Interesting, isn’t it, that throughout its long history England did its best to ensure that kings, not queens, ruled the country — elevating younger princes to the throne ahead of older female siblings, or even, on occasion, inviting foreign (male) royalty to assume the throne rather than be ruled by a native princess.  Yet the two greatest monarchs in English history — at least the only two so consequential as to have entire “ages” named after them — are both women. Elizabeth and Victoria.

The former, Elizabeth I, was crowned this week (Jan. 15) in 1559, even though her chances of gaining the throne had been more remote than most English princesses. That is because before she finished childhood her father, Henry VIII, had her mother, Anne Boleyn, beheaded for adultery and treason, and then invalidated the marriage. That made Elizabeth illegitimate.

Even then, she was a distant third in line to the throne, after her younger brother Edward and her older sister Mary, although Edward’s untimely death in 1553 did bring her one step closer. But she still had a ways to go given that (“Bloody”) Mary’s crowning put in power a fanatic Catholic who distrusted Elizabeth’s Protestantism. What’s more, Mary never forgot that Papa Henry had divorced her mom, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Elizabeth’s mom, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth continually faced imprisonment and death at Mary’s hands.

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In terms of rallying cries, perhaps only “Remember the Alamo!” is more engrained in our historic consciousness than is the cry “Remember the Maine!,” which became a national call to arms in the wake of the explosion that sank the battleship the USS Maine, this week (Feb 15) in 1898, as it sat in a harbor in Havana, Cuba.  Some 260 American sailors died in the explosion.

President William McKinley sent the Maine to Havana in response to an increasingly volatile war between Cuban rebels fighting for independence and Spain, which considered Cuba part of its overseas empire. And although the Maine went to Havana solely to protect American commercial interests — Americans owned many of the island’s sugar plantations — Spanish authorities considered its presence in Havana provocative, and when the ship blew up, Americans quickly blamed Spanish saboteurs. Later, when a U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled that an underwater mine had caused the explosion, suspicions were confirmed and war fever broke out across America.

President McKinley initially was reluctant to fight with Spain, but “Remember the Maine!” became the headline of every newspaper in America, and Congress and the American people demanded retribution.  War soon followed, but Spain’s naval forces in Cuba were no match for American military might, and Spain was quickly defeated. Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and (for $20 million) the Philippines to American control.

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King George IV of Great Britain, whose reign began this week (Jan. 29) in 1820 upon the death of his father, King George III (America’s last king), was not your usual monarch.  Oh, sure, like many of them, as a young man he was a glutton, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a womanizer and a profligate who ran up so much debt that he had to agree to marry to get Parliament to pay off the 650,000 pounds he owed creditors.  But unlike most other English kings, George IV remained a glutton, drunk, addict, gambler and wastrel, dying in 1830 from a combination of those diseases.

George IV was different in other ways, too. For example, most English kings fancied themselves great warriors and usually squandered the national treasury on prolonged wars.  King George IV fancied himself a great special events planner and squandered the national treasury on parties and ceremonies.

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