Oceania

Oceania is a bit of a peculiar case when it comes to listing the monarchies. If you want to find out about the Queen of Australia or New Zealand, you better check out the British pages: Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of State of no less than 16 states.

The Māori kingdom is another special case. The Māori are the indiginous people of New Zealand, having come from East Polynesia. They have their own monarch, who mostly has a ceremonial role and acts as the unifying personality of the Māori minority in the country, so the Māori King is not a sovereign Head of State. Find out all about it by clicking the flags!

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Today in Royal History

Francis II of France was born on 19 January 1544, 10 years after his parents' wedding. His mother, Catherine de' Medici, had no power at her husband's court, having to defer to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Henri II died when Francis was only 15, and Catherine finally had the power she craved as regent. Francis, who was married to Mary Queen of Scots, lived for only a year as king, dying in 1560.

Charlotte of Belgium, daughter of Leopold I (Queen Victoria's maternal uncle), married Maximilian of Austria in 1857; he was offered the Mexican throne in 1864, at which Charlotte became Empress Carlota. By 1867 Maximilian had been executed by revolutionary forces and Carlota was having mental problems. She spent the rest of her life in Europe, dying in Belgium on 19 January 1927.

Princess Margriet of The Netherlands, younger sister of Queen Beatrix, was born on 19 January 1943 in Ottawa, Canada, where her parents had lived since the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands in 1940. In order that she should hold Dutch citizenship only, not Canadian citizenship, the Canadian government declared the maternity ward where she was born to be temporarily extraterritorial.