forgotten
FASCINATING!
December 17, 2025
Forgotten History Stories has compiled its year-end list of the most interesting celebrities.
What a group of crazies, con men, spendthrifts, adventurers, animal trainers, lovers and haters, hipsters and dreamers.
Number 25
Vincent Van Gogh
Moody masochist.
He’s the ultimate tortured artist. He lives in a garret; it doesn’t get any more artisty than that! Intense, depressive, brooding. More interested in paint than people. A perfectionist with no time to smile. And the thing with the ear! Cutting off an ear for a woman. Good thing he knew his best side when posing for his self-portrait.
Number 24
Galileo
He’s here all week.
The most spectacular magician in Italy, Galileo grabs attention wherever he goes. He’s currently on tour in Pisa, performing at the Tower, a cozy, popular venue for illusionists. In an exclusive, Forgotten History has learned that he’s working on a juggling act, with feathers and cannon balls, and something he calls “gravity.”
What a trick.
Number 23
Marie Antoinette
Glamour girl.
She loves big fluffy gowns and bigger, fluffier hats. She loves a good shopping trip, and she loves flaunting her baubles and trinkets and ruffles. She’s the talk of the Paris salons.
She also loves to eat cake. But not with commoners.
Let them eat cake by themselves.
Number 22
Theodore Roosevelt
Man of adventure.
A city boy from New York, he went west and turned himself into a cowboy. Almost got himself killed going down a fever-ridden river in South America. And charged up San Juan Hill.
He also found time, as president, to conduct boxing matches in the White House.
Teddy, enough already, take a break.
Number 21
Christopher Columbus
Con man in Castile.
Is he our greatest entrepreneur, or the perpetrator of a Ponzi scheme?
He convinced the Queen of Castile to give him three slow boats to China. He nearly got all his men killed, and didn’t find China or India.
He really made a mess of things in the “New World.”
Still, there’s all that gold.
Chris got the Queen to give him three more squadrons for three more trips. Either he has a silver tongue, or he has incriminating paintings of someone…
Number 20
Rasputin
The Mad Monk.
This man of mystery has all of Moscow talking. Who is he? A miracle worker? A fraud? An angel? A demon?
Some say he’s the Tsarina’s lover. Some say he never bathes. Some say he can’t be killed.
They call him the Unholy Holy Man.
One thing we do know: he always has a new lady on his arm.
Chicks dig jerks.
Number 19
Croesus
Coins in his pocket.
He loves money. He loves stuff. He loves spending money and he loves buying stuff. But he didn’t make any of that money. His daddy did.
Croesus is a trust fund brat.
He inherited the throne of Lydia, and with it, his own personal gold mine. His daddy, when he was king of Lydia, turned that gold into something no one had ever seen before: coins.
Croesus likes coins, because they’re easy to spend.
He’s spending all that gold as fast as he can.
Who’s going to tell him he can’t?
Number 18
Alexander Hamilton
Takin’ it to the bank.
What a cool guy. He’s a founding father who’s more like your chill brother. He’s a banker, but with island-cred: he’s from the West Indies. He can pull off a powdered wig and still look hip.
He’s currently in talks to produce a stage play about his life.
There may even be music.
Number 17
Peggy Eaton
She can’t help it.
Don’t blame her for being beautiful. Peggy has a way of catching a man’s eye. She nabbed her first husband at age sixteen, and met her second husband- in the boarding house where they both lived- while hubby number one was off at sea. Luckily for her, number one died. Unluckily, number two became Secretary of War, and the boarding house rumors followed them to the White House.
Now the jealous cabinet wives have declared war.
Number 16
Caligula
It’s fun being Caesar.
He wrote the book on crazy dictators. He’s a practical joker who wields supreme power; he especially likes humiliating senators, just for fun! The thing that amuses him the most is threatening to chop off a subject’s head- with a wink and an impish grin. Will he or won’t he? Lots of laughs.
Number 15
Xerxes
Go big or go home.
He wants it all- and who doesn’t? All of Persia bows to his commands, but he has his eye on Greece. So he’s planning a road trip, with about a million of his closest soldiers. It’ll be good for him to get out of the palace.
He’s always wanted to see the Greek Isles.
Number 14
Lord Byron
Europe’s bad boy.
So romantic. He fled England by night after a delicious scandal. He leaves jilted lovers across the breadth of Europe. He swims from continent to continent. And he still finds time to write poetry. Dashing, debauched, and dangerous, he lives the word “romantic.”
They should name a movement after him.
Number 13
Attila the Hun
Wild man.
He lives on the Steppes like his Mongol ancestors, a warlord who wants to crash Europe’s party. He met with the Pope himself. He’s even proposed to a Roman princess. And he’s determined to have her- but he still won’t take a bath. And he has the best nickname. He’s not just any Hun.
He’s THE Hun.
Number 12
Mable Normand
California Clown.
