve. The order followed the Seven Years’ War and regulated expansion into Britain’s newly acquired lands. It also prohibited private purchases of Native land, allowing only Crown officials to negotiate future acquisitions. Colonial settlers and land speculators resented the restrictions, creating a dispute that contributed to the widening divide between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies.
RE: Fact #30 (Joseph II’s Reforms Triggered Resistance) – He was a big supporter of the arts and Mozart, and he’s quite prominent in the movie Amadeus. He was described as a wildly ambitious, expansionist despot who wanted to grow Austria’s power through foreign conquest. Frederick the Great even said he was the type of man who could ‘set the world on fire.’ Heavy resistance from the nobility eventually crushed his reforms, and by the end, he was so broken that he wanted his tombstone to read, ‘Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook.’
Haha, I had no idea the king in Amadeus was so progressive. I love that character and the movie in general.
I really need to watch that movie. As a fan of music and the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it’s embarrassing I haven’t seen it yet.
It’s a fantastic movie. There is this one scene with Mozart, Emperor Joseph II, and other composers that is just mesmerizing and hilarious. Mozart unintentionally humbles Salieri while showing off his brilliance, and the Emperor is fascinating to watch in that moment.
RE: Fact #45 (Leopold II’s Atrocities Inspired Condemnation) – > “” The Congo Free State was Leopold II’s personal property. Belgium only annexed it in 1908, after which it became the Belgian Congo.
It’s wild to think the King’s “private ranch” was thousands of times bigger than his actual country. It still happens, though. The Sultan of Brunei owns a ranch in Australia that’s bigger than the entire country of Brunei.
I came here to say that, thanks for pointing it out. It’s exactly why Leopold II is remembered as such a monster.
RE: Fact #18 (George VI Technically Fought Himself) – There’s a hilarious quote from the game Crusader Kings 2: “My Liege, I write to you with shocking news! Roger a Muirebe tried to have me assassinated to make sure I wouldn’t discover his plot to kill Roger a Muirebe. -Your humble Spymaster, Roger a Muirebe.”
After the Russian revolution, a British spy infiltrated the Bolsheviks in what is now Uzbekistan. Once they realized there was a mole, they actually assigned him to track himself down.
During the Troubles in Ireland, British intelligence had an informant inside the IRA known as “Stakeknife, ” who was eventually revealed to be Freddie Scappaticci. His job in the IRA was in the “Internal Security Unit, ” which was responsible for hunting down moles, meaning he was hunting himself. It’s believed he killed or allowed up to 40 people to die to protect his cover, with MI5 and the Royal Ulster Constabulary helping him.
RE: Fact #49 (Charles I’s Lucky Cat Legend) – The cat probably just faked its death and turned him in. Black cats are basically just sneaky double agents.
RE: Fact #31 (Taejong’s Horse Fall Entered History) – And then, I assume, a later recorder wrote down that King Taejong had the first recorder fed to bears?
Seriously, that idiot hiding behind the screen… I can see his hat over the top and I can hear the scratching of his pen.
Wikipedia mentions they were given full independence and protection. Even the king wasn’t allowed to read what they wrote about him.
RE: Fact #10 (Richard Faced Brother’s 80, 000-Mark Betrayal) – Funny enough, the name John Lackland was just his dad Henry II being a jerk because John was the youngest and had no land left to inherit. Henry II was a chaotic guy, and his family was always rebelling against him. His eldest son, Henry the Young King, even rebelled with his other brothers and Eleanor of Aquitaine, but they left John out of it. The revolt was crushed, Eleanor was imprisoned for decades, and John became the favorite just for staying loyal. After Henry II got involved in that Archbishop murder, he conquered Ireland and made John Lord of Ireland, which he immediately regretted because John was such a disrespectful brat that he was pulling on the chieftains’ beards at his own welcome feast. When the older brothers died off and Richard got killed by an arrow during a minor siege, John finally took the throne. His reign was just as messy as his time in Ireland, and he ended up losing most of the Norman lands in France. He was also the reason the Magna Carta was written because he was so miserable to deal with. He even managed to die in a total disaster, losing the crown jewels in the process. Long story short: King John was a petty, awful ruler. And when Richard finally got free, he didn’t even kill him; he just treated him like a misguided kid led astray by bad company and kicked him out.
