6 World War II Propaganda Broadcasters
During World War II, the Allies and the
Axis powers made heavy use of radio for propaganda purposes. Most of
this spin was aimed at their own populations, but some was tailor made
for consumption by enemy soldiers and civilians. Both sides recruited
native speakers to broadcast radio messages to the opposition in the
hopes of spreading disinformation and sowing discontent. These
mysterious radio personalities became minor celebrities during the war,
and some were even arrested and branded as traitors when the fighting
ended. Find out more about six World War II broadcasters who used the
radio waves as a weapon.
1. Axis Sally (Mildred Gillars)
Several
American Nazi sympathizers worked as broadcasters for German state
radio, but perhaps none was as famous as Mildred Gillars. Born in Maine,
Gillars was a former Broadway showgirl who moved to Berlin in 1934. She
remained in Germany after the war broke out, and eventually became one
of the Third Reich’s most prominent radio personalities with “Home Sweet
Home,” a propaganda show directed at American troops. Gillars
broadcasted under the radio handle “Midge,” but American GIs soon gave
her a more infamous nickname: “Axis Sally.”
Gillars’ Axis Sally spoke in a friendly, conversational tone, but her goal was to unsettle her listeners. One of her favorite tactics was to mention the soldiers’ wives and girlfriends and then muse about whether the women would remain faithful, “especially if you boys get all mutilated and do not return in one piece.” Prior to the Allied invasion of France, she also starred in a radio play, called “Vision of Invasion,” as an American mother whose son needlessly drowns during the attack. Like a lot of propaganda, Gillars’ radio shows rarely had their desired effect—many GI’s only listened because they found them funny—but she was still considered a traitor by the U.S. government. When the war ended, the voice of Axis Sally was arrested and eventually spent 12 years behind bars.
2. Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce)
Beginning in 1939, millions of Britons regularly tuned in to a German
propaganda broadcast hosted by a smug Nazi sympathizer nicknamed “Lord
Haw Haw.” Several men were identified with the name, but it was most
famously associated with William Joyce, an American-born fascist who had
spent most of his life in the United Kingdom. Joyce was an outspoken
acolyte of Adolf Hitler who had fled to Berlin at the beginning of the
war. He soon joined the state broadcasting system, where he found an
outlet for his particularly fiery brand of rhetoric.
Speaking in a clipped, cosmopolitan British accent, Joyce’s Lord Haw Haw dished out taunts and pro-Hitler rants intended to break the spirit of his beleaguered listeners. In between chastising Jews and the British government, he would gleefully report on the most recent casualties of the Blitz, often warning his audience to expect further punishment from the German Luftwaffe. Joyce’s influence waned in the later years of the war, and he was eventually captured near Flensburg, Germany in 1945 after occupying British troops recognized his famous voice. Found guilty of aiding the enemy, Britain’s most famous turncoat was executed by hanging in January 1946.
3. Tokyo Rose (Iva Toguri)
More
than a dozen female Japanese broadcasters were dubbed “Tokyo Rose,” but
the nickname was most famously linked to an American named Iva Toguri. A
native of Los Angeles, Toguri was stranded in Japan after World War II
broke out while she was visiting family members. She eventually took a
job at Radio Tokyo, where she found herself ushered into a role as an
on-air presenter. Using the handle “Orphan Ann,” the smoky-voiced Toguri
soon became a legend of the Pacific Theater. By late 1943, thousands of
GIs regularly tuned in to “The Zero Hour,” a radio show where she
played pop music in between slanted battle reports and put-downs aimed
at U.S. troops.
Toguri’s prominence saw her branded as one of the war’s most notorious propagandists, but evidence shows that she was not a Japanese sympathizer. Not only did she refuse to renounce her U.S. citizenship, she often willfully undermined her anti-American radio scripts by reading them in a playful, tongue-in-cheek fashion, even going so far as to warn her listeners to expect a “subtle attack” on their morale. Nevertheless, Toguri’s program became conflated with more vicious propaganda, and she was arrested and convicted of treason after the Japanese surrender. She was released from prison in 1956, but it would take more than 20 years before she finally received an official presidential pardon for her role in the war.
4. Sefton Delmer
As
the head maestro of Britain’s “black propaganda” radio programs, Sefton
Delmer used cloak-and-dagger methods to turn the airwaves into a tool
for psychological warfare. Beginning in 1941, Delmer operated a phony
German radio station called Gustav Siegfried Eins, or GS1. Unlike most
propaganda outfits, which merely beamed their messages into enemy
territory, GS1 masqueraded as an actual Nazi radio station broadcasting
to fellow Germans from within the Fatherland.
To act as the voice of GS1, Delmer masterminded the creation of a fake radio personality known as “Der Chef” (“The Chief”). Played by a German defector named Peter Seckelmann, the character posed as a high-ranking Nazi and loyal Hitler supporter who appeared disillusioned with the rest of the party leadership. Der Chef built his credibility by criticizing the British and the Russians, but he also railed against Nazi officials and generals, helping to create the appearance of a rift within the German high command. Among other tactics, the phantom malcontent accused Nazi leaders of having tainted the party with acts of sexual deviancy ranging from rape to pedophilia. To cement his role as a persecuted patriot, Der Chef was even “assassinated” on air during GS1’s final broadcast in late-1943. Delmer would go on to set up several more propaganda stations including Soldatensender Calais, which posed as a German station for troops in France, and Atlantiksender, which spread targeted disinformation to Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic.
5. Philippe Henriot
In
the dying days of the Nazi occupation of France, propagandist Philippe
Henriot lit up the airwaves with a series of pro-German radio broadcasts
aimed at pacifying the resistance. The French-born Henriot was a right
wing firebrand who had eagerly aligned himself with the collaborationist
Vichy government. In January 1944, he was appointed as the regime’s
chief propagandist and spin doctor.
An eloquent speaker, Henriot played on the anxieties of the French people by arguing that the hardships they faced stemmed from their continued association with the Allies and native resistance groups, whom he labeled “terrorists.” He also used his radio programs as a platform to counter the arguments espoused by the Free French Forces, who were then broadcasting in exile from the BBC in London. Henriot’s twice-daily radio shows were appointment listening for the French public—many of whom called him the “French Goebbels”—but his influence was ultimately short-lived. In June 1944, he was assassinated in a targeted hit by French resistance fighters.
6. Fred W. Kaltenbach
As early as 1939, Germany began hiring expatriate Americans to host
radio programs aimed at deterring U.S. intervention in the war. These
American-born fascists included Robert Henry Best, an ex-journalist who
used the handle “Mr. Guess Who,” and Jane Anderson, better known as “The
Georgia Peach.” Still, perhaps the most enthusiastic broadcaster was
Fred W. Kaltenbach. A former Iowa high school teacher, Kaltenbach had
been fired in 1936 after he tried to organize an American copy of the
Hitler Youth. Following his dismissal, he moved to Berlin and became
host of one of the first German radio programs produced for Americans.
He soon earned the nickname “Lord Hee Haw” for his homespun style and
similarity to the British propagandist “Lord Haw Haw.”
Kaltenbach’s show took the form of fictional letters to his American friends back home in which he championed a policy of isolationism and railed against the evils of Jews and the British Empire. After the United States entered the conflict, he began broadcasting pro-Nazi news stories along with attacks on Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he labeled a “warmonger.” Kaltenbach’s diatribes saw him charged with treason along with seven other American propagandists, but he never faced trial. Captured by the advancing Red Army, he disappeared shortly after the war ended and was later reported to have died in Soviet custody.
1. Full moons make you crazy.
Since ancient times, full moons have been associated with odd or insane behavior, including sleepwalking, suicide, illegal activity, fits of violence and, of course, transforming into werewolves. Indeed, the words “lunacy” and “lunatic” come from the Roman goddess of the moon, Luna, who was said to ride her silver chariot across the dark sky each night. For thousands of years, doctors and mental health professionals believed in a strong connection between mania and the moon. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, wrote in the fifth century B.C. that “one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the moon.” In 18th-century England, people on trial for murder could campaign for a lighter sentence on grounds of lunacy if the crime occurred under a full moon; meanwhile, psychiatric patients at London’s Bethlehem Hospital were shackled and flogged as a preventive measure during certain lunar phases. Even today, despite studies discrediting the hypothesis, some people think full moons make everyone a little loony.
2. Aliens inhabit the moon.
In the 1820s, the Bavarian astronomer Franz von Paula Gruithuisen claimed to have glimpsed entire cities on the moon with his telescope. He wrote that the “lunarians” who lived there had built sophisticated buildings, roads and forts. Most of his colleagues scoffed at his assertion, but he eventually got a small lunar crater named after him. Sir William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer and composer, also thought aliens lived on the moon and made regular observations about the progress of their construction projects. In 1835, when the New York Sun published a series of fraudulent articles about the supposed existence of life on the moon (pulling off the so-called “Great Moon Hoax”), it falsely credited Herschel’s son John, a famous astronomer in his own right, with the shocking discovery.
3. The moon controls fertility.
Perhaps because the menstrual and lunar cycles are similar in length, many early civilizations believed that the moon determined when women could become pregnant. This could explain why female moon deities—from the Chinese goddess Chang’e to Mama Quilla of the Incas—figure so prominently in mythologies from around the world. In the 1950s, the Czech doctor Eugene Jonas stumbled across an ancient Assyrian astrological text stating that women are fertile during certain phases of the moon. He based an entire family planning method on this hypothesis, telling his patients they ovulated when the moon was in the same position as when they were born. According to another theory that persists to this day, full moons cause an uptick in births, flooding maternity wards with mothers-to-be in labor. Recent studies have turned up little statistical evidence for moon-induced baby booms, however, and most experts think any lunar effect on procreation is imagined.
