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Fakhr al-Din II (c. 1572 – 1635) was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon and the strongman over much of the Levant from the 1620s to 1633. For uniting Lebanon's constituent communities, he is generally regarded as the country's founder. Fakhr al-Din succeeded his father as the emir of the Chouf mountains around 1591, and the Ottoman Empire gave him control over other districts, but attacked him in 1613 for allying with Tuscany. He escaped into exile but returned in 1618, resuming control of his former domains and greatly expanding them in the following years. Despite the empire being in a long economic crisis, Fakhr al-Din's territories thrived. He promoted commercial agriculture, focusing on the lucrative silk trade of Mount Lebanon. He surrendered to the Ottomans during a siege of his Chouf hideout in 1633 and was executed in Constantinople in 1635. His main enduring legacy is the symbiotic relationship between Maronites and Druze, foundational for the creation of a Lebanese state. (Full article...)

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On this day

March 12

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1622 – Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Jesuits, were canonized by Pope Gregory XV.
1881 – Andrew Watson captained the Scotland national football team against England, becoming the world's first black international footballer.
1934 – Supported by the Estonian army, Konstantin Päts staged a coup d'état, beginning the Era of Silence.
1952 – British diplomat Lord Ismay (pictured) was appointed the first secretary general of NATO.
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The Fugger family was a German upper-bourgeois family based in Augsburg that was a prominent group of European merchants and bankers who controlled much of the European economy in the 16th century and accumulated enormous wealth. This ten-ducat gold coin was struck by the family in 1621 for the County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, which they ruled from 1536 to 1806.

Coin design credit: County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection

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