The Corpse on Trial
When Pope Stephen was putting his predecessor on trial, there were signs that what he was doing wasn't quite right. For one, in the middle of the trial, an earthquake shook Rome. For another, his oppo...
21 Touko 202432min
The Female Pharaoh
From wife and sister of a Pharaoh, to regent to eventually Pharaoh in her own right, Hatshepsut is one of the most compelling figures of the ancient world, a woman who sought to preserve her legacy in...
14 Touko 202433min
Death and the King's Favorite (with Benjamin Woolley)
George Villiers was in his early twenties when he caught the eye of King James the VI and I. Almost immediately, George became an intimate "favorite," catapulted into a new title and world of courtly ...
7 Touko 202442min
The Nun of Monza, Part 2
CW: murder, gore. Sister Virgina (born Marianna) had made a terrible choice in secret lovers. When a young secular boarder at the convent where she was a nun threatened to expose her illicit relations...
30 Huhti 202442min
The Nun of Monza, Part 1
For plenty of young women in the early modern era, if their families couldn't afford their dowries, they simply shipped them off to a nunnery. That was the case for Marianna, a young girl who rose in ...
23 Huhti 202443min
Lucretia as a Symbol
Why did the Roman Empire do away with kings? Simone de Beauvior would write that, through women, "certain historical events have been set off, but the women have been pretexts rather than agents. The ...
16 Huhti 202442min
A Grand Duchess Above the Barber Shop
History is fascinated by the possible escape of Anastasia Romanov, the Grand Duchess killed alongside her family in the Russian Revolution. But there was a Grand Duchess that DID escape - Anastasia's ...
9 Huhti 202427min
The Daring Prison Break of the Emperor in Exile
When a coalition of European nations invaded Paris in 1815, they offered Napoleon what they believed to be very generous terms of surrender: he would keep his head, but be exiled to a life as Emperor ...
2 Huhti 202444min
