History isn’t always the polished story we learn in textbooks; many moments were downright NSFW. Below we count down ten wild episodes when times history got anything but PG.

Times History: A Quick Look at the Scandalous Side

10 American Diplomat Took A Prostitute To Meet The Queen Of England

Civil War General Daniel Sickles was a perpetual controversy magnet. His most infamous act was murdering his wife’s lover, Philip Barton Key II, by pleading temporary insanity—a defense that made headlines. Sickles’ personal life was equally turbulent: he wed 15‑year‑old Teresa Bagioli while he was 33, yet he favored the company of high‑class escorts, most famously New York courtesan Fanny White.

When Sickles received the post of first secretary to the American Legation in London, he didn’t leave White behind. He whisked the courtesan across the Atlantic and introduced her at a formal royal event, where she met Queen Victoria herself. All the while, his legitimate wife remained at home, pregnant with his child.

9 Greek Philosopher Masturbated In Public

Diogenes of Sinope, a founding father of Cynicism, earned a reputation for living on his own terms—often in the most eyebrow‑raising ways. Though none of his own writings survive, anecdotes preserve his philosophy of stripping life down to the essentials.

He once told a statue‑watching crowd that he begged there to get used to rejection, turned down Alexander the Great’s wish‑granting offer by demanding the king move out of his sunlight, and carried a lamp in daylight to “search for an honest man.”

His disdain for social conventions sometimes manifested in shocking public acts: he defecated while delivering speeches, urinated on people he disliked, and, when nature called, masturbated openly.

8 The Maya Got High On Enemas

The ancient Maya weren’t shy about chasing visions. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that they administered intoxicating drinks rectally to amplify the experience. These concoctions mixed chocolate, corn, tobacco, water lily, and sometimes the emetic herb ipecac.

Pottery scenes show participants vomiting after drinking the mixtures, leading scholars to debate whether the vomiting was accidental or intentional. Some suggest the Maya switched to enemas after discovering ipecac’s nauseating effects, while others argue the purging itself was a deliberate hallucinogenic technique.

7 Irish King Had Sex With A Horse

In medieval Ireland, horse meat often featured in royal inauguration feasts. One 12th‑century king, according to the notoriously biased chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis, appears to have taken the ritual a step further.

Giraldus records that a newly crowned monarch around 1187 copulated with a white mare, treating the animal as a surrogate for an Earth goddess. After the act, the horse was slaughtered, its blood used to bathe the king, and its meat served to the assembled courtiers.

6 Buddhist Monk Achieved Enlightenment Through Sex

Travel across Bhutan and you’ll encounter vivid phallus murals that have adorned temples for half a millennium. The tradition stems from the eccentric Lama Drukpa Kunley, dubbed the “Divine Madman.”

Kunley preached that enlightenment didn’t have to be austere; it could involve wine, song, and, yes, sex. Legends claim he handed out enlightenment through sexual encounters, earning the nickname “Saint of 5,000 Women.”

Armed with a phallus‑shaped staff he called the “magic thunderbolt of wisdom,” Kunley once subdued a demon at the site of Chimi Lhakhang. Today, pilgrims still receive blessings by having the wooden phallus tapped on their heads.

5 Duke Seduced Two Of The Emperor’s Mistresses

Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, is best known for beating Napoleon at Waterloo. After the victory, he amassed a trove of Napoleonic art, hired the former emperor’s cook, and even displayed a risqué portrait of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline, in his bedroom.

When Wellington was posted as British ambassador to France, he moved into Pauline Bonaparte’s former residence. There, he embarked on a bold liaison campaign, seducing two of Napoleon’s former lovers: Italian opera star Josephina Grassini and French actress Josephine Weimer.

Weimer even compared the Duke’s sexual stamina to that of her former paramour, declaring Wellington the stronger of the two.

4 The FBI Thought JFK Was Sleeping With A Nazi Spy

John F. Kennedy’s youthful playboy reputation is well documented, but one of his early affairs raised eyebrows in the most unexpected place. In 1941, as a 24‑year‑old navy ensign, Kennedy fell for Danish beauty‑queen‑turned‑journalist Inga Arvad.

Arvad had once been a guest of Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, a fact that alarmed the FBI. The bureau feared she might be a Nazi spy extracting classified information from the future president.

Agents bugged the rooms where the couple met, capturing a trove of steamy “pillow talk” that, while lacking any espionage, proved the FBI’s suspicion was more about romance than security.

3 The Confessional Was Invented To Stop Priests From Having Sex With Parishioners

The Catholic practice of confession dates back centuries, but the iconic confessional booth only appeared in the 16th century. Before its invention, penitents sat beside or knelt before the priest, a setup that often led to “sollicitatio ad turpia”—the euphemism for priests seducing their flock, usually young women.

Such misconduct persisted because victims had little recourse. After the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 made confession an annual obligation, the church sought a solution.

The confessional booth provided a physical barrier, making illicit encounters far more difficult and offering a semblance of privacy for genuine repentance.

2 French President Died While Having Sex With His Mistress

In 1899, French President Félix Faure died suddenly at age 58. Officially, the cause was apoplexy, but gossip quickly revealed he collapsed while “entertaining” his 30‑year‑old lover, Marguerite Steinheil.

Steinheil, a woman of many scandals, had previously tangled with several high‑profile men before facing murder charges herself. The exact nature of their final encounter in the Élysée’s drawing‑room remains murky.

A popular rumor, amplified by political rival Georges Clemenceau’s witty epitaph, claimed Faure died during oral sex. Clemenceau quipped that Faure “wished to be Caesar, but was only Pompey,” a French double‑entendre where “Pompey” sounds like “pumped.”

1 Founding Father Encouraged Us To Fart Proudly

Benjamin Franklin was as famous for his practical jokes as for his scientific mind. In 1781, while serving as ambassador to France, he penned a satirical letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels titled “To The Royal Academy of Farting,” popularly remembered as “Fart Proudly.”

Franklin argued that flatulence itself wasn’t the problem—its odor was. He proposed a “perfume‑like” drug that would render one’s farts pleasant, turning an everyday nuisance into a fragrant experience.He closed the letter with a pun, declaring that until the odor issue was solved, other problems weren’t worth a “fart‑hing.”

Sieges have always been the grim theater where armies and civilians clash, and the deadliest sieges in history reveal just how devastating a prolonged blockade can be.

Why the Deadliest Sieges Matter

When a city is surrounded, the battle isn’t just about swords and cannons; it’s a race against starvation, disease, and morale. The ten sieges below show how the stakes rose from regional conflicts to world-shaping catastrophes.

10 Siege Of Szigetvár (1566) 33,000 Killed

Szigetvár sat on the eastern fringe of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1566 it became the stage for Suleiman the Magnificent’s final campaign. The Croatian governor, Nikola Zrinski, held a garrison of just under 3,000 men against an Ottoman army that outnumbered his by roughly fifty to one.

The siege kicked off on August 6. Despite the overwhelming numbers, Zrinski’s defenses repelled the first Ottoman assaults. After a month of brutal fighting, only 300 Croatian soldiers and their families remained. Suleiman offered Zrinski a high‑ranking post if he surrendered, but Zrinski refused, famously declaring that no one would point a finger at his children in contempt.

Facing inevitable defeat, Zrinski ordered his troops to kill their own wives and children to spare them from the horrors of captivity. The Croatians fought to the last man, and when the Ottomans finally breached the walls, they mercilessly slaughtered the survivors. Suleiman himself never saw the victory; he succumbed to dysentery four days earlier. The Ottoman loss of nearly 30,000 soldiers forced them to retreat, halting their advance toward Vienna and marking a pivotal moment in European history.

9 50,000 Killed

Nuremberg, a major Protestant stronghold, became a bloodbath during the Thirty Years’ War. Swedish King Gustavus Adolf retreated into the city after being chased by the Holy Roman forces led by Albrecht von Wallenstein. Although Adolf commanded nearly 150,000 troops—about 30,000 more than Wallenstein—he failed to bring sufficient provisions.

The Holy Roman army quickly blockaded the city, but Wallenstein’s own supply lines were thin, leading to starvation and a typhus outbreak on both sides. After an 80‑day stalemate, Adolf attempted a breakout at the Battle of the Alte Veste, only to be repelled. With supplies exhausted, he abandoned the city, and the siege ended with roughly 40,000 deaths, most from disease rather than combat.

8 Siege Of Kiev (1240) 48,000 Killed

Kiev, one of Europe’s oldest cities, faced the Mongol onslaught under Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan. After the city executed Mongol envoys, Khan launched a ferocious siege on November 28, beginning with days of catapult bombardment.

On December 5 the walls were breached, and Mongol troops poured into Kiev, slaughtering anyone in their path. Many civilians fled to the Church of the Tithes, which collapsed, crushing countless lives. Of the roughly 50,000 inhabitants, only about 2,000 survived, including the city’s leader Dmytro, who was spared for his bravery. The Mongols departed on December 6, leaving a city reduced to ruins.

7 1604) Over 65,000 Killed

Ostend, now in Belgium, endured one of the longest and bloodiest sieges of the Eighty Years’ War. The newly fortified city attracted a combined Dutch‑English force under General Francis Vere, who hoped to hold it against the Spanish and Archduke Albrecht.

The siege began on July 5, 1601. Defenders eventually mustered nearly 50,000 men, while the Spanish fielded about 80,000 foot soldiers. As the months dragged on, both sides resorted to espionage and betrayal. Albrecht nearly succeeded in turning some Dutch troops against Vere, but the plot was uncovered. After years of attrition, the Dutch and English surrendered on September 20, 1604, and Albrecht entered the ruined city with his wife Isabella, who wept at the devastation.

Negotiations soon followed, leading to a 12‑year truce.

6 Siege Of Baghdad (1258) Over 200,000 Killed

The Mongol horde, led by Hülegü Khan—another grandson of Genghis Khan—targeted Baghdad, the jewel of the Islamic world. After Caliph Al‑Musta’sim refused to surrender, over 100,000 Mongols marched on the city on January 29, 1258.

The siege lasted just twelve days. When the Mongols finally entered, they massacred virtually everyone except the city’s Christians, who were temporarily protected inside a church. Legend says the caliph was trampled to death beneath a carpet. The House of Wisdom, the era’s premier center of learning, was deliberately destroyed, and countless manuscripts were tossed into the Tigris—so many that a horse could reportedly walk across the river of books.

5 1855) Over 200,000 Killed

During the Crimean War, an allied force of British, French, and Turkish troops laid siege to the Russian stronghold of Sevastopol. The conflict introduced early trench warfare and stretched on for eleven months.

When open‑field battles proved futile, the Russians entrenched themselves within the city. Day after day, artillery hammered the fortifications, while the defenders repaired the walls each night. Harsh winter conditions turned the siege into a medical nightmare: cholera and dysentery ravaged the French troops, accounting for most of their casualties.

Eventually the Russians withdrew, allowing the allies to storm the city on September 9, 1855. The siege left a lasting cultural imprint, inspiring works such as Lord Tennyson’s famous poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

4 Siege Of Tenochtitlán (1521) Over 200,000 Killed

The Aztec capital Tenochtitlán fell after a three‑month siege that pitted Hernán Cortés’ Spanish forces against a native population of nearly 300,000. Cortés commanded around 200,000 men, many of whom were indigenous allies disgruntled with Aztec rule.

Initially, the Aztecs held their ground, but a smallpox epidemic devastated their ranks. Recognizing that a door‑to‑door assault was impractical, Cortés bombarded the city with cannons, razing nearly every structure until the Aztecs capitulated.