RE: Fact #10 (Richard Faced Brother’s 80, 000-Mark Betrayal) – Funny enough, I never put it together until this fact that the king in the Robin Hood cartoon is a lion specifically because his historical inspiration, Richard, was known as The Lionheart. King John has been a joke since 1216, so casting him as a thumb-sucking, greedy lion with an ill-fitting crown is actually a pretty perfect take.
RE: Fact #39 (Solomon Had Seven Hundred Wives) – It’s interesting that the Bible viewed this as a boost to his prestige but a failure of his morals. God had already warned them in Deuteronomy 17 not to take many wives so their hearts wouldn’t be led astray. That passage was clearly foreshadowing Solomon’s eventual fall. Solomon is remembered for his wisdom, like the case with the two women fighting over the baby, and building the Temple. He started off strong in his faith, but the story ends poorly because he ignored the warnings about his wives. 1 Kings 11 spells out how his foreign wives turned him toward other gods and away from the Lord, which led to the kingdom eventually being torn away from his son.
I always wondered why, if God supposedly gave him all that wisdom, he couldn’t figure that part out. It made zero sense to me when I was a kid.
I think the takeaway is that even if you have the wisdom to know right from wrong, the temptation of sin is powerful. Even wise people can fall for lust, especially if they start justifying small compromises. Solomon knew his proverbs and had all that knowledge, but when he saw a beautiful woman, he could just toss it all out the window.
Of course it didn’t make sense to you as a kid. Children don’t get male sexuality. Now that you’re older, you can see that plenty of men consciously make terrible decisions just for sexual gratification. They know it will end badly, but they don’t care. Solomon was no different.
So if I’m getting this right, his son was going to be punished for the father’s crimes because of the father’s good deeds? And the son pays for the sins of his father? That seems totally fair. /s
It was more like his son, Rehoboam, learned all the wrong things from him and made the same mistakes. As soon as he became king, he ignored his advisors and made everyone hate him by being cruel. Even then, God still gave him control over one tribe. You see this cycle throughout the Old Testament where the next generation fails to learn from the last. When the Bible talks about generational curses, it is usually pointing out that kids tend to repeat their parents’ bad choices. God keeps trying to break that cycle, but it sometimes takes a long time. Hope that helps clarify things.
RE: Fact #24 (Felipe VI Owned No Property) – If I’m not mistaken, when someone gives the king a present, it actually belongs to the state, not the king himself.
It belongs to the state, and they have to cover the maintenance, but the king gets the exclusive right to use it, so it’s not a bad deal for him.
RE: Fact #46 (Hassan II Faked Death Midair) – I’m Moroccan, and I find it hard to believe this is 100% accurate. People have a tendency to glorify the King. While losing him at that time might have caused chaos, he was also the one setting up the economic platform for his successor.
RE: Fact #21 (Charles II Chartered Royal Society) – A few of my colleagues are Fellows of the Royal Society. During the induction, you have to sign the same membership book as Charles II, all the UK monarchs, and all the previous fellows. You do it with a fancy quill, and apparently, it’s pretty nerve-wracking because you really don’t want to be the one to mess it up.
RE: Fact #13 (Henry II Imprisoned Eleanor Instead) – What people forget is that once Henry died, Eleanor basically ran the show. She served as regent for both Richard and John. Even after 16 years of house arrest, she managed to outlive and outmaneuver almost all of them.
I didn’t realize she held power for that long. It’s wild that John had to sign the Magna Carta just 10 years after she died.
I mean, considering King John’s reign was a total train wreck that lost Normandy to the French, being his regent isn’t exactly a huge flex.
RE: Fact #14 (Mswati III Violated Underage-Sex Ban) – I feel pretty dumb for not realizing Eswatini is just Swaziland renamed eight years ago. I really need to check maps more often.
Eswatini and Swaziland essentially mean the same thing. ‘Swati’ is the ethnic name, and the suffix ‘-ni’ just means ‘place of.’ Since it’s a proper noun, it starts with an E. They’ve always called it Eswatini in their own language, so they just asked the rest of the world to start using that name too.
It’s like India calling itself Bharat.
RE: Fact #11 (Juan Carlos Accidentally Shot Alfonso) – The former King of Thailand likely did something similar, but they just pinned it on the housekeeper.
The Nepali king did the same thing. He killed the king, his brother, the queen, the crown prince, and other family members, then blamed it on a drugged-up crown prince. Only his son and wife survived. His two sisters also died in a weird helicopter crash a few months later.
