Quite a Talent

Of all the monarchs of the eighteenth century, the one with the coolest name has got to be Queen Nanny of the Maroons. 

Most of Nanny's history was preserved orally and because of that, and the fact that she was an ex-slave who managed to free approximately 800 other slaves from British colonial rule in Jamaica have contributed to her lack of publicity.

The Maroons were a group of African ex-slaves and native inhabitants of Jamacia who understandably didn't like the whole slavery-and-stealing-land thing the British had going on. Queen Nanny was the leader of the Windward Maroons, a group that lived high in the mountains and excelled at clever attacks. Nanny managed to unite the other Maroons and successful get the British to acknowledge the land they lived on as theirs.

 By far one of the most interesting details about Nanny, other than the fact that she is now on Jamaican currency, is that she could catch bullets. Some believe that she caught them with her hands, as it was an art-form in Africa to be able to do so. The more entertaining version is that she caught bullets with her buttocks and farted them back out.