Unearth The Voyage
History class tends to focus on battles, speeches, and world-changing decisions, but what did famous historical figures do when they just wanted to relax? From painting landscapes to feeding pigeons, the hobbies of the world’s greatest leaders and thinkers are surprisingly relatable.
These personal pastimes reveal a side of history that textbooks rarely show. Get ready to see some of your favorite historical figures in a whole new light.
1. Winston Churchill – Painting
Winston Churchill picked up a paintbrush during one of the darkest periods of his life, and it changed everything. After being forced out of his government position in 1915, he was depressed and searching for something to pull him out of his slump.
A neighbor introduced him to painting, and he was immediately hooked.
Churchill went on to paint over 500 works, mostly landscapes, sunny scenes from the south of France, and peaceful gardens. He called painting a “wonderful new world” that forced him to look closely at everything around him.
He even wrote an essay titled “Painting as a Pastime.”
He was a serious painter, not just dabbling. Several of his works have sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Churchill himself said that painting saved his mental health during the most stressful years of World War II.
2. Napoleon Bonaparte – Chess
Napoleon Bonaparte conquered most of Europe, but he struggled to conquer the chess board. He was an enthusiastic chess player throughout his life, though historians note he was more passionate than skilled.
Records show he lost frequently, sometimes to opponents who were deliberately letting him win, and sometimes to those who were not.
He played chess during military campaigns, between battles, and during quieter moments at court. Chess was one of the few activities that let him genuinely switch off from the pressures of running an empire.
He reportedly became frustrated when he lost, which happened more than his ego probably liked.
Three of Napoleon’s chess games have been preserved and analyzed by modern players. Experts say his style was aggressive but unpredictable.
Interestingly, a famous chess-playing automaton called The Turk reportedly beat him twice, much to his irritation.
3. Albert Einstein – Violin
The man who rewrote the laws of physics also had a deep love for music. Albert Einstein started playing violin at age six and never really stopped.
He once said that if he had not become a scientist, he would have been a musician.
Einstein played Mozart and Bach almost every day, and he believed music helped him think through complex problems. When he was stuck on a difficult equation, he would often pick up his violin and play until the answer came to him.
He called these moments his “musical thinking.”
He was no amateur either. Friends and colleagues described his playing as genuinely beautiful.
Einstein performed at charity concerts and played chamber music with other musicians throughout his life. Music was not just a hobby for him; it was a tool, a comfort, and a creative outlet all rolled into one.
4. Leonardo da Vinci – Sketching and Mechanical Design
Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks are some of the most astonishing documents in human history. He filled over 7,000 pages with sketches of flying machines, human muscles, water currents, architectural designs, and inventions that would not exist for centuries.
Sketching was not just a hobby for Leonardo; it was how his brain worked.
He sketched constantly and obsessively, often working on multiple ideas at the same time. His designs for a helicopter-like flying machine and a solar power system were centuries ahead of their time.
He drew them purely out of curiosity, with no expectation they would ever be built.
What makes his notebooks remarkable is the mix of art and science on every page. A sketch of a human hand might sit next to a design for a canal system.
Leonardo saw no separation between creativity and engineering, and his sketchbooks prove it beautifully.
5. Abraham Lincoln – Storytelling and Reading
Long before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was the most entertaining person in any room. Growing up poor in rural Illinois, he had very little formal education, but he read every book he could get his hands on.
The Bible, Shakespeare, and Aesop’s Fables were among his favorites, and he practically memorized them.
Lincoln was also famous for his storytelling. He used humor and clever stories to make points, ease tension, and win people over.
Even during the Civil War, he would lighten cabinet meetings with a funny tale before getting to serious business. His aides sometimes found this puzzling, but Lincoln knew that laughter kept people sane under pressure.
He once said, “I laugh because I must not cry.” His love of reading and storytelling shaped his famous speeches, giving them a rhythm and emotional power that still resonates today. Words were his most powerful weapon.
6. Queen Victoria – Journaling
Queen Victoria kept a diary for nearly 70 years, starting when she was just 13 years old. She wrote almost every single day of her life, filling 141 volumes with her thoughts, feelings, and observations.
That is roughly 43,000 pages of personal writing, making it one of the most extensive personal diaries in history.
Her entries covered everything from royal ceremonies to arguments with her prime ministers, her grief after Prince Albert died, and her opinions on world events. She was brutally honest in her writing, sometimes more candid on paper than she ever was in public.
After Victoria died, her daughter Beatrice edited many of the journals, destroying or rewriting passages she felt were too personal. Historians have spent years trying to piece together what was lost.
The journals that survive give an extraordinary window into one of history’s most powerful women, written entirely in her own words.