The siege produced massive civilian casualties—potentially half of the total deaths. A popular myth suggests the Aztecs believed Cortés was the reincarnation of the god Quetzalcoatl, but most scholars agree the Aztec leadership understood he was merely a foreign conqueror.

3 146 BC) Over 460,000 Killed

Carthage, a maritime powerhouse, met its end in the Third Punic War. Roman commander Scipio Aemilianus led over 80,000 troops against a Carthaginian force of 90,000 soldiers and a civilian populace exceeding 400,000.

After a prolonged blockade, Carthage attempted to mount a counter‑offensive but failed. Three years into the siege, Roman forces finally breached the walls, unleashing a ruthless sack. Roughly 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery, and the city was razed. Though later myth claimed the Romans salted the earth, contemporary sources provide no evidence for that practice.

2 Siege Of Jerusalem (70 AD) 1,100,000 Killed

After a Jewish revolt in 66 AD, Roman legate Titus Flavius arrived with 70,000 soldiers to crush the rebellion. Jerusalem’s defenders numbered about 40,000. The Romans surrounded the city with four legions in February, and negotiations faltered when the Jewish historian Josephus was wounded by an arrow.

The siege turned into a nightmare of starvation; residents resorted to eating leather, sewage, and even resorted to cannibalism. In September, Roman forces launched a night assault, breaching the walls and slaughtering the inhabitants. The Second Temple was razed despite Titus’ orders, and the survivors were either enslaved or murdered. By September 7, Jerusalem lay under Roman control.

1 944) 1,000,000–2,500,000 Killed

The Siege of Leningrad, a brutal episode of World War II, pitted Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union for 872 days. The German blockade strangled the city, limiting food supplies to a quarter‑loaf of bread per person per day.

Despite the dire circumstances, the Soviet defenders held the line. In winter, the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga became the “Road of Life,” allowing limited supplies and evacuations of the sick and elderly. When Soviet forces finally pushed the Germans back, the siege was lifted, ending one of the deadliest and longest sieges in recorded history.

When we think of children, we picture playgrounds, not perilous workplaces. Yet history is riddled with ways history forced kids into hazardous jobs that would daunt grown adults. From muddy riverbanks to soaring chimneys, these grim occupations reveal a dark side of labor that shaped societies.

How These Ways History Shaped Child Labor

11 Mudlarks

During the Industrial Revolution London swelled with factories, and the Thames became a dumping ground for mountains of waste. Poor children, called mudlarks, learned to survive by sifting the river’s sludge for anything of value. They timed low tide, waded knee‑deep in muck, and hunted for coal, iron scraps, or stray wood. Jewels were rare, and the more seasoned toshers—men who worked the sewers—often beat them to the good finds.

Every cut or scrape in the filth‑laden water could become fatal, and a misread of the tide meant a swift, drowning wash‑out. The job was back‑breaking, low‑pay, and fraught with danger, yet it was one of the few ways these youngsters could earn a meager living.

10 Newsies

By the 1890s newspaper sales exploded, and a legion of street‑wise kids jumped on the profit wave. These “newsies” bought bundles of papers wholesale and sold them piece‑by‑piece for a markup. The hustle was fierce—boys (and a few girls) fought over prime selling spots, sometimes sleeping on piles of unsold sheets.

Beyond the rivalry, newsies risked injury by “flipping,” leaping onto moving trams for free rides. A slip could land a child on the rails, crushing limbs. Some who survived the accidents even turned their scars into a sales pitch, appealing to sympathetic customers.

9 Rat Catchers

Urban waste attracted swarms of rats, and children seized the opportunity to become rat catchers. Armed with a trusty terrier, a young catcher would chase and kill rats, later selling the live creatures for the gruesome sport of rat‑baiting, where dogs were wagered against hordes of rodents.

The trade paid better than many other low‑skill jobs, and a few, like Jack Black, climbed the ladder to become Queen Victoria’s Royal Rat Catcher and Destroyer of Moles.

8 Mule Scavengers

Inside London’s textile mills, tiny children worked beneath massive spinning mules—machines that never paused. Their task: collect stray cotton fibers and keep the area clean. A misstep could mean a crushing death; one recorded tragedy saw a 13‑year‑old’s head pulverized by a mule’s gears.

Even when they survived, children suffered amputated fingers, chronic respiratory illness from cotton dust, and psychological strain from the relentless clatter of the machines.

7 Pinsetters

Before automatic pin‑setting, teenage boys served as pinsetters in bowling alleys. The job sounded simple—resetting pins—but a stray bowling ball or flying pin could strike a worker. Drunken bowlers sometimes targeted pinsetters for kicks, leaving victims with bruised legs or shattered heads, occasionally requiring ambulance transport.

When a coworker was absent, a pinsetter often covered multiple lanes, exhausting them from constant vigilance against fast‑moving pins and balls.

6 Crossing Sweepers

Victorian streets were a mess of horse droppings, manure, and occasional carcasses. Children earned a few pennies by sweeping pedestrian crossings for wealthy passers‑by, hoping for a tip. The job exposed them to foul waste and the ever‑looming risk of a nervous horse trampling them.

Diseases spread quickly in the unsanitary environment, and accidents with horses were common. The eventual rise of automobiles rendered the role obsolete, sweeping these kids out of work.

5 Powder Monkeys

On sailing warships, the fast‑moving “powder monkeys” were teenage boys tasked with ferrying gunpowder from the magazine to the cannons. Speed was essential—any delay could cost a battle—but a single spark could ignite the volatile cargo, endangering the entire crew.

Many were pressed into service by pirates or navies; however, some volunteered during the American Revolutionary War, joining either the Continental or British fleets.

4 Matchstick Dippers

Young girls in 19th‑century factories dipped matchsticks into white phosphorus, a highly toxic substance that caused the horrific disease “phossy jaw,” which ate away at the jawbone and led to painful death.

Pay was pitiful, conditions brutal, and beatings routine. The phosphorus clung to everything, even the workers’ lunches. In 1888 a strike by these girls forced factories to replace white phosphorus with the safer red variant, and by 1912 the deadly chemical was phased out worldwide.

3 Spies

Children have long been recruited as covert operatives. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington’s network included youngsters who gathered intelligence and sabotaged British supplies. The Civil War saw 17‑year‑old Belle Boyd become one of the Confederacy’s most celebrated spies.

World War II brought even larger child‑spy programs; both Nazi and Soviet agencies employed thousands of minors behind enemy lines. In later dictatorships, such as Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania, up to 15 percent of the child population served as informers for the state police, spying on families and teachers.

2 Chimney Sweeps

From the 12th century onward, Britain’s chimney‑sweeping trade relied on tiny boys who could crawl into narrow flues. Sweep masters often bought or kidnapped children, then starved them to keep them slender enough for the cramped spaces.

To hurry them up, adults sometimes lit a fire beneath the chimney while a child was still inside—a terrifying scare tactic. The soot‑filled work led to respiratory illnesses, cancers, and lifelong psychological trauma. Only after repeated legislation in 1760 and 1875 did the practice finally become regulated.

1 Blower’s Dogs

In glass factories, “blower’s dogs” or “dog boys” were children who followed the master glass‑blower’s whistle, cleaning molten glass and handling pieces fresh from the furnace. The work was frantic—pay was per finished piece, so speed was demanded.

Accidents were common: a 14‑year‑old was blinded by a flying shard, while inhaling glass dust caused excruciating pain and long‑term lung damage. Burns, dehydration, tuberculosis, and pneumonia from the intense heat followed many young workers. Though later laws curbed the practice, child labor in glassmaking persists in some regions today.

If you think the beer pong frat extravaganza you’re already planning for the day before Spring Break is going to be impressive, you’d be hard-pressed to follow these legendary bashes. Then again, maybe you shouldn’t try—hangovers exist for the same reason the police do. Perhaps it’s better to dream from afar. In fact, these are the 10 wildest parties that have ever set the world on fire.

10 Wildest Parties: A Glimpse

10 Count Etienne de Beaumont’s 1924 Automotive Ball

Beaumont and his Edith were renowned throughout Europe and North America for throwing some of the greatest parties ever seen. Their masquerade ball was celebrated at their mansion on Rue Duroc in Paris every summer. Their 1924 party may not have been any more extravagant than their others, but it featured possibly the most outlandish theme—all guests had to dress up as a car. Photos of Sara and Gerald Murphy, who were good friends of the Beaumonts, in their costumes are still around to this day.

The food was lavish French cuisine, of course, with plenty of wine and champagne. Guest Raymond Radiguet was so exhilarated by the Beaumonts’ annual parties that he wrote a novel about them, Le Bal du Comte d’Orgel. Throughout the banquet, costumed performers would run in making automotive sounds and act out vignettes about various vehicles. Perhaps the only Beaumont part wilder than this was another hosted in the 1920s in which every guest was required to leave exposed the part of his or her anatomy he or she deemed the most interesting.

9 The Papal Conclaves Of 1644 And 1667

When a pope dies, Italy goes into deep mourning. If the subsequent conclave takes a long time to elect a successor, the country very quickly loses its temper. The conclave of 1644 lasted from August 9–September 15, 1644, delayed by the previous pope, Urban VIII, appointing three members of his own family to cardinals. Two of these men were brothers Antonio and Francesco Barberini, who bickered with each other like Regan and Goneril in King Lear, and for the same reason. Finally, after several bribes from France and Spain, Giovanni Battista Pamphili was elected and chose the amusing regnal Innocent X. The entire Catholic world rejoiced, but nowhere was the celebration more bacchanalian than in Rome.

This conclave and the next, which lasted from January–April 1655, were still fresh in a lot of memories when 1667’s 18-day conclave came about in June. Eighteen days was still found to be far longer than any Catholic wanted to wait, and when Giulio Rospigliosi was elected Clement IX, Rome rejoiced in the same manner as in 1644.

The city of Rome decided to celebrate these elections at La Fontana dei Leoni—the Lions’ Fountain—at the foot of the Cordonata in Piazza Ara Coeli, leading up to Piazza del Campidoglio at the top of the Capitoline Hill. The Cordonata is a giant, wide staircase designed by Michelangelo that allows cavalry to ascend to Campidoglio without dismounting. There is a lion of black basalt on either side of the Cordonata that spew water into a huge vase, and at dusk on the day after each election, the water from these fountains was replaced with wine and dispensed to revelers free of charge. The jubilant thronged Ara Coeli, the Cordonata, and up into Campidoglio throughout the night, dipping their goblets in the vases and drinking all they wanted.

8 The Premiere Of Les Noces

Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Les Noces (The Wedding) premiered at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris on June 13, 1923 to great acclaim. Sara and Gerald Murphy—those friends of the Beaumonts from earlier—decided to throw a lavish party for Stravinsky and a host of the intellectual elite. Rather than rush an impromptu reception for that night, they announced throughout Paris that the party would be on July 1, on a barge on the Seine River.

With this much time to prepare and a lot of money, they went all out on food, drink, and decor. Five-star French chefs were hired to cook on-site and the champagne never ran out. Even more important than the food were the guests, all personal friends of the Murphys: Stravinsky, Impresario Sergei Diaghilev, choreographer Bronislav Nijinska, the entire troupe of the Ballet Russes, Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, poet Tristan Tzara, risque novelist Raymond Radiguet, Cole Porter, and Jean Cocteau.

