Alexander Augusta was Toronto’s second black doctor, and the American Civil War’s first black field doctor. He was smart, driven, and damn, look at those eyes. His wife was also pretty awesome,- she owned a dressmaking shop in Toronto. (I haven’t been able to find a photo, but getting a fox like Alexander, she must have been quite the hottie herself).
Needless to say, I’d play doctor with Alexander.
Napoleon himself called him ‘the most beautiful prince of Europe’ long before he became the first King of Belgium. Leopold 1 was a BAMF, and his love life reads like a (sad) romance novel.
Women all over Europe loved him ( Among them Catherine the Great, who adored him and made him first a colonel and later a general of the Russian army) but the love of his life was the crown princess Charlotte of England. They were wed and moved into Claremont House near Windsor. Their marriage was a happy one but sadly short-lived; Charlotte died giving birth to their first child, a stillborn son. Leopold would never truly get over her death.
He refused the crown of Greece but after some reluctance accepted the crown of Belgium. He married Louise of Orléans, daughter of the king of France. It was a political marriage, mostly because the age difference (22 years) was so significant; Louise had always known him as an uncle before they were engaged to be wed. Nevertheless, he was kind to her during those first years of marriage and they had four children together, one of them a daughter whom Leopold named Charlotte after the love of his life. After the children were born, though, he left Louise alone more often and for longer periods of time. It is said that even as he got older, he remained handsome and had countless mistresses, including a famous actress and a woman whom he knew for over twenty years and had two sons by.
Hasekure Tsunenaga, lived 1571-1622 during one of the most tumultuous times in Japanese history.
But why does he look like he was hanging out with those weirdo Europeans here?!
Because in 1613 he sailed from Japan to Europe as the leader of a Japanese embassy to the Pope. He sailed from Japan to Mexico to Spain and then to Italy. And back. He converted to Catholicism while in Europe (Spain to be exact) and his godfather was essentially the king of Spain!
He went back to Japan in 1621, fully prepared to continue spreading the religion he’d converted to. However he died in 1622 of an unknown illness shortly after he returned. The rest of his family was eventually accused of being Christian (with substantial evidence to back it up) and all were executed by 1640—Christianity having been fully banned in 1637 by the Tokugawa shogunate.
Though I’m not a Christian, I still think this guy was a BAMF because he met and was friends with just about every powerful person in Europe at the time AND survived being exposed to New World diseases, Old World diseases, and 17th century maritime…adventures. Twice.
Plus he was damn handsome.
Lord Byron.
He’s been featured before, because what horny teenager hasn’t happened across his portrait and been like, “DAMN,” but you’re missing THE picture that rocked my teenage world.
Georg Brandes was a highly respected and notorious literature-critic. He became famous for his opinion that women should be sexually-free and have sexual experiences before marriage. He was the center of attention in the 1800s in Denmark.
