95 Fascinating Facts about Queens

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.

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

78. 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.

79. 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.

80. 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.

82. 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.

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

84. 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.

85. 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.

The book of Proverbs, which contains many maxims condemning adultery, was written by King Solomon who had 700 wives, 300 concubines, and an affair with the Queen of Sheba.

87. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark's illustrations was used for the Danish edition of "The Lord of the Rings" and she also said to have helped with the book's Danish translation.

88. Queen Elizabeth doesn't officially have a last name, just that she's from the "House of Windsor".

89. Johnny Depp and Queen Elizabeth are related.

90. Australia gave Queen Elizabeth 500 cases of tinned pineapple as a wedding gift in 1947.

Queen Victoria invited herself to Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, in 1890. A wonder of architecture and landscaping, she instead spent 10 minutes switching a chandelier on and off as she’d never seen electric lighting before.

92. In Tudor England, Queen Elizabeth would fine landowners £5 if they were not willing to grow Hemp (a variety of cannabis species).

93. Edward Oxford, the first guy to try and kill Queen Victoria reformed and became a house painter. After his release from prison, he moved to Australia and became a respected member of high society. He even attended the Queen's 70th birthday celebration.

94. In 2011, a Muslim man interrupted a music concert of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, asking her to convert to Islam. Some of the musicians walked off the stage.

95. California is named after a fictional island inhabited by beautiful Amazon women warriors and their queen Califia.