RE: Fact #26 (Rib-Hadda Flooded Akhenaten With Letters) – Yikes. That is brutal.
That is such a cold burn. It’s right up there with telling someone, “Why are you even here?”
RE: Fact #5 (George III Approved Slave-Trade Abolition) – The British government paid slaveholders to compensate them for their lost ‘property, ‘ resulting in a massive debt of 20 million pounds. British taxpayers didn’t finish paying off the interest on that loan until 2015.
Slavery is barbaric, so ending it was definitely worth the cost. It’s one of the few things I feel proud of the UK for, ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade through both force and financial commitment.
RE: Fact #13 (Henry II Imprisoned Eleanor Instead) – Eleanor had two daughters during her 15-year marriage to the King of France. But after that marriage was annulled and she wed Henry II, she had five sons. I remember reading a chronicle that claimed she did it on purpose to spite her first husband, which I find hilarious.
They had three daughters too, for eight kids total. That’s pretty impressive considering she didn’t have the second batch until she was 29. Safe to say Henry and Eleanor were pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing.
RE: Fact #33 (James I Blocked His Escape) – Interesting side note: The tennis he was playing isn’t the same as the modern game. When a lawn version of racquets was created later, they called it ‘Lawn Tenis’ just to make it sound fancy.
RE: Fact #6 (Henry II Fathered Five Sons) – Eleanor was an incredible figure. She went on a crusade, ran England while Richard was away, and lived to a remarkably old age for the time. She’s easily one of the most fascinating characters from that era, right alongside William Marshal, the legendary knight who rescued her, tutored her son, and eventually saved the Plantagenet dynasty and helped draft the Magna Carta.
William Marshal feels like the inspiration for so many Game of Thrones characters. He was a legendary tournament knight, traveled with the prince, and was still fighting on the battlefield well into his 80s. Total legend.
I’m surprised there aren’t more movies or shows about her. Aside from The Lion in Winter, she’s usually just pushed into the background, even though her life is full of material that could be adapted.
She was a major part of that late 70s BBC drama, The Devil’s Crown. It was a great series about the early Plantagenets.
RE: Fact #25 (George III Restricted Appalachian Settlement) – It wasn’t about empathy; it was about money. Britain couldn’t afford a large enough military presence to defend pioneers from Native tribes, so they tried to contain westward expansion to keep things peaceful.
RE: Fact #16 (Robert Bruce Killed Bohun Instantly) – It wasn’t regret, it was a boast. He was on a pony with only an axe while de Bohun charged him, so he likely expected to die. He dodged the lance and hit him with such force that it killed him right through his helmet. Killing an armored knight in one-on-one combat was a legendary moment that inspired his men to fight like they had divine favor. When he got back, saying it was a waste of a good axe was definitely meant as a joke and a flex. I doubt he had any regrets about that fight at all.
RE: Fact #20 (Baldwin IV Fought Through Leprosy) – The director’s cut of “Kingdom of Heaven” is one of my favorites, and I think it portrays Baldwin IV really well. It definitely made me want to look into the real man’s history, such a tragically short life.
This is one of my favorite movie quotes ever: “I put no stock in religion. By the word religion, I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of god. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who can not defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is here [mind] and here [heart] and what you decide to do every day will make you a good man… or not.”
RE: Fact #38 (Mehmed III Strangled Nineteen Brothers) – At least there was a job for everyone!
RE: Fact #19 (Sennacherib Impaled Royal Road Blockers) – – So how’s your cousin? – He got a death sentence and was impaled in front of his house. – I see. Parking ticket? – No, he didn’t rewind the scroll before returning it.
RE: Fact #26 (Rib-Hadda Flooded Akhenaten With Letters) – It’s comforting to realize that human nature really hasn’t changed at all.
You might have already seen this, but behold the oldest example of a bratty person I’ve ever encountered. Same energy as “kids these days.”
RE: Fact #8 (Croesus Destroyed His Own Empire) – The Oracle at Delphi was famous for its cryptic wordplay, which often goaded powerful people into ruining themselves through hubris. Another great example is the birth of the Roman Republic: when the sons of Tarquinius Superbus asked the Oracle who would rule Rome next, they were told the first to kiss his mother would be the victor. While the princes rushed home to find their birth mother, Brutus, who was with them, realized the meaning and kissed the Earth, the “mother” of all people. He ended up leading the revolt to topple the monarchy, showing that a clever interpretation always beats brute force.
