After his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the purpose of the British exiling Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena wasn't to punish him. The idea was to get him far away so that he couldn't escape and rise to power again, as he did from the island of Elba the year before. St. Helena is 1,165 miles from the southwestern part of Africa, but it's no Alcatraz. It is a tropical volcanic island which had 6,000 residents at the time. Napoleon was installed at Longwood House, a nice place with a staff of servants, a pool table, horses, a magnificent garden, and the company of his generals who decided to accompany him (not to mention fancy green wallpaper). This was where Napoleon spent the last six years of his life.
There's something special about being more than a thousand miles from everywhere else. While St. Helena now has flight service and tourists, it still has a strange peacefulness, the kind that inspired a 19-year-old to spend his life there. Atlas Obscura talked to Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, curator of the Longwood House, now a museum, who has spent the last 40 years on St. Helena. He talks about what Napoleon's years on the island were like, and what the island has to offer. The interview is available in both text and podcast form.
(Image credit: Michel Dancoisne-Martineau)