Royal succession is not always easy, and more than once in history seemed to turn on a matter of random chance. 115 years before Queen Elizabeth II, the only daughter of the King’s fourth son, who was never himself a king, became Queen.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.