4. The moon is a hollow spacecraft.
Several science fiction books of the early 20th century, including H.G. Wells’ “The First Men in the Moon,” take place within a hollow moon inhabited by aliens. In 1970 two Soviet scientists took this seemingly whimsical premise a step further, proposing that the moon is actually a shell-like alien spacecraft built by extraterrestrials with superior technology and intelligence. According to astronomers, the moon—though admittedly enigmatic as far as celestial bodies go—couldn’t maintain its mass and gravitational field if it lacked a dense core.
5. We never really went to the the moon.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some people believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked by NASA, which used doctored photos, staged videos and other ploys to dupe the public. Proponents of these hoax claims argue that technology was not advanced enough for astronauts to reach the moon and return home safely; they also point to ostensible signs of studio trickery, including the fact that the American flag planted by the Apollo 11 crew in the lunar surface appeared to flutter in the vacuum of space. In 2002, retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who became the second person to walk on the moon in 1969, grew so exasperated with one conspiracy theorist’s accusations that he punched him in the face. The septuagenarian space pioneer was not prosecuted.
6. The Nazis had a base on the moon.
After World War II, rumors circulated that German astronauts had traveled to the moon and established a top-secret facility there. Some even speculated that Adolf Hitler faked his own death, fled the planet and lived out the rest of his days in an underground lunar hideout. Connections were also drawn between flying saucer sightings—including the famous incident near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947—with the Nazis’ alleged UFO development program. These theories form the basis of the science fiction novel “Rocket Ship Galileo,” published by Robert A. Heinlein in 1947.
7. A rabbit dwells on the moon.
Intriguingly, legends from various traditions around the world, including Buddhism and Native American folklore, recount the tale of a rabbit that lives on the moon. This shared myth may reflect common interpretations of markings on the lunar surface—an alternate take on the fabled “man in the moon.” Shortly before Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, mission control in Houston jokingly referred to the Chinese version of the story, telling the spaceship’s crew, “Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there’s one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit.” Command module pilot Michael Collins replied, “Okay. We’ll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.”
Several
American Nazi sympathizers worked as broadcasters for German state
radio, but perhaps none was as famous as Mildred Gillars. Born in Maine,
Gillars was a former Broadway showgirl who moved to Berlin in 1934. She
remained in Germany after the war broke out, and eventually became one
of the Third Reich’s most prominent radio personalities with “Home Sweet
Home,” a propaganda show directed at American troops. Gillars
broadcasted under the radio handle “Midge,” but American GIs soon gave
her a more infamous nickname: “Axis Sally.”Gillars’ Axis Sally spoke in a friendly, conversational tone, but her goal was to unsettle her listeners. One of her favorite tactics was to mention the soldiers’ wives and girlfriends and then muse about whether the women would remain faithful, “especially if you boys get all mutilated and do not return in one piece.” Prior to the Allied invasion of France, she also starred in a radio play, called “Vision of Invasion,” as an American mother whose son needlessly drowns during the attack. Like a lot of propaganda, Gillars’ radio shows rarely had their desired effect—many GI’s only listened because they found them funny—but she was still considered a traitor by the U.S. government. When the war ended, the voice of Axis Sally was arrested and eventually spent 12 years behind bars.
2. Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce)
William Joyce, shortly after being captured in 1945. (Credit: Getty Images)
Speaking in a clipped, cosmopolitan British accent, Joyce’s Lord Haw Haw dished out taunts and pro-Hitler rants intended to break the spirit of his beleaguered listeners. In between chastising Jews and the British government, he would gleefully report on the most recent casualties of the Blitz, often warning his audience to expect further punishment from the German Luftwaffe. Joyce’s influence waned in the later years of the war, and he was eventually captured near Flensburg, Germany in 1945 after occupying British troops recognized his famous voice. Found guilty of aiding the enemy, Britain’s most famous turncoat was executed by hanging in January 1946.
3. Tokyo Rose (Iva Toguri)
More
than a dozen female Japanese broadcasters were dubbed “Tokyo Rose,” but
the nickname was most famously linked to an American named Iva Toguri. A
native of Los Angeles, Toguri was stranded in Japan after World War II
broke out while she was visiting family members. She eventually took a
job at Radio Tokyo, where she found herself ushered into a role as an
on-air presenter. Using the handle “Orphan Ann,” the smoky-voiced Toguri
soon became a legend of the Pacific Theater. By late 1943, thousands of
GIs regularly tuned in to “The Zero Hour,” a radio show where she
played pop music in between slanted battle reports and put-downs aimed
at U.S. troops.Toguri’s prominence saw her branded as one of the war’s most notorious propagandists, but evidence shows that she was not a Japanese sympathizer. Not only did she refuse to renounce her U.S. citizenship, she often willfully undermined her anti-American radio scripts by reading them in a playful, tongue-in-cheek fashion, even going so far as to warn her listeners to expect a “subtle attack” on their morale. Nevertheless, Toguri’s program became conflated with more vicious propaganda, and she was arrested and convicted of treason after the Japanese surrender. She was released from prison in 1956, but it would take more than 20 years before she finally received an official presidential pardon for her role in the war.
4. Sefton Delmer
As
the head maestro of Britain’s “black propaganda” radio programs, Sefton
Delmer used cloak-and-dagger methods to turn the airwaves into a tool
for psychological warfare. Beginning in 1941, Delmer operated a phony
German radio station called Gustav Siegfried Eins, or GS1. Unlike most
propaganda outfits, which merely beamed their messages into enemy
territory, GS1 masqueraded as an actual Nazi radio station broadcasting
to fellow Germans from within the Fatherland.To act as the voice of GS1, Delmer masterminded the creation of a fake radio personality known as “Der Chef” (“The Chief”). Played by a German defector named Peter Seckelmann, the character posed as a high-ranking Nazi and loyal Hitler supporter who appeared disillusioned with the rest of the party leadership. Der Chef built his credibility by criticizing the British and the Russians, but he also railed against Nazi officials and generals, helping to create the appearance of a rift within the German high command. Among other tactics, the phantom malcontent accused Nazi leaders of having tainted the party with acts of sexual deviancy ranging from rape to pedophilia. To cement his role as a persecuted patriot, Der Chef was even “assassinated” on air during GS1’s final broadcast in late-1943. Delmer would go on to set up several more propaganda stations including Soldatensender Calais, which posed as a German station for troops in France, and Atlantiksender, which spread targeted disinformation to Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic.
5. Philippe Henriot
In
the dying days of the Nazi occupation of France, propagandist Philippe
Henriot lit up the airwaves with a series of pro-German radio broadcasts
aimed at pacifying the resistance. The French-born Henriot was a right
wing firebrand who had eagerly aligned himself with the collaborationist
Vichy government. In January 1944, he was appointed as the regime’s
chief propagandist and spin doctor.An eloquent speaker, Henriot played on the anxieties of the French people by arguing that the hardships they faced stemmed from their continued association with the Allies and native resistance groups, whom he labeled “terrorists.” He also used his radio programs as a platform to counter the arguments espoused by the Free French Forces, who were then broadcasting in exile from the BBC in London. Henriot’s twice-daily radio shows were appointment listening for the French public—many of whom called him the “French Goebbels”—but his influence was ultimately short-lived. In June 1944, he was assassinated in a targeted hit by French resistance fighters.
6. Fred W. Kaltenbach
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.
Kaltenbach’s show took the form of fictional letters to his American friends back home in which he championed a policy of isolationism and railed against the evils of Jews and the British Empire. After the United States entered the conflict, he began broadcasting pro-Nazi news stories along with attacks on Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he labeled a “warmonger.” Kaltenbach’s diatribes saw him charged with treason along with seven other American propagandists, but he never faced trial. Captured by the advancing Red Army, he disappeared shortly after the war ended and was later reported to have died in Soviet custody.
7 Unusual Myths and Theories About the Moon
Created by a fiery planetary explosion
about 400 billion years ago, the moon has comforted man for thousands of
years. It's been everything from a god to a compass, and the only
cosmic body human beings have ever visited. Explore some of the
fascinating, surprising or simply bizarre theories that earthlings have
entertained about the moon throughout history.
1. Full moons make you crazy.Since ancient times, full moons have been associated with odd or insane behavior, including sleepwalking, suicide, illegal activity, fits of violence and, of course, transforming into werewolves. Indeed, the words “lunacy” and “lunatic” come from the Roman goddess of the moon, Luna, who was said to ride her silver chariot across the dark sky each night. For thousands of years, doctors and mental health professionals believed in a strong connection between mania and the moon. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, wrote in the fifth century B.C. that “one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the moon.” In 18th-century England, people on trial for murder could campaign for a lighter sentence on grounds of lunacy if the crime occurred under a full moon; meanwhile, psychiatric patients at London’s Bethlehem Hospital were shackled and flogged as a preventive measure during certain lunar phases. Even today, despite studies discrediting the hypothesis, some people think full moons make everyone a little loony.
