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.
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…
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…
Yes, King George III really went insane. The English king (1738-1820) probably suffered from an inherited blood disorder called porphyria, which affects the nervous system. In 1788, he became violently insane and had to be put in a straitjacket. He recovered but eventually suffered a relapse. After 1811, his son, the future George IV, served…
The head of the British Secret Service called C or CSS. He is not called M, his name in the James Bond stories, although the head of the SOE (Special Operations Executive) in World War II was called M for a while.
Silent screen siren Clara Bow (1905-1965) picked up the nickname It Girl after starring as a flapper in It in 1927. Gary Cooper was briefly called by this moniker It Boy when he began dating Ms. Bow. He is said to have ended the relationship in order to get rid of the nickname.
There were four King Herods. Herod the Great was the tetrarch, or subordinate ruler, of the Roman province of Judaea from 41 B.C. to 4 B.C. He was probably in power when Jesus Christ was born. Between 4 B.C. and A.D. 34, three sons of Herod the Great, Herod Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip, ruled…