A man named Sancho VII of Navarre ruled the Kingdom of Navarre, a Basque enclave between France and Spain. Sancho ruled from 1194 until his death in 1234, having been born in 1157. When he died he was in his late seventies, rather old for his era. The King’s nickname was “The Strong” and according to his contempories, he was a giant.

I tend to take claims of historical figures being “giants” with a grain of salt, usually… because people were typically a lot smaller back in the day. And even a man who was, say, 6′4″ would be seen as absolutely massive. I’d have said the same of Sancho, were it not that his remains were unearthed by archeologists hundreds of years after his demise. A physician named Luis del Campo then measured the unusually well-preserved royal remains…

Sancho VII of Navarre was measured him at 2.20 metres tall (7’3″)… making him the tallest recorded monarch in history and quite likely the single most enormous historical figure of whom we know the height. Perhaps he had a hormonal disorder. But then again he was well-proportioned and handsome and lived to old age, which most men suffering from gigantism or acromegaly don’t.