Watch the video for the tragic stories behind the shortest royal reigns in history.
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00:00There have been plenty of royal heads of state throughout the centuries who have had very
00:04short reigns due to unfortunate circumstances and poor choices. Some of their stories are
00:08quite epic, even if few remember their names anymore. Keep watching to discover the tragic
00:13stories behind the shortest reigns in royal history.
00:17Anyone who's seen a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar knows how dangerous the job
00:20of Roman emperor was. Marcus Didius Julianus found that out the hard way in the year 193
00:25A.D. when he reigned for just 66 days. He'd had a massively successful career as a prefect
00:31and general, but things were not well in Rome as the Emperor Commodus was killed by a group
00:35of conspiring senators and replaced by a new emperor, who just lasted 86 days before he
00:40was killed in turn during a military uprising.
00:43That killing was reportedly accidental, but since there was no appointed successor, Didius
00:47Julianus strolled in and declared that he was emperor, and everyone pretty much went
00:51along with it. Everyone, that is, except for Septimus Severus. When he heard about
00:56the self-appointment of the new emperor, he declared that he was emperor and then rounded
01:00up his men and headed to Rome. By the time he got there, the Senate already knew their
01:03soldiers weren't going to fight the man rapidly approaching. So they bailed, and just in time,
01:08as an assassin sent by Severus killed and beheaded Didius Julianus.
01:13Russian history between 1598 and 1613 is known as the Time of Troubles, and it started with
01:18the untimely death of Fyodor I. When he died without an heir, that kicked off a succession
01:23debate, and among those contenders were the so-called False Dimetries, a series of pretenders
01:28who claimed to be the Prince Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, who had actually
01:32been killed as a child. The False Dimetries had the support of Poland and Russian rebels
01:37who thought it was time for a bit of a change. Which brings us to Fyodor II, who was put
01:42on the throne on April 23, 1605.
01:45Only 16 years old at the time, Fyodor II just as quickly lost the support of the military.
01:50When his mother stepped in to try and fix things, that irked the Russian aristocracy,
01:54who in turn encouraged a full-blown riot. The rioters killed both Fyodor II and his
01:58mother in early June, and just two months into his short-lived rule, the throne was
02:02wide open to be occupied by the first pretender.
02:06Maximinus Thrax might sound like the name of an MCU villain, but he was actually a Roman
02:11emperor whose reign lasted just three years, starting in 235 AD. But this story isn't primarily
02:16about him. Thrax was obsessed with his military campaigns, to the point that the Senate got
02:21sick of his spending and decided to appoint someone else as emperor. His replacements
02:25were Gordian I and II, a father-son duo who cemented their claim to the throne by having
02:30assassins kill Maximinus Thrax's top commander.
02:33The Gordians immediately got to work by disbanding the secret police, declaring the former emperor
02:38an enemy of the state, and preparing to fend off a military invasion. That invasion happened
02:43with the help of a governor loyal to their predecessor who just happened to be in the
02:47area. It was Gordian II who led the charge against the advancing army, so he was the
02:51one to die first. When word of his death got back to his father, Gordian I immediately
02:55killed himself. Their reign lasted only 22 days.
03:00Jane Grey was declared Queen of England on July 10, 1553. She reigned for just nine days,
03:06and that's not even the most tragic part, as she didn't even want to be queen in the
03:09first place. But she was caught up in the soap opera-style drama that was the Tudor
03:13family, and she'd been groomed not only to be queen, but a figurehead for the country's
03:17relatively new faith of Protestantism. At the time that she was married and then told
03:21she was going to be queen, she was only about 16 years old, and she fainted at the news.
03:26Grey's entourage, led by John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, installed her in the
03:30Tower of London, where they thought she would be safe. But they hadn't expected a rival
03:34married Tudor to gain so much support so quickly. Just nine days after Grey became
03:38queen, the royal council revoked their statement and named Mary as the official Tudor heir,
03:43and the Tower of London became not a seat of power, but a prison. Grey was held there
03:47until February 12, 1554, when she was taken to the Tower Green and executed. Her last
03:52words were reportedly,
03:54"'Lord, into thy hands I commit my soul.'"
03:57Being born into royalty doesn't automatically mean a life of luxury. Just consider Francis
04:02John I. He was born on November 15, 1316, just five months after the death of his father,
04:07Louis X. He was given the nickname John the Posthumous, and was crowned king immediately
04:12at his birth, but he died a mere five days later. While that was, of course, the end
04:16of John I's reign, that's not the end of the story. Fast forward to 1356, when the Royal
04:22Court of France had to deal with the claim that John I hadn't died at all, but had instead
04:26been swapped for another baby and raised as a commoner.
04:29A man named Juninho claimed to have been told of his supposedly true history by a politician
04:34who had died before he could complete his mission of seeing the right monarch ascend
04:38the throne. This sounds like the sort of thing that people would just roll their eyes at,
04:42and many did. Juninho appeared to the Hungarian royal court for help in reclaiming his so-called
04:48birthright, but he was sent away. He only managed to put together a small army of mercenaries
04:52to harass the French court, but when John II rose to power, he was largely forgotten.
