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Austrian Roman Catholics

  • Wolfgang Amadeus MozartMozart finished more than 800 works in thirty-five years and died with his Requiem unfinished.
  • Gustav MahlerGustav Mahler had to convert to Catholicism to run the Vienna Court Opera. The post was barred to Jewish applicants.
  • Francis II, Holy Roman EmperorOn August 6, 1806, Francis II ended the Holy Roman Empire with a single signed declaration. He was its last emperor.
  • Anna Maria MozartAnna Maria Mozart lost five of her first seven children in infancy. She then nearly died giving birth to Wolfgang.
  • Joseph II, Holy Roman EmperorEmperor Joseph II issued over 6,000 edicts and 11,000 new laws, yet many subjects came to loathe him.
  • Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette stepped on her executioner's shoe and apologized. Minutes later she was beheaded.
  • Joseph HaydnJoseph Haydn's skull was stolen after his burial and not reunited with his body until 1954.
  • Maria TheresaMaria Theresa won over a hostile Hungarian Diet in 1741 while holding her infant son. Delegates vowed to die for her.
  • Margaret of Austria, Duchess of SavoyMargaret of Austria wrote her own epitaph during a storm in the Bay of Biscay. It was late 1496, and she was sailing to Spain to marry the heir to the thrones of Castile and Aragon. The ship was battered by the weather, and she composed…
  • Archduke Franz Ferdinand of AustriaArchduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot in Sarajevo wearing a coat that his own aides could not open. When they tried to loosen it, they discovered that they needed scissors. The outer lapel had been sewn to the inner front of the…
  • Leopold MozartLeopold Mozart wrote a symphony that calls for real shotguns.
  • Franz Joseph IOn the evening of the 21st of November 1916, inside Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Emperor Franz Joseph I gave his valet a final instruction. "Tomorrow morning, at half past three." Those were his last words. He was 86 years old. Franz…
  • Constanze MozartWidowed at twenty-nine with debts, Constanze Mozart built a business around her husband's music.
  • Empress Elisabeth of AustriaEmpress Elisabeth of Austria, nicknamed Sisi, left the Hôtel Beau-Rivage on the shore of Lake Geneva at 1:35 in the afternoon on Saturday the 10th of September 1898. She was 60 years old and travelling under a false name. Only one…
  • Otto von HabsburgOtto von Habsburg, born to be emperor, spent nearly half a century in exile from Austria.
  • Carl CzernyCarl Czerny was ten when Beethoven took him as a piano pupil. He noticed cotton in Beethoven's ears.

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