X-Nico

3 unusual facts about King Leopold


King Leopold

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909), second king of the Belgians and founder and owner of the Congo Free State

Pius XII and the German Resistance

Umberto asked Mussolini about the plan, and was told it was untrue, while Maria Jose advised her brother King Leopold of Belgium, and was in turn advised that the Belgian Ambassador that the idea was a piece of misinformation, spread by a German spy.

Snaresbrook

It was opened in 1843 as an Infant Orphan Asylum by King Leopold I of Belgium, and later became the Royal Wanstead School.


Afonso I of Kongo

In Adam Hochschild's 1998 book King Leopold's Ghost, Hochschild characterizes Afonso as a "selective modernizer" because he welcomed European scientific innovation and the church but refused to adopt Portugal's legal code and sell land to prospectors.

Api Elephant Domestication Center

The project to tame elephants was initiated by decree of King Leopold.

Leon Rom

In King Leopold's Ghost, author Adam Hochschild speculates that Rom was the inspiration for the character of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness.


see also

Eleuterio Pagliano

He was made an official in the Order of the Crown of Italy, Knight of the Order of Saints Maurizio e Lazzaro, knighted by King Leopold of Belgium, and knighted with the Legion d'Onore, and as a Commendatore of the Order of the Medjidie by the Ottoman rulers of Egypt.

Gennaro Rubino

On the morning of November 15, 1902, King Leopold was returning from a ceremony in memory of his recently deceased wife, Marie Henriette.

Liège Medal

It was first issued in April 1920 during a large ceremony presided by the Duke of Brabant (the future King Leopold III) and Lieutenant General the Count Gérard-Mathieu Leman, military commander of the defence of Liège during the battle which raged from the 5th to the 16th of August 1914.