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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Terrail,_seigneur_de_Bayard

>Bayard was the hero of a celebrated combat of thirteen French knights against an equal number of Spaniards, and his restless energy and valour were conspicuous throughout the Italian wars of this period. At the Battle of Garigliano he single-handedly defended the bridge of the Garigliano against 200 Spaniards, an exploit that brought him such renown that Pope Julius II tried unsuccessfully to entice him into his service.[1]

>>38196535
Gots the Iron-Armed.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Francisco

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke

The real-life version of Barristan Selmy.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood

Coolest mercenary ever.

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Tamerlane aka Timur the Lame. A crippled petty noble from some mongol tribe who saw himself as the next Genghis Khan and decided to forge an empire spanning from India to Turkey. Fought the Mamluks, the Ottomans and built a pyramid out of the skulls of his enemies.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d%27Eon

History has some pretty unusual people.

>>38196535
I actually learned this one on /tg/.

Apparently there was an English farmer who got drafted to serve in the army "with bow and arrow." So, he went to the battle with a bow and an arrow, which he fired. Then he went home.

The first non-Japanese guy to become a samurai was actually a black dude from Mozambique. He became a personal retainer of the Demon King Nobunaga no less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke

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>>38196609
>mfw Guts was a real person

>>38196535
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Knispel#Legacy

Fuck Michael Wittman.

I don't think they're considered lesser known but I like the Scythians.

>>38197673
Considering all I personally know about them comes from Prince of Persia, I'd say they're pretty lesser known.

>>38196585
>TWO HUNDRED SPANIARDS
How is this even possible? Did he wear full plate with a katana that was forded over one mirrion time while fighting 200 naked spaniards with fruitknives?

The Hellburners

Two massive floating bombs put together by a mad inventor, used against the Spanish in an attempt to lift the siege of Antwerp. One found its target and obliterated several Spanish ships. Then it rained tombstones in the near viscinity, because they'd been used in the construction of the blastchambers. For some reason.

Two cargo vessels were used for this, which is normally only done for fireships in dire circumstances. So when the English deployed such desperate-measure fireships against the Spanish Armada, the Spanish apparently thought they were Hellburners, because the inventor worked for the English crown. So they broke formation and were slaughtered in an engagement Brits still brag about.

>>38197944
He fought the Spaniards ON the bridge, anon. If it was in the river the battle would've gone differently. Spaniards lose their power though when you remove them from water, just like merfolk or the Portuguese.

Baibars.

Practically a real-life Conan the Barbarian. Blonde, blue-eyed Turk from Crimea sold as a slave by the Mongols to the Egyptians that trained him as a mamluk warrior. Through bravery, skill and ruthlesness, he eventually rose to the top and took control of Egypt. Killed anyone who fucked with him and pretty much put an end to the westward expansion of Mongols and the remaining Crusader states. Unfortunately, he fell victim to his own Barbarian-level stupidity and poisoned himself in a comedic fashion worthy of The Princess Bride

Blas de Lezo?

Feel like I need to put the spaniards in a good term in this thread.

Late middle ages romanians continuously taking on the ottomans and winning until they get betrayed by their hungarian allies.

>>38197944
He fought them off, he did not defeat them all, he just held them off

>>38197944
In a bottleneck, the enemy only has as many soldiers as you do.

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>>hey /tg/, remember me?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_von_Ungern-Sternberg
>>relax, it's allright.

The Crisis of the Third Century and it's aftermath.

Including Carausius and his Britanic Empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

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>>38196609
>>38196669
>>38196931
>mfw when there was a mercenary who rose to the rank of knight named after the hawk and man with an iron arm named goetz

>>38197944
He just pulled a Zhang Fei

>>38200473
He was a good man, shame he failed.

>tfw playing the baron in kaiserreich

Outta my way infantry fucking shits

>>38196535
Switzerland and SE Asia.

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>>38196535
Late80's Detroit

>>38196535
Everyone cites Mad Jack Churchill but I like this guy too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_Tatham-Warter

>He also took an umbrella with his kit as a means of identification because he felt that "only a bloody fool of an Englishman" would carry an umbrella into battle and because he had trouble remembering passwords.

I dont know how minir he can be considered, but whenever Ashikaga Yoshiteru pops into manga or videogames, hebis usually one of my favorite character
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashikaga_Yoshiteru

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This fucking nigga right here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digenes_Akritas

Polynesian

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Gotta respect a man fighting nazis with a claymore and a longbow.
In a sidecar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/churchill.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major
this crazy fucker strapped 3 machine guns to his back, took a sack of grenades with him, and single handily liberated a Dutch town full of hardcore SS soldiers in such a rampage that the Germans were certain they were under attack from the entire Canadian Army. he also did this with one eye (the other was burned off from a phosphorus grenade) and a back broken in three spots, both his ankles broken, and four ribs broken.

oh, he also survived to the age of 87 and served in the Korean war as well.