04:58When it comes to the Crusades, Western history tends to talk a lot about the Western leaders
05:01like Richard the Lionheart. Less frequently discussed are the leaders of the other factions,
05:06like Conrad of Montperat, who was briefly king of Jerusalem in 1192. Conrad had a pretty
05:11incredible intellect. If he were a Dungeons & Dragons character, he would have high scores
05:16in wisdom and intelligence, as well as the strength of a barbarian and all the charisma
05:20of a barbarian. He was so widely popular that he was elected king of Jerusalem during the
05:24Third Crusade by a landslide. Unfortunately for Conrad, that made him a target. After
05:29having lunch with a friend one day, he was walking back to his house when he was attacked,
05:33stabbed, and killed. One of the assassins was killed instantly, and when the other was
05:38tortured for information, he spilled the beans. He was a member of the Assassins, a Shia Muslim
05:43sect who lived in the mountains of Persia and Syria. Conrad was king for just four days
05:47before he was killed, and Richard the Lionheart was ultimately blamed for hiring the Assassins.
05:53Not only does the tale of Khalid bin Barghash involve one of the shortest reigns in history,
05:58it also involves the shortest war in history. It's a record that's unlikely to be broken,
06:03as the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 lasted just 38 minutes. The full story takes longer to
06:09tell than the war lasted. The short version is that it started when control of Zanzibar
06:13was ceded to the British, who decided to install their own sultan. He died about three years
06:18into his reign, and the running theory is that he was poisoned by his cousin, Khalid
06:22bin Barghash.
06:23A good rule of thumb is that if you want to kill someone to usurp their position and avoid
06:27suspicion, don't move into their palace and declare yourself sultan before the body is
06:31even cold. Khalid started gathering his troops as a precursor to taking on Zanzibar's British
06:36overlords, and it was just a matter of hours before the British fleet stationed in the
06:40nearby harbor got the go-ahead to employ whatever measures were deemed necessary. Khalid responded
06:45by saying that he was sure they wouldn't fire on the sultan's palace, but then the British
06:49did exactly that. Just 38 minutes later, the new sultan's flag was down, 500 of his men
06:54were dead, and Khalid fled. He wasn't captured until 1916. He was exiled, first to St. Helena,
07:00and then to East Africa, dying in 1927.
07:04In June 2001, shocking news emerged from the Nepalese palace as King Birendra, his wife,
07:09and eight other members of the royal's inner circle had been killed by mysterious gunmen.
07:14On June 4th, it was then announced to widespread confusion that Nepal had named a second king
07:19in just two days. Prince Gayanidra was now regent, following the appointment and death
07:24of the crown prince Dipendra. A few days after that, it still wasn't clear what had happened,
07:29but it was reported that several journalists had been arrested after publishing a story
07:33that named the man behind the massacre, Dipendra himself.
07:37Stories varied, but it was later reported that Dipendra, who was outraged that his family
07:41had denied him the right to marry the woman he'd fallen in love with because her grandmother
07:45had been a concubine, simply walked into the palace dining hall and started shooting.
07:49He then attempted to kill himself and ended up in a coma, which is when he was appointed
07:53king of Nepal. He remained in the coma for three days before he died, and the massacre
07:58kick-started a complete overhaul of Nepal's political construct.
08:02And royalty lived, as it still does, by its very own rules.
08:06The infamous Napoleon Bonaparte had one legitimate son with his wife Marie Louise. Napoleon II
08:12was only three years old when he became the French emperor for the first time, after
08:15his father abdicated in 1814. But there was a bit of a snag, as Napoleon I had officially
08:20removed all of his descendants from being in the running for emperor.
08:24That's far from the end of the story, though. Napoleon I didn't go away completely as he
08:34returned in 1815. His son was officially a prince again, and then, when Napoleon I was
08:39defeated at Waterloo, Napoleon II became emperor again. That lasted for just 20 days, though,
08:45and when the French aristocracy refused to recognize his rule, he headed to Austria and
08:49was taken under the wing of Francis I, the Austrian emperor who was also his grandfather.
08:54He was raised as a prince, and while he was officially the French heir, he never took
08:58power and died of tuberculosis at the age of 21.
09:02In 1889, King Carlos I took the Portuguese throne. And when he came to power, Portugal
09:07wasn't a great place to be. There was plenty of unrest and corruption, as well as a devastating
09:12financial recession, which all led to an open revolt. In an attempt to regain control, Carlos
09:17decided to try to overthrow the parliamentary government and make it a dictatorship, but
09:21it definitely didn't go as planned.
09:24Carlos and his son, Luis Felipe, who was just shy of 21 years old, were riding through the
09:28capital of Lisbon when they were targeted by an assassination attempt. The open carriage
09:32probably made it pretty easy, and Carlos was killed instantly. Luis Felipe was shot
09:37and mortally wounded even as the carriage made a run for it, and it was a 20-minute
09:41mad dash for safety, during which time the heir apparent had become king.
09:45Also in the carriage were Luis' mother and younger brother Manuel, who was likewise wounded
09:49in the attack. Despite Manuel's best efforts, Luis died as he was being removed from the
09:54carriage, having been king for just 20 minutes.