Theme
Excess and debauchery that shocked the ages
5 stories
A Siberian peasant with no formal education took de facto control of the Russian Empire's domestic policy in 1915 — appointing and dismissing ministers while the Tsar commanded armies at the front.
The Marquis de Sade wrote his most infamous manuscript on a 12-meter paper scroll smuggled into the Bastille piece by piece — and believed it destroyed when the revolution looted his cell.
The Roman Emperor Elagabalus reportedly offered large sums to any doctor who could surgically provide him with a vagina — documented in the 3rd century historian Cassius Dio's Roman History.
Caligula declared himself a living god and appointed his horse to the consulship — or did he? The sources were written 80–200 years after his reign by senators who hated him.
Sir Francis Dashwood turned a medieval abbey into a temple of aristocratic libertinism, where MPs, admirals, and Benjamin Franklin performed mock Catholic masses in monk's robes.