20 Controversial Facts About “Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, 1st of France”
October 24, 2011
Napoleon was a great military commander, a risk loving gambler, impatient workaholic genius, a skeptical vicious misogynist, tyrant and a usurper; whatever you may call him, this twice an emperor of France had a personality which dominated the whole of Europe for a decade and his thoughts for an entire century worldwide. 
1. Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleone di Buonaparte) had a nick name Nabulio often called with by his parents when he was born. That’s cute.
2. Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769 in town of Ajaccio, Corsica at his family’s inherited house.
3. Napoleon was poisoned with arsenic by Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon, and died at the age of 51 on May 5, 1821. An autopsy indicated that he had stomach cancer while some scientists believe that he was poisoned.
4. Napoleon’s hair was sold for $13000 cut off from his head after his death in exile in 1821 on the island of St. Helena.
5. Napoleon’s darkest secret is that he suffered from Hemorrhoids. His pain seemed to have reached its peak during the battle of Waterloo as identified by Dr. Paul Wolf in 2001. Poor guy had to take a bath to relieve his ache, too bad he couldn’t at the battle of Waterloo.
6. A great commander and reformer, his reforms were judicially implemented throughout the world and his military achievements and strategies were studied at military academies worldwide.
7. Although brought up as a Roman Catholic, Napoleon was an atheist.
8. Having failed to conquer the British military, he banned all merchandise and ships from Continental Europe. This commercial boycott of Britain is also called as “Continental System” much like the one used these days to suppress any country refusing to be an ally of our International Imperialistic Community. The “Either you are with us or against us” thing.
9. Napoleon sought support of the Spanish in 1807 to invade Portugal when Portugal refused to comply with his Continental System. Spain refused to assist him so Napoleon invaded Spain too. Sounds like ex-president George W. Bush.
10. Napoleon was born of Italian nobility, thus had difficulty getting rid of his Corsican accent. Well, he never did get rid of it.
11. Napoleon was a distinguished math student and was well aware of history and geography.
12. The nose of Sphinx (The human head lion resting with the pyramids of Egypt) was severely injured by French soldiers. They practiced shooting at it.
13. Napoleon was smaller than an average person’s height of his time. His reported height is 5 ft 7.The image still holds.
14. The bloodiest day of battle of Borodino in history claimed 44,000 Russian and 35,000 French lives.
15. Napoleon invaded Russia with an army of over 4, 00,000 but only 40,000 made it to the Berezina River in November 1812. Seems Hitler didn’t realize that his army would meet the same fate in Russia.
16. Napoleon made a suicide attempt with a pill that didn’t work and he survived to live his exile.
17. The defeat of battle of Waterloo ended his imperialistic rule as Emperor of French.
18. The great commander Napoleon’s tomb at St. Helena was nameless. Although he willed to be buried on banks of Seine, the British governor ordered him to be buried in the valley of the Willows in St. Helena.
19. The remains of Napoleon had travelled around the world for over 185 years.
20. The fact of arsenic poisoning of Napoleon was dismissed in studies conducted in 2007-8. The cause of his death was said to have happened due to a peptic and gastric cancer. Copyright © 2011
Posted by Angelia Kates · Filed Under World news
