The King that was not so Mad

King George III Of England is well known in history books for being the "mad king who lost America".

Within the last 50 years, many historians attribute his "madness" to the physical, genetic blood disorder called porphyria. Its symptoms include aches and pains, as well as blue urine.

The theory became a motion picture starring Nigel Hawthorne called The Madness of King George. New research from St George's, University of London, has concluded that George III did not suffer from mental illness after all.

Researchers used thousands of George III's own handwritten letters to analyze his use of language. They have discovered that during his episodes of apparent mental and physical illness, his sentences were much longer than when he was well.

At the time, (1760’s – 1780’s, a well written sentence containing 400 words and eight verbs was not unusual. George III, when ill, often repeated himself, and at the same time his vocabulary became much more complex, creative and filled with abusive cuss words and derogatory references to genitalia.

These are features that can be seen today in the writing and speech of patients experiencing bipolar disorder. Mania is at one end of a spectrum of mood disorders, with sadness, or depression, at the other. King George's manic state would be very similar to modern contemporary descriptions bipolar disorder.

At the time, witnesses spoke of his "incessant loquacity", (constant talking) and his habit of talking until he began to foam at the mouth. Sometimes he suffered from convulsions, and his servants had to sit on him to keep him safe on the floor so he would not hurt himself.

One piece of evidence that has always been stated as proof of the King’s physical illness, Porphyria, was the Kings blue colored urine. Researchers have discovered written medical records that show that the king was given medicine based on gentian. This plant, with its deep blue flowers, is still used today as an herbal treatment, but a side effect is that it might turn the user’s urine blue. It is therefore possible it wasn't the king's "madness" that caused his most famous symptom. It could have simply been his medicine.

George III's recurring bouts of illness caused him to withdraw from public view and caused him to be unable to do his public duties. He would move from London to a much smaller house he owned near Richmond, England in the countryside.  Each time he withdrew he would have an episode of “madness” or an occurring episode would become more severe. As a result, a political crisis arose - who was to make decisions in his absence?

His son, George, the Prince of Wales, with whom George III had a terrible relationship, wanted to be appointed regent (person who temporarily acts as king), and to act as the king in everything but name.

But despite his illness, George III was diligent king, and won the respect of Parliament. In fact, when his illness forced him to retire to the countryside, the politicians realized how much they missed the King’s calming effect.

One of the reasons why the king was diagnosed with porphyria is because it removed the stigma of mental health issues from the Royal Family.

It is becoming clear that the porphyria theory is wrong. This was a psychiatric illness."

But his mental illness did not stop George III from being a successful king. With his 60-year reign, George III provided continuity. Perhaps the “Madness of Ol King George was not so mad as we have been led to believe.

The Woman the World Hoped was a Royal Princess

                                                     The Mystery of Anna Anderson
In 1920, a woman in Berlin, Germany attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge into the Spree River.  She carried no identification papers and refused to tell her rescuers he name. Because she had attempted suicide she was considered mentally unstable and sent to a psychiatric hospital. There she stayed silent for years - and then things got interesting.  Her roommate at the hospital was reading an article in a magazine about the former royal family of Russia, the Romanovs. In the magazine were photograph of the royal family.  The roommate insisted that the woman whom had attempted suicide looked remarkably like the youngest of the royal daughters, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov.
Quietly the mystery woman announced that she was indeed Anastasia.

Two years earlier the deposed Russian Tsar, Nicholas II and his family along with four servants had been killed by a communist firing squad in the basement of the house they were being held captive in.

The bodies were buried in a nearby forest in an unmarked pit. Almost immediately, rumors began to circulate that one of more of the five Romanov children had survived. Anastasia was the one most often named as the one who could have gotten away.

The woman in the mental hospital in Berlin was given the name Anna. Anna's explanation as to how she was the Grand Duchess and how she had survived was that she and her sisters had family jewels sewn into their corsets making them difficult to pierce by bullets or bayonets. When the firing ended her family lay dead on the floor, she pretended to be dead, revealing herself to a soldier sent to take the bodies away. That soldier helped Anna escape. Anna claimed that over the next two years she stayed with that soldier and even had a child with him while they hid from the communists. One day when the solder did not return with food she left for Berlin to seek out relatives. Upon her arrival in Berlin she worried that they would not recognize her and she tried to end her life.

Word began to spread about Anna's claims and she began to gather supporters including a childhood friend, a cousin and son of the Romanov court's doctor, Gleb Botkin. Botkin's son said Anna knew things that only the real Anastasia would know. When she first met the doctor's son for example, she asked him about his "funny animals". Years before the Russian Revolution, Gleb had drawn Anastasia pictures of animals wearing court clothing. Anna had several scars on her body that doctors said came from bullet woulds and stab wounds. She recognized some members of her extended family which had escaped Russia but others she did not. Anna spoke English, French, and German, and could understand Russian. She refused to speak Russian because it was the language of those who had murdered her family.