Sara Murphy wanted to decorate the barge with flowers, but the florists were closed on Sunday, so she bought a hoard of toys, fire trucks, dolls, clowns, stuffed animals, and toy trains. Picasso quickly decided these deserved to be a car wreck and piled them all together, topping it off with a cow on a fire truck ladder. This may have inspired Picasso’s sculpture of a monkey’s head from one of his son’s toy cars. The party lasted all night—artist Natalia Goncharova read palms, Cocteau kept terrifying people by screaming that the ship was sinking, and by dawn, conductor Ernest Ansermet took down the Murphy’s huge laurel wreath and a very drunk Stravinsky jumped through it. He called it the greatest night of his life.

7 Truman Capote’s Black And White Ball

Capote was not one to be modest. He loved to remind people that one day he would be rich and famous and would throw all his friends a party they would never forget. When his novel In Cold Blood became a huge success in 1966, he found himself in the money and spent the next three months planning a masquerade ball. He chose New York City’s sumptuous Plaza Hotel and intended to decorate everything in stark black and white. The ball may have inspired Stanley Kubrick’s use of black and white sets in subsequent movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange.

Capote invited only the choicest of his friends, along with some celebrities he admired, including politicians, actors, and mostly writers. There was a strict dress code of only black or white, and everyone would be outfitted with a black or white mask if they did not bring one. Some wore elaborate unicorn head masks, while others wore cat-shaped masks. Capote countered the black and white decorum with shockingly crimson tablecloths, gold candelabras, and smilax vines with bright red berries.

The bill of fare consisted of several of Capote’s favorite dishes: sausage, scrambled eggs, biscuits, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken hash, and chocolate and fruit dessert pastries. The beverages were water and 450 bottles of Taittinger champagne. The guest of honor was Katharine Graham, the president of The Washington Post, who claimed that Capote only needed her as a prop. Guests included Henry Ford, Jr.; Prince Stanislaw Radziwill and his Princess, sister of the late John Kennedy; actress Candice Bergen, who wore a white rabbit mask; Norman Mailer; John Steinbeck; Phillip Roth; Irving Berlin; Vivien Leigh; and Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow. It is understood that Sinatra’s departure heralded the official end of the party, since reporters were allowed to field questions outside the hotel and everyone knew Sinatra was there. When he finally tired and left at 2:45 in the morning, Capote pleaded for him to stay, since many of the partiers would follow Sinatra to Jilly’s Bar.

The party has been called the last great moment in New York City’s social history.

6 Nero’s Domus Aurea

The Golden House was a luxury party manor Nero had built for his and his guests’ wanton prodigality, and he used it almost every day for four years. Scholars cannot yet agree on just how gigantic it was, but it covered at least 100 acres of the center of Rome, across the Palatine, Caelian, and Esquiline Hills. Today, it is buried under subsequent development and currently being excavated. New rooms are discovered all the time, with original frescoes and architecture untouched since Nero’s day.

It was well-known from history but had been condemned after Nero’s suicide and filled in and over with dirt. The opulence Nero had built for it is beyond belief, and the Golden House was one of the primary reasons for the final revolt that drove him from Rome. The Roman people were starving while Nero merrily ignored them, entertaining his rich friends and political acquaintances. The Domus may have covered 300 acres at its maximum, including an artificial lake, cattle pastures, and vast, manicured groves. These were the gardens through which Nero walked at night and had Christians tied to stakes, smeared with wax, and set on fire to light his path.

The main building included a giant dome and all the exterior walls were gold-plated. The interior walls and floors were stone overlaid with solid marble, trimmed with elephant ivory, and encrusted with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and other precious stones. Nero commissioned a massive bronze statue to himself, the Colossus Neronis, which stood some 35 meters (116 ft) tall and was placed just outside the main entrance, inside a covered portico at the end of the Appian Way. There were 300 rooms in the Domus, and none of them were bedchambers.

The building was used for one thing only: partying. Incense was kept burning strongly throughout, and the central dining room was set on stone balls that could rotate the whole room with guests dining in it, in time with the changing of the sky’s color. Suetonius wrote that “all the dining rooms had ceilings of fretted ivory, the panels of which could slide back and let a rain of flowers, or of perfume from hidden sprinklers, fall on his guests.” The floors of the rooms were shaped in such a way that one room would capture the sunlight and the next would radiate it. There is very little information on any specific party that Nero threw in the Domus, but this is probably because there was a party every night. It is not overreaching to surmise that with feasts and alcohol came Roman sex orgies as well.

5 Belshazzar’s Feast

If for no other reason, you have to admire the Old Testament for how incredibly entertaining it is. Where else does God himself spoil the party? This feast occurred on the last night of Belshazzar’s reign over Babylon and ended with the Persian and Median conquest of the Babylonian capital and Belshazzar’s assassination in his sleep. The Book of Daniel is the only account of Belshazzar, but his existence has been corroborated in a few other texts or on artifacts.

Belshazzar, like so many other absolute rulers, has no concern whatever for humility, and he wines and dines 1,000 of his lordly friends. Once the party has been going well and everyone is already drunk, he orders the gold and silver goblets and bowls of the Jewish temple of Jerusalem to be brought in so his guests may drink beer from them. Why? For the same reason that people order the $25,000 sundae at Serendipity in New York City—it’s fun to indulge ourselves to excess when we have the luxury. What better way to enjoy abundant wine than by drinking from 24 karat gold? These vessels were meant for sacraments in the temple, the glorification of the Hebrew God. They became Babylon’s spoils after it conquered Jerusalem in 587 BC and razed Solomon’s Temple to the ground. Not only does gold look attractive and make us think the food will taste better, but it’s fun to thumb the nose at the conquered.

Belshazzar’s bill of fare for his guests was copious, to say the least, and consisted of unleavened barley bread, watermelons, cantaloupe (called “the Persian melon”), dates, almonds, pecans, and poultry, mutton, pork, beef, fish, and probably locusts for meat. Garlic and onions were, and still are, plentiful in the area and were used for seasoning. The Babylonians did not drink much wine, since grapes were difficult to cultivate in that area, so they drank barley beer. Drinking from some foreign god’s chalices was sure to make Belshazzar’s guests feel like gods themselves—then the hand of God showed up and ruined everything. Belshazzar’s kingdom was taken that very night and he himself killed by Cyrus the Great of Persia, whom Daniel may name Darius the Mede.

4 Paul Poiret’s Thousand And Second Night

Poiret was the Lady Gaga of his day. He was a Parisian fashion designer who took France by storm with his modern dress designs when he eliminated the woman’s need to wear a corset in order to enhance her figure. He emphasized drapery instead of tightly tailoring the clothing to woman. On 24 June 1911, he finally debuted a new fragrance line, Parfums de Rosine, named after his daughter, and he had hyped this revelation for months by preparing the most elaborate party Paris would see in a very long time.

Held at his own villa in Paris, the theme was Persia—all 300 guests, men and women, were required to dress in florid Persian style. Think of Disney’s Aladdin and you’ve got a very good idea of the costumes. Those who could not supply their own were given one free of charge, but those who would not conform were forced to leave. There were live tropical birds of every color a feast fit for Belshazzar, complemented with red and white wine and champagne. Poiret greeted his guests wearing a fur-trimmed, ankle-length overdress and bejeweled turban. Poiret decorated his house like a sultan’s harem, with palm trees, huge tents housing the food, and lots of gold—Poiret’s favorite color—everywhere. Poiret’s wife Denise basked on an overstuffed divan inside a gold cage, where she laughed riotously now and then at the patrons.

3 Alexander At Persepolis

This was not merely a party. It was a rampage of hubristic debauchery of an intensity and scale that has not been seen since in the history of our species— murder, rape, unbridled drunkenness, and the looting of the entire city, culminating in Alexander’s personal and maniacally inebriated order to torch the Royal Palace.

In September 480 BC, a few weeks after Leonidas and his brave 300 (and about 7,000 others) died holding off Xerxes’s army of some 200,000, the victorious Persians marched on Athens and found it undefended and deserted. Athens then burned to the ground, and scholars will never agree on why. It may have been an accident when the Greeks were evacuating, or the Greeks may have done it themselves to deprive the Persians of supplies, or Xerxes may have done it in a rage. Greek propaganda persisted for a long time that Xerxes burned Athens down deliberately. By Alexander’s time, the Greeks wanted revenge, and Alexander may have knowingly given the order to burn down the palace out of a desire to placate his army of about 15,000. They were far from home and had been gone for five years, and he was always mindful of an atmosphere of mutiny.

Or it might simply have been the result of an atmosphere of alcoholic excess. It might have seemed to Alexander just a fun thing to do at the time. The Persian populace in the city had been thoroughly subjugated following the Battle at the Persian Gate. There, the Persians blocked Alexander’s invasion in a very narrow mountain pass, just as Leonidas at Thermopylae. Greek losses were heavy. This had not been another easy victory for history’s greatest general and his men now saw the Persians as playthings. Even though Persepolis surrendered and obeyed Alexander, he finally gave his men leave to butcher the Persian men, gang-rape and enslave the women, and ransack all buildings for Persepolis’s hoard of gold and gems that May.

Finally, Alexander ordered the central citadel—at the core of which stood Darius’s palace—razed to the ground. Much of it was stone, but enough of its foundation was wood for it to collapse. The only thing left standing of the palace and reception galleries where Darius entertained thousands of guests at a time were about forty stone pillars, still there today.

2 13, 1903

In the annals of merriment, no soiree was more convivial than the extravaganza Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra threw for their noble friends to celebrate being wealthy. At the time, the majority of the Russian people were starving and freezing to death throughout the country, and the ball was a major contributor to the revolution 14 years later. It was held in the monarchs’ official residence, the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and the theme was the 17th Century: Everyone was required to dress in the flamboyantly opulent costumes of Europe in the 1600s. Some dressed as Russian, German, and French kings and queens, and others as musketeers, complete with real rapiers.

Diamonds, precious stones, and priceless artifacts of the time period were brought from the Kremlin solely for the party-goers to enjoy wearing them,. Nicholas and his wife dressed as Tsar Alexis I and Tsaritsa Maria Miloslavskaya. It is difficult to imagine the amount of luxury Nicholas could heap on his more than 200 guests when we consider that he was said to be worth a nominal $20 billion when he took the throne in 1894, but many sources claim a modern estimate of $290 to $300 billion in today’s US dollars. Nicholas was, more or less, worth Russia until the Russians got sick of what they viewed as his “let them eat cake” attitude.

The centerpiece of the first night’s festivities was a concert in the Hermitage theater inside the Palace, during which Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov was performed with Feodor Chaliapin himself in the lead, followed by Minkus’s La Bayadere and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The guests were then treated to a Russian dance and a dinner so large it had to be held in three rooms—the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish rooms—where the food served corresponded to their respective cultures. Several bars throughout the palace served liquor, and tea and wine were present on every table. The court orchestra played Baroque music from all over Europe from behind a golden fence. Formal photographs were taken and this was the last time all the nobility of Russia was present for them.

Two nights later, the ball was celebrated again just as lavishly. Everyone feasted and danced until 1:00 AM, when the empress judged a costume contest. Russia has not seen this degree of splendor since.

1 La Sagra Dell’Uva

Every year on the first Sunday of October since 1924, the city of Marino, Italy has celebrated the arrival of Marcantonio Colonna, the admiral who defeated the Ottoman armada in the Gulf Of Corinth in 1571. Some 400 of the Marino townsfolk dress in the Renaissance garb of Colonna’s sailors, there is a jousting tournament, and every balcony, doorway, and terrace is strung with flower garlands. All the fountains are bedecked with vines of ripe grapes and you may eat as many of them as you like. If you want an actual meal, you need only browse the town and sample as you please—it’s all free.

