~ Famous Historical Couples ~

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George Putnam was Amelia Earhart's publisher and publicist before he became her husband. The two fell in love while Putnam was still married to his first wife. Earhart approached marriage with as bold an attitude as she did her aviation career. The New York Times remarked on her wedding vows in 1931 that "Miss Earhart did not promise to 'obey' her husband, as the word is not included in the civil ceremony."

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When Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married in 1954, they were an A-list celebrity couple. But the retired baseball player didn't like the publicity his wife garnered for the suggestive pose she struck while filming "The Seven Year Itch." According to reports, DiMaggio abused Monroe physically and emotionally, and when she filed for divorce nine months after the wedding, DiMaggio didn't show up in court.

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Gertrude Stein (left) and Alice B. Toklas were two American expatriates who met in Paris. They lived together in 27 Rue de Fleurus as a married couple for 39 years. Stein, a poet, memoirist and contributor to the modern and post-modern movements, spent her days writing while Toklas typed her manuscripts and kept the house in order.

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Microsoft business brought Bill and Melinda Gates together. They have three children and run the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organization that, according to the Gateses, seeks to help people live "a healthy, productive life."

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This late 19th-century lithograph depicts the garden of Eden, inhabited by the biblical couple Adam and Eve, who members of certain faiths believe were the first man and woman.

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Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were both well-recognized artists in their time, but Rivera predicted that his wife's reputation would be far greater than his in generations to come. Though art historians surmise that Rivera and Kahlo were very much in love, they both engaged in extramarital affairs, which ultimately contributed to their divorce in 1940. A year later, the couple reunited.

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, pose with their daughter Yolanda at home in Montgomery, Ala., in 1956. King was a champion of the civil rights movement, and his wife, a trained singer, supported his activism.

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Anne Boleyn caught King Henry VIII's attention when she was a lady-in-waiting to his queen, Catherine of Aragon. Anne became Henry's second wife, and the scandal of his divorce from Catherine shocked the court. In 1536, Henry had Anne beheaded on the charge of adultery, though many scholars assert he was just getting rid of her so he could pursue Jane Seymour.

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Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olgivanna pose at Taliesin East in 1937. Thirty years his junior, Olgivanna was Wright's third wife. She was a dancer from Montenegro, and she bore the architect (who was as famous for his designs as he was for his affairs) a daughter named Iovanna.

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Joanne Woodward became Paul Newman's second wife in 1958. The two award-winning actors had one of the most enduring relationships in Hollywood. As fellow actor Warren Beatty described their lasting union, "They were just sensible, nice, intelligent people." As for his own rationale on marriage, Newman once quipped, "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?"

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In this painting, Cleopatra emerges from a rolled-up carpet to present herself to Julius Caesar. Caesar became Cleopatra's co-conspirator to help her regain the Egyptian throne after Ptolemy took possession of it. The couple had a son named Caesarion and lived in Rome until Caesar's assassination. When Cleopatra returned to Egypt, the second great love story of her life began with Mark Antony.

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President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy reigned over so-called Camelot during his term. The facetious name nodded at the golden years of the nation, during which anything seemed possible with the youthful, handsome president at the helm and his young family by his side.

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The couple that steals together stays together, at least in the case of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who are best remembered as the dangerous duo Bonnie and Clyde. Wanted on charges of murder, kidnapping, robbery and auto theft, the couple was gunned down in Louisiana on May 23, 1934.

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Even renowned chemists will leave the lab behind for a romantic honeymoon. Pierre and Marie Curie met at the Sorbonne in Paris, and they achieved fame in the science world for their studies of radioactivity, which later earned them a Nobel Prize. When Pierre was killed in 1906, Marie was appointed to his position at the Sorbonne, where he had been a professor of physics.

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On July 29, 1981, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married in front of 3,500 wedding guests and an international television audience of 750 million, which, according to the BBC, makes the wedding the "most popular programme ever broadcast." The couple bore an heir to the throne less than a year after the wedding, and though they formally separated in 1996, their image as a couple endures due to their vast celebrity and humanitarian efforts.