When you read serious studies by historians, you inevitably come to the conclusion that at all times, dramas and tragedies unfolded on the historical stage much more often than comedies. In the history of each country there have been many brutal wars and bloody coups, obvious meanness and secret treachery, a lot of betrayal and lies, which from time immemorial have been used as their weapons by rabid ambitious people in all corners of the globe in order to achieve supreme power. At all times, the sad has coexisted in life with the funny, and tragedy has coexisted with comedy or melodrama, and even with outright farce. In all the diversity of history, the author is primarily interested in curious coincidences, unexpected analogies, paradoxical or tragicomic situations, and anecdotal cases. Describing historical events, the author consciously strives to find instructive and curious, funny and amusing episodes in them, reviving the good old genre of historical anecdote.