Naga Queen

She came from an exclusive English girls’ school. She traveled and fell in love with the hills on the border of India. Her excellent education and manners destined her to become a guerrilla leader there. She trained British troops in WWII and the Japanese set a price on her head. Her Name was Ursula Graham Bower, also known as the Jungle Queen.

Wallis Simpson: The Bored Duchess of Windsor

A biography invented and written by Anne Sebba on Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor manages the impossible: The book is more boring than her and of even less consequence. The only amusement to be gained from reading it is following up the constant contradictions contained in it. 

The First Woman Employee at the Vatican

In 1934, Hermine Speier became the first female employee in the Vatican in the modern sense of employee with a salary and a pension plan. She wasn't a nun, and more surprisingly, she wasn't even Catholic. 

When Doping Was All Bulls' Balls

Faster, higher, stronger: Doping has been paired with sport for centuries. It was common at the Olympic Games (the historical ones) and formed part of normal preparation. The testing of athletes for forbidden substances, on the other hand, has been done for just over 40 years. As a matter of principle, doping research is always a step behind the cheats as there will always be people who think they are cleverer than the rest of humanity.

Prophet of the Great War

In 1912, a German teacher anticipated the horrors of World War I in a novel. His name was Willhelm Lamszus. With his bestseller "The Human Slaughterhouse – Pictures of the Coming War" he wrote a disturbing prophecy about things to come in what we now call the Great War or World War I.