Alan Palmer

Was ever a monarch so festooned as Emperor Francis Joseph? He ruled from the Year of the Revolutions, 1848 until his death in 1916. His empire was the most multi-national state ever. Meer

Alexander 1, ruler of Russia for the first quarter of the 19th century, is remembered: as the Tsar who refused to make peace with the French when Moscow fell in 1812, and as the Emperor who died - or gave the impression of having died - at the remote southern seaport of Taganrog in the winter of 1825. Meer

Clement von Metternich held continuous office at the head of Europe's affairs for a longer period of time than any other statesman in modern history. Meer

The East End as an idea is known to every Londoner, and to many others, though its boundaries are vague. Meer