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In the 17th Century there was a shortage of giants in Europe, and only one man was to blame. The giant-greedy Frederick the First of Prussia.

The king’s agents fanned out across Europe, on the lookout for tall men to press into the fabled Grand Grenadiers of Potsdam. Diplomats trying to get on Frederick’s good side quickly learned to send Freddy larger-than-normal men as human presents. Every year the Russian Tsar Peter the Great⁠—who stood at six foot seven inches tall himself⁠—made a gift of fifty giants. Once, when Peter took back an especially large specimen and replaced him with a shorter one, Frederick refused to speak to any Russian diplomat for months. “The wound,” the King explained, “is still too raw.” Fredrick even tried to ensure a race of giants by forcing all the tall men in Prussia to marry tall women.

Though King Frederick wouldn’t ever dare risk his giants in anything resembling an actual war, he didn’t let his giant army just gather dust in a cupboard. He trained with the regiment every day, and showed them off to foreign dignitaries. Whenever he was feeling gloomy, he would have the regiment march through his rooms, led by the regiment’s mascot, a live (though presumably normal-sized) bear.

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