Forbidden Friday: Seven Deadly Sins to Enjoy before Sunday

Today I'm in New York, my favorite city of sin (sorry, Vegas), so to honor my surroundings I thought I'd parcel out some goodies from our book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits. First up, under the deadly sin of Pride, something Manhattanites know absolutely nothing about:

World Leaders Obsessed with Their Own Images Mausolus: For 24 years, Mausolus ruled over the city-state of Halicarnassus in what is now Turkey, and he spent a lot of time building up the city. So, maybe it was only fitting that in his final years Mausolus built a monument to himself. Mausolus' self-styled memorial wasn't finished until a few years after his death "“ with his wife, Artemisia I, carrying on the work. But when it was done, it was one of the fanciest tombs the world has ever seen: 140 feet high, 12,000 square feet, and tastefully adorned with tons of giant statues. The tomb stood for 16 centuries before it was toppled by earthquakes. But Mausolus' wish to be remembered did come true. His name is at the root of the word for "grand tomb:" mausoleum.

Two more egomaniacs after the jump...

Nicolae Ceausescu: Starting in 1965, Ceausescu was dictator of Romania, and boy did everyone know it. Portraits of the man hung everywhere, along with billboards extolling him as the "Genius of the Carpathians." Further still, images of him and his wife (the deputy prime minister) adorned postage stamps, and scores of books they allegedly wrote were crammed on bookstore shelves. But Ceausescu's biggest monument to himself was "“ insert ironic chuckle here "“ "the People's Palace." The second-largest building in the world, after the Pentagon, in terms of area, the complex required the razing of a good part of downtown Bucharest in the late 1980s. Not surprisingly, the "people" weren't impressed. After a revolution and a one-day trial, the "people" took the First Couple out on Christmas Day, 1989, and shot them.

Saparmurat Niyazov: What can you say about a guy who becomes his country's first president and promptly begins calling himself the "Turkmenbashi," or "father of all Turkmen?" That he has a golden statue of himself in the capital city that rotates so the face is always toward the sun? That his image appears on all the currency? That a book he wrote is the foundation of the educational system? That he renamed one of the months of the year after his mother? Well, yes, if the guy in question is Niyazov, who has been president of Turkmenistan since the Central Asian country broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991. Oh, did we mention the palace of ice he wanted to build in the middle of a desert? We're not kidding.