The festival lasts from dawn to well into the dark of the next morning, but the highlight of the party comes at dusk. Just as the sun hits the horizon, the water is drained from the main fountain in the center of town, La Fontana dei Quattro Mori (“the Fountain of the Four Moors”), and sweet white wine is dispensed freely for everyone to drink as much as they want. The city spends about $250,000 on the wine alone. You are advised, however, to drink your fill and then lay low, because the crowd does get out of hand.

A week later, on the second Sunday, they celebrate their annual doughnut festival. The doughnuts are a local delicacy, ciambella al mosto, which are baked buns with raisins, rolled in sugar and “must” or pressed wine skins.

When we tally the 10 blunderful moments of French military history, it’s tempting to point out that the English word “surrender” comes from the French *surrendre*. Yet many forget that “victory” derives from French *victoire*, “battle” from *bataille*, and even “war” is a mash‑up of *were* and *guerre*. As Kipling once observed of the French, “Their business is war, and they do their business.”

10 Blunderful Moments of French Military Mishaps

10 Courtrai, 1302

If medieval duchies and counties aren’t your specialty, picture Flanders—today part of Belgium—as a former French possession. Early in the 1300s the county was split: the aristocracy bowed to French authority, while the bulk of the populace yearned for self‑rule, a sentiment they demonstrated dramatically on May 18, 1302 by slaughtering every French resident of Bruges.

King Philip IV, known as Philip the Fair, responded with a punitive march into Flanders, placing the command in the hands of Robert II of Artois. Robert mustered what was, at the time, one of France’s largest field forces: more than 2,500 heavily‑armored knights and nobles, backed by elite infantry of at least 4,000 men.

Outside the walls of Courtrai, a lightly‑armored Flemish militia of roughly 10,000 men awaited Robert’s advance. These peasants wielded pikes and *goedendags*—short spears meant to knock riders from their horses. They picked their battlefield wisely: a river shielded their rear, while a tangled network of ditches and marshes fortified their front. Some French knights warned against assaulting such a fortified spot, but Robert brushed them off, boasting, “A hundred horses are worth a thousand men.”

The clash opened with a futile volley of arrows from both sides. Once the arrows ran out, the Flemish fell back to their prepared line, planting their pikes firmly into the earth. The French knights ordered their foot soldiers aside and surged forward. Though the ground slowed the charge, it didn’t halt it—until the Flemish pikes met the horses, halting them dead in their tracks, while the soggy terrain turned to mud that trapped the riders. Repeated charges met the same stubborn resistance.

In just a few hours the French force was annihilated, with more than 1,000 knights—including Robert II of Artois—lying dead. A few surviving French soldiers attempted to defect to the Flemish side, only to be cut down for the very spurs on their boots. To celebrate the triumph, the Flemings gathered roughly 500 pairs of those spurs and displayed them in churches across the region.

9 Crecy, 1346

Flemish freedom proved fleeting. By the 1340s the English and French were squabbling over who should control Flanders and the French crown, among other disputes. Naturally, their debates were settled with swords and arrows rather than diplomacy.

In 1346, King Edward III of England led his army across the Channel, spending months raiding the French countryside before Philip VI finally caught up with them near the village of Crécy. Edward’s force numbered 11,000 men, including 7,000 longbowmen. He chose a gentle rise for his troops, backed by a river on one flank and dense, impenetrable woods on the other.

Philip’s army, estimated between 30,000 and 60,000 soldiers, surged onto the battlefield in chaotic fashion late in the day. Disregarding Philip’s command to postpone the attack until morning and lacking proper reconnaissance, an ill‑coordinated mass of crossbowmen and heavy cavalry barreled toward the English line.

The initial crossbow barrage fell short, prompting a torrent of English arrows in response. English bowmen could release about five arrows per minute, dwarfing the crossbowmen’s one or two. The decimated crossbowmen fled, while French knights, impatient, charged without waiting for their infantry to clear the ground. Yet before the knights could close in, the English longbows felled their horses, forcing the remaining riders to retreat.

The French persisted, launching fifteen additional charges, none of which managed to disturb the English formation. The slaughter was staggering: more than 1,500 French knights and 10,000 foot soldiers fell at Crécy, while English losses were limited to roughly 100 men.

8 Nicopolis, 1396

During the 14th century, the Ottoman forces cut through the Byzantine army as easily as a hot knife through butter. Seeking to reverse some Byzantine defeats and keep the Ottomans at bay, French knights spearheaded a crusader expedition into northern Bulgaria, targeting the Ottoman stronghold of Nicopolis.

The coalition of French and Hungarians, probably around 20,000 men strong, laid siege to the city. A string of blunders sealed its fate. The crusaders neglected to bring any siege engines, so ladders and mining proved useless against the massive fortifications, forcing them to rely on starving the defenders.

During the wait, the crusaders omitted any reconnaissance to monitor the approaches to Nicopolis for a possible Ottoman relief force. This lapse allowed Sultan Bayezid to slip his troops unnoticed to the city’s outskirts, sandwiching the crusaders between the fortress and the Ottoman army.

Leadership fell not to the most seasoned commander but to the highest‑ranking noble: a green 23‑year‑old French knight named Jean de Valois. Valois had never faced the Ottomans, yet his French pedigree and knighthood convinced him to thrust his heavy cavalry into a reckless frontal assault against the unscouted Ottoman position.

Briefly, Valois’s audacity paid off as the French drove Bayezid’s cavalry from the battlefield. However, this thrust brought his men into the lethal range of Ottoman archers, halting the advance dead in its tracks. Seizing the chaos, the Ottoman forces enveloped the French, while simultaneously assaulting the Hungarian reserves still entrenched in Nicopolis. Almost the entire crusader army was captured or slain.

7 Fishguard, 1797

Amid the French Revolutionary Wars against Britain, General Lazare Hoche devised a three‑pronged assault on the United Kingdom aimed at unsettling English dominance. The plan called for French troops to land in England and Ireland, bolstering an Irish uprising and stirring unrest among England’s lower classes. Two of the three columns never reached Britain and turned back to France. The third, diverted by storms from its Bristol route, finally touched down at the tranquil Welsh port of Fishguard.

To win over the English populace, the French appointed Irish‑American William Tate—veteran of the American Revolution—to lead the expedition. Tate’s force was a rag‑tag mix of slaves, convicts, and POWs, totaling about 1,800 well‑armed men. Yet Fishguard offered no opposition. Tate positioned his troops outside the town and sent them out to forage, but they soon abandoned discipline to guzzle stolen wine. Inebriated French soldiers roamed the streets, and a lone Welshwoman wielding a pitchfork managed to capture at least a dozen of them.

When the locals finally realized an invasion was underway, the Welsh mustered their militia. Around 400 men—and a comparable number of women—dressed in their traditional red coats and black hats rallied to defend Fishguard. Confronted with what Tate perceived as an overwhelming force, he chose the only sensible option: surrender.

6 Aboukir Bay, 1798

As Napoleon set out to dominate Egypt, his supporting fleet lingered anchored in Aboukir Bay, east of Alexandria. While Bonaparte’s campaign threatened Britain’s Mediterranean trade routes, the French navy there was complacent, believing an English counter‑attack was unlikely in the near term.

Nevertheless, in August 1798, Admiral Horatio Nelson’s British fleet sailed in to confront the French. The French had failed to post adequate coastal lookouts, leaving them blind to the approach. Their formation was weak: thirteen ships of the line were spread thinly across the bay, leaving sizable gaps. Shore batteries offered no aid, as Admiral Brueys had anchored beyond their effective range. Moreover, Brueys’s crews were understrength, many plagued by disease.

Nelson arrived at the French anchorage at twilight and promptly ordered an assault. The French were so unprepared that oil and paint were left exposed on the deck of their flagship.

Nelson’s vessels slipped through the French fleet’s sieve‑like formation, raking the bewildered enemy with broadsides. A cannonball struck an open oil pool aboard the French flagship, igniting a blaze that quickly engulfed the ship; its powder magazine detonated, crippling the French naval effort.

By nightfall, Nelson had captured or destroyed eleven of the French’s finest ships. British losses amounted to a few hundred casualties and no vessels. Napoleon’s army found itself stranded in the Near East; Bonaparte and a handful of generals fled, boarding a swift transport back to France. The remaining troops were forced to seek refuge aboard British ships.

5 1804

Haiti—then known as Saint‑Domingue—entered the 19th century under the control of former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture. By 1801, Napoleon, having solidified his rule, set his sights on the island. He could not tolerate a lucrative French colony falling under a black insurgent’s command.

To subdue Toussaint, Napoleon dispatched his brother‑in‑law, General Charles Leclerc, with 30,000 French troops across the Atlantic. Upon landing, Haitian rebels chose to scorch their own towns before the French and wage a guerrilla campaign from the thick interior jungle. Leclerc proved an adept commander, swiftly capturing most guerrilla leaders. However, while the French could engage the rebels, they were ill‑suited to combat yellow fever, which struck and killed roughly half of Leclerc’s forces. With L’Ouverture still at large, Leclerc made a fateful move.

Leclerc summoned L’Ouverture to a fraudulent peace talks, seized the revolutionary, and shipped him to a prison in the Alps. This desperate blunder only inflamed the uprising further, and Leclerc himself later fell victim to yellow fever before achieving any lasting pacification.

4 Bailen, 1808

During the spring of 1808, Spain was driving out the French occupation troops that had recently overrun the nation under Napoleon’s orders. To suppress the Spanish insurgency, General Pierre Dupont was sent from Madrid to seize the port of Cádiz. Reinforcements bolstered his force to roughly 23,000 men.

Around the midpoint between Madrid and Cádiz, Dupont paused near Bailén after discovering that the road ahead was dominated by Spanish guerrillas. While he considered retreating to Madrid, the Spanish seized the passage. Concerned about being isolated from French command in the capital, Dupont dispatched 10,000 troops under General Vedel to reclaim the route. By splitting his forces, Dupont inadvertently allowed the larger Spanish army to encircle him, cutting off half his troops.

Instead of mounting a decisive breakout, Dupont resorted to a series of weak, fragmented assaults. The Spanish remained unmoved. While Dupont’s forward guard withdrew, Vedel made scant effort to breach the Spanish encirclement surrounding his compatriots. Though Vedel contemplated fleeing, even that appeared overly taxing, so he led his detachment back to Bailén and surrendered.

Dupont himself capitulated, resulting in nearly 18,000 French soldiers surrendering under a Spanish promise that they could return to France. However, after Dupont’s surrender, the Spanish reconsidered and instead imprisoned the French troops.

3 1867

North America in the 1860s was in turmoil. Mexico, mirroring the United States, endured a costly—though inconclusive—civil war. The victorious liberal regime led by Benito Juárez inherited a nation burdened by a bankrupt treasury. Juárez’s decision to cease payments to European creditors set the stage for an extraordinary incursion.

In 1862, France, Britain, and Spain launched a joint intervention to compel Mexico to settle its debts. When the Anglo‑Spanish partnership recognized that Mexico could not conjure money, they withdrew, leaving the French to seize Mexico City. Napoleon III harbored ambitions of establishing a North American empire.

