Isabella of France (1295-1358)

Queen consort and wife of Edward II. She married at age 14 to Edward II and stared her married life basically as a third wheel to Piers Gaveston, who accepted most of Isabella’s Dowry after the marriage. This woman was also called the “she-wolf” just to give you a little hint of what came next. Obviously, Isabella was not happy about her husband and Piers being all buddy buddy. Piers eventually held a higher place in the court than the queen herself and this just did not fly for Isabella. At all.

She started by trying to banish Gaveston with the help of some nobles she allied herself with who also hated him. When this didn’t work she just took him from his home, chopped his head off and then had herself a little parade in which she displayed the headless body of Piers on a ladder. Why? Who knows. But she did it. After this, the king wanted to execute those that helped her but instead, she somehow got him to give them a full pardon.

For the next ten years, everything was all swell and happy for the couple who produced a worthy heir, Edward III who went on to be just as badass as his lovely mother.

Then two men, Hugh Despenser Sr and Hugh Despenser Jr, came on the scene to once again steal poor Edward’s heart. Little background- they used their power to take land from poor people, arrest them, kill them, whatever they wanted to do. They took the money from the poor and then basically fucked them over by arresting them for ludicrous thinks just for giggles. Not only that but they took their children too. They also extorted money from the Church. Isabella tried to use her words this time but the King just wasn’t having it.

She once again gathered up her noble friends, chased the Despensers out of England, confiscated their money, burned their castles, auctioned off all of their stuff and to top if off, brutally tortured their associates until they died a most painful death.

The king finally got upset that his noblemen were beating up on his friends. So the two groups finally started fighting. Isabella fled to the Tower of London, specifically where the prisoners were so as not to get stabbed and stuff. While there, she met Roger Mortimer, a man imprisoned for striking one of the Hugh Despensers. She brought him some food (he was to die by starvation) and they bonded over their hate of the Despensers.

When the fighting was over, Edward brought Hugh Despenser back who continued to be a complete dick especially to Isabella. He fired all of her people and bad-mouthed her to the King. He also stole her money and property. Now, knowing Queen Isabella, it probably wasn’t a good idea to fuck with her at this point. Sick of the Despensers and her husband who definitely didn’t give a flying fuck about her, she broke Roger Mortimer (remember the guy she met in the Tower of London) and sent him to France. She then sweetly asked her husband to go bring her son to see his dear old grandfather in France. While there, she publicly came out and said that her darling husband was an asshole and she wasn’t gonna take his shit anymore.

Of course she assembled an army with Mortimer and came back to England with a vengeance in 1327 which we can only assume meant she wanted to rip off the face of King Edward II and step on his body all while giggling with Mortimer. (Idunno, this is what I saw anyway) The people of England allied with her because they also hated the Despensers. She soon had a sizable force. Edward II being all manly wanted to kill her and vowed to do so. This was probably a mistake. No, this was DEFINITELY a mistake. The army easily overtook that of Edward’s and soon both Edward and the Despensers were captured. She had Despenser Sr drawn apart (yeah it is just as bad as it sounds) and then hanged probably just for good measure. The junior Despenser got off worse those. He was paraded around London while having food and other things thrown at him. He was then quartered, yes, quartered and sent to different parts of the kingdom AND beheaded also probably just for good measure just in case being cut into four pieces wasn’t enough. Oh yeah and he was also disemboweled and his entrails were burned for all to see. Did I mention this was all a public display?

She imprisoned Edward II and forced him to pass the crown on to their son. She ruled behind her son with Mortimer and kind of turned into a blood-thirsty bitch from then on. Killing anyone who crossed her.

However, Isabella of France was a badass if there ever was one.

fuckyeahhistorycrushes:

Nicholas II of Russia
For our 100th post, I’m going to do one of my personal top history crushes.
[This mod is a huge sucker for the Romanovs; this may get long.]

Nicholas II was the last tsar of Russia, and part of the famous Romanov house. He was both a cutie and a downrightgood lookin’hunk of man. He also had a perfect beard. And I wish he were my papa, because he was a happy, adorable father as well. But his story is not a very happy one.

When he succeeded his father in 1894, he had very little experience; unfortunately for him, it showed. He thought expansion into Manchuria sounded fabulous, but Japan kicked his ass, resulting in riots in Russia. In January 1905, on ‘Bloody Sunday’, the army in St Petersburg shot at a crowd demanding radical reforms. People really started hating on Nick, and he pretty much was forced to grant a constitution and establish a parliament, the Duma. Yeah whatever, he still had a lot of control.

