More Great Moments in Nineteenth-Century European Facial Hair

While teaching my intellectual history class last session, I put together an educational presentation on the facial hair of great European intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here are some new faces, garnered from the politicos and assorted detritus (no offense, Rasputin) of not-necessarily-intellectual history:

The lovely and talented Otto von Bismarck, Prussian chancellor and unifier of Germany

Note just how much Wilford Brimley looks like Bismarck. Coincidence?

Karl Marx's BFF, Friedrich Engels. They had a beard-off in the 1870s. Guess who won.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. King Victor Emmanuel of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Accidentally unified Italy in the 1860s. Ladies man.

Napoleon III of France. Known to jab out the eyes of his enemies with surprise 'stache-stabs.

The beleaguered captain Dreyfus of the infamous Dreyfus affair. A mustache as French as bad plumbing.

And, of course, crazy old unkillable Rasputin. That's a look that says "illiterate sex monk" and MEANS it.