Historical Facts & FiguresA look at major events that happened a long time ago and the people who played the biggest roles in shaping the world as we know it.
Popular Myths That Aren't True
Parting Words That Sound Fake
Real People Who Inspired Ancient Mythology
How Other People Described Them as Children
Fascinating Bad*sses You Should Know
Historical Groups With Bad Raps
Historically Important Foodstuffs
Legendary Objects That Really Existed
What Their Kids Said About Them
Famous B*stards of the Past
Made Their Marks While in Young Adulthood
Consistently Misrepresented in Pop Culture
Historical Misconceptions to Unlearn
Figures with Powerful Genes
Death Masks of Famous Figures
Figures Who Were Unfairly Villainized
What They Really Looked Like
History's Most Influential People
Historical Movies That Are Totally Inacurrate
These Figures Were Penniless When They Passed
Historical Height Twins
Late Kings Who Might Rise Up
History's Most Famous Extroverts
Figures Who Made Insufferable Small Talk
Folks Unlike How They Are Usually Perceived
Biggest Cases of Mass Deportation
The Preserved Body Parts Of Historical People
Events You Wish You Witnessed
What Famous People From History Really Looked Like
Historical Figures With Living Ancestors
Awesome Color Photos of Historical People
The Ones We Want to Resurrect
Creepers Who Changed the World
Weird History
10 Historically Important Figures With Extra Colorful Personal Lives
Some of the most prolific figures in history got off in ways that would have been considered untoward in their time.
Nowadays, many of the behaviors described here are seen as normal, or at least, somewhat so. But back in the day, some of these writers, revolutionaries, philosophers, and the like kept their sexuality and kinks a secret, only to be discovered decades after their passing by scholars and curious readers.
Perhaps if these legends were alive now, they would wave their flags proudly and let the world know what turns them on. Or not, and that's fine too; after all, it's nobody's business what you're into.
Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary, and writer. He's most famous for bringing explicit material to people in a time when showing off your ankles was scandalous.
Marquis de Sade became famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle, much of which he vibrantly portrayed in his novels. Sade is also credited with inventing S&M.
In fact, the term sadism - in which one gets pleasure from inflicting pain - comes from Marquis de Sade's own name. Moreover, masochism is first seen in some of Sade's more Gothic-inclined sexual novels, where, for example, the female character is bound, tormented, and fondled, and develops a kind of attraction to her tormentors.
In one of Sade's tales, he describes an experience with his wife, wherein the two imprisoned five young women and one young man in their house. For six weeks, the duo used their victims for sex. Sade would even lure young women from the surrounding village by drugging them with "Spanish fly" and then raping them.
Crowley rendered himself the prophet of a polytheistic religion he developed and called Thelema. As one of the main tenants of the religion, Crowley encouraged his followers to abandon their egos and abide by none other than their "True Will."
His followers also believed that the 20th century would usher in a new ethical code. This code Crowley summarized with the following quote: "'Do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the Law."
Crowley not only founded a religion based on magick, but he also founded something called "Sexual Magick." In essence, the practice entails using climax, arousal, and sexual fluids to place a spell.
James Joyce was an author responsible for seminal works like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. He is widely considered one of the greatest Irish writers of all time.
Joyce is one of the most remembered figures of the modernist movement and helped usher in a new way of writing language. His writings experimented with structure in ways that have never been done before and changed the way people experienced literature.
Joyce's works were visceral and endearingly honest. Take the following passage from a letter he wrote to a lover, Nora "F*ckbird" Barnacle, for example, in which Joyce describes her flatulence during intercourse:
[I]f I gave you a bigger stronger f*ck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I f*cked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole.
Henry VIII was the King of England from 1509 to 1547. He is known for separating the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, dissolving the monasteries, and overseeing the legal union of England and Wales.
King Henry is also famous for being married six times and taking countless other women as lovers on the side. Never satisfied with any of his wives, he had them slain if they could not produce a male heir. This behavior was widely considered reprehensible at the time, but nonetheless, King Henry never faced prosecution.