History

Famous historical figures

How did a simple tennis match between a woman, tennis star Billie Jean King, and a man, ex-player Bobby Riggs, become a television phenomenon and change the face of women's sport?

Did French Queen Marie-Antoinette really betray her adopted country? And was Robespierre a dictator or a democrat?

Were the two empresses of Roman antiquity really the criminals and depraved women described by chroniclers of the time?

Why is Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, still viewed as a Machiavellian manipulator? 

Jiang Qing represented the old ways of the Chinese Communist Party, so she had to go.

In her battle against Ronald Reagan, activist Angela Davis became the icon of an entire generation.

Sculptors Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel had a passionate affair, but things turned sour.

Friedrich Ebert and Rosa Luxemburg comrades on the left - and yet became bitter enemies.

How did Marie Curie's love affair with the married physicist Paul Langevin become a national story that divided France?

Could the Spanish have conquered Mexico without the help of Malinche, a Native American slave who became Hernan Cortés' translator?