Historical Fun

History Facts - 11th June On this day in history, 11th June 1184BC, the ancient city of Troy was destroyed after someone let the horse inside.   Brad Pitt journey from Greece to Troy because he wanted to get to Paris as he'd never seen the Eiffel tower. Hmm, I may be getting some stuff muddled up there.   When Paris, a prince of Troy, kidnapped Helen, the most beautiful women on Earth, from her husband Menelaus, who was the king of I AM SPARTA, Greece united and sent an army to Troy to get her back.   There was a ten year siege of the city, something the film doesn't cover, Paris, Achilles, Ajax, Hector, and Bob the Builder, all died during the war. Then a bright spark built a giant wooden horse and left it outside the gates as a present. The rest is history. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Beware Greeks who come bearing gifts. Don't eat yellow snow.   On this day in history, 11th June 1509, Henry-Of-The-Many-Numbers (8) married his b...

5 Fun Facts About Heirs and Spares It's always good for a royal to have more than one child. If something goes wrong, you don't just have an heir to the throne, you also have a spare. Prince Charles and Princess Diana had two kids, William and Harry. And now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate, have just had their second child, securing both the heir and the spare. Generally the eldest survives and becomes King and the spare doesn't get used. However, there were times in history when the spare became the Monarch. Here are Five Monarchs who were not first born: 1. King Henry VIII, or as I like to call him on this blog, Henry-Of-The-Many-Numbers. He wasn't the first born of Henry VII, in fact he was third. His older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, should have succeeded to the throne when his father died. But Arthur died at the age of 15, passing the title of Prince of Wales and Heir-Apparent on to Henry, who became next in lin...