There’s a funny lady romping through the orange groves of southern California, having fun in the sunshine, mugging for a camera. A camera that takes moving pictures. Funny moving pictures. They’re calling them “movies” and she and her boyfriend, Mack Sennett, are making them with a little help from some friends: Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, and a diminutive Brit named Charlie Chaplin. They’ve started up a studio in a quiet little neighborhood called Hollywood.
Who knows where it will lead?
Number 11
Dante Alighieri
Streetfighter poet.
He came from the toughest neighborhood of a tough town.
Neighbor faced off against neighbor. Family killed family.
Street fights escalated into full-scale battles.
And Dante was in the thick of it.
Until his own former friends turned on him, threatened to kill him and his children, burn down his house and insult his grandmother.
So, with a contract on his head, he hightailed it out of town.
And wrote a poem about Heaven.
He’s a dreamer, not a fighter.
Number 10
Henry Ford
Winning for WASPs.
A disrupter with drive, Henry Ford is upsetting tradition, and he’s doing it fast! He has no time for horses and buggies; he’s on a mission to replace them with the “automobile.” Maybe you should think twice about buying that new buggy whip. He still believes in some traditions, however.
He’s all-in on antisemitism.
Number 9
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Strong Female Lead.
She’s the greatest actress in Europe. She’s played the Queen of France, the Queen of England, and Queen Guinevere. But she’s also played a temptress, a tramp, a poetess, and a kidnapping victim. When not acting, she likes to bestow nicknames on her co-stars.
Her favorite is Lionheart.
Number 8
General Daniel Sickles
It’s all about me.
General Sickles works tirelessly to help the country remember the veterans of the Civil War. Or at least one veteran. A certain veteran who lost a leg at Gettysburg. And then donated that leg to a local museum. And then pays regular visits to the leg. To help the country remember.
Remember the femur!
Number 7
Charles De Gaulle
Loud and proud.
The President of France that everyone loves to hate! He’s irresistibly insufferable. He always has to be the best at everything. The guy can’t stop bragging. Biggest war hero? Moi. Saved France in World War II? Moi. Tallest world leader? Moi, of course. Recipient of most assassination attempts? Moi. Fourteen.
(But who’s counting?)
Number 6
King Henry VIII
Ladies’ Man.
Hank has a way with the ladies. A born romantic, he’s very good at wooing the fair sex. He’s already convinced six women to marry him. Six and counting. How does he do it? Love poems, professions of undying affection, promises of castles and crowns. And, according to one source, he tells the new object of his desire that… my wife doesn’t understand me like you do.
What can we say? He loves love.
Number 5
Hannibal
Pachyderm pro.
He’s the star of the number one show in Carthage:
Hannibal Barca, Elephant Whisperer.
In previous episodes, he trained his elephants to walk in a circle, rear up on their hind legs, and cross the Alps. This season, he’s going to take them into battle. He will also come to your house and fix your elephant’s discipline problems.
Number 4
Al Capone
Man of style.
He makes the Roaring Twenties roar.
He makes his own rules: he lives in a hotel. Because he can.
He made a killing in the alcohol business.
He put the South Side of Chicago on the map.
He likes cold gin and hot lead.
Fedoras, cigars, Tommy guns, speeding sedans… guys with crooked noses. The guy knows style.
But this tough guy has a soft heart.
He loves celebrating Valentine’s Day.
Number 3
Peter Abelard
Disengaged.
This traveling singer/songwriter wrangled a job as a private tutor to an impressionable young lady named Heloise. After Peter corrupted her, Heloise’s guardian had him castrated. So he became a monk. Now he’s singing a different tune.
In a different key.
Number 2
Helen of Troy
Look at me!
Helen and Menelaus deserve each other. This is what happens when two narcissistic attention-seekers get married. Being King and Queen of Sparta isn’t enough; these two crave attention so much, they’re always inventing some new drama. This time she claims to have been abducted by a prince of Troy, named Paris. No one believes her. Everyone knows how much she enjoys visiting Paris in the Spring.
This isn’t the first wild story she’s come up with. She once claimed that her father was Zeus, and that she was conceived when he disguised himself as a swan and impregnated her mother, who then laid two eggs.
But Menelaus is just as much a drama queen as the queen herself: he threatened to get her back, even if he has to “launch a thousand ships.”
Number 1
Cleopatra
Charmer of the Nile.
She rules Egypt like a boss. Hot-headed and charming, she wows everyone she meets. She married her brother. When she took her royal barge down the Nile, it was the event of the year. The royal blood of the Ptolemaic Dynasty flows in her veins, carrying on in spirit the Greek rule of Alexander the Great, in the dusty land of the pyramids. And she’s just getting started.
She’s had affairs- and children- with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
She could one day be Queen of Rome.
She also keeps a deadly pet snake- just for fun.
Or just in case.
