Want to avoid bringing debts into your new marriage? Well, there was a way to shift them away … During the 18th and 19th centuries many people in the UK thought (without any legal basis whatsoever) that if a woman got married in her shift (or smock) rather than a gown then any premarital debts… Read more The Shift Marriage
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, was born on 25 April 1694. He was a very talented architect who is credited with bringing Palladian architecture to the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 18th century, and one of his descendants is currently sitting on the British throne. Howard Colvin, who… Read more The Earl of Architecture and the Prince of Wales
King Edward II of England was born on 25 April 1284, the fourth son of King Edward I and his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, but the eldest son to survive to adulthood. Most people know more historical myths about Edward II – that he was the embodiment of the limp-wristed pouf negative stereotype like… Read more Happy Birthday Edward of Caernarfon!
Mary, Queen of Scots wed François, the Dauphin of France, at Notre Dame de Paris in a lavish ceremony (did they have any other kind for a royal wedding??) on 24 April 1558. The young couple, who had been raised together since Mary was 5 years old and the Dauphin only 4, seem to be… Read more Mary Marries Merrily
French Admiral Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve committed “suicide” on 22 April 1806 by stabbing himself in the right lung six times and once through the heart. Villeneuve was in command of the French and the Spanish fleets that were defeated by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, but his early career had been marked by victories.… Read more Suicide by Seven Stab Wounds
Isabella I of Castile, co-ruler of Aragon and queen of most of the Iberian peninsula, one of the strongest monarchs of the Medieval period, was born on 22 April 1451 in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila. She was the eldest child of John II of Castile and his second wife, Isabella of Portugal. Her… Read more Isabella I, Strong and Devout and Cruel
Elizabeth Barton, known as the “Holy Maid of Kent” or the “ Nun of Kent”, was executed on 20 April 1534 along with a handful of her followers, for the ‘crime’ that she predicted a bad end for King Henry VIII if he continued to flout the will of Rome and separate his kingdom from… Read more The Nun of Kent
Fourteen year old Austrian Archduchess Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna married the future King Louis XVI of France by proxy on 19 April 1770, and the bride’s name was officially changed to the Francophone pronunciation of Marie Antoinette … a name still associated with extravagance, foolishness, and tragedy. Marie Antoinette became the Queen of France and of Navarre… Read more Marie Antoinette’s Wedding Day
Anne Stanhope Seymour Newdigate, Dowager Duchess of Somerset, former wife of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and once the most powerful woman in Britain, died in Hanworth, Middlesex, on 16 April 1587, the comparatively lowly widow of her first husband’s steward. She was born Anne Stanhope, the daughter Sir Edward Stanhope, sometime in 1510.… Read more Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset
On 15 April 1923 insulin became widely available and the people dying of Type I diabetes had, for the first time in history, a chance to LIVE. Before Dr. Frederick Banting and a medical student named Charles Best figured out how to get insulin out of a dog’s pancreas in the early 1920s, a diagnosis of… Read more Thank you, Dr. Banting and Dr.Best