Juárez was deemed “out” while Napoleon III’s preferences were deemed “in.” The French emperor placed the Austrian archduke Maximilian von Habsburg on the Mexican throne. Mexico’s previously vanquished conservative elite greeted the European prince enthusiastically. Yet Maximilian’s popularity was divided. He and his wife exuded glamour, resembling an early JFK‑Jackie duo. However, Maximilian’s progressive policies—favoring indigenous peoples and the poor while alienating wealthy conservatives—won him few allies on either side.

During Maximilian’s turbulent rule, French soldiers patrolling the countryside were the sole source of stability. Napoleon III had pledged these troops to Maximilian via the Treaty of Miramar—a pact used to persuade his “friend” to accept the crown. Yet, as time passed, Napoleon III’s enthusiasm for the Mexican venture waned, prompting him to pull the tens of thousands of troops.

Deprived of the expected French backing, the republican Mexican forces faced no obstacle in confronting the erstwhile monarch. Maximilian was captured and executed. Benito Juárez reclaimed his authority, likely taking satisfaction that his earlier scheme to turn Mexico into a U.S. protectorate had failed.

2 La-Tour, 1870

France opened the Franco‑Prussian War by hastily advancing its forces to the eastern border. After the Prussians decimated that army weeks later, a swift withdrawal westward to assume defensive positions appeared the only logical step. Executing an orderly retreat required competent leadership, but the French army was under the erratic command of Marshal Achille Bazaine, whose directives were famously summarized by a subordinate as, “I spent the entire day in complete ignorance of Marshal Bazaine’s intentions.”

During their westward pullback, the French unexpectedly met a Prussian cavalry contingent of nearly 30,000 horsemen. Though formidable, Bazaine still commanded over 120,000 troops. Nevertheless, the odds did not dissuade the Prussian cavalry, which launched an attack, assuming that nearby Prussian units would hear the gunfire and converge on the battlefield.

As Bazaine wavered, Prussian reinforcements arrived in small waves. The fighting persisted with little gain for either side, and the French still held a four‑to‑one numerical superiority. Bazaine spent the bulk of the engagement pondering how to withdraw to a more defensible location.

A daring, near‑suicidal charge by under 1,000 Prussian cavalrymen finally persuaded Bazaine that the battle was unwinnable. He disengaged, veered away from Paris, and retreated toward the fortified town of Metz. There, General Bazaine and his 115,000 troops became encircled, isolated from Paris and consequently deprived of supplies and reinforcements.

1 Sedan, 1870

To aid Bazaine, who found himself besieged at Metz by a reinforced Prussian army, Napoleon III dispatched the remaining fragments of the French forces.

A weary French army of roughly 130,000 tried to regroup at Sedan, a town situated about 160 km (100 mi) northwest of Metz. As the French awaited their emperor’s arrival to take command, a 200,000‑strong Prussian force encircled the position. The surrounding high ground turned the French into easy targets for Prussian artillery.

When Napoleon finally arrived, the battle was already in progress, and Prussian artillery had devastated French command. Leadership of the French army changed hands like a hot potato, fostering chaos throughout the ranks. Orders were issued, rescinded, and reissued in rapid succession.

Napoleon quickly recognized that his army could not survive the day, let alone reach Metz. He ordered a surrender before the carnage concluded. After a few more disastrous assaults, the French command finally acquiesced to their emperor’s directive.

Approximately 20,000 French troops were killed or wounded, and a comparable number were captured during the day’s combat. An additional 83,000 French soldiers surrendered afterward, along with Emperor Napoleon himself, who was taken prisoner. Though the Franco‑Prussian War was only 44 days old, it should have concluded then. Instead, with Napoleon defeated, the nascent Third Republic refused an armistice and prolonged the conflict for several more months.

J. is currently penning a book on sex, money, intrigue and the like; feel free to contact him if you’re interested.

The fates of most historical figures are well known. Upon their deaths, there are grand funerary ceremonies and their graves become pilgrimage sites for centuries. Yet some souls never received such closure; they vanished without a trace, swallowed by the sands of time, or whisked away to exile from which they never returned. Below we dive into the world of 10 notable disappearances, each a tantalizing puzzle that still haunts scholars and curious minds alike.

10 Notable Disappearances Overview

10 Juliet Poyntz

Juliet Poyntz, born November 25, 1886, was a bright‑minded feminist who quickly adopted radical ideas while in college, eventually declaring herself a socialist. Throughout her adult life she threw herself into a slew of left‑leaning groups, from the Friends of the Soviet Union to the Communist Party of the United States of America. The record is hazy, but scholars agree she journeyed to the USSR where she worked for the OGPU, the secret police that would later morph into the NKVD and then the KGB.

While in Soviet territory she saw first‑hand how Stalin twisted the very ideals she once championed. Disgusted by the blood‑thirsty purges that claimed the lives of acquaintances, Poyntz refused further collaboration with the OGPU. Shortly after returning to New York, she vanished. On June 3, 1937, she was spotted exiting a women’s club in the city. Her belongings were left untouched, suggesting no intention to travel far. Rumors swirled that, like many who dared defy Stalin, she fell victim to a covert assassination squad. To this day, her remains have never been recovered.

9 James William Boyd

James William Boyd served as a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, only to be captured by Union forces in 1863. While he languished in captivity his wife passed away, leaving him a widower with seven children to care for. After petitioning for release, the U.S. Secretary of War granted his freedom on February 14, 1865, yet Boyd never made it home.

The mystery deepened because Boyd bore an uncanny resemblance to John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Some conspiracy theorists argue that the manhunt for Booth inadvertently ended with the killing of look‑alike Boyd. Most scholars, however, dismiss this theory as one of the many baroque and unlikely narratives surrounding Lincoln’s assassination.

Booth’s own body was interred in an unmarked grave, and three cervical vertebrae were removed during his autopsy. Those vertebrae now reside at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., under Army oversight. Descendants of the Booth family have recently petitioned for DNA testing on those bones, hoping to prove their ancestor escaped justice. Their request was denied on the grounds that the exact burial site is unknown and that disturbing the remains could jeopardize other interments. Consequently, the enigma endures.

8 Hereward The Wake

The historic record confirms that Hereward the Wake was a real person, though the legend surrounding him is heavily embellished with tales of bear‑fighting and princess‑rescuing. Born in England around 1035, he spent his youth as a roving rogue and was later exiled to France by his father. After roughly fifteen years away, he returned to find his family’s lands seized by the Norman conquest and his brother brutally slain, his head mounted on a spike.

Enraged, Hereward launched a ferocious attack on a Norman banquet, slaughtering many soldiers. He spent the remainder of his life as a Saxon freedom fighter, rallying resistance against Norman rule. In 1071 his forces were driven to the Isle of Ely, where they staged a desperate last stand. The Normans, in a bizarre turn, summoned a witch who perched in a wooden tower to cast curses on the Saxons. Hereward and his men set the tower ablaze, burning it to the ground while the witch continued to shriek.

Ely eventually fell, but not before Hereward escaped—a fact corroborated by all known sources. After that, the chronicles lose track of him. Some accounts claim he was killed or imprisoned; the most compelling theory suggests he vanished into self‑imposed exile, perhaps as a mercenary awaiting death.

7 Khachatur Abovian

Born in 1809, Khachatur Abovian emerged as a pivotal figure in Armenian culture, best remembered for the posthumously published novel Wounds of Armenia. Though his father hoped he would join the priesthood, Abovian abandoned seminary life after a few years, preferring to delve into history and language. He later served as a translator and guide for German explorer Friedrich Parrot during the latter’s 1829 expedition to Mount Ararat.

Parrot recognized Abovian’s talents and secured his enrollment at the University of Dorpat, where he studied philosophy, literature, and foreign tongues. Upon returning to Armenia, Abovian’s progressive ideas earned him both admirers and enemies. He worked as a writer and teacher, marrying Emilia and raising two children.

On April 14, 1848, Abovian set out on an early‑morning walk and never returned. Strangely, his wife waited a full month before reporting him missing. Given his outspoken writings, many suspect a political assassin silenced him. An alternative theory posits that Russian Special Corps of Gendarmes snatched him for exile to the frozen Siberian wastelands. No trace of him has ever surfaced.

6 Theodosia Burr

Founding Father Aaron Burr, the nation’s third Vice President, is most famously remembered for his 1804 duel with Alexander Hamilton. Yet his daughter, Theodosia, inherited his fierce intellect and a remarkably comprehensive education. She married Joseph Alston, a South Carolina landowner who would later become governor during the War of 1812.

In late December 1812, after Burr returned from a European sojourn, Theodosia boarded the schooner Patriot in Georgetown, South Carolina, intending to travel north and reunite with her father. The vessel never reached its destination.

Maritime scholars propose several theories: the ship may have wrecked on the treacherous sandbars of Cape Hatteras, or perhaps pirates intercepted it, slaughtering the crew and seizing valuables. Over two centuries later, no wreckage or survivors have ever been found.

5 Sean Flynn

Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star, led a life as dramatic off‑screen as his on‑screen adventures. He fathered four children, including a son named Sean, born in 1941. Sean inherited his father’s wanderlust, dabbling in acting before turning to big‑game hunting and guiding safaris across Africa.When the Vietnam conflict escalated, Sean enlisted as a photojournalist, even earning a parachute jump with the 101st Airborne Division. As North Vietnamese forces pushed into Cambodia, he and fellow journalist Dana Stone were captured by communist guerrillas on April 6, 1970. Neither was ever seen again.

Sean’s mother, French actress Lili Damita, poured a small fortune into a relentless search that lasted until her death in 1994, never uncovering his fate. In 2010 a mass grave was discovered in Cambodia, presumed to hold victims of the Khmer Rouge, but DNA testing confirmed Sean Flynn was not among the remains.

4 Mansell Richard James

Canadian ace Mansell James served with the British Royal Flying Corps during World War I, racking up eleven confirmed aerial victories—a record that placed him in the shadow of the famed Red Baron. After the war, James migrated to the United States and continued his aviation career by competing in a high‑speed race organized by the Boston Globe. On May 28, 1919, he won the race from Atlantic City to Boston with ease.

Conflicting reports cloud his final flight. On June 2, 1919, he was last seen in Tyringham, Massachusetts, heading back from the competition. Despite extensive searches, no wreckage or remains have ever been linked to him, and his disappearance remains a haunting mystery for aviation historians.

3 Emperor Valens

Flavius Julius Valens Augustus ruled as the Eastern Roman Emperor from 364 to 378 AD, a period marked by increasing pressure from Gothic tribes. The empire’s decline accelerated under his reign, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Adrianople on August 9, 378.

The battle turned into a savage rout; Valens was left abandoned on the battlefield and vanished from historical record. Some apocryphal accounts suggest he escaped the carnage only to hide in a nearby house, which the Goths subsequently burned with him inside. Regardless of the exact fate, Valens’ body was never recovered, adding his name to the list of vanished leaders.

2 Owain Glyndwr

Owain Glyndwr, the last Welshman to claim the title Prince of Wales, spearheaded a fierce revolt against English rule. Born in the mid‑1300s to a privileged family, he served in the British military before turning rebel. Shakespeare immortalized him as “Owen Glendower” in Henry IV, Part I, though the dramatization adds a magical veneer to his historical persona.

In 1400 Glyndwr ignited the Welsh Revolt, rallying a substantial army that achieved several notable victories. Crowned Prince of Wales in 1404, his forces ultimately could not match the resources of England. After a daring raid in 1412, he vanished from the historical record.

