84 Regal Facts About Queens That World Has Seen

Queen Isabella, who funded Columbus' voyage, claimed to have taken bath only twice in her lifetime.

52. China's Guangxu Emperor (died. 1908) was probably poisoned by Dowager Empress Cixi. The level of arsenic in his body was 2000 times higher than normal.

53. The Emperor and Empress of Japan are transported in a specially made Toyota Century Royal.

54. In 2012, a Manchester couple jokingly invited Queen Elizabeth to their wedding. The Queen accepted and made an appearance along with Prince Philip.

55. The French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was hired as a tutor by Queen Christina, who insisted on philosophy lessons at 5 in the morning. Within a year of walking through the Swedish cold every morning, Descartes caught pneumonia and died.

In 1589, John Stubbs was sentenced by Queen Elizabeth to have his hand severed for seditious writing, and before the axe fell, he cried out, "My calamity is at hand!" - thus becoming the only known victim of Elizabeth to incorporate a pun at his dismemberment. He then fainted.

57. When Peter the Great found his wife had a lover he had the man beheaded, then forced her to keep her lover’s head in a jar of alcohol in her bedroom which stood in Catherine's bedroom till Peter's death.

58. Boudica, a Celtic queen in 60 A.D. led an uprising against the Romans, razing three cities and killing 80,000 Romans. This was revenge for Rome annexing her kingdom after her husband died, flogging her publicly and ordering her daughters raped. Rome needed more than 3 legions to subdue her.

59. Sunandha Kumariratana, queen of Thailand, drowned as her subjects looked on because they were forbidden to touch her.

60. Nzinga Mbande, a 17th-century queen of Angola had a harem of men who had to fight to be with her and were put to death after a night of pleasure.

Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher once wore the same dress, much to the prime minister's horror. To avoid such an embarrassment again, she ordered her staff to ask the Palace what the Queen would be wearing. The Palace declined, saying "Her Majesty never notices what other people wear."

62. Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley became rich by "taxing" ships passing by her lands in western Ireland, killing those who resisted. She met Queen Elizabeth I but was usually a rebel against English rule in Ireland during the 1500s.

63. Queen Elizabeth is a Doctor Who fan.

64. Queen Elizabeth still keeps the Koh-i-Noor diamond from India in her crown. It is one of the largest diamonds in the world.

65. Catherine the Great of Russia took many lovers while ruling, often elevating them to higher positions for as long as they held her interest. Upon losing interest, she pensioned them off with gifts of serfs and large estates.

Queen Elizabeth I granted English theater companies the right to forcibly recruit children to be performers. Shakespeare was disapproved of this practice and refused to use abducted children in his plays.

67. When the Queen dies, the BBC will cancel all comedy shows until after the funeral.

68. In 1893, Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced the Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate. The coup led to the dissolving of the Hawaii Kingdom two years later, its annexation as a U.S. territory and eventual admission as the 50th state in the union.

69. Jadwiga of Poland (died. 1399) was a female king. Polish law had no provision for a female ruler (queen regnant) but did not specify that kings had to be male.

70. John Dee, a courtier and spy of Queen Elizabeth I, would sign his name as "007" when sending coded messages back to the queen.

Catherine The Great, Russia's longest ruling female leader, wasn't actually Russian and her real name was Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg.

72. The Queen Consort of Hungary in the 1400s, Elizabeth of Luxembourg, after being widowed, asked her chambermaid (Helene Kottanner) to steal the physical crown of Hungary, and the chambermaid wrote a book about the successful heist.

73. The Queen of England is the legal owner of one-sixth of the land on the Earth's surface.

74. During the 16th-century, Western Ireland was under the control of Pirate Gráinne Ní Mháille. After years of fighting against England, Queen Elizabeth agreed to personally meet with her. Gráinne showed up with a dagger, refused to bow, and threw a noblewoman's handkerchief into a fire.

75. Queen Elizabeth ordered archbishop Aylmer to take out a tooth of his own not once but twice just to prove the procedure of extracting a tooth was safe and bearable.