RE: Fact #36 (Farouk Pickpocketed Winston Churchill’s Watch) – It is wild to think that what was once the largest porn collection in the world is now available ten thousand times over to anyone with an internet connection. That has to have some kind of effect on society.
RE: Fact #47 (Charles II’s Autopsy Catalogued Decay) – When he saw a portrait of himself, he supposedly teared up and said, “You’ve made me beautiful!” And no, I’m not kidding.
RE: Fact #12 (Sancho I’s Obesity Cost Kingship) – It isn’t surprising that Queen Toda of Pamplona sent her grandson, Sancho I, to Cordoba to be treated by the caliph’s physician, Hasday ibn Saprut. He put Sancho on a liquid diet, but it didn’t work until they realized Sancho was sneaking food. They actually had to tie him up and sew his lips shut with just a straw-sized opening. He also had to exercise daily, take hot baths, and get massages to deal with the skin sagging from the weight loss. He ended up dropping over 100 kilograms in forty days. Good grief.
Sancho I died in 966. One chronicle says he was poisoned by a rebel count who gave him a poisoned apple. It’s pretty likely he didn’t stop at just one. Come on, you didn’t have to do him like that.
Imagine the count worrying about whether he put enough poison in each apple, only to watch the king reach for another one.
A Christian king, a Muslim caliph, and a Jewish physician walk into a bar…
RE: Fact #8 (Croesus Destroyed His Own Empire) – Good to know! I’m definitely not asking the Oracle for any stock market advice.
RE: Fact #15 (Alexander’s Monkey Bite Destabilized Greece) – This is a perfect example of why having all-powerful monarchs is a bad idea. Stability becomes far too reliant on just one person.
He didn’t actually hold any real power. What happened was that his death created an opening for his father to reclaim the throne. When the People’s Party won the 1920 elections, they made that happen, which prompted the UK and France to cut off aid to Greece, since he had been pro-German and pushed to keep Greece neutral during WWI.
RE: Fact #41 (Charles II’s Mistress Circled Bestwood) – Nell Gwyn was quite a character. She started as a child prostitute and an orange seller, became a famous actress by 17, and ended up dying rich with a son who became a duke. There is a story that when a mob in Oxford mistook her for her rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth, and started yelling insults, she leaned out of her coach window and said, “Good people, you are mistaken; I am the “Protestant” whore.”
with all the boring biopics about the same few people from that era, why aren’t we seeing something about her instead?
RE: Fact #5 (George III Approved Slave-Trade Abolition) – Thanks for sharing this, especially after that ridiculous claim that American textbooks are all pro-British. It’s wild how ignorant some people are about their own history.
RE: Fact #14 (Mswati III Violated Underage-Sex Ban) – If the only penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law is basically just for poor people.
If the penalty is just a fine, it’s only a suggestion for the wealthy. That’s just my take, not a correction.
RE: Fact #42 (Henry II Died After Jousting) – This is a lot like why dueling went out of style. Young officers kept getting themselves killed over petty arguments, and since people don’t like losing their kids to pissing contests, the practice eventually faded away.
Governments definitely tried to crack down on it for that reason, but it really died out because people stopped thinking it was worth dying to protect their “honor.”
RE: Fact #47 (Charles II’s Autopsy Catalogued Decay) – He was quite a guy, that chin was definitely a result of all that inbreeding between uncles and nieces.
It’s wild to think he was more inbred than the child of a brother and sister.
RE: Fact #41 (Charles II’s Mistress Circled Bestwood) – The legend of Queen Dido in Carthage feels pretty similar: Dido bargained with the locals, promising them a fortune for whatever land she could fit inside a bull’s hide. They thought they had the better end of the deal, but Dido was smarter than them. She sliced the hide into tiny strips and laid them out in a semi-circle around a hill, with the sea serving as the border. That’s how she ended up ruling Carthage.
RE: Fact #2 (Charles I’s Blood Promised Protection) – It’s wild that people really believed monarchs could cure diseases like scrofula just by touching them. Even after the King was executed, people still viewed his blood as a holy relic. Apparently, the idea of divine right doesn’t just vanish because you lose your head.
