Curated playlist
Grand Crosses of the Order of Christ (Portugal)
- NapoleonNapoleon Bonaparte was born Napoleone di Buonaparte on the 15th of August 1769, on the island of Corsica, to a family of Italian origin. As a boy at the military academy in Brienne-le-Chateau, he was bullied for his accent, his birthplace,…
- Francis II, Holy Roman EmperorOn the 6th of August 1806, a Habsburg monarch signed away a thousand years of European tradition. Francis II declared the bond tying him to the states of the Empire dissolved, and with that sentence the Holy Roman Empire of the German…
- Ferdinand VIIFerdinand VII of Spain was called "el Deseado" - the Desired One - by his people, who longed for his return while Napoleon held him captive in France. Yet the same man who inspired such yearning would earn a second nickname before his…
- Napoleon IIINapoleon III was born in the Tuileries Palace in Paris on the night of the 19th-the 20th of April 1808 - the first Bonaparte prince born after the proclamation of the First French Empire. His godfather was the Emperor Napoleon I himself.…
- Louis XVIIILouis XVIII spent twenty-three years as a king without a kingdom. Born on the 17th of November 1755 at the Palace of Versailles, he outlasted the Revolution that killed his brother, the exile that scattered his court, and the emperor who…
- Carol II of RomaniaCarol II of Romania left his country on the 6th of September 1940 with a train loaded with 30 truckloads of his personal fortune. As the train passed through Timisoara station, the Iron Guard opened fire in a failed attempt to kill him.…
- Alexander III of RussiaAlexander III of Russia was born on the 10th of March 1845 at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, the second son of the future Alexander II. He grew up as a spare, not an heir. His elder brother Nicholas was the one schooled for empire,…
- Konrad AdenauerKonrad Adenauer was elected the first chancellor of West Germany on the 15th of September 1949 by what observers called a majority of one vote, his own. He was 73 years old. Most assumed he would be a caretaker. Instead he held the office…
- Alexander I of RussiaAlexander I of Russia was born at 10:45 on the 23rd of December 1777 in Saint Petersburg, held at the baptismal font by Catherine the Great herself and counted Frederick the Great and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor among his godfathers. He…
- Frederick William III of PrussiaFrederick William III entered the world on the 3rd of August 1770 in Potsdam. His father Frederick William II of Prussia neglected him during his childhood years. A tutor named Johann Jakob Engel taught the young prince alongside other…
- Nicholas I of RussiaNicholas I of Russia died on the 2nd of March 1855 at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, refusing medical treatment as his empire crumbled around him. He caught a chill during the Crimean War, and rumor spread almost immediately that his…
- Charles IV of SpainCharles IV of Spain was born on the 11th of November 1748 in Naples, where his father was then ruling as King of Naples and Sicily. He would go on to inherit the Spanish throne in 1788 and lose it twenty years later in one of the most…
- ChulalongkornChulalongkorn was born on the 20th of September 1853 into a court where the clock was already ticking. European empires had swallowed Burma, Indochina, and Malaya, and Siam stood alone between them. By the time he died on the 23rd of…
- Alexander II of RussiaAlexander II of Russia was born on the 29th of April 1818, and by the time he died he had freed more than 23 million people from bondage, sold an entire continent's worth of territory, and been blown apart by a bomb on a canal road in…
- Michel NeyMichel Ney stood before a firing squad in Paris on the 7th of December 1815 and refused to wear a blindfold. His reason was simple and devastating: he had spent twenty-five years staring down cannonballs and bullets. He then exercised one…