7. Theodore Roosevelt – Boxing and Outdoorsmanship
Theodore Roosevelt boxed inside the White House, and he was completely serious about it. He sparred regularly with training partners, and he kept it up well into his presidency.
A hard punch to the face from a military aide eventually damaged his left eye, leaving him nearly blind in it for the rest of his life. He kept this secret for years.
Roosevelt was obsessed with what he called “the strenuous life.” He hiked, hunted, camped, and explored with the kind of energy that exhausted everyone around him. He went on a year-long expedition to Africa after leaving office and collected thousands of specimens for the Smithsonian.
As a sickly child with severe asthma, Roosevelt had been told to live quietly and avoid physical activity. He rejected that advice completely.
His outdoorsmanship was partly a statement, a declaration that he would not be limited by his body or anyone else’s expectations.
8. Marie Antoinette – Acting and Theater
Most people picture Marie Antoinette surrounded by jewels and pastries, but she also had a serious passion for theater. At Versailles, she had a private theater built specifically for royal performances.
She did not just watch the plays; she performed in them, often taking on leading roles in front of an audience of courtiers and guests.
She rehearsed seriously, learning lines and working with professional directors. The performances ranged from comedies to operas, and Marie Antoinette reportedly had a genuinely good singing voice.
Her theater was one of the few spaces at Versailles where she felt completely free and herself.
Critics at the time thought it was undignified for a queen to act on stage, even in a private setting. She ignored them.
Theater gave her an escape from the rigid rules of royal life, where every gesture was watched and judged. On stage, she could be someone else entirely, even if just for an evening.
9. Charles Darwin – Collecting Beetles
Before Charles Darwin changed science forever, he was just a young man completely obsessed with beetles. At Cambridge University, he collected beetles with an almost frantic enthusiasm.
He once put two rare beetles in his mouth to free up his hands for a third, which did not end well for anyone involved.
His beetle collection was enormous and meticulously organized. He even got one of his new species published in a popular natural history magazine while still a student.
Friends teased him about his beetle obsession, but Darwin took it as seriously as any scientist would.
That early passion for collecting and observing tiny creatures helped develop exactly the skills he would later use to build his theory of evolution. He learned to notice small differences between similar species, to document carefully, and to ask why things were the way they were.
The beetles started it all.
10. Benjamin Franklin – Experiments and Inventing
Benjamin Franklin treated scientific experiments the way most people treat weekend hobbies: with pure, unbridled enthusiasm. He was not a trained scientist.
He was a printer by trade who simply could not stop asking questions about how the world worked. His curiosity led to some genuinely important discoveries.
His famous kite experiment in a thunderstorm proved that lightning was electrical, leading directly to the invention of the lightning rod. He also invented bifocal glasses, the flexible urinary catheter, and the Franklin stove.
He never patented any of his inventions because he believed knowledge should be shared freely.
Franklin approached each experiment with playful curiosity rather than academic formality. He once organized a turkey roast using an electrical charge from a Leyden jar and accidentally shocked himself badly in the process.
He wrote about it with good humor, calling himself “a turkey for science.” That spirit made him one of history’s most lovable inventors.
11. J.R.R. Tolkien – Inventing Languages
J.R.R. Tolkien did not create Middle Earth and then invent languages to fill it.
He actually did it the other way around. He started inventing languages as a teenager purely for fun, and then built entire worlds around them just so the languages would have speakers.
That is a level of commitment that is hard to wrap your head around.
He created two complete Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, each with its own grammar, vocabulary, and writing system. He also developed several other languages for dwarves, orcs, and humans in his fictional world.
Tolkien was a professor of linguistics at Oxford, so he knew exactly what he was doing.
He called language invention his “secret vice” and gave a lecture about it in 1931. Tolkien believed that language and mythology were deeply connected.
For him, building a language was like building a soul for a culture, and he did it with extraordinary care and precision.
12. Nikola Tesla – Feeding and Caring for Pigeons
Nikola Tesla, the brilliant and eccentric inventor of alternating current electricity, had an unusual best friend: pigeons. He began feeding them regularly while living in New York City, eventually caring for hundreds of birds.
He brought injured pigeons back to his hotel room to nurse them back to health.
One pigeon in particular meant the world to him. He described a white female pigeon that he loved deeply, saying she would fly to his window whenever he called.
When she died, Tesla said he felt his life’s work was finished. He was devastated in a way that surprised even people who knew him well.
Some historians believe Tesla’s attachment to pigeons grew partly out of loneliness. He never married, had few close friends, and became increasingly isolated in his later years.
The pigeons gave him companionship and unconditional affection, something the brilliant but solitary inventor clearly needed more than he ever admitted.
