Curated playlist
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
- Henry VIIIHenry VIII broke England from Rome after the pope would not annul his first marriage.
- NapoleonNapoleon crowned himself emperor with a replica of Charlemagne's crown. The pope had just anointed him.
- Elizabeth IElizabeth I came to the throne as a declared bastard whose mother had been executed.
- Frederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II won back Jerusalem while excommunicated, and was vilified for it.
- Henry IV, Holy Roman EmperorEmperor Henry IV stood barefoot in the snow for three days in January 1077. He was begging a pope to forgive him.
- John, King of EnglandKing John was nicknamed Lackland because he wasn't expected to inherit much. He ruled England from 1199 to 1216.
- Thomas CranmerThomas Cranmer thrust his right hand into the flames first. He said it was punishment for signing his recantations.
- Victor Emmanuel IIItalian politicians called Victor Emmanuel II an imbecile, yet he became Italy's first king.
- Martin LutherMartin Luther married a nun who had been smuggled out of her convent in herring barrels.
- John WycliffeIn 1428, church officials dug up John Wycliffe's remains and burned them. They threw the ashes into the River Swift.
- Robert the BruceRobert the Bruce, King of Scots from 1306 until 1329, is buried in three different places. His body lies in one abbey, his heart in another, and his internal organs in a third church. In Scotland he is regarded as a national hero, the king…
- Alexander AlesAlexander Ales went to argue a Lutheran out of his beliefs and left convinced.
- Josip Broz TitoTito once wrote to Stalin: stop sending assassins to murder me. He said five had already been caught.
- Girolamo SavonarolaA foreign-accented friar with a grating voice ended up running Florence. Savonarola expelled the ruling family.
- Huldrych ZwingliTwo smoked sausages shared in a Zurich printer's workshop in 1522 started the Swiss Reformation.
- Sinéad O'ConnorSinéad O'Connor once walked into the Grammy Awards with the logo of the hip hop group Public Enemy painted on her shaved head. She was protesting because the first-ever Best Rap Performance award was being handed out off-screen. The…
- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-PérigordNapoleon called his own diplomat "shit in a silk stocking." Talleyrand had secretly worked against him.