People

Parallel lives, tiny decisions with vast consequences, reputations built on a misunderstanding: the people behind the famous names.

378 anecdotes, most recent first.
Highlights

Napoleon feigned scabies to refuse a mission in the Vendee

Napoleon Bonaparte simulated a skin disease to escape a military assignment. While he was offered to lead the repression in the Vendee, he refused because he preferred to turn towards Italy. To avoid being sent there by force, he presented a fake medical certificate attesting that he had scabies.

2025-11-26

The founder of Telegram has one hundred and six biological children

Pavel Durov boasts of being the biological father of more than one hundred children scattered across the world following sperm donations. He announced his intention to share his fortune valued at 17 billion dollars in 2025 among these 106 descendants. A strict condition is however set, as his heirs will have to wait at least until June 19, 2055 and their thirtieth birthday to receive this money.

2026-07-28

The Aznavour family hid resistance fighters during the war

Charles Aznavour and his family sheltered Jews and Armenians in their Parisian apartment during the Second World War. They notably housed the communist resistance couple Missak and Mélinée Manouchian there. This act of bravery earned the singer the Raoul Wallenberg medal in 2017.

2026-01-01

A black bread diet to buy books

At the age of 16, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky went to study in Moscow for three years while diligently frequenting libraries. His father being able to send him only small sums of money, he devoted the bulk of his budget to the purchase of books and equipment for his experiments. This asceticism led him to feed exclusively on black bread to meet his needs.

2026-10-16

He violates orders to save bells

In 1797, a decree threatens to requisition the bells of the Baudeloo Abbey to melt them into cannons. Charles Van Hulthem decides to exceed his official duties as president of the jury to preserve them. He writes in parallel to the Minister of the Interior Pierre Bénézech to defend the artistic heritage and wins his case.

2026-10-15

The first known coat of arms was invented retroactively

The enamel plaque of Geoffrey Plantagenet depicts a coat of arms composed of six golden lioncels on an azure background. This object was long considered the oldest known coat of arms, supposedly offered during the knighting of the count in 1127 by his father-in-law Henry I, King of England. Recent studies have proven that this scene was in reality invented by a monk in the 1170s to project the fashion of his era.

2026-10-13

Tattooing is officially recognized as an art form

Tattooing was recognized as an artistic expression in October 2023 by the Académie des Arts-Sciences-Lettres. This cultural institution marked a turning point by awarding its vermeil medal to this practice. The prize was thus awarded for the first time to a professional in the field, the tattoo artist Mikael de Poissy.

2026-10-12

A crucial oversight in the Omar Raddad case

Omar Raddad is a gardener whose shoes bore particles indicating his presence in a cellar, contradicting his initial statements. The accused had first claimed not to have gone down there for two months, before remembering on February 18 that he had stored flower pots there shortly before the murder. This change in behavior and this lie led Judge Renard to doubt the gardener's innocence, according to remarks reported by Ève Livet.

2026-10-12

Muslim tombs display Hindu symbols

Fourteenth-century Muslim graves, discovered at the Javanese site of Trowulan, feature the Majapahit Sun. This symbol is nevertheless the emblem of the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom. This singularity suggests that high-ranking figures, and probably members of the royal family, had converted to Islam.

2026-10-11

A colonial president commits suicide out of political despair

The Cochinchinese president Nguyễn Văn Thinh hangs himself in his office on November 10, 1946. His government possessed few resources and suffered from the negligence of the French, who then preferred to negotiate directly with Hô Chi Minh. This disappearance occurs in the midst of a period of political instability in Vietnam, marked by the propaganda of the Việt Minh for reunification.

2026-10-11

Shahrukh Khan faces the wrath of Hindu nationalists

Shahrukh Khan is an influential figure in Indian cinema whose positions and lifestyle displease the current government. In 2015, he denounced the country's religious intolerance after the murder of a Muslim man, which earned him a comparison to a terrorist by a minister. His eldest son was also arrested in October 2021 during a police raid on a boat, a case that many observers consider a political intimidation maneuver.

2026-10-11

An aviation ace dies while performing farewell aerobatics

Fighter pilot Edgar Kain died on June 7, 1940, during a farewell flight aboard his Hawker Hurricane. Wishing to salute his comrades at the Échemines airfield, he performed low-altitude maneuvers before crashing to the ground. His family learned of the tragedy by telegram two days later, while they were traveling to attend his wedding to Joyce Phillips.

2026-10-11

A woman eight months pregnant was appointed minister

In 1981, the Parti québécois elected and appointed Pauline Marois as minister while she was eight months pregnant. This unprecedented appointment marked an important milestone for the representation of women in politics. Thirty-one years later, she became in 2012 the first female premier of Quebec.

