My baby girl is 13 years old now. I am a so proud of the wonderful teen girl she has become. She is brave, and kind-hearted, and has enough love to fill the world. She loathes injustice and is not shy about vociferously defending that which she thinks is right. She will stand up to… Read more Happy Birthday, Blossom
St Illtud was one of the most famous scholar-saints in pre-Norman Wales and throughout Medieval Britain, having founded a renowned monastery and school of divinity in Wales during the 6th century. St Illtud was devoted to spreading the teachings of Christianity, and for centuries his monastery was the epicenter of Celtic Christianity in Sub-Roman Britain.… Read more St Illtud, Welsh Saint and Scholar
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, the only daughter of King George I of Britain, was born on 16 March 1687, a date that was changed to the 26 March after the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750. She was treated dismissively by her father, and loathed by her brother, due to suspicions she was actually the biological… Read more The Admirable Sophia Dorothea of Hanover
Queen Elizabeth I was a charismatic leader who inspired a cult around her unmarried status and continues to fascinate historians and history buffs to the the present day. She was often associated with the virginal Roman goddess of the moon and hunting, Diana, and was often called by one of Diana’s more celestial alternate titles, Cynthia,… Read more Moonset: The Death of Cynthia
Empress Catherine II of Russia didn’t earn the title of “the Great” by being a sweetie. She was, like almost all successful rulers, capable of playing hardball and cagey about maintaining her power. She was determined to make Russia a world power, and that she would force Europe to give her adopted country the respect… Read more Trying to Save Russia From Itself Was a Thankless Job
Lady Catherine Willoughby, the only surviving child of Maria de Salinas, Lady Willoughby, and William Willoughby, 11th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, was born 22 March 1519. Catherine’s father died when she was seven, and King Henry VIII gave wardship over the rich young orphan to his best friend and brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. A… Read more Catherine Willoughby
Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury under King Edward VI and Queen Jane, was a brilliant writer and theologian, finishing the Book of Common Prayer in 1549, revising it again in 1552, and basically creating the Anglican church. On March 21, 1556 the elderly prelate was burned at the stake on the ordered of… Read more Cranmer’s Coerced Confessions
Les Cent-Jours (The Hundred Days) began on 20 March 1815 when Napoleon returned to Paris at the head of a grass-roots army comprised of soldiers (including the theoretically royalist 5th Infantry Regiment at Grenoble) who had joined him as he came overland through the Alps (now known as the Route Napoléon) and through France after… Read more The Hundred Days of Napoleon
Alexander III became King of Scotland at the tender age of 7 following the death of his father, Alexander II, on 8 July 1249. The king showed himself to be strong willed even as a child, when power in the realm was being fought for by two rival guardians, Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, and… Read more The Strange Death of Alexander III, King of Scots
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on 15 March 1933 and has been kicking ass ever since. After she was demoted at her day job for daring to be married and pregnant in 1955, the tiny yet stalwart Bader Ginsburg enrolled in Harvard law school in 1956, one of nine women out of a class of… Read more Happy Birthday to the Notorious RBG