The real Macbeth ruled Scotland for 17 years, secure enough to go on pilgrimage to Rome in 1050, where he scattered money to the poor 'like seed'. Shakespeare made him a villain five and a half centuries later.
More amazing facts
- 1024 · 1661 China had government paper money 637 years before Europe's first banknotes.
- 1040 · 1450 Movable type was invented 400 years before Gutenberg — in clay.
- 1045 · 1051 Yaroslav the Wise is called the 'father-in-law of Europe': three of his daughters became queens.
- 1050 · 1687 The marble lion outside Venice's Arsenal is covered in Viking runes.
- 1051 · 1060 A queen of France signed her name in Cyrillic.
- 1054 In July 1054, Chinese astronomers saw a new star; 12 days later came the schism in Constantinople.