The tale of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith is well known all over the world. The story of the native American woman, who saves the life of an English settler in Jamestown, Viriginia, still intrigues people after over 400 years.

Pocahontas was born in around 1595 as a daughter of Wahunseneca, the Chief of the Powhatans. The Powhatan had a population of about 25,000 and included over thirty tribes at that time. Women and men had seperate tasks in the Powhatan society, but both were equally important. Women were responsible for building houses, collecting water, farming, cooking and manufacturing everyting needed in and round the house. Also, they collected edible plants. Men were mainly responsible for hunting.

The English landed in Virginia in May, 1607 and called their settlement Jamestown. The new settlers and the native Powhatan didn't encounter before the winter of that year. But when Captain John Smith went on an exploration, he was captured by a hunting party of Powhatans. We don't know for sure what happened there - in Smith's first account of the event, written in 1608, he does not meet Pocahontas there, but in a letter he writes to Queen Anne in 1616, he writes that Pocathontas dramatically and selflessly saved him from being executed in a large feast. Historians suggest that the Powhatan never really wanted to execute Smith, and that he may have misunderstood what was happening to him. It is possible Smith later exaggerated the story towards Queen Anne to impress her.

1. In the 19th century, industry bloomed in the (rich) Northern states. Railroads and factories popped up everywhere. The main industry in the Southern states however still lay in (cotton) farming. Whereas the North had already realized that slaveholding is immoral and had abolished slavery in the late 18th century, the Southern economy was still heavily dependent of slaves.   

2. Anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860 without carrying a single Southern state. The Southern states felt they were losing representation in the Union, and that in turn would mean they would lose power in the slavery question and other policies.  Because their economy would fall apart when slavery would be forbidden, the only option left for them seemed to leave the Union.

They all laughed at him mockingly, his fellow people from the Cherokee tribe. But Sequoyah, son of a white father and a Cherokee mother, continued on his project rigidly, with success: he ultimately presented the Cherokee syllabary, making it possible for Cherokee to write and read in their language for the first time.

Sequoyah was born a son of an unidentified white (or half-white, as sources differ) father and a Cherokee mother around 1770. The young boy was raised by his mother alone, didn’t go to school and never learnt English. He spent time farming and tending cattle before he was injured and lamed, making it impossible for him to be a successful farmer or warrior. When he came in contact with white men, he learned the art of forging jewelry and became to work as a silversmith. Later he took on the profession of a blacksmith as well, repairing iron farm implements in his village.

As jewelry was popular among whites, Sequoyah stood in regular contact to them. He was impressed by their ability to transmit information to people in distant places: by letters. Among Cherokees, people tend to believe that writing was sorcery, and weren’t much interested in doing it themselves. Sequoyah, however, set a goal: he wanted to be able to write down his Cherokee language.

In 2017, it's been 200 years since the very first bicycle, invented by Karl Drais, was patented in Germany. Time to take a look at some historic cycle designs that are as curious as genius (or utterly stupid).

What we know as Rembrandts most famous painting, The Night Watch, is actually just not the whole thing. Only seventy-three years after it was finished, the painting was trimmed in order for it to fit into its new location, the Amsterdam town hall. About 60 centimeters were removed from the left side, and smaller strips from the other three sides. Because of that, the composition is now unbalanced, and some of the figures have been removed – just like that.  
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Also, the popular name is based on a misunderstanding. The Night Watch (whose original title is The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch is not set at night at all! The misleading title was given to the painting in the 18th century, since the varnish had grown so dark over the years. The scene was thus misinterpreted as being nocturnal. ​

It isn't the smartest thing to marry a prince that is nicknamed "the Fair" when you have a tendency to jealousy, one would say. But princesses in the 15th century couldn't choose their husbands; their marriages were arranged for political reasons. Joan was one of the luckier girls, since she was betrothed to a man she absolutely adored: Philip of Austria. He lived up to his nickname, and on the night the two first met, it was love - or lust - at first sight. Philip insisted they would marry immediately so the young couple could love each other passionately.

