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.”

Unpleasent Jobs in History

In the good old days before electricity and massive industry, many jobs that now require no or little labor, were undertaken by humans. This list looks at ten jobs that are now (mostly) extinct. Each job contains at least one element of the bizarre.

# 10 Jester

We have all heard of the court Jester – the fool who was permitted to insult the king without losing his head – as long as it made the king laugh. It was a job that came with accolades and with fear. It is also a job unlike any existent today. How many families do you know that employ a private “comedian” so to speak? But, while the job did vanish from history for hundreds of years, as recently as 1999 one Kingdom (Tonga) has appointed an official jester. In a bizarre (and very amusing) twist, the man appointed happened to also be the government’s financial advisor. He was later embroiled in a financial scandal. The American jester to the Tongan court was Jesse Bogdonoff and he is pictured above.

# 9 Toshers and Mudlarks

A tosher was someone who scavenges in the sewers, especially in London during the Victorian period. The toshers decided to cut out the middle man and it was a common sight in 19th Century Wapping for whole families to whip off a manhole cover and go down into the sewers, where they would find rich pickings. As most toshers would reek of the sewers, they were not popular with the neighbors. Similarly, the mudlarks were people who would dredge the banks of the Thames in the early morning when the tide was out. They would have to wade through unprocessed sewerage and even sometimes dead bodies in order to find little treasures to sell. In a kind of weird twist, this is now the popular hobby of some middle class Londoners who travel the banks to clean up trash.

# 8 Knocker-Up

A Knocker-up was a profession in England and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution, before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. A knocker-up’s job was to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time. The knocker-up often used a long and light stick (often bamboo) to reach windows on higher floors. In return, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week for this job. The knocker-up would not leave a client’s window until they were assured the client had been awoken. This all leads to the obvious question: who knocks up the knocker-up?


# 7 Toad Doctor

Toad doctors were practitioners of a specific tradition of medicinal folk magic, operating in western England until the end of the 19th century. Their main concern was healing scrofula (then called “the King’s Evil,” a skin disease), though they were also believed to cure other ailments including those resulting from witchcraft. They cured the sick by placing a live toad, or the leg of one, in a muslin bag and hanging it around the sick person’s neck. Needless to say this job would also require growing or gathering up a large collection of toads, and in the case of doctors who used just the leg, chopping their legs off to give to their patient.



# 6 Dog Whipper

A dog whipper was a church official charged with removing unruly dogs from a church or church grounds during services. In some areas of Europe during the 16th to 19th centuries it was not uncommon for household dogs to accompany – or at least follow – their owners to church services. If these animals became disruptive it was the job of the dog whipper to remove them from the church, allowing the service to continue in peace. Dog whippers were usually provided with a whip (hence the title) or a pair of large wooden tongs with which to remove the animals. They were generally paid for their services, and records of payments to the local dog whipper exist in old parish account books in many English churches.

# 5 Resurrectionist

In Britain, the crime of snatching a body was only a misdemeanor and so was punishable by a small fine only. This led to a huge industry in body snatching in order to provide corpses to the blossoming medical schools of Europe. One method the body-snatchers used was to dig at the head end of a recent burial, digging with a wooden spade (quieter than metal). When they reached the coffin (in London the graves were quite shallow), they broke open the coffin, put a rope around the corpse and dragged it out. They were often careful not to steal anything such as jewelry or clothes as this would cause them to be liable to a felony charge. During 1827 and 1828, some Edinburgh resurrectionists including Burke and Hare changed their tactics from grave-robbing to murder, as they were paid more for very fresh corpses. Their activities, and those of the London Burkers who imitated them, resulted in the passage of the Anatomy Act 1832. This allowed unclaimed bodies and those donated by relatives to be used for the study of anatomy. This effectively ended the body snatching business.

