Fleeing from Holland in the early 1900s, a Dutch officer’s wife named Margaretha Geertruida Zelle changed her name to Mata Hari.
At first she became a licentious dancer and later the most notorious spy of World War I.
Arrested in her Paris hotel in February 1917, she was shot by a firing squad on October 15 of that year.
As the squad raised its rifles, she is said to have smiled and winked.
The term chauvinism originally referred to Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier of the Napoleonic era whose devotion to Napoleon was considered excessive and unreasonable. He later appeared in a number of plays and literary works, including Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), always representing an exaggerated patriotism. The term has since taken on a more general…
Charles Sherwood Stratton (1838-1883) was 3 feet, 4 inches tall when he died. The star of P. T. Barnum’s circus was better known as General Tom Thumb.
With their periods of reign, they are: 1. Pepi II, king of Egypt. 90 years (c. 2566-2476 B.C.) 2. Louis XIV, king of France. 72 years (1643-1715) 3. John II, prince of Liechtenstein. 71 years (1858-1929) 4. Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria. 68 years (1848-1916) 5. Victoria, queen of England. 64 years (1837-1901)
The shoguns were the de facto rulers of Japan from 1192 to 1867. Originally military commanders, they exercised real power, while the emperor retained formal sovereignty. The name is an abbreviation of seii-tai-shogun, meaning “barbarian-quelling generalissimo.”
She was Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, a beautiful young woman who had been seduced at age fifteen by architect Stanford White. At the time of the seduction, she was single and a showgirl in the “Floradora” company. She met White in a room with a red velvet swing. After she married, her husband Harry Thaw grew…
Genghis Khan was born circa 1162 and died in 1227. His real name was Temiijin; the title Genghis Khan meant “universal ruler.” He ruled Mongolia, conquered China, devastated the Muslim empire of Khwarizm (now part of Soviet Uzbekistan), and raided Persia and Russia.