Anna also had many detractors including the Tsar's youngest sister and mother.  The Empress's sister and Anastasia's tutor said that Anna was a good actress who was only seeking the family inheritance. The Tsar's sister, Olga Alexandrovana said in a book, "My telling the truth of Ms. Anderson does not help int he least, the public wants to believe the mystery. They want there to have been a survivor".

Those who believed Anna provided her with suitable housing in fine hotels, physical and mental health care and travel opportunities.

In 1932 with the financial backing of a wealthy American newspaper, Anna went to court in Germany to legally prove she was Anastasia Romanov. The trial lasted until 1938 making it the longest court trial in German history. The final decision of the court after hearing eye witnesses, medical professionals, testimony from members of the royal family and cross examinations was that there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove Anna's claims.

There were similarities between Anna and Anastasia. Both reportedly had the same slight foot deformity and her ears appeared to be a match for those of Anastasia. Ears are like fingerprints, unique to each person.

 By 1940 most of Anna's supporters had abandoned her, leaving her almost broke and homeless.

She cam to America and in 1968 she married an American college professor named John Manahan Anderson. The two lived in Chancellorsville, Va. where they became known as eccentrics. Although Jack Manahan was wealthy, they lived in squalor with large numbers of dogs and cats and piles of garbage. Anna died of pneumonia in 1984.  Even after he death the mystery continued.

In 1991, the bodies of the Tsar, Tsarina and three of their daughters were discovered and exhumed from the mass grave where they had been buried by the Communists in 1918.  The bodies of the son, Alexi and Anastasia were not found. This again gave more support to Anna's claims.  

In 2007, the bodies of Alexi, Anestasia and the servants were discovered. DNA testing confirmed that the remains were of the seven members of the Russian royal family and than none of them had survived.  DNA was taken from Anna's tissue and hair samples. This also confirmed that she was not Anastasia Romanov.

Anna still has supporters who claim that the DNA was doctored. There is even a Facebook page titled "Anna Anderson WAS Anastasia Romanov."

Anna's story has inspired books, movies, Broadway shows, animation and even a ballet. In January, Deadline.com announced that actress Glenn Close would play Anna in a new movie called "Duchess".  Time magazine dubbed Anderson one of history's greatest importers.

So who was Anna? One possible theory, which the DNA evidence appears to confirm, is that she was Franziska Schanzkowska, a mentally troubled Polish factory worker who disappeared in 1920.

                                                          Anna Anderson late in life

We Thought We Knew He was Dead

The traditional story is that Hitler committed suicide with Eva Braun as the Russians got within a couple blocks of his underground bunker in the center of the German capital, Berlin.

Although some historians doubted he shot himself and suggested it was Nazi propaganda to make him a hero, the hole in the skull fragment seemed to settle the argument when it was put on display in Moscow in 2000. But DNA analysis has now been performed on the bone by American researchers. The lead researcher, University of Connecticut archeologist Nick Bellantoni said, “We know the skull corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40.” According to Bellatoni, the bone was too thin to be a man’s skull and the skull resembled that of someone under the age of 40. Hitler was 56 when he was reported to have died in April of 1945.

According to witnesses, after their suicides, the bodies of Hitler and Braun were wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

In May 1945 a Russian forensics team dug up what was believed to be the burned remains of Hitler’s body. Part of the skull was missing, apparently the result of the suicide shot. The remaining piece of jaw matched his dental records, according to his captured dental assistants. And there was only one testicle.

A year later the missing skull fragment was found on the orders of Stalin, who remained suspicious about Hitler’s fate. 

Finding bone fragments, whole bodies or partial bodies around the bunker area would not have been unusual since over 280,000 people died in the battle.

Unknown to the world, the remains of then believed to be Hitler's were buried on the grounds of a Soviet military base in what was Magdeburg, East Germany.

The remains remained buried in East Germany long after Stalin’s death in 1953.

Finally, in 1970, the KGB ( Soviet Secret Police) dug up the corpse, cremated it and secretly scattered the ashes in a river.

Only the jawbone (which remains away from public view) and the skull fragment were preserved in the deep archives of Soviet intelligence in Moscow, Russia.

Mr. Bellantoni was allowed only one hour with the r3emains and other personal items that once belonged to Hitler, during which time he applied cotton swabs and took DNA samples.

The samples were then flown back to Connecticut.

At the university’s center for applied genetics, Linda Strausbaugh closed her lab for three days to work exclusively on the Hitler project.

She said: ‘We used the same routines and controls that would have been used in a crime lab.’

To her surprise, a small amount of viable DNA was extracted.

She then replicated this through a process known as molecular copying to provide enough material for analysis.

‘We were very lucky to get a reading, despite the limited amount of genetic information,’ she said.

So now the questions:

If this is not Hitler’s skull what physical evidence exists to prove his death?

The jawbone and teeth do match Hitler’s dental records so is that enough proof?

