Royals

Diplomats who wanted to get to the King Louis XV in the mid-18th century had to go through Madame de Pompadour, who would meet with them while applying her makeup in public. Though Pompadour’s official title was as the French king’s mistress, she only slept with him for the first ...read more

It is a story whose characters and actions are so implausible that at times it seems like the wild invention of a work of fiction. But the Diamond Necklace Affair was a scandal that was all too responsible for the eventual execution of Marie Antoinette—the last Queen of France ...read more

Czar Nicholas and his family waited patiently in the basement. For much of 1918, the Romanov family had been the captives of the Bolsheviks who overthrew Nicholas II in the bloody Russian Revolution, and they were used to moving from place to place. They had no idea they had ...read more

On the night of July 16, 1918, a Bolshevik assassination squad executed Czar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their five children, putting an end to the Romanov family dynasty that had ruled Russia for more than three centuries. The murder of the Romanovs stamped out the ...read more

On July 16, 1918, imprisoned Czar Nicholas II, his wife, and their five children were awoken in the middle of the night and led down to a basement room. Bolshevik secret police stormed in, an order of execution was read aloud, and a storm of bullets fired toward the family. ...read more

Many monarchs throughout history have killed family members. England’s Henry VIII, for example, beheaded two wives and several cousins. Cleopatra engineered the murder of two siblings (one of whom was also her husband). And Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, ordered the execution ...read more