2026-10-11

The romanticized portrait of Simón Bolívar caused shock upon its release

The novel The General in His Labyrinth is a book by Gabriel García Márquez published in 1989. The writer depicts the final journey of Simón Bolívar by relying mainly on fiction to fill the lack of historical documentation. This iconoclastic approach was perceived as an outrage by some patriots during its publication in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Spain.

2026-10-11

Mathematical formulas remained without proof for decades

The Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan published revolutionary formulas in England in 1910 allowing to calculate pi with formidable efficiency. These propositions were put forward without any proof or clear explanation, plunging specialists into incomprehension. It was necessary to wait until the year 1987 for the brothers Jonathan and Peter Borwein to finally manage to prove them.

2026-10-11

The Waffen-SS soldiers had their blood type tattooed

The Mark of Cain is the nickname given to the tattoo of Waffen-SS soldiers. This inscription indicated the blood type on the inside of the left bicep with a single letter. After the war, this mark made it easier to identify certain former SS members.

2026-10-09

Horatio Nelson held numerous titles

The full title of Horatio Nelson is inscribed on his coffin, reflecting his many British, Sicilian, and Ottoman distinctions. Among these honors is the Dukedom of Bronte, received in July 1799 for his support of the royalist troops of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. Due to the lack of legitimate male offspring, his titles partly passed to his elder brother William.

2026-10-07

The Austrian Emperor alienates his empire in 1918

The Spa agreements bind the Habsburg empire to the Reich on May 12, 1918. Charles I and his minister Stephan Burián von Rajecz accept the political, economic and military tutelage of their country under Emperor Wilhelm II. Despite this imposed subjection, the treaty fails to extinguish the Balkan rivalries and the disagreements over occupied Poland.

2026-10-07

A dismissed prime minister attempts to call the queen

Khawaja Nazimuddin is a politician dismissed from his duties in April 1953 by Governor General Malik Ghulam Muhammad. Disagreeing with this decision that he deemed illegal, he wanted to reach Queen Elizabeth II to protest. His plan failed because his residence was surrounded by the army and his telephone lines had been cut.

2026-10-07

An arranged marriage in the Orient to remove rivals

Blanche of Navarre used diplomacy to neutralize political threats weighing on the County of Champagne. She sent her chamberlain Garnier de Lagny to Saint-Jean-d'Acre to marry her nieces to lords established in the Orient. This strategy aimed to prevent them from returning to Champagne to assert their inheritance rights.

2026-10-06

The series The Wire was inspired by a police immersion

In 1988, journalist David Simon spent an entire year within the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department. This experience allowed him to write a book on the subject, which then led to the creation of the television series The Wire broadcast by HBO between 2002 and 2008. This successful series thus illustrates crime and the anti-drug struggle in this American city.

2026-10-04

The true origin of the character Falstaff

Falstaff is a theatrical character born from a name change imposed on Shakespeare, who transformed the surname of the knight John Fastolf. The latter was unjustly accused of cowardice at the Battle of Patay, a colossal error that Shakespeare wrongly repeated in his plays. To add to the confusion, the playwright used for his character a Southwark inn similar to the one the real Fastolf owned in the 15th century.

2026-10-04

An American aviator becomes an island chief in Micronesia

A crew member of an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress was awarded the titles of honorary citizen, consul, and chief of the island of Fais. His bomber had ditched near this Micronesian island in 1945, leading to honor dances performed by the inhabitants. The aviator returned to the site in 2002, which led the supreme chief Carlos Haruei to confer these high distinctions upon him.

2026-10-04

The scientific genus of the African crake was revised in 2020

The African crake is a bird whose classification has long been a subject of debate among ornithologists. Described for the first time in 1854 by Wilhelm Peters, it has successively belonged to the genera Crecopsis, Crex and Porzana. In 2020, the International Ornithological Congress finally decided to place it back in the genus Crecopsis following new research.

2026-10-04

The resurgence of pantomime in the 18th century

Roman pantomime is a lost art of medieval Europe that resurfaced in the 18th century thanks to choreographers. John Weaver recreated this practice by presenting shows like The Tavern Bilkers in 1702, then The love of Mars and Venus in 1717. This initiative then seduced other ballet masters such as Franz Hilverding, Gasparo Angiolini and Jean-Georges Noverre.

2026-10-04

A dancer became Empress of Byzantium

Emperor Justinian I married a woman in the 6th century whose mother was a dancer and who practiced this art herself, Theodora. Although disparaged by the historian Procopius of Caesarea, this former artist played an active role in the affairs of the Byzantine state. This union illustrates the place occupied by dance in the high society of the Eastern Empire despite the reluctance of the clergy.

2026-10-04

A left-wing deputy supports a national tribute to Brigitte Bardot

Philippe Brun is a French deputy who publicly supported a national tribute initiative addressed to Emmanuel Macron. This proposal originally came from Éric Ciotti to honor the French icon. His reaction constituted a notable exception on the left, due to the actress's long past proximity to the far-right.

2026-10-04