RE: Fact #28 (Kalakaua Circumnavigated Globe Seeking Immigrants) – A few more points: ” Kalākaua’s reign is known as the “Hawaiian Renaissance.” ” The ukulele actually arrived via Portuguese immigrants during this time. ” He was coerced under threat of assassination to sign a constitution that restricted voting to wealthy landowners, effectively shutting out most native Hawaiians and explicitly banning Asians from the polls. ” Queen Liliuokalani’s attempt to overturn that constitution is what eventually led to the coup and annexation.
The fact that the ukulele is a Hawaiian adaptation of a Portuguese guitar is one of the coolest cultural facts I’ve heard. It’s right up there with the fact that Hawaiian pizza is actually a Canadian invention.
RE: Fact #40 (Jimmu Founded Japan’s Mythical Dynasty) – A lot of that history is just legend without any outside evidence besides the imperial records. The first emperor we actually have proof for lived around 600 CE, not BCE.
Japan didn’t have a written language until roughly 300 CE, so it makes sense that there is no written history from before then. Everything was just word-of-mouth, like a massive game of telephone.
RE: Fact #50 (Henry VIII’s Groom Tracked Bowels) – Being the King’s bathroom attendant was a highly prestigious job for centuries. You were one of the only people who ever got one-on-one time with the monarch.
Ironically, King George III had an illness that made him lose his grip on reality, and the main way doctors tracked his recovery after ten years was by checking his urine and feces.
My liege, the enemy is gathering in the northern forests. I suggest sending a peace envoy and adding some fiber to the royal diet.
RE: Fact #36 (Farouk Pickpocketed Winston Churchill’s Watch) – His ancestor was a legit military genius who went from being an Albanian grunt to the Viceroy of Egypt, taking down the French, Ottomans, and the Saudi Wahhabists. The quality of the dynasty really dipped over the generations until it ended with this loser.
Don’t forget he took out the remaining Mamluks who had controlled Egypt for 300 years and held onto power until he showed up. Muhammad Ali Pasha beat everyone and probably would have turned Egypt into a world power if not for the British.
RE: Fact #43 (Edward I Exhausted Guards’ Horses) – > Through such episodes as the deception of Derby at Gloucester, Edward acquired a reputation as untrustworthy. He had actually signed a truce with the 6th Earl of Derby and broke it before he was even held hostage by Simon de Montfort. Some time after he escaped, Simon ran into a much larger royalist force led by Edward at the Battle of Evesham and was killed and mutilated.
That’s basically the medieval version of Caesar jokingly telling his pirate captors that he’d hunt them down and execute them, only to actually do it once he was free.
RE: Fact #6 (Henry II Fathered Five Sons) – I was listening to CreativeContessa, and she explained that Louis was a stickler for the religious calendar. They abstained for over 100 days a year, which, combined with the biology of the cycle, likely explains why they only had two daughters in 15 years. Eleanor had her first son with Henry within a year, followed by several more kids. Louis didn’t remarry for two years, and it took another four years after that to have a child. It was 13 years after his marriage to Eleanor ended before he finally had a son.
RE: Fact #25 (George III Restricted Appalachian Settlement) – Like the British wouldn’t have crossed that boundary eventually, right?
RE: Fact #17 (James VI Loved Male Favorites) – Back then, that wasn’t seen as gay. It was just two men celebrating each other’s strength.
RE: Fact #3 (Charles I’s Warrant Warns Monarchs) – Isn’t there a ritual where they knock on the door three times and get denied entry by a parliamentary representative, as a way to formally reject unchecked royal power?
Exactly. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod has to ask the House of Commons to head over to the House of Lords for the King’s Speech. When he nears the door, it gets slammed in his face, and he has to knock three times. It’s meant to prove that the Commons is independent and that the monarch can’t just barge in and demand their presence, they have to be invited. Like a lot of our traditions, it’s a strange bit of theater that masks a pretty vital part of how our democracy operates.
I think a society functions better with some odd traditions that reinforce its core concepts. I used to think it was all just silly and irrational, but there is a logic to it. Traditions only get weird when they lose their original meaning and are just kept up for the sake of it.
RE: Fact #27 (Simeon II Became Prime Minister) – >Simeon is one of the two last living heads of state from the time of World War II, the only living person who has borne the fact “Tsar”, and one of only two former monarchs in history to have become the head of government through democratic elections.
About that… Cambodia’s experience with democracy has been a pretty bumpy ride.