2. Aliens inhabit the moon.
In the 1820s, the Bavarian astronomer Franz von Paula Gruithuisen claimed to have glimpsed entire cities on the moon with his telescope. He wrote that the “lunarians” who lived there had built sophisticated buildings, roads and forts. Most of his colleagues scoffed at his assertion, but he eventually got a small lunar crater named after him. Sir William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer and composer, also thought aliens lived on the moon and made regular observations about the progress of their construction projects. In 1835, when the New York Sun published a series of fraudulent articles about the supposed existence of life on the moon (pulling off the so-called “Great Moon Hoax”), it falsely credited Herschel’s son John, a famous astronomer in his own right, with the shocking discovery.
3. The moon controls fertility.
Perhaps because the menstrual and lunar cycles are similar in length, many early civilizations believed that the moon determined when women could become pregnant. This could explain why female moon deities—from the Chinese goddess Chang’e to Mama Quilla of the Incas—figure so prominently in mythologies from around the world. In the 1950s, the Czech doctor Eugene Jonas stumbled across an ancient Assyrian astrological text stating that women are fertile during certain phases of the moon. He based an entire family planning method on this hypothesis, telling his patients they ovulated when the moon was in the same position as when they were born. According to another theory that persists to this day, full moons cause an uptick in births, flooding maternity wards with mothers-to-be in labor. Recent studies have turned up little statistical evidence for moon-induced baby booms, however, and most experts think any lunar effect on procreation is imagined.
4. The moon is a hollow spacecraft.
Several science fiction books of the early 20th century, including H.G. Wells’ “The First Men in the Moon,” take place within a hollow moon inhabited by aliens. In 1970 two Soviet scientists took this seemingly whimsical premise a step further, proposing that the moon is actually a shell-like alien spacecraft built by extraterrestrials with superior technology and intelligence. According to astronomers, the moon—though admittedly enigmatic as far as celestial bodies go—couldn’t maintain its mass and gravitational field if it lacked a dense core.
5. We never really went to the the moon.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some people believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked by NASA, which used doctored photos, staged videos and other ploys to dupe the public. Proponents of these hoax claims argue that technology was not advanced enough for astronauts to reach the moon and return home safely; they also point to ostensible signs of studio trickery, including the fact that the American flag planted by the Apollo 11 crew in the lunar surface appeared to flutter in the vacuum of space. In 2002, retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who became the second person to walk on the moon in 1969, grew so exasperated with one conspiracy theorist’s accusations that he punched him in the face. The septuagenarian space pioneer was not prosecuted.
6. The Nazis had a base on the moon.
After World War II, rumors circulated that German astronauts had traveled to the moon and established a top-secret facility there. Some even speculated that Adolf Hitler faked his own death, fled the planet and lived out the rest of his days in an underground lunar hideout. Connections were also drawn between flying saucer sightings—including the famous incident near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947—with the Nazis’ alleged UFO development program. These theories form the basis of the science fiction novel “Rocket Ship Galileo,” published by Robert A. Heinlein in 1947.
7. A rabbit dwells on the moon.
Intriguingly, legends from various traditions around the world, including Buddhism and Native American folklore, recount the tale of a rabbit that lives on the moon. This shared myth may reflect common interpretations of markings on the lunar surface—an alternate take on the fabled “man in the moon.” Shortly before Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, mission control in Houston jokingly referred to the Chinese version of the story, telling the spaceship’s crew, “Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there’s one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit.” Command module pilot Michael Collins replied, “Okay. We’ll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.”
8 Lost Masterpieces of Art
Despite the best efforts of museums and art
collectors, many of the world’s most important paintings and sculptures
no longer exist. Some of these artworks were lost in wars, burned in
fires or destroyed by unhappy patrons, while others were stolen by
master thieves or simply vanished with the passage of time. From a
Russian national treasure looted by the Nazis to a da Vinci painting
that no one has ever seen, find out more about eight of art history’s
missing masterworks.
1. The Colossus of Rhodes
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, this massive bronze statue of the sun god Helios towered over the Greek city of Rhodes for most of the 3rd century B.C. The behemoth stood 110 feet tall, and reportedly took the sculptor Chares of Lindos a full 12 years to complete. But while the Colossus surely proved an incredible sight for visitors to the city’s bustling harbor, it stood for only 56 years before toppling in a 226 B.C. earthquake. The once mighty statue then lay in ruins for another several centuries before Arab merchants sold off its remains for scrap. No drawings of the Colossus of Rhodes survive today, but ancient sources note that Helios was depicted standing with a torch held in his outstretched hand. These descriptions later served as an inspiration for Frederic Bartholdi’s design of the Statue of Liberty.
2. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Medusa Shield”
Several of Leonardo da Vinci’s works have been lost to time, but the
“Medusa Shield” is perhaps the most mysterious. Painted when the Italian
master was in his youth, this early work supposedly took the form of a
shield emblazoned with a creature inspired by the snake-haired Greek
monster Medusa. According to a 1550 account by art historian Giorgio
Vasari, the painting was so realistic that it initially frightened
Leonardo’s father, who considered it a macabre masterpiece and secretly
sold it to a group of Florentine merchants. The shield has long since
vanished, and some modern experts now argue that Vasari’s account may
have been little more than a myth.
3. Gustave Courbet’s “The Stone Breakers”
Painted in 1849, this classic example of social realism was hailed for its unsentimental depiction of poor laborers, one young and one old, removing rocks from a roadside. Inspired by a chance meeting with two downtrodden workers, Courbet deliberately broke with convention by capturing the men in gritty detail, from their straining muscles to their tattered and dirty clothing. While it helped launch Courbet’s art career, “The Stone Breakers” was ultimately doomed to become one of the many cultural casualties of World War II. In 1945, the painting was destroyed during an Allied bombing near the city of Dresden, Germany.
4. Diego Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads”
Diego Rivera painted many populist murals and frescoes, but his most
famous work might be the one that no longer exists. In 1932, the artist
was commissioned by John D. Rockefeller to create a mural for the walls
of New York’s Rockefeller Center. Given the theme of “Man at the
Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New
and Better Future,” Rivera responded with a revolutionary work that
referenced scientific progress, civil rights and the plight of the
working class. An ardent leftist, he also included a depiction of the
communist leader Vladimir Lenin—a move that offended the sensibilities
of his wealthy patrons. When Rivera refused to remove Lenin from his
mural, the Rockefellers had the work covered over with canvas frames and
then later destroyed. Rivera would go on to paint another version of
his Rockefeller mural—this time titled “Man, Controller of the
Universe”—in Mexico City.
5. Sutherland’s “Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill”
In 1954, members of the British Parliament commissioned a portrait by
the artist Graham Sutherland and presented it to Winston Churchill as
an 80th birthday gift. While he claimed to be honored by the gesture,
Churchill was no fan of Sutherland’s realist rendering, which he thought
captured him in an unflattering pose. In fact, the prime minister so
loathed the portrait that he considered not attending the presentation
ceremony, and even wrote Sutherland a letter personally expressing his
disappointment. Churchill and his wife went on to decline all requests
to publicly exhibit the painting, and the work effectively disappeared
from public view for several years. Upon her death in 1977, it was
finally revealed that Lady Churchill had personally smashed and burned
the hated portrait less than a year after its presentation.
6. The Buddhas of Bamiyan
Built sometime in the 6th century, this legendary pair of stone
Buddhas stood for 1,500 years before falling victim to a cultural purge
by the Taliban. The 135 and 175-foot-tall carvings were originally
fashioned directly out of a sandstone cliff, and served as Bamiyan’s
most spectacular monument during a time when the city flourished as a
Silk Road trading hub. While they weathered more than a dozen centuries,
several attacks by Muslim emperors and even an invasion by Genghis
Kahn, the Buddhas were finally destroyed in March 2001, when the Taliban
and their allies in Al Qaeda gave an order condemning idolatrous
imagery. Ignoring widespread appeals from the international community,
the groups then fired on the statues with antiaircraft guns before
blowing them to rubble with dynamite. While the destruction of the
Buddhas was condemned as a crime against culture, a number of formerly
hidden cave drawings and texts have been discover among the debris, and
in 2008 archeologists unearthed a third, previously undiscovered Buddha
statue near the ruins.
7. Caravaggio’s “Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence”
Ever since its theft in a 1969 robbery, Caravaggio’s nativity scene has been regarded as one of the art world’s most notorious stolen paintings. The masterwork has not been seen since it was lifted from a chapel in Palermo, Italy, though evidence indicates the Sicilian Mafia may have played a role in the heist. In 1996, a mob informant testified that he and several other men had stolen the painting for a private buyer, only to accidentally destroy it while cutting the canvas from its frame. More than a decade later, another former mafioso claimed the painting had been hidden in a barn for safekeeping, but was irreparably damaged by rats and hogs before being burned. The fate of the nativity ultimately remains a mystery, but if it still exists, the painting would now be worth as much as $20 million.
8. The Amber Room
Created by sculptor Andreas Schlüter and master amber craftsman
Gottfried Wolfram, this breathtaking chamber took the form of 180 square
feet of shimmering amber panels decorated with gold leaf and mosaics of
precious stones. The room was first constructed in 1701, and was later
gifted to Peter the Great to help cement an alliance between Prussia and
Russia. Often called the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the ornate
chamber was considered a masterpiece of Baroque art and was worth over
$140 million in today’s dollars.