# 4 Fuller

Fulling is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool) to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. In days gone by, the fullers were often slaves. In Roman times, fulling was conducted by slaves standing ankle deep in tubs of human urine and cloth. Urine was so important to the fulling business that urine was taxed. Urine, known as ‘wash’, was a source of ammonium salts and assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth. By the medieval period, fuller’s earth had been introduced for use in the process which ameliorated the process and removed the need for urine.

# 3 Whipping Boy

A whipping boy, in the 1600s and 1700s, was a young boy who was assigned to a young prince and was punished when the prince misbehaved or fell behind in his schooling. Whipping boys were established in the English court during the monarchies of the 15th century and 16th century. They were created because the idea of the Divine Right of Kings, which stated that kings were appointed by God, and implied that no one but the king was worthy of punishing the king’s son. Since the king was rarely around to punish his son when necessary, tutors to the young prince found it extremely difficult to enforce rules or learning. Whipping boys were generally of high birth, and were educated with the prince since birth. Due to the fact that the prince and whipping boy grew up together since birth, they usually formed an emotional bond. The strong bond that developed between a prince and his whipping boy dramatically increased the effectiveness of using a whipping boy as a form of punishment for a prince. The idea of the whipping boys was that seeing a friend being whipped or beaten for something that he had done wrong would be likely to ensure that the prince would not make the same mistake again.

# 2 Groom of the Stool

The Groom of the Stool was a male servant in the household of an English monarch who, among other duties, “preside[d] over the office of royal excretion,” that is, he had the task of cleaning the monarch’s anus after defecation. In the early years of Henry VIII’s reign, the title was awarded to minions of the King, court companions who spent time with him in the Privy chamber. These were the sons of noblemen or important members of the gentry. In time they came to act as virtual personal secretaries to the King, carrying out a variety of administrative tasks within his private rooms. The position was an especially prized one, as it allowed one unobstructed access to the King’s attention. Despite being the official bum-wiper of the king, the Groom of the Stool had a very high social standing.

# 1 Gong Farmer

A gong farmer or gongfermor was the term used in Tudor England for a person who removed human excrement from privies and cesspits, gong being another word for dung. Gong farmers were only allowed to work at night and the waste they collected, known as night soil, had to be taken outside the city or town boundaries. As flushing water closets became more widely used, the profession of gong farming disappeared. A latrine or privy was the toilet of the Middle Ages. A gong farmer dug out the cesspits and emptied the excrement. Gong farmers were only allowed to work between 9 pm and 5 am, and were permitted to live only in certain areas, for reasons that should not be too elusive. Due to the noxious fumes produced by human excrement, coroners’ reports exist of gong farmers dying of asphyxiation. This was obviously a shit job to have.

A Completely Unremarkable Future King

Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II and heir to the throne, but apart from that, he was not particularly remarkable for anything. One commentator astutely gave him the following epithet:--

‘Here lies Fred
Who was alive and is dead.
There is no more to be said.’

Frederick was, however, noteworthy for the unusual manner of his death. He died in 1751 of septicemia poisoning after being hit on the head by a cricket ball. A classic case of play stopped reign!

Other unusual British royal deaths:

William III died after a fall from his horse, which stumbled on a molehill.

King John died of eating too many peaches and cider.

Edward II was murdered by having a rhino horn inserted up his rectum.

Henry I died of food poisoning after eating too many lampreys (eels).

George I died sitting on the toilet.

George II died sitting on the toilet.

William I's body exploded when placed in the coffin

Alexander III of Scotland rode his horse off a cliff while rushing home to his young bride

.

Margret, Queen of the Scots died of seasickness after a journey from Norway, to claim her kingdom.

George, Duke of Clarence was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine.

Mystery of the "Mad King" of Bavaria

King Ludwig II of the German Kingdom of Bavaria was gay, wildly eccentric and built fairytale castles that today rate as Germany's leading tourist attractions – but more than a century ago "Mad King" Ludwig II of Bavaria was declared insane, deposed and three days later his corpse was found floating in a lake south of Munich.

