Lemmy
29 Jun 2026 08:00
Who’s your favorite historical figure?
Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana). She was born a Ruthenian (modern-day Ukrainian) commoner, captured by Crimean Tatars in a slave raid as a teenager, and taken to Constantinople, where she entered the imperial harem. She eventually became Sultan Suleiman’s favorite concubine. In a complete break with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman freed and married her, making her his legal wife. Until then, sultans generally married freeborn foreign noblewomen, if they married at all, and had children with slave concubines instead. Hürrem went on to become one of the most powerful and influential women in Ottoman history and the first of the prominent women of the Sultanate of Women. She’s widely considered the first, and perhaps the most powerful, Haseki Sultan. It’s probably the most fairy tale-like rags-to-riches story I’ve ever come across.
Jonas SalkSpent 7 years developing a vaccine for polio. Didn't patent it or attempt to make any money from it. Polio transmission eradicated in the US 25 years after his vaccine. Spent the later part of his life researching a vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
29 Jun 2026 08:18
Are you trying to reset my password somewhere that asks these security questions?
29 Jun 2026 08:22
I only remember him because an online friend of mine went to a school named after him. So glad there have been people like this throughout history who didn't decide to just profit off of others suffering. 
29 Jun 2026 08:41
When I was younger I really liked Mata Hari. She was the ultimate badass... But as I got older the sad reality ruined the image. Now she is more like a used discarded person - very human and a victim.
Nowadays I like visionaries and philosophers because they were thinking differently from their peers.
Mata Hari. She was the ultimate badass... But as I got older the sad reality ruined the image. Now she is more like a used discarded person - very human and a victim. Nowadays I like visionaries and philosophers because they were thinking differently from their peers.
29 Jun 2026 08:47
I wouldn't consider him necessarily historic in an important person kinda way, but Carl Tanzler. Mostly for how weird his story is, despite the whole obsession with a corpse thing. Man was a radiology technologist and fell in love with a wonen who was slated to die of tuberculosis because there wasn't a cure back then. Basically, from my understanding, somehow convinced the family to let him visit to try and cure her, despite not being the type of doctor who could. Ended up showering her with gifts, which seems kinda cruel to do to someone so close to death IMO.
I believe after her death, he paid for an above ground mausoleum for her and convinced them to give him a bag of her hair. Ended up visiting the corpse for a while until one day deciding to take it with him. Ended up, who knows how long later, getting caught with it. Police couldn't charge him with anything because statute of limitations or something similar, so all they did was take away the corpse. Man did, at one point, apparently make an effigy of her, even using the hair he got from the family to make a wig.
I'd say the story is more disturbing than anything, but that's weirdos for you.
Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong.
Edit:
The wig was from before the police took the body. Also, no evidence of necrophelia, so only grave robbing would have applied, but statute of limitaions and all that.
I believe after her death, he paid for an above ground mausoleum for her and convinced them to give him a bag of her hair. Ended up visiting the corpse for a while until one day deciding to take it with him. Ended up, who knows how long later, getting caught with it. Police couldn't charge him with anything because statute of limitations or something similar, so all they did was take away the corpse. Man did, at one point, apparently make an effigy of her, even using the hair he got from the family to make a wig.
I'd say the story is more disturbing than anything, but that's weirdos for you.
Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong.
Edit:
The wig was from before the police took the body. Also, no evidence of necrophelia, so only grave robbing would have applied, but statute of limitaions and all that.
29 Jun 2026 08:54
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