August 7th: Mata Hari

Mata Hari, famous World War I spy and exotic dancer was born on this date in 1876. 10 things you might not know about Mata Hari:

1. Her real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle
2. Her stage name, Mata Hari, is Malay for "sun", literally "eye of the day".
3. Her first choice of career was as a kindergarten teacher, but her godfather took her out of the school when the headmaster began flirting with her.
4. At 18 she married a man twenty years older than she was, Captain Rudolf MacLeod - he had advertised in a Dutch newspaper looking for a wife, and she answered, possibly attracted by the fact that he was of a higher social class than she and would offer financial security. The marriage was not happy - he was a violent alcoholic who openly kept a concubine.
5. She had two children, Jeanne and Norman. Both children contracted syphilis from their parents and the treatment made them very ill, although some maintain the children were poisoned by a disgruntled servant or one of MacLeod's enemies. Norman died, Jeanne survived, but only lived to the age of 21.
6. When her marriage broke down, Mata Hari moved to Paris and performed as a circus horse rider. At that time she was calling herself Lady MacLeod, which seriously offended her husband's family.
7. While working as an exotic dancer, she was often photographed nearly nude - MacLeod used some of the pictures to ensure she did not get custody of their daughter.
8. Although famous for flaunting her body, Mata Hari was self conscious about her small breasts and was rarely seen without a Bra.
9. As a Dutch citizen, she could travel freely around Europe during World War I because the Netherlands had remained neutral. She had affairs with high ranking army officials. French intelligence agents identified her as the spy with the code name H-21 and arrested her. Although there was no definite evidence against her, they seemed to have it in for her - her lawyer was even denied the permission to travel to the trial to cross-examine witnesses. She was executed by firing squad in 1917, aged 41.
10. Her body was given to medical science. Her head was embalmed and kept in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris, but in 2000, archivists discovered that her head had disappeared.