Welcome to the history tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary. As the last legitimate heir to a once powerful family,

Catherine D' Medici was married at 14 into one of the most powerful royal houses in Europe.

The two halves of her story are vastly different.

And here in part one, we're going to tell you about how she had no resources, but her inner resources.

And the character that developed from the circumstances in which she was placed.

The end.

Let's talk about Catherine D' Medici.

But first, let's drop her into history.

In 1533, it was a very busy year for King Henry the 8th of England.

He wed his second wife, Anne Boleyn,

divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in that order, had the second wife crowned queen

shortly before she gave birth to their first and only child, a little girl who would grow up

to become Queen Elizabeth I. Robert Dudley, who would become the favorite of Queen Elizabeth I was also born.

Only three years old, the child who history now knows as Ivan the Terrible

was placed on the throne as the Grand Prince of Moscow after the death of his father.

Fourteen years later, he would be crowned

the very first Tsar of Russia. While the dynasty was already a few centuries old, the Habsburgs

were only two emperors and 80 years into their 360-plus year reign as holy Roman emperors.

Formerly enslaved by his harem Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, the magnificent,

freed and would soon wed Herm Sultan, often referred to in history as Empress Roxelina,

who would help transform that empire. And in 1533, an Italian teenager

...