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Bizarre: Some of the Modern Era’s Oddest Rulers

Khalid Elhassan January 21, 2025 14 min

Bizarre - The coronation of Emperor Bokassa I — The coronation of Emperor Bokassa I. Wikimedia

17. The Fairy Tale Castle King

When Bavaria joined the German Empire in 1871, Ludwig withdrew from governance. From then on, he rarely bothered with affairs of state, went into a morbid seclusion, and devoted himself to his true passion: the arts. Ludwig worshipped the theater and the opera, especially the works of Richard Wagner, whose lifelong patron he became. He also developed a mania for extravagant palaces in the Bavarian mountains. He started with the Linderhoff, patterned on the Trianon Palace and built between 1869 to 1878. Simultaneously, he started construction on his most famous project, Neuschwanstein, a fairy tale castle precariously situated on a crag and decorated with scenes from Wagner’s operas. Built from 1869 to 1886, it inspired Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.