75 Unbelievable Facts About Kings That Will Make You Wonder

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1Red Hand

Red Hand

The Red Hand is the symbol of Ulster because according to a myth, a boat race was held to determine the king - first, to touch the shore wins the crown. One potential king saw he was losing, so cut off his hand (covering it red with blood) and threw it on the shore, thus winning the race.


2. King Mithridates of Pontus ingested many different poisons in graduating amounts to become immune so that he couldn't be poisoned by his enemies. When he was captured, he tried to commit suicide by poisoning himself but failed because he was immune.


3. Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon's brother) lived in New Jersey after having been King of Spain, Sicily, and Naples. He lived by selling off his jewelry and eventually moved back to Europe where he died and was buried near his brother.


4. Alboin, King of the Lombards took his wife Rosamund as a spoil of war after he killed her father in war. At one point he made her drink from her father's skull, which he kept as a trophy and fashioned into a mug, telling her to "drink merrily with your father." She had him assassinated.


5. In 539 BC, Persian King Cyrus the Great issued the first ever decree on human rights. He freed slaves, declared that all people had the right to choose their own religion, and established racial equality.


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6King Sejong

King Sejong

The Korean writing system known as Hangul was introduced by King Sejong in the 1440s to improve literacy. The difficulty of Chinese characters favored privileged aristocrats, whereas Sejong's phonetic alphabet allowed Koreans of all classes to learn how to read and write.


7. A Russian queen named Olga buried nobles alive, burned the royalty, slayed everyone at her husbands funeral, and set their remaining town on fire, with birds, because they killed her king.


8. The King of Morocco, Hassan II grabbed the radio during his assassination attempt and told the rebel pilots who were firing at Hassan's Boeing 727; "Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!" Which made the assassins break off their attack.


9. The symbol for Bluetooth is a bind rune made from the pre-viking runes of the tenth-century king, Harald Bluetooth's name.


10. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia learned shipbuilding at a dock in Amsterdam after disguising himself as a common craftsman and worked on constructing the ships himself.


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11George III

George III

When King George III found out Washington had given up command of the revolutionary army and was planning to return to his farm after the war, He said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."


12. The first King to travel around the world was King Kalākaua of Hawaii.


13. Adolf Frederick, former King of Sweden, died after eating a meal consisting of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, kippers and champagne, which was topped off with 14 servings of semla served in a bowl of hot milk. He is remembered as "The king who ate himself to death."


14. John Deydras was a clerk who claimed to be the real King Edward II, but was swapped as a baby. He attempted to claim a palace and challenged Edward to single combat. At his trial, he confessed to making it up and blamed his cat, which he said was possessed by the devil. Both he and the cat were hanged.


15. Alexander the Great loved his horse Bucephalus so much that he gave him a state funeral when he died and named a city after him.


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16King Louis XIV

King Louis XIV

In 1669, King Louis XIV banned pointed, sharp knives in an attempt to reduce violence, and that's why table knives are dull and rounded today.


17. King Edward VII was too fat to fully button his suit jacket. In order to not offend the king, everyone else followed suit and hence a trend was born.


18. In 1120, the captain of the White Ship was encouraged by onboard revelers to try and overtake another vessel on which King Henry I was a passenger. In the dark the ship hit a submerged rock and capsized, leading to the death of Henry's only heir, which led to a 20-year civil war.


19. When the King of Saudi Arabia visited Britain, the Welsh Guards welcomed him by playing the Star Wars Imperial March.


20. The Vikings sacked Paris in 845 and did not leave until King Charles the Bald paid them 5,670 lbs of silver and gold.


21George V

George V

George V did not want his son Edward VIII to become a King and told his private secretary that 'After I am dead the boy will ruin himself in 12 months.' After George's death, Edward was King for 10 months and 3 weeks before giving up the throne.


22. Pedro, the son of King Afonso IV of Portugal, was forbidden by the king to marry the woman he loved. King Afonso had her murdered to keep them apart. When Pedro became king, he hunted down her assassins and had their hearts torn out, symbolic of what they had done to him.


23. King George V's physician gave the dying king a lethal dosage of morphine and cocaine to hasten his death so that it could be announced in the morning edition of The Times rather than "Less appropriate evening journals."


24. King George VI was appalled when the South African government instructed him to only shake hands with white people while on his visit there in 1947. He referred to his South African bodyguards as "The Gestapo".


25. Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria, who ruled from 1943 to 1946 as a child, and was overthrown after the World War 2, was later elected Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2001. He is the only monarch to have become the head of government through democratic elections in European history.

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