Alexandre Dumas, swordsman
5 January 2009
Alexandre Dumas: Always photographed from the waist up.
On this day in 1825, the 23-year-old Alexandre Dumas (pere) engaged in his first duel. He lost both the duel and, somehow, his pants, which fell down during the fight. He sustained no other “serious” injury, according to this entry on History.com, and of course he learned something about dueling, which he put to good use in his later novels The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, although everyone kept their pants on in those books, at least during the duels.