1Qutuz
Qutuz, a child prince from the Khwarezmian Empire was sold as a slave after the Mongols invaded their land and killed his family. He arrived in Egypt and rose among the ranks until he became Sultan. He then gave the Mongols one of their first major defeats in history, which became historical turning point for the Mongol supremacy.
2Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great or Princess Sophie (of a minor German principality) married a Russian prince. Soon after he was crowned emperor, she overthrew him and crowned herself Empress Catherine the Great. She annexed much of Poland (then ruled by her former lover), helped modernize Russia, and started colonizing Alaska.
3Prince Pedro
Prince Pedro of Portugal fell in love with his wife's maid, Inês de Castro. After his wife died, his father, King Afonso IV, desired he remarry but not to Inês. Pedro refused; so, the King had Inês killed. Pedro captured two of her killers and publicly executed them by tearing out their hearts.
4Prince Carl of Denmark
When Prince Carl of Denmark was offered the throne of newly independent Norway in 1905, he refused to take it unless the Norwegian people agreed that they wanted a monarchy rather than a republic. He won the resulting referendum with 79%, and became King Haakon VII.
5Wedding
Prince Philip was not allowed to invite his three sisters to his wedding to Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth in 1947, because they were all married to German noblemen, and this would have been considered inappropriate in postwar Britain.
6Princess Margaret
Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's younger sister, almost married future Canadian prime minister John Turner. “It was ‘instant attraction … fairy tale stuff’ with the young bachelor-lawyer and there were rumors about a ‘secret visit’ to London and an order from the Queen to stop seeing him.”
7Princess Diana
Princess Diana was a descendant of Charles II via two of his illegitimate children. Since Charles II never had any legitimate children, Prince William if crowned will be the first descendant of Charles II to be a King.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
8Prince William
Prince William breaks royal protocol by flying with his children on the same plane. As direct heirs to the throne, his children should fly on a separate plane in case it crashes.
9Lang Liêu
Lang Liêu was an ancient Vietnamese prince who won his country’s throne because he made fantastic rice cakes.
10Princess Olga
Princess Olga of Kiev who, after being courted by the same tribe that killed her husband, proceeded to bury the tribe's messengers alive before accepting the proposal and burning the men sent to collect her alive.