The real cause of King Ludwig's death has been a mystery ever since his body, together with that of his psychiatrist, was dragged from Lake Starnberg on 13 June, 1886. But the official version, which holds that he committed suicide by drowning, has never been completely refuted.

It has been 126 years since the king's death and new evidence has surfaced which suggests that the King was murdered. The details are convincing enough to increase calls for the House of Wittelsbach, King Ludwig's family, to allow his body to be exhumed from its tomb in St Michael's Church in Munich to enable a new and conclusive post-mortem examination to be conducted.

The most intriguing new material to support the murder theory has come from a 60-year-old Munich banker called Detlev Utermöhle. In a sworn affidavit issued earlier this month, Mr Utermöhle recalled a scene from his childhood which he insists he remembers vividly.

As a 10-year-old, he and his mother were invited for afternoon coffee and cakes by a Countess Josephine von Wrba-Kaunitz, who looked after some of the Wittelsbach family's assets. Mr Utermöhle recalled how the countess gathered her guests, telling them in a hushed tone: "Now you will find out the truth about Ludwig's death without his family knowing. I will show you all the coat he wore on the day he died." The countess opened a chest and pulled out a grey coat. Mr Utermöhle insists in his statement that he saw "two bullet holes in its back" and says his mother, who has since died, left him a written account of what they saw.

Unfortunately  the king's coat was lost in a fire at Countess Wrba-Kaunitz's home in 1973 in which both she and her husband perished. However his claims were supported by Siegfried Wichmann, a Bavarian art historian and specialist in 19th-century painting, who published a hitherto unseen photograph of a portrait of the king painted only hours after his death.

The portrait shows what Mr Wichmann says is blood oozing from the corner of Ludwig's mouth. "King Ludwig cannot have drowned. This is blood from the lungs and there is no water in it," Mr Wichmann insisted.

The official version holds that the Bavarian government was driven to depose the reclusive Ludwig because he was squandering vast sums of money on bizarre building projects that were driving his kingdom to ruin.

Bernhard von Gudden, his psychiatrist, diagnosed him as suffering from "paranoia" – a condition which today would be classified as schizophrenia. Ludwig was deprived of his crown and, according to the official version, he reacted by drowning himself in Lake Starnberg in a fit of paranoid hystaria.

Murder theorists counter with recent medical evidence which suggests that the king was, in fact, suffering from a form of meningitis and was far from insane. They say fishermen reported hearing shots at the time of Ludwig's death and claim that his opponents in the Bavarian government hired assassins to kill him as he was trying to flee across the lake. They say that Von Gudden, who was also found dead in the lake, was shot because he was a witness.

To date, the Wittelsbach family has dismissed all murder theories and refused point blank to have the king's body exhumed. The latest attempt to persuade them to change their minds comes from the Berlin historian and author, Peter Glowasz, who wants to employ Swiss scientists to examine the corpse by giving it a computer tomography. He insists that while the procedure would not touch the body, it would show up any gunshot wounds.

The site where the King's body was discovered int he lake.

                                                                                      

