Juana "la Loca"

Every four years the FIFA World Cup attracts a world-wide audience. And every FIFA World Cup also attracts controversy. Forty years ago, in 1986, the games in Mexico had their fair share of controversy, as well as amazing moments, surrounding Diego Maradona. Maradona is one of th ...  Show more

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC has a lot to see. Tucked among the aircraft there is a display case with a lion. That lion is Gilmore. Gilmore, the flying lion (o león volador) flew more than 25,000 miles, including trips that broke speed records, with his owne ...  Show more

Juana of Castile has gone down in history as "Juana la Loca." But Juana's mental state was likely not as bad as it seemed. Was she instead the victim of conniving relatives? In this episode, we discuss Juana's youth, her marriage and more.

Depending on which stories you read, Juana of Castile is either a woman who went mad after the death of her husband, or a maligned figure who was manipulated by the men in her life so they could rule Spain in her place. Her life is a perfect example of the stories we like to t ...

In this second part of our series, Juana has become her mother's unlikely heir. Just a few years after inheriting Castile, she is declared insane and imprisoned. But was she actually mad? And why didn't her son free her when he came to power?

Hortense Mancini is perhaps most famous for being a royal mistress, but her life was a series of adventures and scandals. Hortense was willing to do whatever it took to be a woman who lived on her own terms in the 17th century.