Daughter of the King of Spain Philippe III of Habsburg, Anne of Austria was not 15 when she married the young King of France, Louis XIII. Long years of sterility keep the two spouses apart. Maintaining a correspondence with her brother Philip IV of Spain and friendships with the counter-power, she i
Gertrude Caroline Ederle (1905 – 2003) was an American swimmer, the first woman to swim across the Channel. Entry into the competition at 14 Gertrude Ederle was born in New York on October 23, 1905; she is the third of six children. At the age of five, she contracted rubella and the disease depriv
Joseph Fouché was a French revolutionary and politician, Minister of Police under the Directory, the Consulate and then the Empire. Balzac saw in him a “singular genius”:Fouché , the chameleon, the man of all paradoxes, feared by Robespierre, the friend and the enemy, feared but admired by the consu
Coming from a copper mining father, Luther was born in Thuringia (Germany). He joined the University in 1501 and studied law. He entered the Augustinian convent in Erfurt in 1505, was ordained a priest in 1507, became a monk in 1509 and a doctor of theology in 1512.Luther was indignant at the possib