The Unsolved Murder of Lord Darnley

Mary, Queen of Scots, was barely one week old when she succeeded to the throne in 1542. The murder 25 years later of Henry Lord Darnley, her consort and the father of the infant who would become King James I of England and James VI of Scotland, remains one of history's most notorious unsolved crimes. On a Sunday morning in February 1567 Darnley lay sleeping on the upper floor of an Edinburgh house known as Kirk o' Field. For weeks he had rested there, convalescing from either smallpox or syphilis. Across the city Queen Mary and the baby prince were safely ensconced at Holyrood House. Unknown to Darnley and perhaps unknown to Mary, miscreants had for some time been packing the cellars of Kirk o' Field with enough gunpowder to blow the structure to smithereens. Around two am the building exploded, a blast heard and felt throughout Edinburgh.
According to Scottish historian Magnus Magnusson, nothing was left of the building, but in an adjoining garden beside a pear tree, townsmen found Darnley's nightgown-clad corpse. Curiously, he appeared not to have been killed by the explosion but by strangulation. Magnusson speculates that Darnley had tried to escape just before the blast but had been intercepted by his murderer before he could flee.
Complying with royal protocol, Queen Mary observed 40 days of official mourning for her husband. But rumors circulated that Mary's widow weeds were woven discordantly with threads of insincerity. With Darnley's death she had, in fact, become a widow for the second time. If her two-year marriage to Darnley had been brief, so too was her earlier marriage to the Dauphin of France, a union that lasted two and a half years before the Dauphin, who had become King Francis II upon his father's death in 1559, died at age 16 from complications of an ear infection.
Mary was 18 when she returned to her homeland from France, her youthfulness belying the royal ambition that consumed her. If, when shipped off to France some years earlier, she had been nothing more than an innocent political pawn in the game of royal power grabbing, she returned with her own shrewd agenda for Scotland.
Predictably, the religious issue of Mary being a Catholic in a Protestant kingdom became an obstacle in Mary's reign, and she recognized immediately that in order to avoid rebellion she would reconcile the interests of her Catholic and Protestant nobles. Though she continued to practice her Catholic religion privately, she scrupulously showed no favors to her fellow Catholics. She did not ratify the Reformation Act of 1560, but she made no attempt to revoke it.
Following her return, the royal court was once again, according to Magnusson, the focus of the cultural life of the kingdom, 'a glittering, cosmopolitan Renaissance court in the style of … Mary's French in-laws. It was crowded with scholars, poets, artists, and musicians. There was much dancing and merry-making, much playing of billiards, cards and dice late into the night, and much riding and hunting during the day.' Magnusson imparts, too, that Mary's life was not all frivolous. She read poetry, history, and theology in several languages. And like most noble women of her time, she busied herself with embroidery and played the lute and the virginal.
For a time Queen Mary seemed in control of her realm, circumspection and intelligence consistently informing her royal decisions. Yet when it was time to remarry she made a costly mistake in her choice of a mate, settling on her first cousin Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, son of the formidable Earl of Lennox. Both Mary and Darnley were great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England, and they both had Tudor and Stuart blood in their veins. Darnley, indeed, was close in line to the thrones of both England and Scotland.
It was not only, however, his impeccable royal lineage that made him attractive to Mary; she had fallen in love. Sir Walter Scott gives us a realistic portrait of the object of Mary's affection:
Young Darnley was remarkably tall and handsome, perfect in all external and showy accomplishments, but unhappily destitute of sagacity, prudence, steadiness of character, and exhibiting only doubtful courage, though extremely violent in his passions.
Time would prove to Mary that Darnley's beauty and courtly accomplishments were only skin deep. At the core he was, vain, weak, indolent, selfish, arrogant, vindictive and irremediably spoiled.' In addition, he was a Lennox, a family with countless enemies both in Scotland and England.
Against the advice of her nobles and in spite of Queen Elizabeth's expressed displeasure, Mary wed Darnley in July 1565. But as predicted, the bridegroom's dissolute lifestyle soon angered her, causing her, of course, to second guess her decision. Most nights he roamed the streets of Edinburgh with low-life companions in search of women. He failed to participate in the business of the royal court.
Less than a year after the wedding, Darnley, unhinged by immature jealousy, became involved in the murder of David Rizzio, his wife's private secretary. Rizzio had come to Scotland from Italy some years previously on a diplomatic mission but remained at the Scottish court as a lute player, singer, and subsequently, as Mary's assistant. The more outraged Mary became over her husband's stupidity and lewd behavior, the more she looked to Rizzio for consolation. At the time she and Rizzio were close, many Scottish Protestant lords were discontent with Mary's rule. Some of the nobles claimed that Rizzio was a secret agent of the Pope and had usurped their proper places beside the Queen. They easily cajoled the gullible Darnley into believing that Mary and Rizzio were sexual partners, an accusation that historians have found implausible. (At the time, Mary was six months pregnant with Darnley's child.) They persuaded him to take part in a plot to murder the Italian.
On the night of Saturday, 9th March 1566, Rizzio was dragged screaming from Queen Mary's side at her supper table in Holyrood House and stabbed some 56 times before life drained from his struggling limbs. It is unclear whether Darnley himself did the dragging or the stabbing or whether one of his henchmen performed the actual slaughter.
Amazingly, Mary forgave–or at least pretended to forgive–Darnley and cleverly managed to sever him from the group of treasonous nobles who had masterminded the Rizzio assassination. With Rizzio still fresh in the minds of the court, another threat to Darnley's fragile self-esteem soon took centre stage. James Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell (a committed Protestant himself), rushed to Mary's aid in putting down a rebellion of Protestant conspirators.
Bothwell was Lord Admiral of Scotland, and although he possessed a reputation for bravery, he was also known to be lecherous, brutal, and power hungry. Mary regarded him as her savior, and he quickly became her most trusted advisor.
By the time Mary gave birth to Lord Darnley's son in June 1566, her husband had backslid into a life of debauchery, neglecting his royal duties and displaying a sullen resentment towards Mary's relationship with Bothwell. His disappearance from court prompted talk of a possible annulment of the royal marriage. But when the Queen learned he was seriously ill in Glasgow, she travelled to his bedside and later arranged for a horse-litter to carry him back to Edinburgh to convalesce at Kirk o' Field. For months Mary had spoken of her husband with nothing but contempt, and the gesture was out of character.
While there is no definite answer to the question of who murdered Lord Darnley, most historians agree that Bothwell–with or without Mary's complicity–concocted the plot. A house explosion, which gave the crime such flagrant overtones and which scandalized all of Europe, was significant; a disintegrated building would cover tracks, making it impossible to prove anything. To be sure there was no direct evidence establishing Bothwell as the murderer, but for those associated with the royal court it was only too easy to guess. Bothwell was a ruthless opportunist aiming at nothing less than the kingship of Scotland.