The Amber Room spent 225 years as a Russian national treasure before being captured by the Germans in their invasion of Russia during World War II. The Nazis then disassembled the chamber and took it to Königsberg, Germany, where it disappeared near the end of the war. Most historians believe it was destroyed in a 1944 Allied bombing run, but there is also evidence suggesting the room was packed up and removed from the city. From there, some theories suggest, it might have been loaded onto a ship that sunk in the Baltic Sea or simply secreted away in a vault or bunker. The original room has never been found, but a replica of the chamber was later built and installed at a museum near St. Petersburg.
1. Gardena, California
As the search for the vanished Hoffa got underway in Michigan after his 1975 disappearance, an early theory regarding his fate cropped up thousands of miles away on the West Coast. When rumors surfaced that Hoffa may have been involved in an acrimonious negation with a Gardena businessman, conspiracies swirled that Hoffa had been murdered and buried in the foundation of a nearby poker club and restaurant. It remained a local legend for decades until the property was bought up by magazine publisher Larry Flynt, fully excavated and reopened as a casino in 2000.
2. Hampton, Michigan
This latest search isn’t the first (or even the fifth) time investigators have targeted Michigan in their hunt for Hoffa. And though it’s probably a bit presumptuous to rule out the entire Wolverine state as the likely location of Hoffa’s remains, several spots have already received a thorough going over. In 2003, following a tip, investigators dug up the backyard pool in Hampton’s Thumb neighborhood in search of either Hoffa or evidence regarding his death—specifically a briefcase supposed to have contained a medical syringe and pharmaceutical material used to kill Hoffa. The search turned up nothing but dirt.
3. Bloomfield, Michigan
A year later in 2004, the FBI was at it again, this time in a suburban Detroit home once owned by one of Hoffa’s erstwhile friends, Frank Sheeran. Sheeran, who claimed that he had murdered Hoffa himself after the two men had a severe falling out, claimed to have committed the murder in his Bloomfield home. Search teams descended on the house and did find traces of blood—but medical examiners stated that they weren’t from Hoffa.
4. Milford, Michigan
A seemingly promising lead sent the FBI to a horse farm located northwest of Detroit. The Feds spent more than two weeks digging at the site in May 2006 before calling it quits. The FBI, normally close-lipped about ongoing investigations, stated that they may not have located Hoffa’s body, but believed that it may have been buried there before being moved elsewhere.
5. Roseville, Michigan
Just 10 months before this most recent investigation, the FBI received yet another Michigan-based tip that Hoffa had been buried beneath a backyard shed in Roseville. When sonar of the site revealed abnormalities in the soil composition, they decided to drill for samples. Once again, no evidence of Hoffa’s remains turned up.
6. Giants Stadium
The most popular urban legend associated with Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance is that he was buried beneath a football stadium at the sprawling Meadowlands Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The idea was first floated by mob hit man Donald “Tony the Greek” Frankos in an interview with Playboy magazine in 1989. Frankos, an informant who turned state’s witness, insisted that he had no personal involvement with the murder, but had been told that two other Jersey wiseguys were responsible for the murder, dismemberment and eventual burial of Hoffa’s body beneath one of the stadium’s end zones. Federal officials and Hoffa’s own family voiced their suspicions over Frankos’ story, but that didn’t stop it from capturing the public’s attention. Supporters of the theory noted that Hoffa did disappear while the complex was under construction and his last known public meeting was with reputed New Jersey crime boss Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, who Frankos insisted had himself ordered the hit on Hoffa. The Giants Stadium theory was put to rest in 2010, when the building was demolished to make way for new sports complex.
7. Jersey City, New Jersey
Michigan may have cornered the market in Hoffa mania, the Garden State isn’t far behind. In fact, more than 200 FBI agents have been assigned to the case over the past 38 years, most of them in Michigan and New Jersey. Just weeks after Hoffa’s disappearance, the FBI began surveillance on a Jersey City landfill situated near the Hackensack River, based on an anonymous tip that Hoffa had been buried there in a 55-pound drum. They soon called off the search.
8. Florida Everglades
In 1982, another mob hit man, Charles Allen, claimed that he had the inside scoop on what really happened to Hoffa. Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, investigating Anthony Provenzano and other organized crime leaders, Allen said that Hoffa had been shot and killed shortly after his disappearance, with his body later ground up, dumped in a steel drum and brought down to Florida where it was dumped unceremoniously in a nearby swamp. Shortly after testifying, Allen entered the witness protection program, which didn’t stop him from granting interviews with reporters to further press his claim. The federal government, however, was doubtful, noting Allen’s credibility problem and eagerness to sell his salacious story to the highest bidder. The same year Allen testified before Congress, Jimmy Hoffa was declared legally dead.
9. Japan
One of the most surreal theories surrounding Hoffa’s remains is the one most difficult to prove, or disprove. As with many Hoffa theories, it begins with his violent death at the hands of his enemies and the dismemberment of his body. In this version, however, rather than a fairly pedestrian burial underground, the pieces were compacted even further at a Detroit-area factory, then added to locally produced steel used for auto manufacturing. According to this myth, the controversial labor leader who championed America’s unions was himself exported—as part of an auto shipment to Japan.
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, this massive bronze statue of the sun god Helios towered over the Greek city of Rhodes for most of the 3rd century B.C. The behemoth stood 110 feet tall, and reportedly took the sculptor Chares of Lindos a full 12 years to complete. But while the Colossus surely proved an incredible sight for visitors to the city’s bustling harbor, it stood for only 56 years before toppling in a 226 B.C. earthquake. The once mighty statue then lay in ruins for another several centuries before Arab merchants sold off its remains for scrap. No drawings of the Colossus of Rhodes survive today, but ancient sources note that Helios was depicted standing with a torch held in his outstretched hand. These descriptions later served as an inspiration for Frederic Bartholdi’s design of the Statue of Liberty.
2. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Medusa Shield”
Medusa shield by Caravaggio, which was likely inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's lost work. (Credit: Getty Images)
3. Gustave Courbet’s “The Stone Breakers”
Painted in 1849, this classic example of social realism was hailed for its unsentimental depiction of poor laborers, one young and one old, removing rocks from a roadside. Inspired by a chance meeting with two downtrodden workers, Courbet deliberately broke with convention by capturing the men in gritty detail, from their straining muscles to their tattered and dirty clothing. While it helped launch Courbet’s art career, “The Stone Breakers” was ultimately doomed to become one of the many cultural casualties of World War II. In 1945, the painting was destroyed during an Allied bombing near the city of Dresden, Germany.
4. Diego Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads”
Diego
Rivera's recreation of Man at the Crossroads, now known as Man,
Controller of the Universe. (Credit: Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City)
5. Sutherland’s “Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill”
Artist Graham Sutherland with his unfinished portrait of Winston Churchill. (Credit: Getty Images)
6. The Buddhas of Bamiyan
Before and after shot of the taller of the two Buddhas of Bamiyan.
7. Caravaggio’s “Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence”
Ever since its theft in a 1969 robbery, Caravaggio’s nativity scene has been regarded as one of the art world’s most notorious stolen paintings. The masterwork has not been seen since it was lifted from a chapel in Palermo, Italy, though evidence indicates the Sicilian Mafia may have played a role in the heist. In 1996, a mob informant testified that he and several other men had stolen the painting for a private buyer, only to accidentally destroy it while cutting the canvas from its frame. More than a decade later, another former mafioso claimed the painting had been hidden in a barn for safekeeping, but was irreparably damaged by rats and hogs before being burned. The fate of the nativity ultimately remains a mystery, but if it still exists, the painting would now be worth as much as $20 million.
8. The Amber Room
A reconstructed version of the Amber Room at the Catherine Palace, St. Petersburg (Credit: Getty Images)
The Amber Room spent 225 years as a Russian national treasure before being captured by the Germans in their invasion of Russia during World War II. The Nazis then disassembled the chamber and took it to Königsberg, Germany, where it disappeared near the end of the war. Most historians believe it was destroyed in a 1944 Allied bombing run, but there is also evidence suggesting the room was packed up and removed from the city. From there, some theories suggest, it might have been loaded onto a ship that sunk in the Baltic Sea or simply secreted away in a vault or bunker. The original room has never been found, but a replica of the chamber was later built and installed at a museum near St. Petersburg.
9 Places Jimmy Hoffa (Probably) Isn’t Buried
This week, the long search for missing
ex-Teamster boss James Riddle Hoffa took yet another frustrating turn
for federal authorities when they called off their latest investigation
after three days of digging. This time around the FBI had targeted
suburban Detroit, based on a tip from a Mafia informant, but it’s just
the latest in a long line of unsuccessful leads in the nearly 40-year
search that began after Hoffa mysteriously disappeared in September
1975. As the Feds continue the hunt, here’s a list of places that can
probably be crossed off the Jimmy Hoffa burial site list.
The
old Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, was rumored to be
the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa. (Credit: Getty Images)
As the search for the vanished Hoffa got underway in Michigan after his 1975 disappearance, an early theory regarding his fate cropped up thousands of miles away on the West Coast. When rumors surfaced that Hoffa may have been involved in an acrimonious negation with a Gardena businessman, conspiracies swirled that Hoffa had been murdered and buried in the foundation of a nearby poker club and restaurant. It remained a local legend for decades until the property was bought up by magazine publisher Larry Flynt, fully excavated and reopened as a casino in 2000.