RE: Fact #28 (Kalakaua Circumnavigated Globe Seeking Immigrants) – He also pushed to bring back Hula, Lua, and surfing after they had been suppressed or pushed into the shadows following the islands’ conversion to Christianity.
RE: Fact #16 (Robert Bruce Killed Bohun Instantly) – Helmets are usually near-impenetrable. I’ve seen big, strong guys test them with two-handed mauls and barely leave a scratch. It must have been the perfect timing, massive strength, and the momentum of both horses moving at speed.
The helmet might only have a ding, but a two-handed maul in the right hands could definitely turn the contents of that helmet into soup.
“So there’s good news and bad news. The good news is the helmet is still in great condition. The bad news is about your brother’s head…”
“Give me a sharp axe and an opening, I’ll take care of it” – Robert the Bruce, probably.
I don’t think Robert was at a full gallop based on the accounts. Henry was the one charging, and Bruce dodged nimbly, stood in his stirrups, and landed a massive downward strike that went through the helmet, skull, and brain.
RE: Fact #23 (Eadwig Allegedly Left For Threesome) – I loved the idea of the archbishop storming in to drag him out of a threesome to finish his coronation. That must have been incredibly awkward.
Yeah, but there’s one thing I don’t get: > As the nobles had requested, they went in and found the royal crown, brilliant with the wonderful gold and silver and variously sparkling jewels that made it up, tossed carelessly on the ground some distance from the king’s head, while he was disporting himself disgracefully between the two women as though they were wallowing in some revolting pigsty. If I were the king, I definitely would have kept the crown on while having that kind of fun.
RE: Fact #29 (George V’s Doctor Scheduled Death) – if I were killed just to keep someone else’s schedule on track, I’d be pretty furious too.
“Sir, we have to kill you.” “What? Why?” “We need the announcement to hit the morning papers instead of the evening ones.” “Oh, alright then.”
Just once, I’d like to cough blood into a silk handkerchief and tell a doctor: “End it, hoss.”
According to the records, he cursed the nurse because of the sedative. The fatal dose came later, justified by the physician as a way to spare the king and his family the indignity of having the news break in the evening editions.
RE: Fact #1 (John of Bohemia Died Charging) – They should have just tied him to some stable horses near the action. He could have swung his sword until he wore himself out and walked away thinking he actually accomplished something.
RE: Fact #37 (Bartholomew Roberts’ Death Weakened Piracy) – The Wild West didn’t even last that long! It is crazy how much impact these short periods of history actually have.
RE: Fact #20 (Baldwin IV Fought Through Leprosy) – It’s interesting to note that King Baldwin IV wasn’t one of the Baldwin brothers, and he never actually appeared in a movie.
RE: Fact #29 (George V’s Doctor Scheduled Death) – Why use cocaine? A huge dose of morphine would have done the job much better than the world’s first speedball.
Cocaine or other stimulants generally won’t stop an overdose, unless maybe you’re right on the line. Given how cocaine constricts blood vessels, perhaps they thought it would cause unconsciousness faster after respiratory failure, making things quicker for him. Or maybe they just wanted him to go out with a bang. People say shooting coke and opiates feels incredible, and either way, he was a dead man.
They put cocaine in everything back then. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used it in drywall, too.
Look, just because he is dying doesn’t mean he can’t have a little fun.
RE: Fact #22 (Henry VII Pardoned Crowned Impostor) – That implies adults were pulling the strings and he wasn’t “leading” anything, which explains the pardon and the kitchen job. Executing a kid was bad PR even back then, but they couldn’t just let him go either, or someone else might have used him to start more trouble. Putting him in the kitchen where he could be watched was a smart move.
RE: Fact #9 (Philip II Authorized China Invasion) – > by turning China into a Christian country and a new race of Chinese/Hispanic people I’m trying really hard not to call this the “Juan Wan” plot…
RE: Fact #8 (Croesus Destroyed His Own Empire) – King: “If I attack this nation, what happens?” Oracle: “Someone will definitely lose. Now, let me just spin this tablet around and ask you a quick question.”
RE: Fact #31 (Taejong’s Horse Fall Entered History) – He was worried about exactly this: that some jerk on the other side of the planet would be laughing at him centuries later.
RE: Fact #46 (Hassan II Faked Death Midair) – Right, because everyone just accidentally shoots themselves in the back several times with machine guns.