At the time he was likely the most wanted man in the world, with a hefty bounty on his head. The following year, Henry V offered him a royal pardon, but fearing a trap, Glyndwr remained hidden. He likely died around 1415, with his burial kept secret to protect his remains from desecration.

1 Spartacus

Spartacus stands as one of the most celebrated rebels in antiquity, inspiring countless books, films, and television series. Yet surprisingly little is known about his early life. Most historians agree he was a Thracian—an Indo‑European people the Romans would label as barbarians—who trained as a gladiator.

In 73 BC, Spartacus and roughly seventy fellow gladiators escaped their training school, sparking a slave uprising that swelled into a massive army. Some scholars suggest his ultimate aim was to eradicate slavery in Rome, though his precise motives remain a topic of debate. The Roman Republic initially underestimated his force, but as the rebellion grew, they dispatched increasingly larger legions until Spartacus’ army was finally crushed.

The final clash took place near present‑day Senerchia in southern Italy in 71 BC. Legend claims Spartacus killed his own horse to deny himself an escape route, choosing to fight to the death. Ancient sources concur that he died on the battlefield, yet his body was never recovered, leaving his ultimate fate shrouded in mystery.

Executioner. That single word can send a shiver down the spine of even the toughest convict. While the condemned usually dominate the headlines, the men and women who wielded the axe, the rope, or the gun have stories that are often just as gripping. Without further ado, let’s explore the lives of the 10 extremely bloody executioners who made history, each one more fascinating than the victims they claimed.

10 Louis Congo

Louis Congo, a freed Black man, rose to the grim post of Louisiana’s official executioner in 1725, holding the role for roughly twelve years. As the sole individual officially empowered to mete out capital punishment and torture in the colony, Congo administered a grim menu of punishments: hanging, severing limbs, whipping, and even the dreaded breaking wheel. In one notorious case, he shattered eight enslaved men on the wheel; in another, he flogged a Frenchman accused of stabbing someone with a knife. For Congo, the color of the condemned mattered not—white, brown, or Black—all faced his relentless discipline.

One might assume that being the exclusive executioner granted Congo a position of prestige in colonial society. In reality, the French viewed the job as lowly and contemptible, relegating him to the outskirts of town as a social outcast. This marginalization left him vulnerable; on two separate occasions, angry slaves assaulted his home in retaliation for his cooperation with colonial authorities.

9 Nabi

Ever have those days when you just want to quit your job? Take a cue from Hajj Abd Al-Nabi, whose devotion to his role as Egypt’s official executioner is nothing short of legendary. As a child, Hajj described himself as a “little Satan,” spending his free time strangling cats and dogs for sport. His parents warned that such tendencies might land him in hell, but the same dark impulse later proved useful when he pursued the executioner’s office.

When he finally secured the position, his superiors issued a single, unusual request: grow a mustache. Hajj obliged at first, but quickly realized that “executing comes from the heart, not the mustache,” and he possessed a heart of stone to match his grim trade.

Hajj claims to have personally carried out 800 executions. He loves his work so much that, even in retirement, he says he would sprint back into duty at a moment’s notice if the state ever needed his services again.

8 Lady Betty

In the serene Irish town of Roscommon during the late 1700s, folk legend tells of a woman named Lady Betty. A single mother, she saw her son leave for the United States to pursue education. Years later, the now well‑dressed and successful son returned to visit his mother. Unable to recognize him, Lady Betty invited him inside, only to stab him in his sleep to steal his belongings.

When the horrific truth dawned on her—that she had murdered her own child—Lady Betty erupted in fury. She was sentenced to death, but on the day of her execution the hangman failed to appear. Sensing a chance, she bargained with the sheriff: if he commuted her sentence, she would take over the gallows and hang the other criminals for free.

The sheriff agreed, and for three decades Lady Betty performed her grim duties with murderous glee. Witnesses claimed she let the bodies swing like pendulums while she sketched each condemned in charcoal. When she finally passed away, her room was reportedly filled with hundreds of charcoal portraits of the people she had hanged.

7 Albert Pierrepoint

Albert Pierrepoint’s ascent to fame as England’s premier hangman was hardly a surprise—he hailed from a lineage of executioners. Yet Albert eclipsed his forebears through sheer skill and efficiency. His victims ranged from ordinary convicts to notorious Nazi war criminals. He boasted of personally executing at least 400, possibly as many as 600, individuals over a career that began in 1932 and spanned more than two decades.

During his prime, Pierrepoint reportedly managed to hang 17 people in a single day. After resigning in 1956 over a fee dispute, he underwent a dramatic transformation, becoming an outspoken campaigner against capital punishment. His resignation even prompted the Home Office to persuade him to return, as officials recognized that he truly was England’s finest hangman.

6 Henri Sanson

Arguably the only family more adept at executions than the Pierrepoints were the Sansons, who dominated French capital punishment for over a century and a half. The most renowned member, Charles‑Henri Sanson, carried out roughly 3,000 executions during the reign of Louis XVI and throughout the French Revolution.

With the invention of the guillotine, Sanson could behead scores of victims daily. Yet, despite his prolific output, he was not a cold‑hearted killer; he expressed genuine remorse for the thousands of lives he ended. His most harrowing experience was executing King Louis XVI himself. Sanson had hoped a rescue might intervene, but none came, forcing him to carry out the monarch’s death.

Ill health eventually compelled Sanson to resign, passing the grim baton to his son Henry, who later achieved fame by executing Marie Antoinette.

5 Antonina Makarova

During World War II, Antonina Makarova transformed from a Soviet volunteer nurse into a notorious executioner for the Nazis. As the German advance swept into Soviet territory, Makarova found herself deep behind enemy lines, captured by the SS, and subsequently appointed the official executioner for the puppet state of Lokot in central Russia—a regime that lasted only a year.

She wielded a machine gun to dispatch approximately 1,500 people, earning the moniker “Antonina the Machine Gunner.” After the war, she married a veteran and settled in Belarus. However, KGB agents eventually tracked her down in 1976. Though she initially denied the accusations, she ultimately broke down and confessed to the killings.

Seeking leniency, Makarova cooperated fully, even guiding investigators to the execution sites. The court showed little mercy; two years after her capture, she found herself on the opposite side of the gun, facing a firing squad herself.

4 Giovanni Bugatti

During an almost 70‑year tenure (1796–1864) as the Papal States’ executioner, Giovanni Bugatti was treated like a rock star. Known as “Mastro Titta” (Latin for “Master of Justice”), Bugatti performed 516 executions with an almost clinical professionalism, sometimes offering snuff to the condemned as a final gesture of empathy.

Bugatti’s executions attracted massive crowds, often whole families gathered to watch. His early methods included hanging and beheading with an axe. For particularly gruesome crimes, he employed quartering or the brutal “mazzatello,” in which the victim’s head was smashed with a mallet before the throat was cut.

After the French introduced the guillotine in 1808, Bugatti adopted it as his preferred method, using it on more than 50 occasions. He finally retired at the age of 85, receiving a lifetime pension from the Pope in recognition of his dedicated service.

3 Franz Schmidt

Serving as Nuremberg’s official executioner from 1578 to 1618, Franz Schmidt carried out almost 400 executions and tortured hundreds more. Yet his memoirs paint a picture of a sober man who performed his grim duties against his will.

The Schmidt family entered the trade after a noble forced Franz’s father—a woodsman by trade—to become the town’s executioner. Franz inherited the mantle because he had no other options. Although the pay should have elevated his status, the profession left his family shunned by society. Nevertheless, Schmidt achieved a degree of respect, even working as a healer on the side.

His perseverance paid off when the emperor granted him citizenship in Nuremberg, restoring the honor typically denied to executioners.

2 Johann Reichhart

Born into a lineage boasting eight generations of executioners, Johann Reichhart’s destiny seemed pre‑ordained. Over a career that spanned three employers and two world wars, Reichhart executed more than 3,000 people.

His first executions took place in Bavaria in 1924 under the Weimar Republic; the job earned him many enemies, forcing him to flee to Holland in 1929. He returned after the Nazis reinstated him in the 1930s, and during their regime he carried out the bulk of his work—an astonishing 2,876 executions—using a miniature guillotine called the “Fallbeil,” which allowed rapid, efficient killings.

After the Allies arrived, Reichhart switched sides, hanging over 20 convicted war criminals at Landsberg in 1946. However, his Nazi Party affiliation later led to his arrest and hefty fines. Personal tragedies followed, including a divorce and the suicide of one of his sons. He spent his final years in a nursing home, passing away in relative obscurity in 1972.

1 Souflikar

The Bostanji gardeners held a crucial role in Ottoman society: besides tending the sultan’s gardens, they were also tasked with executing the condemned. The chief of this group, the Chief Royal Gardener, was responsible for informing and carrying out executions of nobles.

The chief occasionally gave a high‑ranking official—especially a grand vizier—a chance at life by challenging him to a race across the palace grounds. If the condemned reached the finish line first, he was spared; otherwise, death awaited.

Among all the chiefs, Souflikar stands out. During the reign of Mehmed IV in the 17th century, he carried out more than 5,000 executions in just five years. His method was brutally efficient—rather than using tools, Souflikar preferred to strangle his victims with his bare hands.

+ Vasili Blokhin

Although we already mentioned him in a previous list, how could we omit Vasili Blokhin from a roundup of the 10 extremely bloody executioners? Known as history’s most prolific executioner, Soviet Major‑General Blokhin personally shot and killed more than 10,000 people during Stalin’s purges and World War II.

Like any true professional, Blokhin used his own set of German pistols, which proved more reliable than the standard Soviet sidearms. At the height of his career, he could perform up to 300 executions in a single session.

Stalin rewarded him handsomely for his service. Yet after Stalin’s death in 1953, his successor Khrushchev, in a rare moment of sobriety, stripped Blokhin of all awards and privileges. Shamed and disgraced, Blokhin reportedly ended his own life by hanging himself inside his home.

Marc V. is always open for a conversation, so do drop him a line sometime.

When you hear the phrase 10 amazing legends, images of shadowy figures slipping through moonlit corridors probably spring to mind. Yet those legends weren’t just fantasy; they were flesh‑and‑blood operatives who lived, fought, and sometimes died in the chaotic Sengoku era of Japan. Because ninjas operated from the shadows, official records are scarce, and myth often swirls around fact. Below we explore ten historically documented shinobi—some whose very existence is still debated, but whose deeds have left an indelible mark on the lore of espionage.

10 Amazing Legends Revealed

10 Kido Yazaemon

Kido Yazaemon, born circa 1539 in the rugged Iga province, earned his reputation as a master of the Tanegashima arquebus—a match‑lock rifle that was far from the stereotypical ninja weapon. His proficiency with the gun suggests he specialized in teppo‑jutsu, a fire‑based technique nested within the broader katon‑nojutsu discipline. Contrary to the popular image of ninjas shunning firearms, the arquebus was a favorite tool for covert assassinations, and Yazaemon’s expertise made him a feared operative on the battlefield.

The most striking episode in Yazaemon’s career unfolded in 1579 when he joined a three‑man team tasked with eliminating the powerful warlord Oda Nobunaga. The trio positioned themselves to fire at Nobunaga as he surveyed the aftermath of an invasion, but their shots missed the lord and instead claimed the lives of seven of his attendants. Though the plot failed, the incident was recorded in the historic Iga chronicle Iranki, cementing Yazaemon’s place among the boldest—and most unlucky—ninjas of his time.

