Chinese empress Xiao Yan Yan had two older sisters and hated both of them. One of them tried to poison her, so Xiao Yan Yan forced her to commit suicide. The other one was imprisoned and executed on Xiao Yan Yan's orders.
Inca princess Inés Huaylas convinced her husband Francisco Pizarro to have her sister Azarpay executed, claiming that she was secretly working for the rebel army of Manco Inca. Historians believed this she was lying and was solely driven by family jealously, as Azarpay had been her superior in rank and popularity before Pizarro and the Spaniards arrived.
This was the relationship between the Tudor Queens of England, "Bloody" Mary I and her younger half-sister Elizabeth I. Mary's happy childhood as the only surviving child of Henry VIII came to a crashing halt when Henry took up with Anne Boleyn, for whom he divorced Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon. Anne was infamously cruel to Mary, persuading Henry to strip his daughter of her rightful title of 'Princess' and even forcing her to be a nursemaid to the infant who supplanted her as heir to the throne. Nevertheless, the much-older Mary was fond of her little sister and also their mutual half-brother Edward (later Edward VI). As Elizabeth grew older, however, Mary began to see her as a rival, a fact which was cemented during Mary's queenship. Their opposing religions did not help; Mary was a steadfast Catholic (under the influence of her devout Spanish mother) while Elizabeth had been reared in the (Protestant) Church of England. When Mary became Queen, Protestant plots to depose her and place Elizabeth on the throne resulted in Elizabeth being arrested and imprisoned several times. Elizabeth was much younger, prettier, and much, much smarter than poor Mary; she was unhappy, aging badly, despised by her subjects, unable to have children, and eventually died of a tumor. Against her inclination, she had no choice but to leave the throne to the sister she resented.
Modern
It has been speculated that Queen Elizabeth II was not immune to this effect. Princess Elizabeth was never intended to be a contender to the throne: her father George was merely the younger brother of King Edward VIII, a man who, barring accident or the unthinkable act — abdication — was set to be King until well into the twentieth century.note Had he not abdicated and had he lived as long as King as he did as a former king, he would have reigned until 1972. But events conspired, her father ascended a tarnished throne as King George VI, led a country through WW2, and died young in 1952, so the eldest of his two daughters became Queen Elizabeth II. The ongoing calculated bad behaviour and imperious hauteur of her younger sister, Princess Margaret Rose, was out in public for all to see: Margaret lived in perpetual jealousy of Elizabeth's role as Queen, and her antics were designed to embarrass the reign. Elizabeth is said to have felt like the dowdy and plain one next to her sister, a woman who regularly figured in lists of the world's most beautiful women and who was known for her grand living. While Margaret had some love and affection for her sister, she pushed the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and caused Elizabeth constant dread and embarrassment: her affairs were legion, not especially discreet, and included Peter Sellers and (according to legend) Mick Jagger, among many others. As the sisters entered middle age, however, Elizabeth asserted greater control as Margaret's looks faded and died; lacking the looks to keep rich lovers, Margaret now depended on her sister's dole and had to toe the Windsor party line — effectively, the Queen was taking her revenge for the put-downs and exquisite embarrassments of earlier years.
Going by her autobiography, Jessica Mitford spent a certain amount of her adolescence in an extraordinarily black-comedic variant on this; she was developing into a lifelong socialist at precisely the same time as her sister Unity was becoming an extremely dedicated British Fascist (and personal friends with most of the Nazi high command). Furthermore, there was a definite pretty one/smart one element to it; while neither was ugly, Unity was considered prettier (once he met her, Hitler — with whom she may or may not have had an affair — called her "a perfect specimen of Aryan womanhood"), while Jessica was famous for being crazy-smart (she wrote a lot of articles and books later in life). Until the international situation began to get really dire, they behaved almost exactly like every other pair of arguing teenagers. Did we mention they shared a room? Well, they shared a room — which, as soon as their politics were cemented, they split down the middle with a chalk line and decorated on each side in the symbols of their ideologies (Unity in swastikas and pictures of Hitler, 'Decca' in hammers and sickles and pictures of Lenin). What makes this really sad is that there's evidence that when they were children Unity and 'Decca' were very close and shared a secret society and language, among other examples.
Anne Frank's diary is full of this kind of thing about her older sister Margot, who she claimed was prettier, nicer, smarter, more mature, and just "better," in contrast to Anne's adolescent awkwardness and mood swings. She also wrote about times she thought her parents were favoring Margot over her.
J. K. Rowling, the writer of Harry Potter, and her sister Dianne. They seem to get along pretty well, but growing up, everybody decided that Rowling was "the smart one" and Dianne was "the pretty one," and neither was particularly happy with their role. (For the record, Dianne is now a lawyer.)
Authors A.S. Byatt and Margaret Drabble. If Byatt's "The Game" is to be taken as autobiographical, Byatt was the Smart Sister and Drabble was the Popular One.
Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland. One of the most famous feuds in Old Hollywood, and was STILL ongoing at this entry's original inclusion in 2012. By the time of Joan's death in 2013note Ironically, Joan had joked that if she were to die first, Olivia would probably be annoyed because she'd beaten her at something, both sisters were just a little under 100 and hadn't spoken to each other in the 30 years after their mother died. The rivalry was all the more intense because both of them were A-list actresses back in the day, each winning Oscars for Best Actress. Rivalry compounded by the fact Joan had been forbidden by her parents to use her family name for acting — she had to settle for their stepdad’s name, "Fontaine”.
Olivia: Imagine what we could have done if we had gotten together. We could have selected the right scripts, the right directors, the right producers — we could have built our own empire. But it was not to be.
had two older sisters and hated both of them. One of them tried to poison her, so Xiao Yan Yan forced her to commit suicide. The other one was imprisoned and executed on Xiao Yan Yan's orders.