Did you know that Elisabeth of Austria — famously known as Empress Sisi — could be quite wild? Forget everything you think you know about the elegant, fragile Empress Sisi. The real Elisabeth of Austria was one of the most rebellious, unpredictable, and surprisingly modern monarchs in royal history.

While the court of Vienna expected her to be a quiet, conservative Habsburg Madonna, Sisi utterly loathed the restrictions of palace life—and she spent her adulthood breaking every single rule.

Later in life, she became a heavy smoker, shocking the rigid Austrian aristocracy. To cope with her severe anxiety, depression, and relentless physical ailments, she regularly relied on cocaine and opium—which were common in 19th-century medicine but fueled her increasingly erratic lifestyle. But perhaps her ultimate act of rebellion happened at age 51. While traveling in Greece, Sisi walked into an infamous harbor tavern and got a blue anchor tattooed directly onto her shoulder blade to symbolize her obsession with the open sea. Her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, was utterly horrified.

In this episode of History, but Strange, Vicky goes behind the palace walls to expose the dark, wild, and fiercely independent side of Empress Sisi that the history books tried to sanitize.

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