1. Peter the Great Was Into Terrorizing The Women In His Circle
Russian Tsar Peter the Great got a kick out of showing the women around him just who was boss. In 1698, a lover of Peter’s sister, Sophia, whom the Tsar had exiled to a monastery, led a failed uprising, seeking to replace him with Sophia. Peter brutally suppressed and broke the rebels, who were tortured and executed by the thousands. Peter played an active part in the executions, personally chopping off heads with an ax in Moscow’s Red Square. He also strung up the bodies of executed rebels in Sophia’s monastery and left the corpse of her lover dangling from a rope outside her window.
Two decades later, when Peter’s mistress, mistress Mary Hamilton, got on his wrong side, he had her arrested and charged with abortion, infanticide, theft, and slandering the empress. After she was beheaded, he had Mary’s head pickled in alcohol. In 1724, when rumors circulated that Peter’s wife, empress Catherine, was having an affair with her secretary, Peter had her alleged lover beheaded. He then had the head preserved in alcohol in a large glass jar, which he placed in Catherine’s bedroom.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
All That is Interesting – Gilles de Rais, the Child Serial Killer Who Fought Alongside Joan of Arc
BBC – Hugo Boss Apology For Nazi Past as Book is Published
Chicago Tribune, September 24th, 1985 – Deported Nazi Scientist Still Has Many Supporters
Cracked – 5 World Changing Geniuses (Who Were Also Total Monsters)
Encyclopedia Britannica – Paul III
Guardian, The, April 9th, 2017 – Eric Gill: Can We Separate the Artist From the Abuser?
History Today – Albrecht von Wallenstein
Moore, Walter J. – A Life of Erwin Schrodinger (1994)
National Geographic History Magazine, December 18th, 2018 – The Cortes Conquest
PBS American Experience – Ford’s Antisemitism
The Irish Times – Erwin Schrödinger In Dublin: Physicist, Womaniser, Fugitive
National Geographic Channel – The Physics Behind Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox
Smithsonian Magazine – The Skinny on the Fatty Arbuckle Trial
Sfgate – The Death of An Actress In San Francisco. What Happened in Room 1219?
Spigel – Porsche and Volkswagen’s Nazi Roots
Bridge Michigan – Henry Ford and The Jews, The Story Dearborn Didn’t Want Told
Rare Historical Photo – Henry Ford Receiving the Grand Cross of The German Eagle from Nazi Officials
OZY – The Serial Killer Who Fought Alongside Saint Joan Of Arc
Atlas Obscura – The Modern Movement to Exonerate a Notorious Medieval Serial Killer