King Edward VIII
What would you give up for true love? For King Edward VIII, the answer was everything — including his crown. On Dec. 10, 1936, the 42-year-old Edward, who had taken the throne just 11 months earlier after the death of his father George V, became the only English sovereign in history to voluntarily abdicate. "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love," he said in a televised speech. That woman was Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American he had known since 1931, and whose two divorces (the second was yet to be finalized) made her, in the eyes of the English establishment, an unsuitable bride. The pair was married the following year; Edwards and Simpson stayed together until Edward's death, in 1972.