Typical of the era, the events following Darnley's murder were dramatic, ruthless, and bloody. Bothwell kidnapped, raped (so Mary claimed), and married the Queen. Predictably, within days of the wedding Mary was reduced to suicidal despair by Bothwell's abuse. Yet her willingness to marry Bothwell was not as absurd as it might seem. In spite of all she had been through, Mary remained politically astute. In the political power game playing out around her, she needed a strong ally to protect her from rebellious noblemen. Indeed, Bothwell notwithstanding, less than a year after Darnley's death the Scottish lords forced Mary to abdicate and flee to England. For the next two decades she was held prisoner by Queen Elizabeth I and finally executed in England at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.

Holiday Wishes

     It was a side of mighty “Stonewall” Jackson known only to a few. For a fleeting time in 1863, Jackson’s inner heart was revealed to all who were in his presence. In the winter of 1862-63, Jackson made his headquarters at Moss Neck Plantation on Virginia’s Rappahannock River. The plantation was owned by Richard and Roberta Corbin, who had a young daughter named Janie, known for her friendly, delightful personality. While visiting with Janie’s parents, Jackson and the child developed an endearing friendship — encouraged, perhaps, by the fact that Jackson had a newly-born daughter he had not yet seen or by the barren conditions of Jackson’s own childhood.
     Janie had not seen her own father who was with the Army for more than a year and he would not be coming home. The child visited Jackson’s office daily. In the attention he gave her was the love and yearning he felt for the infant daughter he had not yet seen.” 
Jackson willingly put aside his duties whenever Janie appeared at his headquarters. He laughed and played with the child — much to the surprise of officers and troops who knew only the formal, professional demeanor of “Stonewall” Jackson. Little Janie’s visit became the daily routine that brightened the famous warrior’s days.                                                                                                                                                     In March, when the looming spring campaign drew Jackson and his troops away from Moss Neck, he paid a farewell call on his five-year-old friend, only to learn that she was stricken with scarlet fever. He was reassured by her mother, who cited the doctor’s predictions for a rapid recovery. A day later, news reached Jackson in the field that Janie Corbin had suddenly died. “Stonewall” Jackson, the hardened soldier, broke down and wept openly in front of his officers and men for the loss of his little friend. His tender emotions may have surprised some of his staff, but those who knew Jackson well understood the gentle spirit and tender heart that were usually concealed by the mighty man of war. Within weeks, Jackson too would be gone — a casualty of his wounds at Chancellorsville . His one year old infant daughter would never know her daddy either— yet the story of Jackson’s tender, cheerful moments with delightful little Janie Corbin would remain as enduring evidence of “Stonewall” Jackson, the man.