So WWI comes along and Nicky decides “HEY I’m the TSAR and I have POWER, so I’m going to directly command the Russian army!” Bad move, Nicho. This only lead to every failure that the military felt to be directly associated with him. His image was crying.

Nicholas stayed out of the public eye a lot [no surprise there], letting his wife, Alexandra, be the voice of the government. She wore the pants in their relationship, anyway. Russia was looking pretty awful by this time; people were broke and starving, and they had Alexandra and her BFF Rasputin to point their shaky fingers at.

In December 1916, Rasputin was [finally] killed, and a few months later huge riots and demonstrations had taken over St. Petersburg. The army finally said “screw you” and Nick had no alternative but to abdicate. A sad little provisional government was established in their place, later overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

Here’s where things get super sad for the former tsar. So the Bolsheviks decide to keep Nicholas and his family as prisoners, essentially. On July 17 1918, as anti-Bolsheviks approached Yekaterinburg, the family was moved to another room; they thought they were being put somewhere more safe because of the protesters. Just kidding! Here’s some executioners with revolvers pointed at you instead [this was probably Vladimir Lenin’s doing].

They say Nick’s last words were “you know not what you do.” He was the first one to die. His 4 girls survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and gems on their clothing, which served as freaking armor. The poor girls were then stabbed with bayonets and shot at close range in the head. 

And so ends the sad, fail life of Nicholas II. Welp, at least he looked good.

Please allow me to reblog my own post, for I see we have a few more Nick fans in this group of fantastic followers. I adore this cutie pie.

I can’t believe this was the 100th post, and now we are at an amazing 1365 posts.

Thank you everyone!

Leonardo da Vinci
sariebearie asked: Leonardo da Vinci! or Salai. :D

Sounds like we have an Assassins Creed fan, hmm? No? Maybe? Well, either way, we definitely need to get Leo in this blog right now. He really was quite a gorgeous man, with a beautifully sculpted nose and very pretty eyes. And if you have ever played the Assassins Creed games, you would know he’s downright adorable in them.

Leo played a huge role in the Italian Renaissance. He was not only an artist and sculptor, but an inventor, scientist and engineer as well. Great looks and a creative genius, what more could you want? Well, unfortunately, ladies, there’s a good chance he was gay. So very sorry.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15th, 1452 near the Tuscan town of Vinci, hence his last name. He was merely an illegitimate son of a local lawyer, but his talents became known when he began an apprenticeship under Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. It wasn’t long before he became an independent master, and in about 1483 he moved to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza family. From 1495 to 1497 he produced a mural of The Last Supper in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

In 1499 the French invaded Milan and forced the Sforza family and Leo to get the hell out of there. Leo wandered around Venice and Florence for a while, and, you know, just painted that unpopular Mona Lisa painting. Nothing big or anything. From there he returned to Milan for a while until 1517 when, at the invitation of the French king Francis I, Leo moved to the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France. It was there he died on May 2nd, 1519.

I just need to reinforce the fact that this guy was not just an amazing artist, but a pioneering scientist. The guy wrote and drew all about geology, anatomy, optics, gravity, even flight. Many argue this badass invented the parachute, tank, helicopter, bicycle and airplane a good 500 years ahead of their time. Oh yeah, and he wrote this all in left-handed mirrored script. Yeah. Try it. It’s not easy.

One of my favorite da Vinci stories, however, was when Florence hired him to paint a scene of Milan and Florence forces fighting. Oh god, what a mess. The painting was called the Battle of Anghiari. Leo planned this painting for two freaking years, and when he finally began working on it on the Palazzo Vecchio, he thought it would be a good idea to use wax to bind it to the wall. So he’s painting this thing and then a huge storm hits Florence and gets the wall all wet. But Leo is all like “hey, no worries, I’ll just dry this baby off and be back in business!” He takes all these heating pots and sets them around the room to dry out the walls, but uh, Leo, man, you were painting with wax. So yeah, you guessed it. Leo comes back to see his whole painting has just melted off the wall and into a puddle. He was so frustrated he ended up only finishing a tiny bit of it. Never tried to paint it again. Awww. Even a genius makes mistakes!

Julius Caesar
caffeineinthebloodstream answered: julius caesar!

Been a while since I wrote one of these! ABOUT TIME! So lets get ancient here and check out this sexy Roman dictator. He has quite a beautifully sculpted face, and I don’t just mean that literally.