2. Hampton, Michigan
This latest search isn’t the first (or even the fifth) time investigators have targeted Michigan in their hunt for Hoffa. And though it’s probably a bit presumptuous to rule out the entire Wolverine state as the likely location of Hoffa’s remains, several spots have already received a thorough going over. In 2003, following a tip, investigators dug up the backyard pool in Hampton’s Thumb neighborhood in search of either Hoffa or evidence regarding his death—specifically a briefcase supposed to have contained a medical syringe and pharmaceutical material used to kill Hoffa. The search turned up nothing but dirt.
3. Bloomfield, Michigan
A year later in 2004, the FBI was at it again, this time in a suburban Detroit home once owned by one of Hoffa’s erstwhile friends, Frank Sheeran. Sheeran, who claimed that he had murdered Hoffa himself after the two men had a severe falling out, claimed to have committed the murder in his Bloomfield home. Search teams descended on the house and did find traces of blood—but medical examiners stated that they weren’t from Hoffa.
4. Milford, Michigan
A seemingly promising lead sent the FBI to a horse farm located northwest of Detroit. The Feds spent more than two weeks digging at the site in May 2006 before calling it quits. The FBI, normally close-lipped about ongoing investigations, stated that they may not have located Hoffa’s body, but believed that it may have been buried there before being moved elsewhere.
5. Roseville, Michigan
Just 10 months before this most recent investigation, the FBI received yet another Michigan-based tip that Hoffa had been buried beneath a backyard shed in Roseville. When sonar of the site revealed abnormalities in the soil composition, they decided to drill for samples. Once again, no evidence of Hoffa’s remains turned up.
6. Giants Stadium
The most popular urban legend associated with Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance is that he was buried beneath a football stadium at the sprawling Meadowlands Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The idea was first floated by mob hit man Donald “Tony the Greek” Frankos in an interview with Playboy magazine in 1989. Frankos, an informant who turned state’s witness, insisted that he had no personal involvement with the murder, but had been told that two other Jersey wiseguys were responsible for the murder, dismemberment and eventual burial of Hoffa’s body beneath one of the stadium’s end zones. Federal officials and Hoffa’s own family voiced their suspicions over Frankos’ story, but that didn’t stop it from capturing the public’s attention. Supporters of the theory noted that Hoffa did disappear while the complex was under construction and his last known public meeting was with reputed New Jersey crime boss Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, who Frankos insisted had himself ordered the hit on Hoffa. The Giants Stadium theory was put to rest in 2010, when the building was demolished to make way for new sports complex.
7. Jersey City, New Jersey
Michigan may have cornered the market in Hoffa mania, the Garden State isn’t far behind. In fact, more than 200 FBI agents have been assigned to the case over the past 38 years, most of them in Michigan and New Jersey. Just weeks after Hoffa’s disappearance, the FBI began surveillance on a Jersey City landfill situated near the Hackensack River, based on an anonymous tip that Hoffa had been buried there in a 55-pound drum. They soon called off the search.
8. Florida Everglades
In 1982, another mob hit man, Charles Allen, claimed that he had the inside scoop on what really happened to Hoffa. Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, investigating Anthony Provenzano and other organized crime leaders, Allen said that Hoffa had been shot and killed shortly after his disappearance, with his body later ground up, dumped in a steel drum and brought down to Florida where it was dumped unceremoniously in a nearby swamp. Shortly after testifying, Allen entered the witness protection program, which didn’t stop him from granting interviews with reporters to further press his claim. The federal government, however, was doubtful, noting Allen’s credibility problem and eagerness to sell his salacious story to the highest bidder. The same year Allen testified before Congress, Jimmy Hoffa was declared legally dead.
9. Japan
One of the most surreal theories surrounding Hoffa’s remains is the one most difficult to prove, or disprove. As with many Hoffa theories, it begins with his violent death at the hands of his enemies and the dismemberment of his body. In this version, however, rather than a fairly pedestrian burial underground, the pieces were compacted even further at a Detroit-area factory, then added to locally produced steel used for auto manufacturing. According to this myth, the controversial labor leader who championed America’s unions was himself exported—as part of an auto shipment to Japan.
6 Lesser-Known U.S. Political Assassinations
Four American presidents were assassinated
in office—Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), William
McKinley (1901) and John F. Kennedy (1963)—while a number of
lesser-known elected officials also have died in the line of duty. Get
the facts on six public servants whose murders may surprise you.
1. Governor Charles Bent (1847): Scalped by Mexican rebels and Indians
Bent,
a frontiersman who built a trading empire across the West and was named
the first civilian governor of New Mexico when it came under American
rule, was attacked and scalped by a group of Hispanic and Indian rebels
at his Taos home on January 19, 1847. Soon after the Mexican-American
War began in the spring of 1846, American forces occupied New Mexico,
which had been a Mexican territory, and Bent, who had lived in Taos
since the 1830s, was appointed governor. Unhappy with the American
occupation, a group of Mexicans and their Indian allies launched a
rebellion by killing the 47-year-old Bent and other Anglo-Americans in
Taos. The U.S. military soon quashed the revolt and a number of leaders
of the uprising were captured and executed. With the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo in 1848, which officially ended the Mexican-American War,
Mexico ceded a large portion of the present-day Southwest to the United
States , including New Mexico.
2. State Senator John W. Stephens (1870): Killed by the Ku Klux Klan
On
May 21, 1870, Stephens, a Republican state senator who advocated for
the rights of African Americans, was murdered in the Caswell County
Courthouse in Yanceyville, North Carolina, by members of the Ku Klux
Klan. Stephens’ assassination was part of a terror campaign being
carried out by the Klan across North Carolina. That July, in an effort
to stop the violence, Governor William Holden declared martial law in
Caswell County and nearby Alamance County. In what became known as the
Kirk-Holden War, the governor also suspended the writ of habeas corpus
and brought in former Union officer George Kirk to head up a militia and
maintain order. The militia arrested some 100 men with suspected ties
to the Klan. Holden was impeached and removed from office in 1871. More
than a century later, in 2011, the North Carolina Senate pardoned him.
3. Governor William Goebel (1900): The only U.S. governor assassinated while in office
In
November 1899, Goebel, a Democrat and Kentucky state senator, narrowly
lost the election for governor to his Republican opponent William
Taylor. The Democrats challenged the election results, alleging voter
fraud, but Taylor was sworn into office that December. On January 30,
1900, with the disputed election results still under investigation,
Goebel, a controversial figure who in 1895 killed a political rival in a
gunfight, was shot by an unidentified assailant while walking toward
the state capitol in Frankfort. The next day, the Democratic-controlled
Kentucky legislature invalidated enough votes to proclaim the wounded
politician the governor and, over protests by Republicans, he was sworn
into office. However, on February 3, the 44-year-old Goebel died from
his injuries. Taylor then lost a court battle to regain the
governorship, which went to Goebel’s lieutenant governor, J.C.W.
Beckham. Afterward, Taylor, suspected of being a conspirator in Goebel’s
assassination, fled the Bluegrass State to avoid arrest. Several men
eventually were convicted in the case but later pardoned, and the answer
to who killed Goebel remains a mystery.
4. Mayor Anton Cermak (1933): Took a bullet intended for Franklin Roosevelt
On
February 15, 1933, president-elect Roosevelt gave a brief speech at a
rally in a Miami, Florida, park then sat in his convertible and spoke
with Cermak, who had served as mayor of Chicago since 1931 and was
credited with building the city’s Democratic Party into a powerful
organization. As the two men talked, Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian-born,
unemployed bricklayer who disliked government leaders and likely
suffered from mental-health issues, began shooting at them. Roosevelt
was Zangara’s alleged target, but instead he hit Cermak and four others.
Rushed to the hospital in Roosevelt’s car, the mayor, a native of the
present-day Czech Republic, reportedly told the president-elect, “I am
glad it was me instead of you” (a quote eventually engraved on Cermak’s
tomb). The 59-year-old Cermak died on March 6, 1933, two days after
Roosevelt was sworn in to the first of his four terms in the White
House. Zangara, who confessed to his crime, was executed at a Florida
state prison just two weeks later, on March 20.
5. Congressman Leo Ryan (1978): Ambushed by followers of cult leader Jim Jones
In
November 1978, Ryan, a U.S. representative from California, traveled to
the South American nation of Guyana to investigate reports of abuse and
people being held against their will at Jonestown, a settlement
established by members of an American cult called the Peoples Temple.
Jim Jones founded what became the Peoples Temple in the 1950s as a
religious organization. In the 1970s, following a spate of bad press
(former Temple members described being subjected to physical and mental
abuse), the charismatic, controlling Jones relocated with some 1,000 of
his followers to the Guyanese jungle, where he promised they would
establish a utopian community. Instead, Temple members endured various
forms of mistreatment there. On November 17, Ryan and a small delegation
made a fact-finding visit to Jonestown, where they were received
cordially. However, the following day, as the congressman was waiting at
a nearby airstrip along with his group, which by then included some
Temple members who wanted to defect, they were ambushed by gunmen sent
by Jones. The 53-year-old Ryan was killed, along with four others in his
party. Later that day, Jones led his followers in a murder-suicide in
which more than 900 people died. It was the single largest loss of U.S.
civilian lives in a non-natural disaster prior to the 9/11 attacks. In
1986, Larry Layton was convicted of conspiracy to murder Ryan. The only
Temple member convicted in the U.S. in conjunction with the case, he was
released from prison in 2002.
