[November 28] Wilhelmina, queen of the Netherlands

Parents: William III, king of the Netherlands, and Emma of Waldeck & Pyrmont
Date of Birth: 31 August 1880
House: Orange-Nassau
Spouse(s): Henry, son of Frederick Francis II, grand duke of Mekclenburg-Schwerin, and Marie of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt
Predecessor: William III

Reign: 1890 – 1948
Brief: Born late in the life of King William III, Wilhelmina was kept close to her parents during her childhood. She became heir to the throne in 1884 when her brother died. When King William died in 1890, Queen Emma was proclaimed regent for her ten-year-old daughter. She took direct control of the government in 1898 and married three years later to a German prince. With her husband, Wilhelmina only produced a daughter, Juliana, in 1909. During World War I, the Netherlands remained neutral but Wilhelmina was constantly on her guard, inspecting her troops in case they were called upon. The queen stopped a communist take-over of her government in 1917 simply through her charisma. After the war, she provided asylum for the deposed German emperor Wilhelm II. When World War II broke out and Germany invaded the Netherlands, the royal family fled to the United Kingdom, though the queen wished to remain in the Netherlands to increase morale for the resistance. During the war, she sent secret radio messages to her people in the Netherlands, overthrew her own government-in-exile which was trying to negotiate a separate peace with the Nazis, and addressed the US Congress. For her services, she was inducted into the British Order of the Garter, with Churchhill calling her "the only real man" among the many governments-in-exile in London. The queen returned home but abdicated to her daughter in 1948 due to failing health and disappointment over the return of pre-war politics to the Netherlands. She died fourteen years later at her palace in Het Loo.

Date of Death: 28 November 1962
Successor: Juliana

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• St. Gregory III, pope of Rome (741)
• Owain, king of Gwynedd (1107)
• Naungdawgyi, king of Burma (1763)
• Mubarak al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait (1915)
• Constantine VI, patriarch of Constantinople (1930)

[November 6] William II, prince of Orange

Parents: Frederick Henry, prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels
Born: 27 May 1626
House: Nassau-Orange
Spouse(s): Mary Henrietta, daughter of Charles I, king of England & Scotland, and Henrietta Maria of France
Predecessor: Frederick Henry

Reign: 1647 – 1650
Brief: The shortest-lived of the Dutch princes of Orange, William II served as the fourth stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in hereditary succession from his father. Although the position of stadtholder, issued by the various States-Generals of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, was formally a military title, it had been granted increasing royal prerogatives since William the Silent began the Dutch revolt in the 1580s. William II oversaw the signing of the Treaty of Münster, which recognized an end to the Eighty Years' War and Spanish recognition of the Dutch Republic. Working against his government, William conspired with the French to expand Dutch territory at the expense of democracy in the nascent republic. He actively campaigned for a restoration of his brother-in-law, Charles II, to the throne of England and Scotland. William also fought against any move by the States-General that would reduce the size of his standing army, fearing a loss of power. In 1649, he arrested eight members of a local assembly and sent his cousin with an army to conquer Amsterdam, but weather defeated him. He died soon after of smallpox in 1650. His son, William III, was born a week after his death and the States-General elected not to operate with a stadtholder for two decades until William III came of age.

Date of Death: 6 November 1650
Successor: William III

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Tsuchimikado, emperor of Japan (1231)
• Innocent VII, pope of Rome (1406)
• Ulrich, duke of Württemberg (1550)
• Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden (1632)
• João IV, king of Portugal (1656)
• Catherine II, empress of Russia (1796)
• Charles X, king of France (1836)
• Khai Dinh, emperor of Vietnam (1925)

[January 24] Marie-Adélaïde, grand duchess of Luxembourg

True Name: Maria Adelheid Theresia Hilda Antonia Wilhelmina
Parents: William IV, grand duke of Luxembourg, and Marie Anna of Portugal

Date of Birth: 14 June 1894

Royal House: Nassau-Weilburg

Spouse: Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Reign: 1912 – 1919

Predecessor: William IV

Summary: Marie-Adélaïde was the first female reigning monarch of Luxembourg since it became an independent state in 1815. She was the eldest of six daughters of William IV and she became queen upon her father's death. Her mother served as her regent for the first year of her reign, as Marie-Adélaïde was only 17 at the time.

Unlike many modern monarchs, Marie-Adélaïde took an active role in politics, and it proved to be her undoing. She was a Catholic in a Protestant country, which set things off on a bad foot. In 1914, the German Empire invaded Luxembourg and Marie-Adélaïde took a stance of neutrality but was cordial with her German occupiers. This relationship caused the French to label her as pro-German and the Luxembourg parliament demanded her abdication in January 1919. France and Belgium also wished to annex the small grand duchy on their borders, so encouraged the abdication. Marie-Adélaïde abdicated on January 14, 1919 and was succeeded by her younger sister Charlotte. She went into exile and toured Europe for a year before joining a Carmelite convent in Italy in 1920. She moved to Bavaria in 1923 due to sickness, and died of influenza early the next year.

Date of Death: 24 January 1924

Successor: Charlotte

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Caligula, emperor of Rome (41)
• Stephen III, pope of Rome (772)
• Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (1002)
• David IV, king of Georgia (1125)
• Alfonso IV, king of Aragón (1366)
• Ferdinand II, archduke of Austria (1595)
• Marie-Adélaïde, grand duchess of Luxembourg (1924)