9 Kirigakure Saizo

Kirigakure Saizo is best remembered today as the muse for the fictional second‑in‑command of the Sanada Ten Braves, yet his historical counterpart was an Iga operative whose daring attempt on Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s life turned into a twist of fate. Operating under the alias of Kirigakure Shikaemon, Saizo tried to ambush Hideyoshi by thrusting a spear through the floor beneath the warlord—a bold move that ultimately failed. The failed attack, however, earned Saizo a peculiar mercy: his life was spared on the condition that he swore allegiance to the Toyotomi clan.

Some scholars argue Saizo was merely a careless spy caught in the act, but his capture proved serendipitous for Hideyoshi. While Saizo was being interrogated, he uncovered a separate plot by double‑agent Yusuke Takiguchi to assassinate Hideyoshi. By exposing that conspiracy, Saizo inadvertently saved his new lord’s life, securing his own survival and a forced loyalty that would shape his remaining years.

8 Tomo Sukesada

Tomo Sukesada, a senior jonin of the Koga school, headed the Tomo‑Ryu tradition and earned a place in the annals of ninja warfare during the 1560s. When Tokugawa Ieyasu, then an ally of Oda Nobunaga, set out to crush the remnants of the Imagawa clan, the enemy retreated to the precipitous Kaminogō Castle, commanded by General Udono Nagamochi. The castle’s location made a direct assault nearly impossible, and the Imagawa had even taken members of Ieyasu’s family hostage.

To resolve the stalemate, Ieyasu commissioned a force of eighty Koga ninjas led by Sukesada. Working in tandem with the famed Hattori Hanzo, Sukesada’s men slipped into the fortress, ignited its watchtowers, and slaughtered roughly two hundred defenders, including the Imagawa general himself. The daring raid is chronicled in the Mikawa Go Fudoki, highlighting Sukesada’s tactical brilliance and his pivotal role in shaping the Tokugawa ascendancy.

7 Fujibayashi Nagato

Legend holds that Fujibayashi Nagato stood among the three greatest Iga jonin, alongside Momochi Sandayu and the ever‑famous Hattori Hanzo. As co‑head of the Iga clan, Nagato’s life is shrouded in mystery, yet his legacy is unmistakable. In 1581, Oda Nobunaga launched the brutal Tenshō Iga War, a campaign that devastated both Iga and Koga ninja forces. Surviving members, including Nagato, were forced into the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Nagato met his end during the conflict.

Despite the scarcity of personal details, Nagato’s greatest contribution endures through the Bansenshukai, a multi‑volume compendium of ninjutsu techniques compiled by his descendants. This seminal text aggregates the secret arts of the Fujibayashi clan and serves as a primary source for modern understandings of ninja methodology.

6 Mochizuki Chiyome

Mochizuki Chiyome stands out as perhaps the most celebrated kunoichi—the female counterpart to the male ninja. A noblewoman married to samurai warlord Mochizuki Nobumasa, Chiyome is believed to have hailed from the Koga tradition. When her husband was away on campaign, she fell under the guardianship of his uncle, the illustrious daimyo Takeda Shingen. Recognizing her strategic mind, Shingen tasked her with assembling a covert network of women for espionage.

Chiyome established a headquarters in Nazu village, Shinshu, where she recruited up to three hundred orphaned girls, former prostitutes, and war‑displaced women. While locals thought she ran an orphanage, in reality she trained these women to infiltrate enemy lines as priestesses, geisha, or courtesans. Her kunoichi network served Shingen faithfully until his mysterious death in 1573, leaving a legacy of female empowerment in the shadowy world of ninja warfare.

5 Ishikawa Goemon

Although neither the Iga nor the Koga clans formally recognized him, Ishikawa Goemon is an essential figure on any list of historical ninjas. Born in 1558, Goemon became Japan’s answer to Robin Hood, stealing from affluent warlords and clergy to aid impoverished peasants. Legend claims he began as a genin—a ninja apprentice—under the tutelage of Iga master Sandayu Mochizuki before turning renegade, or nukenin.

Leading a band of Kansai outlaws, Goemon repeatedly raided wealthy samurai estates, distributing loot among the destitute. His downfall allegedly came after a botched assassination attempt on Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Captured and condemned, he met a gruesome end in 1594, boiled alive in a cauldron while, according to folklore, clutching his son above his head. The exact details remain murky, but his story endures as a symbol of rebellious justice.

4 Momochi Sandayu

Momochi Sandayu, a cornerstone of Iga Ryu Ninjutsu, is hailed as one of the trio of greatest Iga jonin, alongside Hattori Hanzo and Fujibayashi Nagato. Historical records suggest his real name was Momchi Tanbe Yasumitsu, though some scholars argue that Sandayu and Nagato may have been the same individual. Regardless of the identity debate, Sandayu’s influence on ninja doctrine is undeniable.

He met his demise during Oda Nobunaga’s 1581 invasion of Iga—a campaign that nearly eradicated both Iga and Koga shinobi. Known for maintaining three separate households, each with its own wife and family, Sandayu could disappear into a new identity whenever danger loomed, a testament to the ninja’s mastery of deception and survival.

3 Fuma Kotaro

The Fuma clan, operating independently of the Iga and Koga schools, served the Hojo daimyo of Odawara. Their fifth‑generation leader, Jonin Fuma Kotaro, commanded a band of roughly two hundred rappa—battle disruptors who doubled as brigands, pirates, and thieves. In 1580, when Takeda Shingen’s son Katsuyori assaulted the Hojo at Odawara Castle, Kotaro and his men slipped into the Takeda camp under cover of darkness.

Their sabotage was so effective that Takeda soldiers turned on one another in the ensuing chaos. After the Hojo’s defeat by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, the Fuma were reduced to ordinary bandits. A popular, though likely apocryphal, tale claims that Kotaro assassinated Hattori Hanzo in 1596, only to be betrayed by former Takeda ninja Kosaka Jinnai and finally beheaded on Tokugawa Ieyasu’s orders in 1603.

2 Kato Danzo

Kato Danzo earned his fame by blurring the line between ninja and sorcerer. An illusionist famed for feats like swallowing a live bull, instantly sprouting seeds, and even taking flight—hence the nickname Tobi Kato (Flying Kato)—he fascinated contemporaries who believed he possessed genuine supernatural powers. Modern researchers suspect his talents stemmed from masterful hypnosis, though definitive proof remains elusive.

Danzo’s reputation caught the eye of the warlord Uesugi Kenshin, who challenged him to steal a prized naginata from the vassal Naoe Kanetsugu. Danzo succeeded, infiltrating a heavily guarded castle, seizing the weapon, and even abducting a servant girl. Impressed, Kenshin recruited him, but Danzo soon fell out of favor—whether due to a plot by Kanetsugu or Kenshin’s growing suspicion, he defected to Takeda Shingen. Shingen, fearing Danzo’s duplicity, ordered his execution; Danzo was beheaded in 1569.

1 Hattori Hanzo

Hattori Hanzo stands as the most renowned ninja in Japanese history. A samurai vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu, he was instrumental in Ieyasu’s rise to shogun. Growing up in Iga, Hanzo first distinguished himself in the turbulent 1570s, earning a reputation as a master spearman and tactician.

His most celebrated moment arrived in 1582 after Oda Nobunaga’s betrayal and death at the hands of Akechi Mitsuhide. Ieyasu found himself stranded near Mitsuhide’s forces, and Hanzo organized a daring escort: he united Iga ninjas with their former rivals, the Koga clan, to shepherd Ieyasu safely through hostile territory to Mikawa. Some accounts even credit Hanzo with rescuing Ieyasu’s captured family.

Hanzo’s loyalty never wavered; he led the Iga ninjas as the Tokugawa palace guard at Edo Castle, eventually forming the covert agency known as Oniwabanshu. After his death in 1596, his successors adopted his name, perpetuating a myth of immortality that kept the legend of Hattori Hanzo alive for centuries.

When it comes to the world of competition, the phrase “10 biggest comebacks” instantly conjures images of dramatic reversals, heart‑pounding suspense, and the pure thrill of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. In this countdown we’ll travel from hardwood courts to grassy fields, reliving the moments that proved anything is possible when determination meets opportunity.

What Makes These 10 Biggest Comebacks Unforgettable

10 Michael Jordan’s NBA Comeback in 1995

Michael Jordan’s return to the NBA in 1995 felt like a cinematic slam dunk of epic proportions. After hanging up his iconic Chicago Bulls jersey to chase a fleeting baseball dream, the legend slipped back onto the hardwood with the same swagger that made fans fall in love with him the first time around. The buzz was palpable; the basketball universe held its collective breath, wondering if the king could still reign.

The moment Jordan announced his comeback, the arena erupted. He’d spent a brief stint in minor‑league baseball, but his return to the Bulls was nothing short of a fresh gust of wind blowing through Chicago. He slipped into his familiar red‑black uniform as if he’d never left, and the crowd’s roar echoed through the rafters, signaling that history was about to be rewritten.

Jordan didn’t just come back—he came back with a vengeance. Leading the Bulls to three more straight‑through NBA championships, he capped his resurgence with the sweet taste of ultimate triumph, reminding the world that the man in the Chicago jersey was still the undisputed ruler of the court.

9 Liverpool FC 2019 Semi‑Final Comeback

One of the most jaw‑dropping turnarounds in recent football lore unfolded during the 2019 UEFA Champions League semi‑final. Liverpool FC found themselves staring at a 3‑0 deficit after the first leg against FC Barcelona, a gap that seemed impossible to bridge.

Back at Anfield for the second leg, Liverpool unleashed a relentless attacking onslaught, netting four unanswered goals. Divock Origi and Georginio Wijnaldum each contributed a brace, turning the tie on its head and delivering a 4‑3 aggregate victory that catapulted the Reds into the final.

This dramatic reversal captured the imagination of football fans worldwide, showcasing the power of tactical brilliance, unyielding spirit, and the belief that no opponent is insurmountable when a team fights as one.

8 New England Patriots Super Bowl Comeback

In Super Bowl LI, the New England Patriots engineered a comeback that will be recounted for generations. Trailing 28‑9 late in the third quarter, they embarked on an astounding 25‑point surge that erased the deficit and forced the game into overtime.

The overtime period became a showcase of poise under pressure. The Patriots marched down the field with surgical precision and capped their heroic effort with a decisive touchdown, sealing a 34‑28 victory that epitomized resilience and strategic mastery.

7 Tracy McGrady Scoring 13 Points in 33 Seconds

Tracy McGrady’s 13‑point blitz in just 33 seconds remains one of the most electrifying bursts in NBA history. It was 2004, and the Houston Rockets trailed the San Antonio Spurs by eight points with barely half a minute left on the clock. Most fans had already resigned themselves to defeat, but T‑Mac had other plans.

McGrady ignited a scoring frenzy, draining four consecutive three‑pointers with ice‑cold composure. Each shot seemed to defy physics, turning the game into a high‑octane video‑game cheat mode that left spectators leaping from their seats.

The Rockets, propelled by McGrady’s solo fireworks, clawed back to victory, cementing the night as a testament to individual brilliance and the sheer unpredictability of basketball drama.

That 33‑second onslaught reminded everyone that, in sports, a single player can rewrite the script in an instant, delivering a performance that still sparks awe and admiration.

6 Cheick Kongo Knocks out Pat Barry

In the unforgiving arena of mixed‑martial arts, Cheick Kongo’s knockout of Pat Barry stands out as a cinematic reversal. The bout began with Barry delivering a crushing haymaker that appeared to have Kongo on the brink of defeat, prompting many to anticipate an early stoppage.