6. City supervisor Harvey Milk (1978): Pioneering gay leader murdered at City Hall
In
November 1977, Milk became one of the first openly gay people elected
to public office in America when he won a seat on the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors. A year later, on November 27, the 48-year-old Milk
was assassinated at San Francisco’s City Hall by Dan White, a city
supervisor who had resigned from the board earlier that same month then
decided he wanted his job back. When Mayor George Moscone, prompted by
Milk and others, decided not to reinstate White he became furious and
snuck into City Hall, where he fatally shot the mayor and Milk. White, a
former police officer and firefighter, was convicted of voluntary
manslaughter and served five years of a seven-year sentence before being
paroled in 1984. The following year, he committed suicide.
1. William and Kate’s firstborn will be third in the line for the throne, regardless of its gender.
Until recently, centuries-old laws of succession gave male heirs priority and required that the crown be passed to a monarch’s sons, in order of birth; a daughter could only inherit the throne if she had no male siblings. However, in 2011, leaders of the 16 Commonwealth nations of which the current queen, Elizabeth II, is head of state agreed to revise the rules so that a monarch’s male and female offspring have an equal right to the throne, and a younger boy could not jump ahead of his older sister in the line of succession. The new rules also will allow a future heir to the throne to marry a Roman Catholic, something that hasn’t been permitted in the past. However, the ban preventing a Catholic from becoming monarch won’t be lifted, as loyalty to the pope could conflict with the monarch’s role as supreme governor of the Church of England.
2. William is the first direct heir to the British throne who was born in a hospital.
The son of Prince Charles (who was born at Buckingham Palace in 1948) and the late Princess Diana (born in 1961 at a home leased by her aristocratic parents in the English village of Sandringham), William was delivered at London’s St. Mary’s Hospital on June 21, 1982. His arrival was announced with a proclamation signed by his doctors and placed on an easel in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. The same easel will be used to inform the public about William and Kate’s baby, who also is expected to be born at St. Mary’s, in a private wing. Additionally, for the first time in royal history, an official announcement about the baby’s entrance into the world will be made via social media. It is anticipated that the little prince or princess eventually will be baptized with water from the River Jordan (where, according to Christianity, Jesus was baptized), like a long line of royals before him or her.
3. Prior to Prince Charles’ arrival in 1948, it was customary for the British home secretary (a high-ranking government official) to attend royal births.
In one notable instance, Home Secretary John Robert Clynes traveled to Scotland in 1930 to witness the birth of Princess Margaret at Glamis Castle. Margaret, the daughter of the future King George VI and sister of Elizabeth, the future queen, was born two weeks after her due date but Clynes had to remain in Scotland on alert until she made her debut.
4. William and Kate’s baby will be the third great-grandchild for Queen Elizabeth II (1926-), whose reign is currently the second-longest of any British monarch.
The queen’s first two great-grandchildren are the offspring of Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne (1950-), the second of Elizabeth’s four children. Peter and his wife Autumn have two daughters: Savannah Anne Kathleen, who will turn 3 in December, and Isla Elizabeth, who turned 1 in March.
Queen Elizabeth’s third and fourth children, Prince Andrew (1960-) and Prince Edward (1964-), were the only babies born to a reigning queen since Queen Victoria delivered her last child, Beatrice, in 1857. Andrew and Edward were born at Buckingham Palace, like their older brother Charles. Anne and Charles arrived when Elizabeth still was a princess; she ascended to the throne in 1952, following the death of her father, King George VI.
5. Queen Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria (1819-1901) had nine living children but hated pregnancy and childbirth.
Victoria’s road to motherhood got off to a rocky start in 1840, when, four months into her first pregnancy, an unemployed Londoner named Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a horse-drawn carriage with her husband Prince Albert. (Victoria escaped unharmed and Oxford, the first of at least seven people who tried to attack or murder the queen, later was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental institution.) Victoria went on to become the first monarch to give birth under the influence of chloroform, whose anesthetic effects were discovered in the late 1840s and which her physician administered when Victoria delivered her eighth and ninth children, Prince Leopold, born in 1853, and Princess Beatrice, born in 1857. The queen’s experiences helped popularize the use of anesthesia among London’s upper classes. However, Victoria maintained a sour attitude toward pregnancy, which she derided as an “occupational hazard” of being a wife, and labeled her own babies ugly and frog-like and refused to breastfeed them.
6. Royal babies have been a source of public fascination for centuries.
In one historic example, James Francis Edward, prince of Wales, was a topic of controversy from the time of his birth in 1688. Until James’ delivery, his mother, Mary of Modena, the Catholic second wife of King James II, had suffered a number of miscarriages and was childless. Following James’ arrival, rumors circulated widely that Mary was never pregnant to begin with (or had experienced another miscarriage) and snuck an imposter baby into her bed via warming pan, in an effort to produce a Catholic male heir, an alarming prospect to England’s Protestants. That same year, James II was ousted and Mary fled the country with their son. As an adult, the prince (whose royal blood proved legitimate, despite the conspiracy theories) tried unsuccessfully to reclaim the British crown and was dubbed the Old Pretender.
7. England’s King Henry VIII (1491-1547) famously married six different women, in part due to his quest to produce a son who could succeed him.
Although Henry fathered three legitimate children who survived—daughters from his wives Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and a son, Edward, by Jane Seymour (who died shortly after the boy’s birth), Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn also experienced multiple miscarriages and stillbirths, leading experts to believe Henry was the source of the fertility troubles. Syphilis once was speculated to be a factor in the king’s reproductive issues; however, this theory has been discounted and more recent research suggests a blood group incompatibility (involving the Kell antigen) between Henry and his wives might have been at the root of his problems.
Bent,
a frontiersman who built a trading empire across the West and was named
the first civilian governor of New Mexico when it came under American
rule, was attacked and scalped by a group of Hispanic and Indian rebels
at his Taos home on January 19, 1847. Soon after the Mexican-American
War began in the spring of 1846, American forces occupied New Mexico,
which had been a Mexican territory, and Bent, who had lived in Taos
since the 1830s, was appointed governor. Unhappy with the American
occupation, a group of Mexicans and their Indian allies launched a
rebellion by killing the 47-year-old Bent and other Anglo-Americans in
Taos. The U.S. military soon quashed the revolt and a number of leaders
of the uprising were captured and executed. With the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo in 1848, which officially ended the Mexican-American War,
Mexico ceded a large portion of the present-day Southwest to the United
States , including New Mexico.2. State Senator John W. Stephens (1870): Killed by the Ku Klux Klan
On
May 21, 1870, Stephens, a Republican state senator who advocated for
the rights of African Americans, was murdered in the Caswell County
Courthouse in Yanceyville, North Carolina, by members of the Ku Klux
Klan. Stephens’ assassination was part of a terror campaign being
carried out by the Klan across North Carolina. That July, in an effort
to stop the violence, Governor William Holden declared martial law in
Caswell County and nearby Alamance County. In what became known as the
Kirk-Holden War, the governor also suspended the writ of habeas corpus
and brought in former Union officer George Kirk to head up a militia and
maintain order. The militia arrested some 100 men with suspected ties
to the Klan. Holden was impeached and removed from office in 1871. More
than a century later, in 2011, the North Carolina Senate pardoned him.3. Governor William Goebel (1900): The only U.S. governor assassinated while in office
In
November 1899, Goebel, a Democrat and Kentucky state senator, narrowly
lost the election for governor to his Republican opponent William
Taylor. The Democrats challenged the election results, alleging voter
fraud, but Taylor was sworn into office that December. On January 30,
1900, with the disputed election results still under investigation,
Goebel, a controversial figure who in 1895 killed a political rival in a
gunfight, was shot by an unidentified assailant while walking toward
the state capitol in Frankfort. The next day, the Democratic-controlled
Kentucky legislature invalidated enough votes to proclaim the wounded
politician the governor and, over protests by Republicans, he was sworn
into office. However, on February 3, the 44-year-old Goebel died from
his injuries. Taylor then lost a court battle to regain the
governorship, which went to Goebel’s lieutenant governor, J.C.W.
Beckham. Afterward, Taylor, suspected of being a conspirator in Goebel’s
assassination, fled the Bluegrass State to avoid arrest. Several men
eventually were convicted in the case but later pardoned, and the answer
to who killed Goebel remains a mystery.4. Mayor Anton Cermak (1933): Took a bullet intended for Franklin Roosevelt
On
February 15, 1933, president-elect Roosevelt gave a brief speech at a
rally in a Miami, Florida, park then sat in his convertible and spoke
with Cermak, who had served as mayor of Chicago since 1931 and was
credited with building the city’s Democratic Party into a powerful
organization. As the two men talked, Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian-born,
unemployed bricklayer who disliked government leaders and likely
suffered from mental-health issues, began shooting at them. Roosevelt
was Zangara’s alleged target, but instead he hit Cermak and four others.
Rushed to the hospital in Roosevelt’s car, the mayor, a native of the
present-day Czech Republic, reportedly told the president-elect, “I am
glad it was me instead of you” (a quote eventually engraved on Cermak’s
tomb). The 59-year-old Cermak died on March 6, 1933, two days after
Roosevelt was sworn in to the first of his four terms in the White
House. Zangara, who confessed to his crime, was executed at a Florida
state prison just two weeks later, on March 20.5. Congressman Leo Ryan (1978): Ambushed by followers of cult leader Jim Jones
In
November 1978, Ryan, a U.S. representative from California, traveled to
the South American nation of Guyana to investigate reports of abuse and
people being held against their will at Jonestown, a settlement
established by members of an American cult called the Peoples Temple.
