FAMOUS-INFAMOUS characters in History: enigmas; rulers-"nut cases";genius?

Question

Who are your candidates of historical characters, that are not understood, mis-understood, or utter enigmas?
Such as: famous, but complete "nut-cases"; infamous, but mis-understood; famous, but mis-understood; flayboyant beyond belief; or just total enigmas.
I am requesting at least 3, but more if you like. And please give at least a one sentence explanation of why they are your choice.

Wotan

12-13-07 11:00 p.m. PST: Wonderfu. Great. Can't thank you responders enough. It seems I'm probably going to have the most difficult time yet, in picking a best answer. Thanks gillions.

Wotan

Answer 1

Leonardo Da Vinci -- Although, he was, in his time, not fully understood, one can probably say the same today. One example is the way he wrote in his journals or his notes - Backwards and upside-down if I recall correctly.

Ludwig van Beethoven -- No musician (or person) at the time could possibly understand what he was going through. The loss of your hearing when you appreciate music as much as he did probably makes you go mad one way or another. It was probably normal for him, but "weird" for us. (Excellent symphonies, by the way.)

Stephen Hawking -- No one entirely understands a single thing that he studies. Black holes, the concept of infinity, etc. A scientist that probably could achieve and explain himself more if he wasn't disabled. Either way, his contributions are probably ignored by the majority, which I think is a shame.

Answer 2

Three russians spring to mind, having been reading a world war 1 book on WW1.

Tsar Nicholas Romanov. Would things have turned out better if WW1 had not been started? Nicholas was a weak willed man at the best of times & WW1 pushed the people's patience over the edge. Had the war not started, would the Romanov's still rule & would the bolshevics have been an annoyance rather than a political force that changed the world through communism?

Grigory Rasputin. Despite the bad wrap, the man was terribly clever & very manipulative. Also, how did he manage to save Alexis Romanov's life so many times by managing to stop the heir apparents deadly bleeding? And how did he manage to survive for so long the night he was murdered? he ate poison cakes, drank 4 glasses of poisoned wine, was stabbed, beaten & was only undone when he was shot & drowned in the river neva. Scary.

Lenin. Would we have viewed him differently if the imperial family where exiled rather than brutaly murdered, and would his legacy be more kindly remembered if he had removed Joseph Stalin from power as he had planned, but had a stroke before he could act. If Stalin had been removed, millions of people would not have died & millions more would have had a kinder time.

Answer 3

Infamous Rulers

Answer 4

Franz Ferdinad. --Archduke of Austria. Really just another ho-hum royal of the turn of the 20th century, but his assasination brought about World War I.

Ghengis Khan. --Transformed Asia and Eastern Europe, but more importantly boasts a huge number of genetic descendants today

Adolf Hitler. --This would fall into the famous/nutcase category. The legacy of Hitler's Holocaust continues to define many aspects of world socio-politics through today, and will (probably should) throughout the foreseeable future.

My thoughts; hope this contributes.

Answer 5

For starters, I'm not mentioning Hitler because he's overlooked and I know and understand how his mind works. Besides, everyone knows pretty much everything there is to know about him anyway.

Napoleon Bonaparte - Some say he was a military genius (which he was) and some say he betrayed the French Revolution (which is up for debate).

Jesus Christ - Jews say He was a great teacher. Muslims see Him as a prophet. Christians like myself believe Him to be the Messiah. No, Jesus is not a nutcase or maniacal, by the way.

Joseph Stalin - "Uncle Joe" disliked priviledge...except when he himself had it. He seemed to have invented the personality cult (Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Ill perfected it). He looked so friendly and amiable to his countrymen but deep down inside, he was a monster who murdered his own people out of sheer paranoia and to make sure that no one took his position of power or exposed him for who he was (the reason why Leon Trotsky got an icepick to the head in Mexico).

Alexander the Great - This guy managed to conquer most of the known world (at the time) at an age when the majority of us would be slaving our lives away in cubicles. He's like an ancient historical version of Napoleon.

Siddhartha (a.k.a Buddha) - A member of Indian royalty who decides to find his own spiritual path and after intense meditation under a tree, he finds enlightenment and believes himself to be "the one." Interesting.

King David - He is the first ruler of Israel. He found his wife by watching her take a bath and having her husband murdered so he could have her for himself. However, he redeemed himself by getting right with God. He was furious over the fact that his son Amon raped his daughter Tamar and saw that justice was administered. In his early years, he managed to knock down a Philistine warrior with a slingshot.

Johann Gutenberg - The inventer of moveable type, NOT the printing press. The Chinese invented printing blocks long before Gutenberg.

W.A. Mozart - He was a child prodigy in the world of music. He never got respect from older musicians because they spent years learning music while it came naturally for him. He died way too young. He is my favorite composer right next to Beethoven.

Ludwig von Beethoven - After going completely deaf by age 30, he could still compose music. Enough said.

Winston Churchill - He is a personal hero of mine. Some say he was a megalomaniac or a warmonger. But he is one of the smartest and most courageous world leaders in modern history in my opinion. After Neville Chamberlain's screw up with Hitler ("peace in our time"), he took over and made sure that Britain stayed safe from the Nazis.

I have a lot more but it would take forever to mention everyone.

Answer 6

Mary I (Bloody Mary) has always fascinated me. She's remembered for her burnings of Protestants, but in fact she only burned 287 while her father, Henry VIII, killed off 57,000 Catholics and Protestants (given that he reigned longer than she did). Contemporary accounts describe her as kind and gentle, a woman who loved children, and she did what she truly thought was right in trying to bring her people back to the True Faith. She had a dreadful childhood, and was not allowed to see her mother in her last years; she wanted a husband and children, and got the highly unpopular Philip of Spain, who did not love her. Twice she thought she was pregnant - imagine the heartbreak and public humiliation of going through a "pregnancy" with no child at the end.

The Tudors are always interesting, from the popular view of Henry VIII as a fat, brutal, serial wife-killer to Elizabeth the Virgin Queen. Perhaps Henry was right in thinking he was cursed by taking his brother's wife: he managed one legitimate son, who died young. His daughter Mary had no children, yet desperately wanted them. Elizabeth made her choice not to marry, yet it's recorded that she let out a hearfelt cry when she heard that Mary, Queen of Scots had been delivered of a son.

What an impact they've made on history!

The Chevalier d'Eon. Diplomat, writer, spy, and Freemason, a member of the elite Dragoons and one of the best swordsmen in France, whose true gender was a source of speculation and provoked public bets in the late 18th century. Generally it was believed that d'Eon was born female, but he had started to dress as a man in his childhood, and changed back from "a bad boy into a good girl" when his secret was revealed decades later. After his death it turned out that he was a man who had dressed as a woman. D'Eon is often called the patron saint of transvestites.

Dr John Dee, Mathematician, Astrologer, Magician. Elizabeth I consulted him; he's quite fascinating.

The Comte de Saint Germain. Did he really have the secret of eternal life? He pops up quite a number of times in history. Or was he just a clever impostor?

Tsar Ivan the Terrible. A cruel, brutal man, he suffered a horrible childhood, and his reign was marked by his atrocities. He was, actually, mad. I tend to couple him with Vlad Tepes, another ruler whose cruelties are still a byword today. It's interesting to see how different viewpoints colour the facts; Vlad did manage to save his country from the Turks.

I don't know if this answer is what you had in mind, but these are characters I find fascinating. Perhaps we could lump Shakespeare in as an enigma, too!