During this Holiday Season remember to be your true inner person and let the goodness and caring within come out to all those around you.

Happy Holidays

The Poison Queen

The wife of Augustus, first Emperor of Rome, Livia is characterized by her boundless ambition and cunning. After she marries Augustus and shapes him into the emperor of Rome, her primary goal is to ensure that Tiberius will succeed Augustus. Over the course of the novel, Livia poisons numerous people who stand in her way. Although she is described as one of the worst "crab apples" of the Claudian line, Claudius cannot help but admire her strength. Livia professes to detest her stuttering and lame legged grandson, Claudius and tries to avoid him, but she ultimately confesses all of her sins to him at her deathbed, and he promises to make her a goddess.


Marcellus is the first husband of Augustus’ daughter Julia. Marcellus is a favorite of Augustus and is his first named heir. Livia pretends to favor both Marcellus and Augustus’ best friend and army comrade Agrippa in order to promote jealousy between the two. Jellously and a fude developes between Agrippa and Marcellus. Agrippa withdraws himself some Rome so that he will not be in the middle of the conflict. Marcellus is elected to a city magistracy, and shortly afterwards dies, a victim of Livia's poison.

After Marcellus' death, Augustus begs Agrippa to return to Rome and offers to marry him and Julia. Julia is horrified to be married to a man who is 30 years older than she is. When Agrippa's services are no longer essential to Rome, Livia poisons him. Before his death he and Julia have three sons, Gaius, Lucius and Postumus.

Gaius and his brother Lucius are favored by Augustus as potential heirs. Shortly after Gaius becomes the governor of Asia Minor, Livia poisons him. Lucius is also seen as an obstacle to Tiberius' position as heir, Lucius is poisoned at Livia's orders during a voyage from Spain.

The youngest son of Julia and Agrippa; Augustus' grandson, Postumus is known for his physical strength and benevolent nature. When Augustus names him his heir, Livia plots to have him banished and sets up a fake rape situation with Livilla, Claudius' sister and Postumus' long-time love. Postumus is captured and imprisoned on an island but not before he has told Claudius that Livia is the cause of his banishment. Augustus eventually discovers that Postumus is innocent and removes him from the island. When Livia discovers that Augustus plans to position Postumus as his heir again, she poisons Augustus but is unable to find Postumus. Eventually Postumus comes out of hiding and attempts to rally support against Tiberius. He fails and is captured by Tiberius and beheaded.

It is also rumored and Livia never admitted to it, that she also poisoned her first husband in order to marry Augustus.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon - is there proof of their existence?

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were an amazing sight: A green, leafy, artificial mountain rising off the plain. But did it actually exist? Some historians argue that the gardens were only a fictional creation because they do not appear in a list of Babylonian monuments composed during the period. Either that or they were mixed up with another set of gardens built by King Sennacherib in the city of Nineveh around 700 B.C.. Is it possible that Greek scholars who wrote the accounts about the Babylon site several centuries later confused these two different locations? If the gardens really were in Babylon, can the remains be found to prove their existence?