Jim Jones founded what became the Peoples Temple in the 1950s as a
religious organization. In the 1970s, following a spate of bad press
(former Temple members described being subjected to physical and mental
abuse), the charismatic, controlling Jones relocated with some 1,000 of
his followers to the Guyanese jungle, where he promised they would
establish a utopian community. Instead, Temple members endured various
forms of mistreatment there. On November 17, Ryan and a small delegation
made a fact-finding visit to Jonestown, where they were received
cordially. However, the following day, as the congressman was waiting at
a nearby airstrip along with his group, which by then included some
Temple members who wanted to defect, they were ambushed by gunmen sent
by Jones. The 53-year-old Ryan was killed, along with four others in his
party. Later that day, Jones led his followers in a murder-suicide in
which more than 900 people died. It was the single largest loss of U.S.
civilian lives in a non-natural disaster prior to the 9/11 attacks. In
1986, Larry Layton was convicted of conspiracy to murder Ryan. The only
Temple member convicted in the U.S. in conjunction with the case, he was
released from prison in 2002.6. City supervisor Harvey Milk (1978): Pioneering gay leader murdered at City Hall
In
November 1977, Milk became one of the first openly gay people elected
to public office in America when he won a seat on the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors. A year later, on November 27, the 48-year-old Milk
was assassinated at San Francisco’s City Hall by Dan White, a city
supervisor who had resigned from the board earlier that same month then
decided he wanted his job back. When Mayor George Moscone, prompted by
Milk and others, decided not to reinstate White he became furious and
snuck into City Hall, where he fatally shot the mayor and Milk. White, a
former police officer and firefighter, was convicted of voluntary
manslaughter and served five years of a seven-year sentence before being
paroled in 1984. The following year, he committed suicide.7 Surprising Facts about Royal Births
This week, royal watchers around the world
await the imminent arrival of the first child of Britain’s Prince
William and Kate Middleton, aka Catherine, duchess of Cambridge. The
couple wed in a pomp-and-circumstance-filled ceremony at London’s
Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011, and the duchess’s pregnancy was
publicly announced on December 3, 2012. Find out how the newest heir to
the throne’s debut will be steeped in—and could break with--ancient
traditions, and get the facts on other royal bundles of joy.
1. William and Kate’s firstborn will be third in the line for the throne, regardless of its gender.
Until recently, centuries-old laws of succession gave male heirs priority and required that the crown be passed to a monarch’s sons, in order of birth; a daughter could only inherit the throne if she had no male siblings. However, in 2011, leaders of the 16 Commonwealth nations of which the current queen, Elizabeth II, is head of state agreed to revise the rules so that a monarch’s male and female offspring have an equal right to the throne, and a younger boy could not jump ahead of his older sister in the line of succession. The new rules also will allow a future heir to the throne to marry a Roman Catholic, something that hasn’t been permitted in the past. However, the ban preventing a Catholic from becoming monarch won’t be lifted, as loyalty to the pope could conflict with the monarch’s role as supreme governor of the Church of England.
2. William is the first direct heir to the British throne who was born in a hospital.
The son of Prince Charles (who was born at Buckingham Palace in 1948) and the late Princess Diana (born in 1961 at a home leased by her aristocratic parents in the English village of Sandringham), William was delivered at London’s St. Mary’s Hospital on June 21, 1982. His arrival was announced with a proclamation signed by his doctors and placed on an easel in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. The same easel will be used to inform the public about William and Kate’s baby, who also is expected to be born at St. Mary’s, in a private wing. Additionally, for the first time in royal history, an official announcement about the baby’s entrance into the world will be made via social media. It is anticipated that the little prince or princess eventually will be baptized with water from the River Jordan (where, according to Christianity, Jesus was baptized), like a long line of royals before him or her.
3. Prior to Prince Charles’ arrival in 1948, it was customary for the British home secretary (a high-ranking government official) to attend royal births.
In one notable instance, Home Secretary John Robert Clynes traveled to Scotland in 1930 to witness the birth of Princess Margaret at Glamis Castle. Margaret, the daughter of the future King George VI and sister of Elizabeth, the future queen, was born two weeks after her due date but Clynes had to remain in Scotland on alert until she made her debut.
4. William and Kate’s baby will be the third great-grandchild for Queen Elizabeth II (1926-), whose reign is currently the second-longest of any British monarch.
The queen’s first two great-grandchildren are the offspring of Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne (1950-), the second of Elizabeth’s four children. Peter and his wife Autumn have two daughters: Savannah Anne Kathleen, who will turn 3 in December, and Isla Elizabeth, who turned 1 in March.
Queen Elizabeth’s third and fourth children, Prince Andrew (1960-) and Prince Edward (1964-), were the only babies born to a reigning queen since Queen Victoria delivered her last child, Beatrice, in 1857. Andrew and Edward were born at Buckingham Palace, like their older brother Charles. Anne and Charles arrived when Elizabeth still was a princess; she ascended to the throne in 1952, following the death of her father, King George VI.
5. Queen Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria (1819-1901) had nine living children but hated pregnancy and childbirth.
Victoria’s road to motherhood got off to a rocky start in 1840, when, four months into her first pregnancy, an unemployed Londoner named Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a horse-drawn carriage with her husband Prince Albert. (Victoria escaped unharmed and Oxford, the first of at least seven people who tried to attack or murder the queen, later was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental institution.) Victoria went on to become the first monarch to give birth under the influence of chloroform, whose anesthetic effects were discovered in the late 1840s and which her physician administered when Victoria delivered her eighth and ninth children, Prince Leopold, born in 1853, and Princess Beatrice, born in 1857. The queen’s experiences helped popularize the use of anesthesia among London’s upper classes. However, Victoria maintained a sour attitude toward pregnancy, which she derided as an “occupational hazard” of being a wife, and labeled her own babies ugly and frog-like and refused to breastfeed them.
6. Royal babies have been a source of public fascination for centuries.
In one historic example, James Francis Edward, prince of Wales, was a topic of controversy from the time of his birth in 1688. Until James’ delivery, his mother, Mary of Modena, the Catholic second wife of King James II, had suffered a number of miscarriages and was childless. Following James’ arrival, rumors circulated widely that Mary was never pregnant to begin with (or had experienced another miscarriage) and snuck an imposter baby into her bed via warming pan, in an effort to produce a Catholic male heir, an alarming prospect to England’s Protestants. That same year, James II was ousted and Mary fled the country with their son. As an adult, the prince (whose royal blood proved legitimate, despite the conspiracy theories) tried unsuccessfully to reclaim the British crown and was dubbed the Old Pretender.
7. England’s King Henry VIII (1491-1547) famously married six different women, in part due to his quest to produce a son who could succeed him.
Although Henry fathered three legitimate children who survived—daughters from his wives Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and a son, Edward, by Jane Seymour (who died shortly after the boy’s birth), Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn also experienced multiple miscarriages and stillbirths, leading experts to believe Henry was the source of the fertility troubles. Syphilis once was speculated to be a factor in the king’s reproductive issues; however, this theory has been discounted and more recent research suggests a blood group incompatibility (involving the Kell antigen) between Henry and his wives might have been at the root of his problems.
6 Historical Figures Who May or May Not Have Existed
It’s not always easy to discern which
famous figures of the past were real and which were merely the stuff of
legend. Many historical accounts are incomplete or clouded by myth, and
those that do exist are often contradictory or even downright fictional.
But while some of history’s most towering figures might be made up,
other seemingly larger-than-life personalities might also be based on
actual people. From Britain’s most beloved outlaw to the founder of
Sparta, find out more about six historical figures whose existence
remains up for debate.
1. King Arthur
The
protector of Camelot is one of history’s most well known monarchs, but
many scholars believe his story to be a legend on par with the Sword in
the Stone. The brave King Arthur is traditionally described as having
repelled a Saxon attack on Britain in the 5th or 6th century. But while
he supposedly won a series of 12 battles against the invaders, the great
king is not named in the only surviving history of the conflict. In
fact, a full depiction of Arthur did not surface until the 9th century,
and an account of Lady Guinevere and the famous Knights of the Round
Table only appeared with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century text
“History of the Kings of Britain.”
Even if the modern depiction of Arthur as a knight in shining armor is a myth built up by books like Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur,” some historians still believe these tales were based on a real person. Among other candidates, they argue the Arthur legend may have been inspired by the exploits of the warrior king Ambrosius Aurelianus, the monarch Riothamus or perhaps even a Roman general named Lucius Artorius Castus.
2. Pythagoras
We
all learned about the Pythagorean Theorem in math class, but a
similarly elegant proof is not available for the existence of its
namesake. According to some accounts, the Greek thinker Pythagoras lived
during the 5th and 6th century B.C. He is remembered as a philosopher
and mathematician, but in ancient times he was better known as the
spiritual father of a cult obsessed by numerology, the transmigration of
the human soul and—quite bizarrely—the evils of eating beans.