RE: Fact #32 (Seretse Khama Led Independent Botswana) – If you really want to judge someone’s character, give them power and watch how they use it.
RE: Fact #44 (Justinian II Defied Mutilation Tradition) – His journey to get the throne back was wild: > While in exile, Justinian started planning his comeback. He eventually became a liability to Cherson, so they tried to send him back to Constantinople. He escaped and got help from the Khazar leader, who even gave him his sister as a bride. Justinian renamed her Theodora. After the Khazar leader was bribed to have him killed, his wife warned him, and Justinian strangled the two officials sent to do it with his own hands. He sailed for Cherson in a fishing boat, rounded up his allies, and headed across the Black Sea. > During a massive storm, one of his companions told him if he promised God to show mercy to his enemies upon returning, they’d be saved. Justinian reportedly replied, “If I spare a single one of them, may God drown me here.” > He then struck a deal with Tervel of Bulgaria: military support for money, a title, and the hand of his daughter in marriage. With 15, 000 horsemen, he showed up at Constantinople. After three days of failing to talk them into opening the gates, he and some men snuck in through a water pipe, took control, and seized the throne. He then dragged his rivals into the Hippodrome, stood on their necks to show who was boss, and had them beheaded, along with many of their supporters. His second reign didn’t last long, though: > Another rebellion started when Cherson revolted. The forces meant to stop it joined it instead. They proclaimed a new emperor, Philippicus. Justinian was arrested while heading to Armenia and was executed in 711. His head was sent to the new emperor as a trophy. > When his mother heard, she tried to hide his six-year-old son in a church, but they dragged the boy out and killed him, ending that bloodline.
Incredible. You don’t really hear the name Tiberius much anymore, but it’s a cool one. Does anyone know why his second reign only lasted six years? Was he actually a good ruler?
RE: Fact #13 (Henry II Imprisoned Eleanor Instead) – Henry II was a brilliant king, but he was also a total control freak. To be fair, he kind of had to be to manage such a huge realm. One of the first things Richard did when he became king was send William Marshal to get his mother out of prison. Marshal stayed loyal through the whole mess, even when he unhorsed Richard in combat. Richard respected that kind of grit and kept him around. Marshal basically spent his life acting as the royal babysitter for three generations of moody Plantagenets.
RE: Fact #7 (John III Sobieski Saved Vienna) – That battle really represented the peak of the Ottoman Empire. It was pretty much all downhill from that point on.
Exactly. It led to a period of stagnation and then a total decline after nearly a hundred years of disastrous wars with Russia.
RE: Fact #4 (Vitellius Executed Creditors Demanding Repayment) – And then the people rose up and killed him! Well, sort of, some people actually fought to their deaths to defend him. It was basically a civil war, considering he was deposed by an army led by a top-tier general.
RE: Fact #45 (Leopold II’s Atrocities Inspired Condemnation) – George Williams wrote a bold, courageous letter calling out Leopold for his horrific abuse.
RE: Fact #21 (Charles II Chartered Royal Society) – It’s wild that Charles II was only 30 when he signed that charter. The man had just regained his throne after years of exile and immediately decided to fund a bunch of guys debating gravity. Talk about priorities.
RE: Fact #4 (Vitellius Executed Creditors Demanding Repayment) – His former flame had a rough time too, though it sounds like he partly brought it on himself: “[His freedman Asiaticus] had immoral relations with Vitellius in his youth, but later grew weary of him and ran away. When Vitellius came upon him selling posca at Puteoli, he put him in irons, but at once freed him again and made him his favourite. His vexation was renewed by the man’s excessive insolence and thievishness, and he sold him to an itinerant keeper of gladiators.”
RE: Fact #6 (Henry II Fathered Five Sons) – Not only did she produce heirs, but she also had a son so legendary he earned the name “Lionheart.” That’s quite a burn on Louis. I just hope Henry was a better partner to her.
RE: Fact #32 (Seretse Khama Led Independent Botswana) – The guy got shunned by his own people and still said, ‘I love you guys anyway.’ He should start a religion.
RE: Fact #42 (Henry II Died After Jousting) – A helmet visor is narrow, but splinters can still get through. Most knights would tilt their chin up at the last second. You can’t see your opponent, but it protects your eyes. This guy didn’t do that.
