Imelda Marcos: The “Mine” Girl

In December, 1975, Cosmopolitan magazine named Imelda Marcos, the First Lady of the Phillippines, as one of the ten richest women in the world. It even went a step further and speculated that Imelda was perhaps the richest woman in the world, richer than Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.   Everyone knew Imelda was rich; she made [...]

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Typhoid Mary

Yes, there really was a Typhoid Mary. She was Mary Mallon (1869-1938) an Irish immigrant who cooked for wealthy New York families. She is history’s most famous super-spreader of disease.   Mary Mallon was first caught in 1906 when a sanitary engineer was hired to investigate a typhoid outbreak at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Six members of banker Charles Henry Warren’s household had fallen dangerously ill. Warren hired George Soper to discover [...]

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Carla Bruni: the Angelina Jolie of Europe?

“On Wednesday evening, Sept. 21, 2005, the designer Diane von Furstenberg hosted a cocktail party in honor of Justine Lévy, the author of Nothing Serious (titled Rien de Grave in France), a roman à clef based on Ms. Lévy’s recent, sensational personal life. Ms. Lévy, 31, is the dewy daughter of the French celebrity-philosopher Bernard-Henri [...]

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Carla Bruni: Subscription to Scandals

Italian model Marpessa, Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, Carla Bruni, and Cindy Crawford at a Versace gala, 1992. Photo: Marina Garnier Back in 1992, Carla Bruni (b. 1967) - First Lady of France, Italian heiress, international supermodel, singer – was romantically linked to Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger. At the time, Jagger was married to supermodel Jerry Hall, who [...]

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Queen Victoria’s Tiny Crown

In my previous post, “Queen Alexandra’s Royal Bosom,” I mention that Queen Victoria refused to wear a crown to the Thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey that was part of her Golden Jubilee celebration in June, 1887. She did, however, consent to wear a crown for her official Jubilee photograph (shown here), which we may assume she wore to the [...]

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Queen Alexandra’s Royal Bosom

When Princess Alexandra of Denmark arrived on English soil in 1863 to marry the Prince of Wales, the heir of Queen Victoria, she was the very picture of modesty. No jewelry was visible and she wore a handmade bonnet. Alexandra may have been Danish royalty, but she wasn’t rich. Matter of fact, her family had [...]

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Victoria & Albert: Art & Love & Teeth!

Throughout their 21-year marriage, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria delighted in showering each other with gifts of art. A new major exhibition of the Royal Collection (March 19-October 31, 2010) at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, is the first ever to focus on the royal couple’s shared enthusiasm for art. “Victoria & Albert: Art & Love” showcases [...]

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Carla Bruni, Love Child

First Lady of France Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was raised as the daughter of Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini and industrialist and classical composer Alberto Bruni-Tedeschi. However, in a 2008 interview published in Vanity Fair magazine, Bruni-Sarkozy revealed a bombshell: Her biological father is not really Bruni-Tedeschi. Carla found out about her illegitimate birth in 1996, at age 28, when her legal father, Bruni-Tedeschi, was gravely [...]

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St. Lawrence and the Holy Chalice

Saint Lawrence (or Laurence) of Rome (c. 225-258) is one of the most honored of the Christian martyrs. Not much is known of him. He may have been born in Huesca, Spain. A deacon of the Roman Catholic Church during a time of Christian persecution, Lawrence was entrusted with safeguarding the Church’s holy relics, among them the Holy Chalice. [...]

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Texas Tonkawas Ate their Enemies

John Holland Jenkins (1822-1890) fought for Texas for 30 years. At age 13, he joined General Ed Burleson’s First Regiment in the Texas Revolution of 1836. Once the Mexicans were driven back, Jenkins returned to Bastrop, Texas, where he quickly earned a reputation as an Indian fighter. He became a Texas Ranger and, later, a [...]

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