Surnamed: "The Loyal"
Parents: Leopold and Antónia of Portugal
Date of Birth: 24 August 1865
Royal House: Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
Spouse: Marie, daughter of Alfred, duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, and Maria Alexandrovna of Russia
Predecessor: Carol I
Reign: 1914 – 1927
Summary: Like many of the monarchs of the late 1880s and early 1900s, Ferdinand was not born to rule a country. He was born in Germany to the royal family of the kings of Prussia, which would soon rule all of Germany. In 1886, the twenty-one-year-old man was appointed heir-presumptive to the throne of Romania when it was assumed that his uncle, King Carol I, would have no children. He was related through his mother to both the tsar of Bulgaria and the Austrian emperor, and both would provide unceasing problems for Ferdinand. After an affair with a Romanian noblewoman, Ferdinand married Marie, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, in 1898. This marriage added relatives in Russia, the United Kingdom, and numerous German states. In the months immediately prior to the start of World War I, King Carol I died and Ferdinand was thrust into the position of king without any real knowledge or experience in running a country.
When the war began, Romania joined the Allies against the Central Powers. Emperor Wilhelm II saw this as a personal betrayal and erased his name from the Hohenzollern house register. Romanians fought hard against German and Austrian aggression, losing large portions of Wallachia and Dobruja but keeping the Germans out of Moldavia. When Russia dropped out of the war in early 1918, Romania was surrounded and was forced to conclude a separate peace with the Treaty of Bucharest. But Ferdinand refused to sign the treaty and soon after the Allies defeated Bulgaria. Ferdinand immediately ordered the re-mobilization of Romania's army. The war ended soon after and Romania reaped the benefits. Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania were all added from Austro-Hungarian possessions, doubling the size of Romania. In 1922, Ferdinand underwent a second coronation ceremony at Alba Iulia, the princely seat of the ancient Roman province in Transylvania. The merger of Transylvania into Romania increased the peasant population greatly and the conservatives were pushed out in favor of a the National Peasant Party. Ferdinand died before having to deal with the Great Depression or the rise of communism in Romania. He was succeeded by his grandson, Michael I, under a regency led partially by his second son, Nicholas.
Date of Death: 20 July 1927
Successor: Michael I
Other Monarchs Who Died Today:
- Boniface VII, pope of Rome (985)
- Robert II, king of France (1031)
- Toba, emperor of Japan (1156)
- Oshin, king of Armenia (1320)
- John II, king of Castile (1454)
- Leo XIII, pope of Rome (1903)
- Abdullah I, king of Jordan (1951)
- Wilhelm III, pretender to Germany (1951)
True Name: Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt
Surnamed: "The Great"
Parents: Bogdan II, voivode of Moldavia, and Oltea
Date of Birth: 1433
Royal House: Musat
Spouse: Evdokia, daughter of Alexander Oaleka, duke of Slutsk-Kapyl, and Sophia of Lithuania
Predecessor: Petru III
Reign: 1457 – 1504
Summary: Stefan's life was in peril almost from the time of his birth. His father was Bogdan II, the voivode (prince) of Moldavia for two years in the late 1440s. His uncle, Petru, killed his father in a raid and took the title voivode for himself. Moldavia, located in eastern Romania and Moldova, went into civil war for seven years between Petru III and Alexandrel, a nephew of an earlier voivode. Stefan, meanwhile, fled to neighboring Transylvania where he obtained protection from John Hunyadi. He then moved to the court of his cousin, Vlad III Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) in Wallachia where he was able to muster enough troops to raid Moldavia and depose his uncle, Petru. Petru fled to Poland and Stefan at last was crowned voivode. He later raided Poland to try and find Petru but instead signed a treaty of submission with Poland wherein Petru was forever banned from reentering Moldavia.
Stefan proved to be a very able and successful general. He repelled invasions from Hungary, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire continuously throughout his reign. In 1467, the Hungarian king invaded Moldavia and Stefan defeated him at the Battle of Baia. In 1471, he invaded Ottoman-occupied Wallachia and was successful in reclaiming some of the principality for the Christians. Sultan Mehmed II invaded in 1475 but at the Battle of Vaslui, not only were the Ottomans stopped, but they ceased incursions into Europe for a number of years. Stefan failed at the Battle of Valea Alba the next year against the Ottomans, but the Turks were unable to make any significant progress due to a plague in the Ottoman army. Still, the rest of Europe was comfortable just watching the Moldavians attack and counter attack. Stefan felt it his duty to restore Wallachia to Christians. He dealt in numerous uprisings and coups within the principality, eventually installing Vlad Calugarul, a brother of Vlad III, on the Wallachian throne and ensuring a Christian neighbor for the remainder of his reign. More warfare and problems with Poland resulted in a treaty with the Ottoman Empire signed in 1503 that preserved Moldavian independence at the expense of an annual tribute to the Turks. In his final year, he rebelled at Polish invasion and defeated them decisively at the Battle of the Cosmin Forest. At a skirmish in 1462, Stefan had wounded his leg. Over the succeeding forty years, numerous injuries would compound to make his led nearly useless. When gout set in, Stefan decided to cauterize his wound after advice from the Hungarian king and Venetian doge. Stefan died two days after the agonizingly painful surgery. His opposition to the Ottomans earned him a place in the Romanian Orthodox Church as a saint.
Date of Death: 2 July 1504
Successor: Bogdan III
Other Monarchs Who Died Today:
- Adolf, king of germany (1298)
- Eberhard III, duke of Württemberg (1674)
- Manuel II, king of Portugal (1932)