Are the conspiracy theorists correct and Hitler escaped from Berlin?

Dead Ringers

During the 1800's people developed the fear of being buried alive. Opportunistic merchants offered to sell special coffins and tombstones. A string was tied to the dead person's finger or hand. The other end was tied to a bell that sat on top of the grave marker. If the not-so-dead person woke up they could ring the bell to be dug up.

This practice stopped when too many bells would go off in cemeteries. as rigamortis would set in or muscles relaxed after death the hand would move and the bell would ring. Graveyard attendants would run with their shovels to dig up the unfortunate individual only to find they they were very dead. This is where the term a "dead ringer" comes from.

The Choir of the Silent Monks

                              Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

We Found Richard III but Where is Ghengis?

The mystery began on August 18, 1227, when Mongol leader Genghis Khan died of unknown causes while leading a military campaign in China. According to legend, Khan’s successors killed anyone who witnessed his funeral procession on its way back to the Mongol capital of Karakorum. Some 800 soldiers are said to have massacred the 2,000 people who attended his funeral, before being summarily executed themselves. Khan’s corpse was then placed in an unmarked grave to ensure his rest would be undisturbed. Horses trampled all evidence of the burial, and some say a river was diverted to flow over the site. As a result of these extreme measures, the location of Khan’s tomb has remained unknown for almost 900 years.

Most experts believe Khan was buried somewhere near his birthplace in Khentii Aimag, northeastern Mongolia, and that his descendants may be buried there along with him—but they don’t have much more to go on than that. Researchers weren’t even allowed in the area until after the Soviet occupation of Mongolia ended in the 1990s. And in the decades since, various groups have been pressured to give up their searches due to protests from the Mongolian government and public that excavation would disturb the rest of their national hero.

Such opposition has not halted the hunt. In 2004 Japanese-Mongolian researchers discovered the remains of what they think is Khan’s palace complex on the grassy steppe of Khentii Province, 150 miles east of the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator; they believe his tomb may be somewhere nearby. And since 2008, the Valley of the Khans Project has been using cutting-edge technology to search for Khan’s final resting place. The project has enlisted thousands of “citizen scientists” to comb through high-resolution satellite images of the region looking for possible clues, giving amateurs with a home computer and an Internet connection a rare chance to help solve one of history’s most enduring riddles.

England's Richard III Found under a parking lot in Leicester England.

What do the remains of King Richard III tell us about the man and how he died?


Researchers say the skull and jaw of last English monarch to die in battle were badly damaged, lending support to reports that the blows that killed him were so heavy that it drove the king’s crown into his head.

They also conclude that Richard III may have been as anxious and fearful as William Shakespeare portrayed him – he ground his teeth with stress.

Researchers also found that the king had suffered severe tooth decay, perhaps as a result of his privileged position and a sweet tooth.

Dr Amit Rai, a general dental practitioner in London who wrote a paper for the British Dental Journal, said: “Richard is likely to have been killed by one of two blows to the base of the skull from some of the most advanced military weapons of the time.

“Several accounts of Richard III reveal that he rode into battle wearing his crown which, despite this making him an easy target, is consistent with the location of the battlefield injuries he sustained on his skull.”

The skeleton of Richard III was found beneath a council car park earlier this year.

The discovery was described as one of the most significant archaeological finds in history. DNA analysis was used to confirm the skeleton belonged to the monarch by matching it to that of living descendants.

King Richard died in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth in the War of the Roses over the English throne. Reports from the time say he was hit so hard by the blows from a Welsh swordsman that his crown or helmet were driven into his skull.

His body was taken to Grey Friars Church in Leicester where it was buried in a shallow grave.

Centuries later the site was built over by the council to form a car park until archaeologists dug him up.

Distant relatives of the king have now started legal proceedings to challenge a plan to rebury Richard III's remains in Leicester.

Lawyers have lodged papers in the High Court seeking a judicial review of a decision by the Ministry of Justice, arguing that Richard III’s remains should be buried in York, alongside his family.

However, in the meantime, the King’s remains have provided valuable insights into what life was like for the last Plantagenet king.

Dr Rai said the monarch’s teeth and jaw showed signs of rudimentary signs of medieval dentistry while some of the teeth showed signs of decay from a diet rich in carbohydrates and sugar.

Surface loss on a number of back teeth and upper right teeth suggest he also suffered from stress-related bruxism, or teeth grinding.

Whether this was because he was wracked with guilt over the fate of the Princes in the Tower, who he is accused of murdering to assume the throne, may never be clear.

Dr Rai also found evidence that Richard III had undergone dental surgery and had two teeth removed at the hands of barber surgeons.

Tartar was also found on the teeth in the King’s upper jaw.

Dr Rai added: “Analysis of this tartar will enable the identification of the strains and diversity of bacteria which once inhabited Richard’s mouth and provide a better insight into his diet and oral hygiene habits.”