Unfortunately, their attraction would turn out to be fairly unequal: Philip's feelings for Joan were mere desire, whereas Joan loved her husband obsessively. But he was young, handsome and on top of that he was a monarch (he ruled the Low Countries from the age of 18), so women lay to his feet and he loved it. He acted as if he was a young bachelor, drinking, feasting and having sex excessively. Joan was extremely jealous; she wanted her husband for her and herself only.

She often was moody and depressed, or could also break out in jealous rages. Philip couldn't care much, he would rather make things worse by avoiding her bedroom after they had been fighting over one of his excesses. She would cry of anger and despair and bump to the wall ceaselessly. Instead of starting to hate him, however, her mad love for him remained. He was all that she cared for: she lost all interest in politics and became isolated at court.

Elisabeth was born on Christmas Eve, 1837, in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria. She was the second of two daughters of Duke Max Joseph and his wife Ludovika, a daughter of the Bavarian king Maximilian I.

In her youth, Elisabeth had no obligations at the Bavarian court and spent a happy time in their castle at Lake Starnberg, where she enjoyed playing and riding in the country. Elisabeth’s nephew was the young Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. His mother, Archduchess Sophie of Austria, was his advisor in his political as well as in his personal life, and thus in fact the real ruler of the Empire. When Franz Joseph was 23, Sophie arranged a marriage with her nice Helene, Elisabeth’s older sister. The family was invited to come to Bad Ischl in Austria, so that Franz Joseph could propose to Helene, although the two had never met before. Helene and Franz Joseph didn’t feel comfortable in each other’s presence, but Franz was immediately attracted to the fifteen-year-old Elisabeth. And so this would be the first time that Franz Joseph would disobey his mother: he wanted to marry Elisabeth, otherwise he would not marry at all. His mother was infuriated, but accepted his wish – at least he would marry a niece, and that was what she wanted in the end. But Elisabeth had not been prepared to be an Empress as Helene; she had lived her free, informal life until that moment, and she would never be able to fully adapt the royal way of life with all its rules and etiquette.

Mata Hari - the name alone sounds like oriental mystery, seduction and espionage. The girl behind the name was born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in the Frisian town of Leeuwarden, and has turned into a legend.

She was born in 1876 as the first child of a hatter and oil-invester. She grew up in wealth, and being the first daughter she was shamelessly spoiled by her father. She would go around in fancy dresses, and be an outsider because of her flamboyant appearance. However, her father's company went bankrupt when Margaretha was 13, and soon after her parents separated. In 1891, Margaretha's mother died, and the family fell apart. Her father went to Amsterdam to live with his second wife and the children were sent to live with other family members.

She started studying to be a kindergarten teacher in Leiden, and it was there that she learned she was sexually attractive to men: the school's headmaster helplessly fell for her. When a scandal broke out, Margaretha was dismissed from the school and went to live with her uncle in The Hague. At the age of 18, she saw an advertisement in the newspaper that was placed by friends of Rudolf MacLeod, a captain stationed in the Dutch East Indies who was - according to his friends - in desperate need of a wife. Margaretha answered the ad and enclosed a photograph, expecting that her beauty would convince him to choose her. He was twenty years her senior, but she understood that the captain would secure her the financial status she had known as a child, but had missed after her father's bankruptcy. The two got married soon after. She now was a member of the upper class, but because she had to live in the tropics, she hardly had any benefit of that. They got two children, Jeanne and Norman. The latter got poisoned at the age of 2,5, supposedly by medicines against syphilis. Because of Rudolf's rude character and Margaretha's troubles to get used to the Indies, the marriage did not work out. In 1902 they moved back to The Hague and got separated soon after; Rudolf took Jeanne with him. Margaretha was left alone without family, money or a proper education.