The man was King Leopold 2, of the Belgians, who in 1885 concluded that he had better grab a colony while the grabbing was still good.

The Dowager Queen Constance was anxious for her son's life and she escaped with King Ladislaus to the court of Leopold VI, Duke of Austria.

Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule

The Congo Free State was a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians through the Association Internationale Africaine, a non-governmental organization.

From the day King Leopold II established colonial authority in what is now Congo-Kinshasa to today, the country's government has been unstable.

The first organized Congolese troops, known as the ( FP ), were created in 1888 when King Leopold II of Belgium, who held the Congo Free State as his private property, ordered his Secretary of the Interior to create military and police forces for the state.

* 1790 – King Leopold I of Belgium ( d. 1865 )

* 1865 – King Leopold I of Belgium ( b. 1790 )

* 1934 – Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.

* 1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.

A monarch may retain his style and certain prerogatives after abdication, as did King Leopold III of Belgium, who left the throne to his son after winning a referendum which allowed him to retain a full royal household deprived him of a constitutional or representative role.

On the foreign affairs front, in the Declaration of Pillnitz of August 1791, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Count Charles of Artois, and King Frederick William II of Prussia made Louis XVI's cause their own.

* 1951 – King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates in favor of his son, Baudouin I of Belgium.

* 1690 – Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans.

King of the Belgians | King Leopold I of Belgium | Leopold I, elected founder of the hereditary monarchy of Belgium.

Joseph Clement was not only the candidate of Emperor Leopold I ( 1658 – 1705 ) but of all European rulers, with the exception of the King of France and his supporter, King James II of England ( 1685 – 88 ).

Here the French, the Belgian King Leopold II and the Portuguese, in close cooperation with the British, fought for control of this area.

Belgian King Leopold II also tried to gain a foothold on the northern bank of the Congo River and send Stanley to the area around Brazzaville.

The affair had a lasting influence on Austria, since part of the money from King Richard's ransom was used by Duke Leopold V to finance the founding in 1194 of the new city of Wiener Neustadt, which had a significant role in various periods of subsequent Austrian history up to the present.

Despite any reproaches from his master, The Education of the Children of Clovis was honorably received by critics and artists alike and was eventually purchased and subsequently given to King Leopold of Belgium.

Like Louis XIV, Leopold was a first cousin of the King of Spain and a nephew of Philip IV in the maternal line, his mother having been a younger sister of Philip IV ( Maria Anna of Spain ); moreover, Philip IV had stipulated the succession should pass to the Austrian Habsburg line in his will.

* 1770 – James Cook names and lands on Possession Island, Queensland and claims the east coast of Australia as New South Wales in the name of King George III.

* 1457 BC – Likely date of the Battle of Megiddo between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh, the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.

* 1772 – Gustav III of Sweden stages a coup d ' état, in which he assumes power and enacts a new constitution that divides power between the Riksdag and the King.

* 1331 – King Stephen Uroš III, after months of anarchy, surrenders to his son and rival Stephen Dušan, who succeeds as King of Serbia.

* 1772 – King Gustav III completes his coup d ' état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

In 1137 Conrad III, the Hohenstaufen King of the Germans, deprived Albert's cousin and nemesis, Henry the Proud of his Saxon duchy, which was awarded to Albert if he could take it.

His only legitimate child and son, by his second wife, Alexander III succeeded him as King of Scots.

Alexander III ( Medieval Gaelic: Alaxandair mac Alaxandair ; Modern Gaelic: Alasdair mac Alasdair ) ( 4 September 1241 – 19 March 1286 ) was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.

Alexander had married Princess Margaret of England, a daughter of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, on 26 December 1251.

The name's popularity was spread throughout the Greek world by the military conquests of King Alexander III, commonly known as " Alexander the Great ".

* Alexander the Great ( Alexander III of Macedon ), King of Macedon, 356 – 323 BC

During this time, Alexios was rumored to be the lover of Empress Maria of Alania, the daughter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, who had been successively married to Michael VII Doukas and his successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, renowned for her beauty.

During Alexius II's reign, the Byzantine Empire was invaded by King Bela III losing Syrmia and Bosnia to the Kingdom of Hungary in AD 1181, later even Dalmatia was lost to the Venetians.

* 1775 – American Revolutionary War: King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St. James's stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.

* 1796 – The Armistice of Cherasco is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, the King of Sardinia, expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast.

In the papal bull Manifestis Probatum, Pope Alexander III acknowledged Afonso as King and Portugal as an independent crown with the right to conquer lands from the Moors.

Alfonso III ( 1265, Valencia – 18 June 1291 AD ), called the Liberal ( el Liberal ) or the Free ( also " the Frank ," from el Franc ), was the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona ( as Alfons II ) from 1285.

Alfonso IV, called the Kind ( also the Gentle or the Nice, ) ( 1299, Naples – 24 January 1336 ) was the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona ( as Alfonso III ) from 1327 to his death.

He also married a Greek princess named Ladice daughter of King Battus III and made alliances with Polycrates of Samos and Croesus of Lydia.

Alfonso the Magnanimous KG ( also Alphonso ; ; 1396 – 27 June 1458 ) was the King of Aragon ( as Alfonso V ), Valencia ( as Alfonso III ), Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica ( as Alfonso II ), and Sicily and Count of Barcelona ( as Alfonso IV ) from 1416 and King of Naples ( as Alfonso I ) from 1442 until his death.

He was the younger son of King Béla III of Hungary, who invested him with the government of the Principality of Halych.

Andrew was the second son of King Béla III and his first wife, Agnes of Antioch.

Nevertheless, when Prince Vladimir II Yaroslavich of Halych, who had been expelled from his country by his subjects, fled to Hungary seeking for assistance in 1188, King Béla III had him arrested and occupied his principality and he invested Andrew with Halych.