While Pythagoras’ hatred of legumes is well documented, there are no significant contemporary accounts of his life. All references to the great thinker—and perhaps also his famed ideas and formulas—came from his followers, who called themselves Pythagoreans. What stories we do have of Pythagoras are deeply intertwined with myth and the supernatural. One tale describes him as possessing a golden thigh; another declares he was the son of the god Apollo. For some, these lies and contradictions hint that Pythagoras was simply an exaggerated or even fictional leader concocted by the members of a religious sect. Even if Pythagoras did exist, he probably wasn’t the first to discover his famous theorem—evidence shows the Egyptians may have divined the formula much earlier.
3. John Henry
According
to a popular American folktale, a burly former slave and steel-driver
named John Henry once took on a steam drill in a race to construct a
railroad tunnel. Pushing his body to the limit, Henry narrowly won the
battle between man and machine, only to then collapse and die with his
sledgehammer still in hand. This tale of grit and endurance was later
immortalized in the folk song “The Ballad of John Henry” in the late
1800s.
The John Henry story is widely believed to have some basis in fact, and a few candidates have even emerged for the identity of its larger than life hero. John William Henry was a steel driver who died during the construction of the C&O Railway in Virginia, but there is no proof that he ever raced a machine. What’s more, records show that he stood only a little more than 5 feet tall—a far cry from the giant described in the legend. Yet another possibility is John Henry Dabney, a former slave who worked on the C&W railroad in Alabama. Witnesses reportedly claimed that Dabney went head-to-head with a steam drill in September 1887, though there is little hard evidence to back up their account.
4. Homer
Scholars
have long speculated about the factual basis for the epic poet Homer’s
“The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” but the argument also extends to the bard
himself. According to some theories, the greatest of all the Greek
writers may not have existed, and even if he did, he is almost certainly
not the sole author of his two famous works.
For so influential a figure, there are no contemporary accounts of Homer’s life, which supposedly took place during the 7th or 8th century B.C. He is often described as a blind man who was born on the island of Chios, but even these details are up for debate. This lack of biographical information has led some to theorize that “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” were actually written by a collection of different poets, or perhaps culled from popular stories passed down orally over generations. If this is true, Homer may have been responsible for first assembling the stories into coherent narratives, but he might also have been a composite figure invented as a way of giving the myths a single author.
5. Robin Hood
Robin
Hood looms large in medieval folklore, but are tales of a bandit who
stole from the rich and gave to the poor actually based in fact?
Sherwood Forest’s most famous outlaw first appeared in poems and ballads
in the 14th and 15th centuries, and historical evidence shows that some
criminals were known as “Rabunhod” or “Robehod” even earlier. Most of
these literary accounts describe Robin as a commoner who led a gang of
bandits in defiance of the hated sheriff of Nottingham. However, some
subsequent versions reframe him as an aristocrat-turned-outlaw, along
with adding many of the story’s most popular supporting characters, like
Maid Marian and Friar Tuck.
Researchers have tried to pin down the identity of a real life Robin Hood for centuries, but no clear candidate has emerged. The most popular account describes him as a follower of King Richard the Lionheart, but others label him as everything from the Earl of Huntingdon to a member of the Knights Templar. Still, an increasing number of historians now hold that stories of Robin Hood and his merry men were simply medieval myths that arose as popular fables about resistance to oppression.
6. Lycurgus
Lycurgus
is remembered as the man who shaped the Greek city-state of Sparta into
one of the most feared military powers of the ancient world. Sometime
between the 7th and 9th century B.C., this famed lawgiver is said to
have instituted a series of hard-nosed reforms addressing everything
from marriage and sex to wealth and childrearing. Perhaps the most
famous of these concerned the creation of the agoge, a rigorous,
multi-year training program designed to fashion Spartan boys into
fearless warriors.
While there is no doubt that the Lycurgan reforms were enacted, historians are still unsure if the man himself actually existed. The Spartans did not record their history in writing, so most of what is known about their most prominent leader comes from later, often wildly contradictory sources. Lycurgus’ biography is also filled with several mythical occurrences—one account claims he ended his life by self-enforced starvation—leading some to speculate that he was merely a god-like figure invented by the Spartans as a way to attribute their culture to the work of a single creator.
The
protector of Camelot is one of history’s most well known monarchs, but
many scholars believe his story to be a legend on par with the Sword in
the Stone. The brave King Arthur is traditionally described as having
repelled a Saxon attack on Britain in the 5th or 6th century. But while
he supposedly won a series of 12 battles against the invaders, the great
king is not named in the only surviving history of the conflict. In
fact, a full depiction of Arthur did not surface until the 9th century,
and an account of Lady Guinevere and the famous Knights of the Round
Table only appeared with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century text
“History of the Kings of Britain.”Even if the modern depiction of Arthur as a knight in shining armor is a myth built up by books like Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur,” some historians still believe these tales were based on a real person. Among other candidates, they argue the Arthur legend may have been inspired by the exploits of the warrior king Ambrosius Aurelianus, the monarch Riothamus or perhaps even a Roman general named Lucius Artorius Castus.
2. Pythagoras
We
all learned about the Pythagorean Theorem in math class, but a
similarly elegant proof is not available for the existence of its
namesake. According to some accounts, the Greek thinker Pythagoras lived
during the 5th and 6th century B.C. He is remembered as a philosopher
and mathematician, but in ancient times he was better known as the
spiritual father of a cult obsessed by numerology, the transmigration of
the human soul and—quite bizarrely—the evils of eating beans.While Pythagoras’ hatred of legumes is well documented, there are no significant contemporary accounts of his life. All references to the great thinker—and perhaps also his famed ideas and formulas—came from his followers, who called themselves Pythagoreans. What stories we do have of Pythagoras are deeply intertwined with myth and the supernatural. One tale describes him as possessing a golden thigh; another declares he was the son of the god Apollo. For some, these lies and contradictions hint that Pythagoras was simply an exaggerated or even fictional leader concocted by the members of a religious sect. Even if Pythagoras did exist, he probably wasn’t the first to discover his famous theorem—evidence shows the Egyptians may have divined the formula much earlier.
3. John Henry
According
to a popular American folktale, a burly former slave and steel-driver
named John Henry once took on a steam drill in a race to construct a
railroad tunnel. Pushing his body to the limit, Henry narrowly won the
battle between man and machine, only to then collapse and die with his
sledgehammer still in hand. This tale of grit and endurance was later
immortalized in the folk song “The Ballad of John Henry” in the late
1800s.The John Henry story is widely believed to have some basis in fact, and a few candidates have even emerged for the identity of its larger than life hero. John William Henry was a steel driver who died during the construction of the C&O Railway in Virginia, but there is no proof that he ever raced a machine. What’s more, records show that he stood only a little more than 5 feet tall—a far cry from the giant described in the legend. Yet another possibility is John Henry Dabney, a former slave who worked on the C&W railroad in Alabama. Witnesses reportedly claimed that Dabney went head-to-head with a steam drill in September 1887, though there is little hard evidence to back up their account.
4. Homer
Scholars
have long speculated about the factual basis for the epic poet Homer’s
“The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” but the argument also extends to the bard
himself. According to some theories, the greatest of all the Greek
writers may not have existed, and even if he did, he is almost certainly
not the sole author of his two famous works.For so influential a figure, there are no contemporary accounts of Homer’s life, which supposedly took place during the 7th or 8th century B.C. He is often described as a blind man who was born on the island of Chios, but even these details are up for debate. This lack of biographical information has led some to theorize that “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” were actually written by a collection of different poets, or perhaps culled from popular stories passed down orally over generations. If this is true, Homer may have been responsible for first assembling the stories into coherent narratives, but he might also have been a composite figure invented as a way of giving the myths a single author.
5. Robin Hood
Robin
Hood looms large in medieval folklore, but are tales of a bandit who
stole from the rich and gave to the poor actually based in fact?
Sherwood Forest’s most famous outlaw first appeared in poems and ballads
in the 14th and 15th centuries, and historical evidence shows that some
criminals were known as “Rabunhod” or “Robehod” even earlier. Most of
these literary accounts describe Robin as a commoner who led a gang of
bandits in defiance of the hated sheriff of Nottingham. However, some
subsequent versions reframe him as an aristocrat-turned-outlaw, along
with adding many of the story’s most popular supporting characters, like
Maid Marian and Friar Tuck.Researchers have tried to pin down the identity of a real life Robin Hood for centuries, but no clear candidate has emerged. The most popular account describes him as a follower of King Richard the Lionheart, but others label him as everything from the Earl of Huntingdon to a member of the Knights Templar. Still, an increasing number of historians now hold that stories of Robin Hood and his merry men were simply medieval myths that arose as popular fables about resistance to oppression.
6. Lycurgus
Lycurgus
is remembered as the man who shaped the Greek city-state of Sparta into
one of the most feared military powers of the ancient world. Sometime
between the 7th and 9th century B.C., this famed lawgiver is said to
have instituted a series of hard-nosed reforms addressing everything
from marriage and sex to wealth and childrearing. Perhaps the most
famous of these concerned the creation of the agoge, a rigorous,
multi-year training program designed to fashion Spartan boys into
fearless warriors.While there is no doubt that the Lycurgan reforms were enacted, historians are still unsure if the man himself actually existed. The Spartans did not record their history in writing, so most of what is known about their most prominent leader comes from later, often wildly contradictory sources. Lycurgus’ biography is also filled with several mythical occurrences—one account claims he ended his life by self-enforced starvation—leading some to speculate that he was merely a god-like figure invented by the Spartans as a way to attribute their culture to the work of a single creator.
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