Curated playlist
Deaths from dysentery
- AkbarAkbar could not read, yet he built a library of over 24,000 volumes.
- Jack LondonJack London lost four front teeth to scurvy in the Klondike. It also gave him the wolf dog of The Call of the Wild.
- Frederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II won back Jerusalem while excommunicated, and was vilified for it.
- John, King of EnglandKing John was nicknamed Lackland because he wasn't expected to inherit much. He ruled England from 1199 to 1216.
- Francis DrakeFrancis Drake climbed a tree in Panama and became the first Englishman to see the Pacific.
- ErasmusErasmus, born to a priest and orphaned by plague, became the most read author of his age.
- Zeno (emperor)In 476, the western Roman emperor's regalia was sent east to Zeno in Constantinople.
- Edward IIn 1774 the Society of Antiquaries of London opened a royal tomb in Westminster Abbey. Inside lay Edward I, dead for 467 years, and his body was still well preserved. The antiquaries used the occasion to determine how tall the king had…
- Hernán CortésMore than twenty years after sailing for Mexico, Hernán Cortés pushed through a crowd to reach the emperor Charles V. The emperor demanded to know who he was. "I am a man," replied Cortés, "who has given you more provinces than your…
- Louis IX of FranceLouis IX became king of France at 12 and later a Catholic saint. He is the only French king ever canonised.
- David LivingstoneDavid Livingstone, a Scottish doctor and missionary, once explained his obsession with Africa to a friend in a single blunt sentence. The sources of the Nile, he said, were "valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among…