Germany
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Edgar the Ætheling- The Boy Who Wasn’t King
England in the 11th century was not always a great place to be if you were royalty. Young Edgar was the grandson of Edmund Ironside, king of England, and great grandson of the infamous Æthelred the Unready, also king of England. So you would think Edgar would be next in line? Well, not exactly. There was a little problem named Cnut the Great. Cnut was the son of Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark. In the summer of 1015, Cnut mounted an invasion of England and fought with Edmund for the throne of England. It was a year or so of battles, and ultimately Edmund lost and ceded all of England north…
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Who was Kaspar Hauser?
On May 26, 1828, the streets of Nuremberg, Germany were fairly deserted. One person seemed to be wandering them aimlessly- a teenage boy dressed in coarse peasant clothes. He was about four feet nine inches tall with curly brown hair. He was stocky with broad shoulders and the pale skin of an invalid. Around five in the afternoon, Georg Weickmann, a shoemaker, stopped the boy, who was staggering around as if he was drunk. All he could get out of him was “I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was.” in the Old Bavarian dialect. He gave the shoemaker a sealed letter he was carrying addressed “To the…
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The Mayerling Incident
Crown Prince Rudolf was the heir to the Habsburg throne and the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph and his beautiful wife Elisabeth, or Sisi. He was in a notoriously bad marriage to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, daughter of Leopold II. At first, the prince seemed to be in love but Stéphanie suffered under her mother-in-laws scorn. The elegant Sisi referred to Stéphanie as a “clumsy oaf”. Rudolf and his mother were more alike in their ideals than his very conservative father, however, their relationship was not close. Sisi suffered from depression and Rudolf’s care was primarily from Sisi’s formidable mother-in-law. Not much a good example of family life to…
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Unsinkable Sam the Cat
This cat allegedly survived not one or two sinkings but three. I am sure he used up a few of his 9 lives. Originally named Oscar he saw service in both the Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy during the WWII. He was a black and white patched cat and had been owned by an unknown crewman of the German battleship Bismarck. He was on board the ship on May 18, 1941 when it set sail on Operation Rheinübung. Bismarck was sunk after a fierce sea-battle on May 27 , from which only 118 from its crew of over 2,200 survived. Hours later, Oscar was found floating on a board and picked…
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The Sleeping Spy
When World War I broke out in Europe, the United States was neutral. It was considered a fight in Europe, and we were better off staying out of it. Although President Wilson favored the British, the US officially took no side. However, Wilson’s preference encouraged American companies to sell to the Allies. However, not everyone was thrilled with this. German Ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, protested vigorously that US companies were selling arms and materiel to Britain, France and Russia. There was a British blockade of Germany, which made it extremely difficult for Germany and Austria to import at the same rate. However, his protests fell on deaf ears as…