These were probably some of the questions that occurred to German archaeologist Robert Koldewey in 1899. For centuries the ancient city of Babel had been nothing but a mound of muddy debris never explored by scientists. Though unlike many ancient locations, the city's position was well-known, nothing visible remained of its architecture. Koldewey dug on the Babel site for some fourteen years and unearthed many of its features including the outer walls, inner walls, foundation of the Tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar's palaces and the wide processional roadway which passed through the heart of the city.


While excavating the Southern Citadel, Koldewey discovered a basement with fourteen large rooms with stone arch ceilings. Ancient records indicated that only two locations in the city had made use of stone, the north wall of the Northern Citadel, and the Hanging Gardens. The north wall of the Northern Citadel had already been found and had, indeed, contained stone. This made Koldewey think that he had found the cellar of the gardens.
He continued exploring the area and discovered many of the features reported by Diodorus. Finally, a room was unearthed with three large, strange holes in the floor. Koldewey concluded this had been the location of the chain pumps that raised the water to the garden's roof.
The foundations that Koldewey discovered measured some 100 by 150 feet. This was smaller than the measurements described by ancient historians, but still impressive.


While Koldewey was convinced he'd found the gardens, some modern archaeologists call his discovery into question, arguing that this location is too far from the river to have been irrigated with the amount of water that would have been required. Also, tablets recently found at the site suggest that the location was used for administrative and storage purposes, not as a pleasure garden.
If they did exist, what happened to the gardens? There is a report that they were destroyed by an earthquake in the second century B.C.. If so, the jumbled remains, mostly made of mud-brick, probably slowly eroded away with the infrequent rains.


Whatever the fate of the gardens were, we can only wonder if Queen Amyitis, the homesick wife of  King Nebuchadnezzar II, was happy with her fantastic present, or if she continued to pine for the green mountains of her distant homeland. 

Titanic Survivors Remember

99 years ago this month, the R.M.S. Titanic sank while on her maiden voyage. On the night of April 14th, 1912 2,225 people had eaten dinner and were settling in for another night onboard the world's largest ocean liner. Only 705 would be alive to see dawn. The last living survivor died in 2010. The following interviews recorded in the 1970's and 1980's of survivors: Frank Prentice, Eva Hart, Edith Brown, Ruth Becker, Edith Rosenbaum.

Have a Heart

Some burial practices ar odd. The Habsburg Dynasty of Austria is no exception when it comes to burrying their dead.

The Herzgruft is the chamber protecting 54 urns containing the hearts of decesed members of the Habsburg dynasty. It is a small room off St. George's Chapel of the Augustinerkirche church located within the Hofburg complex in downtown Vienna, Austria. Herzgruft means "heart crypt" in German.

The first heart (that of King Ferdinand IV of the Romans) was placed in the Augustinerkirche on 10 July 1654, and the last (that of Archduke Franz Karl of Austria) on 8 March 1878.
The bodies of all but three of those whose hearts are here are in the Imperial Crypt a few blocks away.

The Ducal Crypt is a mausoleum under the chancel of the Stephansdom in Vienna. Holds the intestines of 72 members of the Habsburg dynasty.

Death of the Luxury Liner

It was shortly after 2:30 in the afternoon on February 9, a cold, clear Monday in 1942. Over at Pier 88 on West 49th Street in New York City, Clement Derrick was removing the last of four stanchions in the Grand Salon of the SS Normandie a lavish ocean liner that was being converted into a troopship, the USS Lafayette. The French luxury Ocean Liner had been docked in New York since the outbreak of World War II in 1939. As his welder's torch penetrated the metal, sparks suddenly spat out onto nearby bales of burlap that had been wrapped around the ship's highly flammable life preservers. The resulting shower of fire could not be quenched, and by 3 p.m. much of the luxury liner, the pride of a once-free France, was engulfed in flames. Dark black plumes of smoke reached across Manhattan, propelled by a brisk northwest wind. New Yorkers looked up as the oily smoke became a scrim across the midday sun.

