Ducks That Defied Poison
76. King Mithridates of Pontus kept a flock of ducks that ate poisonous plants without dying, which made them useful for preparing antidotes; however, their blood, meat, and eggs could be lethal if eaten.
77. Misuse of the smoke signal is believed to have helped bring down the Western Zhou Dynasty in the 8th century BC. King You of Zhou had a habit of tricking his warlords with fake warning beacons to entertain his queen. When a genuine rebellion broke out, no one came to the king’s aid.
78. King Leonidas was 60 years old when he faced King Xerxes.
79. Magnus Maximus, the last Roman ruler of Britain, married the daughter of a Welsh leader, making him the ancestor of several Welsh dynasties and kings as much as 500 years later.
80. Genghis Khan would marry a daughter to the king of an allied nation after setting aside his other wives. He then assigned his new son-in-law to serve in the Mongol wars, while the daughter assumed the rule. Most sons-in-law died in battle, which gave him a shield around the Mongol lands.
81. King Harald of Norway promised to stay unmarried for the rest of his life unless he could wed the woman he truly loved, the daughter of a cloth merchant. She later became Queen of Norway.
82. When the King of Saudi Arabia came to Britain, the Welsh Guards greeted him by performing the Star Wars Imperial March.
83. The idea of a zombie apocalypse is four thousand years old. In the heroic epic about him, Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk rejected the advances of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility. She grew furious and threatened to “Raise the dead who will outnumber the living and devour them.”
84. In 1315, a slight climate shift brought about a severe famine in Northern Europe that was so dire that, on one day, even the king of England had no bread.
85. Alboin, King of the Lombards, took his wife Rosamund as war booty after he killed her father in battle. At one point, he forced her to drink from her father’s skull, which he had kept as a trophy and turned into a cup, telling her to “drink merrily with your father.” She arranged for his assassination.
Poison-Proof King Backfires
86. King Mithridates of Pontus took many different poisons in increasing doses so he would become immune and could not be poisoned by his enemies. After he was captured, he attempted to kill himself by poisoning, but it did not work because he was immune.
87. A 9th century Germanic Bible depicts Jesus as a warrior king.
88. On his campaign in India, Alexander the Great came across a tribe that had not yet discovered fire.
89. When Alexander the Great asked the philosopher Diogenes why he was rummaging through garbage, Diogenes answered, “I am looking for the bones of your father but I cannot tell them apart from the bones of his slaves.”
90. The Bluetooth symbol is a bind rune formed from the pre-Viking runes of the tenth-century king Harald Bluetooth’s name.
91. While King Charles II of Navarra was ill, his doctor instructed that he be wrapped in linen and soaked with brandy. Sadly, instead of using scissors to cut the final thread of linen, the nurse decided to burn it away, which burned the King to death.
92. Charles VI of France had such severe mental illness that he could not remember his own name, his children, his wife, or that he was king. At times, he thought he was made of glass and tried to keep himself from shattering.
93. During an assassination attempt on Hassan II, the King of Morocco seized the radio and addressed the rebel pilots firing at Hassan’s Boeing 727, saying, “Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!” As a result, the assassins stopped their attack.
94. Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, learned shipbuilding at a dock in Amsterdam after posing as an ordinary craftsman, and he worked on building the ships himself.
95. Adolf Frederick, the former King of Sweden, died after a meal of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, kippers, and champagne, followed by 14 helpings of semla served in a bowl of hot milk. He is known as “The king who ate himself to death.”
Horse Honored After Death
96. Alexander the Great loved his horse Bucephalus so much that, after he died, he held a state funeral for him and named a city after him.
97. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, lived in New Jersey after ruling Spain, Sicily, and Naples. He supported himself by selling his jewelry, then later returned to Europe, where he died and was buried near his brother.
98. Aztec kings wore cloaks made completely from hummingbird skins. It would take around 8,000 hummingbirds to make an adult-sized cloak.
99. After French soldier Jean Bernadotte showed kindness to several Swedish soldiers, he became so well liked in Sweden that when a throne became available, the Swedes chose to make him their king even though he had never been to Sweden before. The House of Bernadotte rules Sweden to this day.
100. In 1938, Albania’s Muslim King Zog opened the country’s borders to Jews escaping Nazi persecution. He also reportedly survived 55 assassination attempts.
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