Julius Caesar was born in Rome in 100 BC. He was incredibly political savvy. In 61-60 BC, he served as governor of the Roman province of Spain, then when he returned to Rome his buddies helped him get elected as consul for 59 BC. The following year he was appointed governor of Roman Gaul, gathered up modern France and Belgium and added it to his Roman empire collection.

He hung out in Britain for a while, and when he came back to Italy there was all a big civil war going down, but he rocked that shit. Pompey, the republican leader, fled to Egypt where he was assassinated. Caesar followed him, and it was there that he fell in love with the sexy Egyptian queen, Cleopatra. Oh my, Julius. Getting scandalous.

Anyway, Caesar was now master of Rome and made himself dictator for life in 44 BC. He used his power to carry out much-needed reform, and his ambition allowed him to do be quite successful in doing so. His popularity really alienated and quite frankly pissed off the republican senators, so group of these, led by Cassius and Brutus, assassinated Caesar on the Ides (15) of March 44 BC. This event sparked the final round of civil wars that ended the Republic and brought about the elevation of Caesar’s great nephew and designated heir, Octavian, as Augustus, the first emperor.

Joseph Stalin [c. 1902]

Sorry this wasn’t exactly one of your many lovely requests, but scrolling past this gorgeous young man I was compelled to write a blurb on him. Stalin, what happened to you, you were such a beautiful lad!

It’s no secret, most people are fully aware Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused death and suffering of tens of millions, but you have to give him a little credit for playing a part in killing off Nazism, right? Okay maybe not.

So Stalin was a pretty good kid; papa was a cobbler and Stalin studied at a theological seminary and graduated while everyone else was running around screaming viva la revolution. Later on though he became quite the activist and was arrested and exiled to Siberia a couple times. BOYS WILL BE BOYS~

In 1922, he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, which wasn’t exactly a big name in history quite yet but it certainly allowed him to start building a fanbase. After Lenin’s death, Stalin promoted himself as his political heir and muscled his way into the dictator seat.

His forced collectivisation of agriculture gave the Soviet Union all kinds of economic growth, but it also kind of killed millions of people, so that was kind of a dick move. Then if that wasn’t enough, during the Great Purge of the 1930s he killed off, exiled and enslaved even MORE of the population because he was all “ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, GET OUT.” And by enemies of the people I think he kind of just meant “remaining opposition of power.” Ain’t nobody gonna touch Stalin, fool.

Needless to say, all this killing kind of depleted the Red Army. People kept telling Stalin “hey, Hitler is coming dude, you might want to stop killing your army” but Stalin was a stubborn bastard and didn’t listen. Hitler kinda caught him with his pants down when he came knocking in June 1941.

Stalin did manage to recover from that, however. In the end he lead his country to victory. The human cost was freaking enormous, but seeing as he had already killed millions he REALLY just DID NOT CURR.

After WWII, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire which included most of eastern Europe. Stalin started to get really stressed and super paranoid. He ended up dying of a stroke on March 5th 1953.

(Source: daverosins, via eurohist)

Henry Clay
annelisegraceless answered: henry clay.

So if I remember correctly, this fine fellow was an American statesman and orator, representing Kentucky in the House and Senate. Not to mention just a great guy, worked hard to get slavery out of here; played a huge role in the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War. War of 1812 as well. He did a lot in his lifetime, and apparently his speeches were drop-dead sexy.

I think he and Andrew Jackson hated each other, too. POLITICIAN DRAMA!!

Wilhelm II

Goodness me, those clothes are certainly not too shabby, sir.

So Will was the last German emperor [kaiser] and king of Prussia. He was born on January 27, 1859 in Berlin. He was actually born with a gimpy, withered left arm, but he did a pretty darn good job of keeping it hidden! Can’t be kaiser with a wimpy arm, now can you?

By age 29 he was made kaiser, and started working very hard on pumping up the German army/navy. He also had quite a bit of family angst; he was ruthless towards the British, but also adored his grandmother, Queen Victoria. Awww.

In 1914 the Austrians were getting slapped around a bit and Wilhelm basically told them “hey guys don’t be wimps, I’ll back you up if you get into a war okay?” This little memo kinda freaked out Russia and their buddies, they attacked Germany and Austria, and BAM. World War I.

And as history goes, Germany failed, thanks to shortages of men and materials from those years of attrition-based trench warfare. Wilhelm was forced to abdicate and went into exile in the Netherlands. He died on June 4, 1941.

And I just kind of love this picture. Hahaha.