If you remember your European history, you probably remember Joan of Arc as the determined teenage girl who led the French to victory over the English in a key battle of the Hundred Years' War before her capture and burning at the stake. While this simplistic summary of her life is accurate, there was also much more to the story. Let's look at some of the insane things you may not have known about Joan of Arc.
There Was No Arc
When a person's name is followed by "of [place]," it usually means a person is from that place. It makes sense, then, to assume that Joan of Arc (or Jeanne d'Arc, in her native French) was from some village named Arc, but it was actually just the surname that God and her parents, Jacques and Isabelle d'Arc, gave her. Perhaps the family originated in some arcish place, but historians haven't found it, noting that Joan lived in a town in northeastern France named Domremy. To make matters more confusing, when she was arrested, she gave her name as Jehanne la Pucelle, or Joan the Maiden. She was also known as the Maid of Orléans, which is a place; in fact, it's where she fought in battle against the English. Have you got all that?
