Ancient Rome
Yes — her name was Locusta of Gaul. Already imprisoned for poisoning when Empress Agrippina recruited her in 54 AD, she went on to kill two emperors' relatives, earn imperial estates from Nero, and run a school training assassins in state-sanctioned murder.
History
On December 7, 43 BC, Rome's greatest orator was assassinated on Mark Antony's orders. His severed head and right hand were nailed to the Rostra in the Roman Forum — the very platform from which he had spent over a year denouncing Antony in his Philippic speeches.
vienna
The Holy Lance in Vienna's Hofburg Treasury was considered proof of divine right to rule. A British metallurgist tested the iron — it was forged in the 7th century AD, centuries after the Crucifixion. The nail inside it, however, is consistent with a 1st-century Roman nail.
France
In 1827, a young Nubian giraffe walked 550 miles from Marseille to Paris as a diplomatic gift to King Charles X. She was the first living giraffe France had seen in over three centuries — and she triggered a full-blown fashion craze.
Brazil
In October 1959, a five-year-old black rhinoceros named Cacareco received 100,000 votes in a São Paulo city council election — ten times more than the nearest human candidate. The election board nullified her ballots. The Portuguese language kept her name forever.
Marseille
France beheaded its last prisoner on September 10, 1977, in a Marseille prison courtyard. The executioner was a printer. Most voters wanted to keep it.
Rome
In January 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered the corpse of Pope Formosus pulled from its grave, dressed in papal vestments, and seated on a throne to stand trial. He had been dead for seven months.
Rome
Julius Caesar was killed in the Curia of Pompey, not the Senate House. The site is now Largo di Torre Argentina — buried for centuries, excavated in 1929, and open to visitors since 2023.
Paris
The bullet holes in the south-east wall of Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris are from 28 May 1871 — the last day of the Paris Commune. One hundred and forty-seven Communards were lined up against this wall and shot by Versailles government troops. The wall is now a memorial
Paris
The Paris Catacombs are two kilometres of a 280-kilometre quarry network. In 2004 police found a cinema in the tunnels. No one has ever identified who built it.