Hundreds of New Yorkers, following the smoke and the sounds of sirens, had arrived to watch as streams of water from a line of fireboats tried in vain to quell the blaze. Bellevue Hospital sounded its dreaded seven bells—the signal for a citywide catastrophe—and at nearby Pier 92, where the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth had their berths, a makeshift hospital was set up for the workers who were being carried off the stricken ship.

Crowds of people had gathered for blocks along the waterfront. As the fire raged, more fireboats arrived. For hours their fountains of water flooded the ship's cabins. Soon there was more water than fire. Then, at 3:40 p.m., just as the mayor and Rear Adm. Adolphus Andrews, commander of the U.S. Navy's 3rd Naval District, were attempting to board the wounded vessel, it suddenly lurched several feet to port. It was the beginning of the end.

The deathwatch took on a carnival atmosphere as skyscraper windows all over the city were thrown open so New Yorkers could watch the awful spectacle. The pier was alive with firemen and ambulance crews, with hawkers and food vendors, all watching as the great ship began to drown in the water that was meant to save it.

It took 12 hours for the Normandie to die. At precisely 2:35 the following morning, with the acrid smell of burning metal still hanging over Times Square, the elegant creature rolled over on its port side and gave up the fight. The following day, thousands of New Yorkers showed up at the pier to gape at the destroyed ship. Five-year-old Miki Rosen saw it from the inside of the family car: "My father wanted us to see it because it was an historical event. I was terribly frightened by this enormous thing that I knew was supposed to be upright and bobbing up and down. It didn't even look like a ship. It was a mass of iron floating in the water."

The Holiday Spirit is stronger than the Anger of War

The year is 1914 and World war I has been going on for 4 months, soldiers from Germany and Britain, living in mud filled trenches suffering from the cold weather, the chill of the icy rain pouring down on them, with the rain comes the constant shell bombardment from both sides, snipers picking off their targets death is everywhere hope is nowhere. Suddenly around 10pm after the guns had fallen silent, singing could be heard from the German trenches,

Stille Nacht!

Heil'ge Nacht!

Alles schläft;

einsam wachtNur das traute hoch heilige Paar.

Holder Knab' im lockigen Haar,

Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

It was Christmas eve, with the fighting and dying going on all around them the British had forgotten what day it was and the German soldiers were singing carols, after a while the British joined in singing in English, for the first time in four months there was hope in the air. Not bullits, bombs and death.

Day light came on Christmas morning, the soldiers from both trenches lay down their weapons, got out of the trenches and walked into "no man's land", about half way between the trenches, they shook hands and exchanged cigarettes and chocolate whilst wishing each other a Merry Christmas.

A soccer ball was produced and both sides played soccer this went on for an hour or so, slowly both sides dispersed back to their own respective trenches. The men shaking hands and wishing each other a final "Merry Christmas".

The next day the shelling started again, the killing and death resumed. The war was back on. The miracle of "peace and goodwill to all men" never meant so much as it did on Christmas day in 1914. The war, death and killing would continue for three more years.

Odd Facts of Plymouth Rock

In 1741 a 94 year old man named Thomas Faunce Identified Plymouth Rock as the rock his father told him was the first solid land the pilgrims had set foot on. (not true the pilgrims first Landed on cape cod, Provincetown Today)

Theophilus Cotton and the town’s people of Plymouth decided to move Plymouth Rock in 1774 it split in two halves. When that happened they took the upper part of Plymouth rock and relocated it to Plymouth’s meeting house and then moved it again to Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1834. The bottom portion of the rock was left behind on the wharf.

It is estimated that the rock weighed 20,000 lb’s till tourist and souvenir hunters chipped away at it. Numerous pieces of the rock were taken and bought and sold. Today Approximately 1/3 of the top portion remains today.. No pieces noticeably have been removed since 1880. There is one more piece in Patent Building in Smithsonian.

Plymouth Rock has figured prominently in Native American History. Particularly as a symbol of the wars waged soon after the pilgrims landed. It has been ceremoniously buried twice by Native American rights activists, once in 1970 and again in 1995 as a part of the National Day of Mourning protests.