Just when the referee seemed poised to count Kongo out, the veteran fighter summoned a phoenix‑like resurgence. He weathered the storm, steadied his footing, and unleashed a thunderous right hand that sent Barry crashing to the canvas.

The arena erupted, commentators lost their composure, and fans were treated to a moment that felt ripped straight from a Hollywood script. Kongo’s unexpected knockout underscored the notion that as long as a fighter draws breath, the tide can turn in an instant.

This clash serves as a vivid reminder that resilience and the will to fight can overturn even the most dire of circumstances.

5 Alex Smith’s Injury Comeback

Alex Smith’s journey from a potentially career‑ending injury to the NFL’s gridiron spotlight epitomizes perseverance. In 2018, while leading the Washington Football Team, he suffered a gruesome compound leg fracture that required multiple surgeries and even sparked discussions of amputation.

Defying the bleak prognosis, Smith endured a grueling rehabilitation regimen that spanned countless months, confronting pain, uncertainty, and the specter of a career that might never return.

By 2020, the quarterback re‑emerged on the field, helmet in hand, embodying the spirit of a real‑life Rocky Balboa. Though his post‑injury stats didn’t shatter records, simply standing, throwing passes, and taking hits again represented a monumental victory over adversity.

Smith’s story remains a beacon of hope for athletes everywhere, illustrating that sheer determination can resurrect a dream thought lost.

4 Reggie Miller’s Comeback Against the New York Knicks

The 1995 NBA Playoffs delivered one of the most heart‑stopping finishes in basketball lore, thanks to Reggie Miller’s clutch performance against the New York Knicks. With the Knicks holding a six‑point lead and only 18.7 seconds remaining, most would have accepted defeat.

Miller answered with a rapid three‑pointer that narrowed the margin to a single possession. After forcing a turnover on the ensuing inbound, he struck again, tying the game with another three‑point bomb.

With just seconds left, Miller unleashed a final dagger from beyond the arc, sealing a miraculous comeback that left Madison Square Garden in stunned silence and cemented his status as an all‑time great.

3 Tiger Woods’ Golf Comeback

Tiger Woods’ resurgence on the golf course reads like a Hollywood redemption script. Once considered past his prime due to a cascade of injuries and personal setbacks, Woods defied expectations by returning to the pinnacle of the sport.

After undergoing more surgeries than most smartphones receive updates, he captured the 2019 Masters Tournament, delivering a mic‑drop moment that resonated worldwide. Strangers high‑fived on the streets, and the sports world collectively exhaled in relief and admiration.

Beyond the trophy, Woods’ comeback showcased an indomitable spirit, a relentless work ethic, and the belief that even after the darkest valleys, a champion can rise to claim glory once more.

The narrative of his return continues to inspire athletes across disciplines, proving that perseverance can rewrite any career’s ending.

2 Boston Red Sox’s 2004 World Series Comeback

The 2004 Boston Red Sox narrative reads like an underdog fairy tale turned on its head. Down 3‑0 in the American League Championship Series against the mighty New York Yankees, hope seemed all but extinguished.

Defying the odds, the Sox rallied to win four straight games, a feat no team had achieved in such a high‑stakes series. Their momentum didn’t stop there; they rode the wave into the World Series, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals and ending an 86‑year championship drought.

This historic turnaround sparked celebrations not only in Boston but across the nation, illustrating that heart, grit, and a dash of daring can overturn even the most entrenched narratives.

1 Kansas Jayhawks’ NCAA National Championship Comeback

The Kansas Jayhawks’ climactic victory in the NCAA National Championship stands as a masterclass in late‑game resilience. Trailing by a sizable margin in the final minutes, the Jayhawks faced what seemed like an insurmountable deficit.

Refusing to surrender, the team unleashed a furious rally, chipping away at the lead with each basket. Their unyielding determination and flawless execution turned the tide, culminating in a breathtaking finish that left fans on the edge of their seats.

This triumph encapsulated the essence of sport—teamwork, tenacity, and the refusal to quit—leaving an indelible mark on college basketball history.

When you think about love that rewrote the rulebook, the phrase 8 interracial relationships instantly springs to mind. From courtroom dramas that toppled segregation statutes to royal unions that rattled colonial powers, these pairings did more than just share a wedding cake—they nudged societies toward a broader, more inclusive horizon. In partnership with PBS Black Culture Connection and PBS Learning Media, we’ve assembled a chronicle that travels across continents and centuries, spotlighting the couples whose bonds helped reshape the world.

8 Interracial Relationships That Changed the World

8 Mildred & Richard Loving

In the night of July 11, 1958, newly‑weds Richard and Mildred Loving were jolted awake by three armed officers who burst into their bedroom, seized them, and hauled them off to jail. At that moment, twenty‑four states still enforced statutes that criminalized marriages between people of different races. The Lovings, newly aware that Mildred was expecting a child, had slipped across state lines to Washington, D.C., to wed legally, hoping to sidestep Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act. Their return home, however, triggered an arrest and a conviction that left Mildred incarcerated for several days, with a judge bluntly declaring that she would remain a felon for life.

Undeterred, the couple turned to the American Civil Liberties Union in 1963, launching a legal offensive that culminated in the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision striking down anti‑interracial‑marriage laws as unconstitutional. Though a handful of states kept the statutes on the books for years afterward, the Lovings’ victory rendered them effectively moot, ensuring that future couples would not endure the same persecution. The final relic of such bans was only repealed in Alabama in 2000, a testament to the lasting impact of their courageous stand.

7 Ruth Williams Khama & Sir Seretse Khama

While pursuing a law degree in England, Ruth Williams met the young chief of the Bamangwato tribe, then‑Prince Seretse Khama, who would later become Botswana’s inaugural president in 1966. Their romance sparked fierce opposition: Ruth’s own father expelled her from the family home, and Seretse’s uncle threatened lethal retaliation if the white woman set foot in their land. The British colonial administration, bowing to pressure from apartheid‑era South Africa, initially barred the marriage and then barred the couple’s return to Botswana.

For eight long years the pair lived in exile in England, until a heartfelt telegram from the Bamangwato to the British Queen forced a reconsideration. Their sons, Ian and Tshekedi, later emerged as prominent political figures. The union inspired the film A Marriage of Inconvenience and the book Colour Bar, and a statue of Sir Seretse Khama still graces Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, as a reminder of their trail‑blazing love.

6 Arcadio Huang & Marie‑Claude Regnier

At the dawn of the 18th century, European scholarship was making dramatic strides in decoding Chinese language and culture, and a pivotal figure in that effort was a bright young man named Arcadio Huang. Born in Fujian province, China, to devout Catholic parents who envisioned a priestly vocation for him, Huang was later adopted by a French priest and escorted to France with Bishop Artus de Lionne. There, he joined a cohort of ambitious French scholars eager to compile a Chinese‑French dictionary.

In 1713, Huang married Marie‑Claude Regnier, a middle‑class Parisian. Their union was extraordinary for the era, as such cross‑cultural marriages were rare and often frowned upon. Remarkably, Marie‑Claude’s parents gave their blessing, and despite subsequent financial hardships, the couple appears to have enjoyed a happy marriage. Tragedy struck when Marie‑Claude died giving birth to their first child, and a year later, a grief‑stricken Huang followed her to the grave. Historians suspect their partnership may be one of the earliest recorded Sino‑European marriages.

5 Gonzalo Guerrero & Zazil Ha

When a shipwreck left Spanish sailor Gonzalo Guerrero stranded on the Yucatán coast, he was captured by the Maya. Rather than meet a swift death, Guerrero immersed himself in Maya language and customs, eventually earning their respect. Leveraging his knowledge of Spanish warfare, he taught the Maya new combat tactics that helped them repel further Spanish incursions. His integration deepened when he married a Maya princess named Zazil Ha, receiving the sacred temples of Ichpaatún as part of his dowry.

When the famed conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived, officials attempted to retrieve Guerrero, but he famously refused, declaring, “I am married and have three children, and they look on me as a cacique here, and captain in time of war. My face is tattooed and my ears are pierced. What would the Spaniards say if they saw me like this?” His defiance cemented his legacy as a cultural bridge between two worlds.

4 Louisa & Louis Gregory

Louis Gregory, an African‑American Bahá’í, and Louisa Mathews, a British Bahá’í, first crossed paths in 1911 during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in Egypt. Their romance unfolded against a backdrop of entrenched racism in the United States, where interracial unions were still viewed with suspicion. Even within the Bahá’í community—an organization preaching the oneness of humanity—segregationist attitudes persisted, especially in Washington, D.C.

Abdu’l‑Bahá, the faith’s spiritual leader, openly championed interracial marriage, giving the couple moral backing. In 1912, Louis and Louisa wed in New York, becoming the first interracial Bahá’í couple. Gregory went on to become a vigorous advocate for racial unity, both within the United States and the Bahá’í world, using his marriage as a living testament to his faith’s teachings. Their partnership endured nearly four decades until Gregory’s death in 1951.

3 Leonard Kip Rhinelander & Alice Jones

The high‑society marriage of Leonard Kip Rhinelander, a white scion of a prominent New York family, and Alice Jones, a biracial daughter of working‑class parents, thrust America’s racial anxieties into the courtroom. The couple met in 1921 at a Stamford, Connecticut clinic where Kip was receiving treatment for anxiety and a stutter. After a three‑year courtship, they wed in 1924, earning a place in the exclusive New York Social Register—making Alice the first Black woman ever listed.

The announcement ignited sensational headlines, and Kip’s family swiftly demanded a divorce. The ensuing trial centered on Kip’s claim that Alice had misrepresented herself as white. In a shocking display, the all‑male, all‑white jury ordered Alice to strip in order to determine whether she qualified as “colored.” The jury ultimately ruled in her favor, denying an annulment, and ordered Kip’s estate to provide Alice with a lifelong allowance, though the two never reconciled.

2 James Achilles Kirkpatrick & Khair un‑Nissa

James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a senior diplomat of the East India Company, became enamored with Indo‑Persian culture after arriving in India. He abandoned English attire for Mughal robes, partook in lavish nautch parties, and ultimately converted to Islam. In 1801, he wed Khair un‑Nissa, the teenage granddaughter of Hyderabad’s prime minister, on the condition that he act in the best interests of the Hyderabadi administration.

The marriage sparked a firestorm in Calcutta, where colonial officials deemed such a union scandalous. Governor Lord Rickard Wellesley summoned Kirkpatrick to Calcutta, where he was reprimanded and stripped of his post. The couple had two children, whom Kirkpatrick later sent to England for education and Christian names. He fell ill and died shortly after their departure in 1807; Khair un‑Nissa passed away a few years later, their story a poignant illustration of cultural convergence and tragedy.

1 Bill de Blasio & Chirlane McCray

When Bill de Blasio won the New York mayoral race in 2013, he became the first white politician elected to a major office while his spouse, Chirlane McCray, is Black. Their partnership signals a new chapter in American political life, with McCray poised to influence the mayor’s agenda and administration.

Even as interracial marriages enjoy growing acceptance nationwide, they still provoke backlash. A 2013 Cheerios commercial featuring a biracial family drew a torrent of hateful comments on YouTube, prompting the platform to disable the comment section. Yet many celebrate the de Blasio union as a milestone that can help erode lingering racism and reinforce the nation’s core ideal of equality.

This feature is a collaborative effort between PBS Learning Media and PBS Black Culture Connection.