Joan of Arc (Jeanne Darc)
A sixteen-year-old peasant girl, growing up and tending the cattle at Domrémy, has for some years been hearing voices. She sometimes sees the speakers, and recognizes them as St Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret. But in this winter of 1428-9 they have been giving her a very specific instruction. She must raise the siege of Orléans so that the king of France, Charles VII, can go to Reims to be anointed in the cathedral. Joan is examined by the churchmen of Charles VII for 3 weeks and finally they recommend to use her services for the country.
Joan and her soldiers reach Orléans on 29 April 1429. One by one the English positions fall. By May 8 their army is in full retreat from Orléans. Reims is reached on July 16. The city opens its gates to Charles. Preparations are made for an immediate consecration in the cathedral the following day. As Charles is anointed with the holy oil, Joan stands nearby with her banner. Then she kneels before him, and for the first time calls him her king.
Joan's misfortunes begin in May 1430. In a skirmish against the Burgundians at Compiègne she falls from her horse and is captured. Over the next few months her fate as a captive is hotly contested. On 30 May 1431 she is burnt at the stake as a relapsed heretic.
Joan is finally canonized in 1920 (500 years later), and declared as a saint, as an example of the power of inspiration.
Agrippina
Germanicus, the official heir, has been married since about AD 5 to Agrippina, granddaughter of Augustus. The couple have a dynastic glamour which Tiberius (when Augustus dies, in AD 14, Tiberius succeeds without opposition.) himself lacks. It is lacked even more by his own son Drusus, the child of his first marriage. There is potential here for jealousy and conflict. The inevitable rumors of poison begin to circulate when Germanicus suddenly dies (almost certainly of natural causes) when campaigning in Syria in AD 19. Four years later Tiberius's son Drusus also dies. The likelihood of succession returns to the family of Germanicus. Tiberius, now living in isolation in Capri, is a man prone to suspicion. An ambitious commander of the praetorian guard, Sejanus, convinces the emperor that Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus, is plotting against him. She and her two elder sons, Nero and Drusus, are arrested in AD 29-30. Within four years all three have died in prison.
Cleopatra
The arrival in Alexandria of Julius Caesar gives Cleopatra her first chance of a wider role in the world. She seizes it, becoming the mistress of the man who is now unmistakably - after his defeat of Ptolemy - the most powerful Roman. Caesar spends the winter of 48-7 BC in Egypt, helping the young queen suppress the forces of her even younger brother (who fails to survive these events).
Soon after Caesar's departure from Alexandria, Cleopatra gives birth to a son (in the summer of 47), whom she claims - almost certainly correctly - to be Caesar's. In 46 Caesar invites Cleopatra to Rome with her son (subseqently known by the nickname Caesarion, 'little Caesar') and provides them with a villa. After Caesar's assassination, in 44, she returns to Egypt with the child.
Marrie (Mariym, the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ)
She was blamed to have been in relation with some other man when she was bearing Messiah Jesus. She was married to Joseph but the marriage was a written agreement valid after 1 year. She bore Jesus Christ in that 1 year, untouched.
Noor Jehan
Not long after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took office, the Pakistan Peoples Party newspaper Musawat ran a number of stories about Nur Jehan’s close and “scandalous” association with Gen. Yahya Khan. She was outraged. In a press statement, she said if she really was the sort of woman she was being portrayed as, she would rather leave Pakistan, never to return. She also tried to approach Bhutto who did not have time to see her. She called me a couple of times and I said I would do my best. Noor Muhammad Mughal or Noora, Bhutto’s personal valet and a man you could only ignore at your peril, was a great admirer of the Madam. One day, he took a copy of Musawat that carried one of the Nur Jehan stories, complete with pictures, to Bhutto and said, “Sahib, why is Hanif Ramay after Nur Jehan? What has she done to him?” Bhutto told Ramay to lay off and leave Nur Jehan alone. Madam had her ways, and she had her admirers everywhere.
Benazir Bhutto
In his book, Christopher Sandford writes that Benazir Bhutto became infatuated with Imran Khan, and the pair enjoyed a “close” and possibly “sexual” relationship. The author has also alleged that Khan’s mother even tried to organise an arranged marriage between the pair, but to no avail. But Sandford, who interviewed both Khan and his ex-wife Jemima for the book, claimed that a source told him that Bhutto was 21, and in her second year of reading politics at Lady Margaret Hall, when she became close to Khan in 1975. However, the former Pakistan cricket captain has rebuffed these claims, saying that he never had a sexual relationship with Bhutto. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and other members of the Bhutto family also have been “profoundly grieved” by a new book that claims Benazir Bhutto had a college affair with former international cricketer Imran Khan.
Aroosa Channa
Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam, mother of popular Pakistani actor and singer Fakhar-e-Alam and daughter of notorious "General Rani" is blamed to have been in affair with Former CM of Punjab Capt Amarinder Singh, who’s wife Praneet Kaur is Member Parliament from Patiala and Natwar Singh is his brother in law (Bahnoi) as Lalu of Sadhu yadav. Amarinder Singh has denied the reports of affair but refused to take legal action against the newspapers.
Husna Sheikh
Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a legendary character. Forever burned into the realms of history, it is an oft-repeated story of how he was married twice - once to a cousin from his village and then to the glamorous Iranian born Nusrat, and then how he entered into a relationship with Husna Sheikh. That Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was smitten with Husna, and used friends to cover for him while he courted her is still legend. However, neither of them ever spoke out, and this legendary romance has only been hinted at.
Boudicca (birth unknown-61)
The warrior of East Anglia made herself extremely unpopular with the Romans when she led a campaign against them following the death of her leader husband Prasutagus. She was finally defeated around Ajavascript:void(0)D 61, and is thought to have poisoned herself to avoid capture.
Comments
Post a Comment