RE: Fact #27 (Simeon II Became Prime Minister) – He’s actually the last person alive to hold the title of “Tsar.” Once he’s gone, it will be the first time since the Roman Empire that no one has held that specific title.
RE: Fact #4 (Vitellius Executed Creditors Demanding Repayment) – Augustus went on a killing spree against his enemies after winning against the senate. He’d seen what they did to Caesar and decided against any clemency. He effectively legalized the murder of his rivals and made a fortune by seizing their assets. Romans were incredibly brutal when it came to settling scores. PS: Watch the show ROME. It’s a tragedy that HBO canceled it.
Caesar didn’t do that because he’d been a victim of Sulla’s own proscriptions, and he only escaped by being pardoned at the last minute.
Caesar used clemency during the Civil War as a calculated political move to win over his enemies. It wasn’t about his personal history; by pardoning his opponents when they fell into his hands, he made it harder for them to justify continuing the fight.
RE: Fact #14 (Mswati III Violated Underage-Sex Ban) – You sent me down a rabbit hole. He got his 10th wife while she was trying to get into university, and her mom lost the legal battle to bring her home 🙁
RE: Fact #36 (Farouk Pickpocketed Winston Churchill’s Watch) – The guy was completely unhinged. He owned a red Mercedes and actually banned anyone else in Cairo from having one. He spent forever on lavish trips to European casinos and owned a double eagle $20 gold coin, one of the rarest on the planet. He had the movie “Quo Vadis” banned because he was paranoid people would think the villain was based on him. The CIA thought his reign boosted communist support more than the Soviets ever did, so they backed Nasser’s coup in Operation FF. When the military came for his palace, he supposedly went up to the roof and started sniping soldiers with a hunting rifle. Plus, within a month of his wife leaving him, he found himself a teenage Italian girlfriend.
RE: Fact #9 (Philip II Authorized China Invasion) – I think the Spanish got way too full of themselves after their easy wins in the Americas. China had steel, horses, gunpowder, and massive population numbers. Even with their technology and tactics, the Spanish would have been in over their heads.
RE: Fact #19 (Sennacherib Impaled Royal Road Blockers) – Were the Assyrians even human? Their history is full of them acting like complete monsters. Flayings, crucifixion, impalement, it was all standard practice. Their kings would brag about torturing and killing people as if it were an accomplishment. Here’s an example: ““I built a pillar over against his city gate, and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I walled up within the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes, and others I bound to stakes round about the pillar. … I cut off the limbs of the officers who had rebelled.”” ~King Ashurnasirpal II’
RE: Fact #43 (Edward I Exhausted Guards’ Horses) – A college roommate of mine was a missionary kid in New Guinea. He told me about a missionary who got stopped by a guy with a homemade shotgun that was basically a single-shot deal. “I don’t think that thing even has a live round in it, ” the missionary said. “It does!” the robber insisted. “Prove it, take a shot at that tree, ” the missionary replied. After the guy shot the tree, the missionary just said, “Guess you were right, ” and drove off.
My brother served as a missionary in Mexico. He said most of the criminals there were superstitious and wouldn’t rob a missionary because they were considered “holy.” He told me he felt safe at the time, but now that he’s back, he said he’d never go there again.
RE: Fact #48 (Henry VIII Annulled Unconsummated Marriage) – She really did have the best life of all his wives. She was so cooperative about the annulment that he basically made her an honorary sister and she lived comfortably for the rest of her days.
RE: Fact #2 (Charles I’s Blood Promised Protection) – People used to believe a monarch’s touch could cure scrofula, a form of tuberculosis. Charles I even went so far as to label anyone else trying to treat it a traitor. The sick would just wear a medallion touched by the King around their necks.
RE: Fact #34 (Agha Mohammad Khan Delayed Execution) – I’ve seen this fact pop up a few times, and it always makes me chuckle because people never seem to learn. My uncle once fired an employee on a job site and had them drive the work truck back to the office; naturally, the transmission failed on the highway. I also worked with someone who was told they were getting fired later that afternoon once HR finished the paperwork. They went back to their desk, deleted the entire department’s data from the server, and then just left.
RE: Fact #16 (Robert Bruce Killed Bohun Instantly) – The movie Braveheart was funny but completely inaccurate. It portrayed Robert the Bruce as incompetent, when in reality he was a legend to the Scottish people. He was the one who actually earned the title “Brave Heart, ” but I guess that didn’t fit Gibson’s ego.