Henri Philippe Main (1856-1951) was a military hero in World War I and premier of France in 1940.
In June of that year, he called for an armistice with Germany and became the “chief of state” of the puppet government at Vichy.
After the war, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
He died at the age of 95 in a military prison on an island off the coast of France.
Pontius Pilate killed himself after he ordered the crucifixion. In A.D. 36, Caligula ordered Pilate to Rome to answer charges of cruelty in the massacre of a group of Samaritans. Shortly thereafter, Pilate committed suicide, possibly by order of Caligula or in anticipation of harsh treatment.
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.
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…
Acute appendicitis overcame the former Erich Weiss known as Harry Houdini on October 31, 1926, Halloween. He was 52 years old.
Astaire’s feet, insured for $650,000, were at the top of this list. Grable’s legs were insured for only $250,000, Durante’s nose for $140,000.
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…