Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus better known as Caligula. He earned the nickname, which is Latin for “little boots”, from the soldiers in his father’s army when he was a child and dressed in his own miniature uniform. Best known for his deviant means and sexual exploits, Caligula was remembered in history as one crazy dude. While it is claimed that he put his horse in a position of power and tried to wage war with the ocean, some historians are skeptical since most accounts of Caligula’s life were written many years after his death. Even still, it’s these stories that make him interesting and totally crush worthy….well, that and his strong browline and angular face. What can I say? Sometimes crazy is sexy.

Robert Graves, English poet, author, and translator.  He fought in WWI and was badly wounded at the Somme and suffered from shellshock for many years after.  He published an autobiography of his war years in 1929 called Good-Bye To All That.  He was also close friends with Sigfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

William Butler Yeats, the the late 19th and early 20th century Irish poet who also dabbled in the the occult. 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I don’t know if someone’s already submitted this, but Louis Braille, the man who invented Braille, was a babe.

This brooding hunk is Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Magnificent. He was a patron of the arts, poetry, academics throughout his life, and promoted peaceful policy in Florence and all of Italy. He was also really freaking brave. He survived an assassination attempt that took place in church on Easter morning, and at one point during a conflict with Naples, he went there himself, alone, delivering himself into the hands of his enemies… and resolved the conflict. He died in 1492, which is the real reason why you should remember that date.

This is François-Madeleine d’Youville, whom I fell in love with the moment I saw this. His wife has a wikipedia entry while he does not (apparently she’s more important), but this is what I found on the placquard next to this picture in the Musée du Château Ramezay in Montréal:

After his father’s death in 1719, d’Youville took over the family homestead at Ile-aux-Tourtes near the mouth of the Ottawa River. He continued his fur trade business and also traded in wine and spirits. The Montreal merchants accused him of intercepting their furs coming from the Great Lakes region. In 1722 in Montreal, he married Mari-Marguerite Dufrost de la Jemmerais. Eight years later she consecrated her life to prayer and good works on the death of her husband. In 1737 she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns) and became director of the Hôpital Général de Montréal.

(François died heavily in debt and his wife sorted out his affairs, then became a nun, and directed a hospital. What a BAMF)

Leon Trotsky(1879–1940) born Lev Bronshtein. A theoretician of Marxism with a mind sharp enough to make several important contributions to revolutionary theory and a will strong enough to lead entire armies under the principles he espoused until the day a Stalinist agent killed him. Many do and many think, but few do both simultaneously with such prowess as Trotsky did.

Vladimir Mayakovsky was a Russian Futurist poet and painter who was involved in many revolutionary activities with the Bolsheviks. He enjoyed much favor in the party until the 1930s. It is rumored that the NKVD murdered him while saying he committed suicide but no one knows for sure. One thing is certain though, he was HOT!!!