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>>38196535
Jewish Kazakhstan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_%28bear%29

it's a bear in WWII. what can be bad with it ?

>>38203306
Sir Bearington's great great great grandson i see.

Who was the byzantine emperor who won a battle by riding around a battlefield holding a sword and an icon of St Mary, and then the rebel general charged at him and promptly died of a heart attack.

>>38196535
>>38203248

Almost 100 years of Islamic Sicily is pretty interesting

Hellenistic influence on Buddhism is also interesting

Simo Hayha
The Polish-Bolshevik War
The Byzantine Empire
The Teutonic Monastic State
Really anything that happened west of Berlin, that for some reason western history utterly ignores.

East India Company
The Rhodesian Bush War
That Congo War that involved Mad Mike Hoare, Cuban exiles, and Che Guevara.

>>38203814
>Hellenistic influence on Buddhism is also interesting
You've got my curiosity. What did this influence look like?

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>>38202371
Interesting name.

>>38203832
>Simo Hayha
Pretty sure this guy is a household name, by now.

>>38202882
>claymore
>one-handed short blade

I wouldn't have expected /tg/ to get this sort of thing wrong.

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>>38203982
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhist_art

thank alexander

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>>38203982
Buddhist temples throughout China, Korea, and Japan are guarded by two statues believed to be based off of Hercules.

Marozia of Tusculum, 10th century de facto ruler of Rome

>Only medieval Roman woman titled "senatrix" and "patricia"
>Became lover of Pope Sergius III at 14-16, bore him a son who also later becames a Pope
>Grandsons, great grandsons, great-great grandsons also Popes
>Marries the Duke of Spoleto, ruling Rome together
>Husband dies, gets kicked out of Rome by unfriendly Pope
>Marries the Margrave of Tuscany; invades Rome, murders the Pope and rules it again
>Margrave dies, tries to marry the King of Italy
>Her son (by the late Duke of Spoleto) arrests her on her wedding day after the King of Italy insults him by slapping him in the face
>Dies in son's prison

>“inflamed by all the fires of Venus... a shameless whore [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man.” - Luitprand of Cremona

Baddest grill of the middle ages

>>38197853
Look up scythian gold work. It's what they're famous for.

>>38204498
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket-hilted_sword#Scottish_broadsword

>>38204508
>>38204559
Huh. That's pretty cool.

>>38202526

Digines is a fiction character.

That notwithstanding, he's still pretty cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taillefer

Manliest bard EVER

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They're not really all that obscure but Wu Zetian and 'Mansa' Musa Keita come to mind as two historical figures that were pretty awesome and could use some love in movies/television/etc.

As for historical settings that get overlooked you have Bronze Age Mesopotamia (which I find particularly strange considering it's relative importance to western civilization), all of Africa that isn't Egypt or post-colonial grim-darkness, pre-British India and the oft-forgotten indigenous civilizations of North America.

Also this >>38196755 motherfucker right here.

>the Japanese spent like a full hour trying to wash him because they didn't believe his skin color was real

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>>38202467
> a shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru, was known for his skill with the katana. On 1565, when his small force was attacked by a large coalition Miyoshi force, Yoshiteru knew he was more or less screwed but was determined to go down fighting. Bringing out numerous katana (some sources say a dozen, others say around a score), he plunged them into the floorboards of his castle in preparation. He then killed numerous enemy troops, throwing aside priceless swords that broke down as their blades became notched and grabbing new ones from the floor. But with no help arriving in time from supporters, Yoshiteru and his few troops were overrun.

Oh, and I almost forgot about this guy I just learned about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarah_ibn_Shaddad

His life is the subject of a famous romantic saga in the Arabic world so it's a little hard to decipher what is historical truth and what was added on later, but basically he was a legendary black-Arab warrior-poet. He was born a slave as the child of an Arab warrior and an enslaved African women and ended up becoming a respected member of the tribe by kicking all sorts of rival-tribe ass on their behalf. All while writing celebrated poetry and seducing his above-his-station love.

>>38196535
Piss used to be valuable, for bleaching and tanning.
Pepper used to only grow on one small group of islands in the entire world.
In the French Revolution, the generals of the French Republican Army expreimented with having a sideshow freak swallow secret messages whole and then shit them out later, but the system failed because he was too stupid to remember where he was supposed to go and not get distracted.


...Oh, fine. For more of the schoolbook-history-type thing, I like the Merovingians.

Is your lesser-known historical figure a bad enough dude to make a pact with a demonic god of slaughter so that he could consume the very essence of the gods? I didn't think so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unas

The history of Ancient Egypt in general isn't very well known. The monuments and trappings of Egypt are familiar enough in the popular culture, but a lot of the specifics aren't really acknowledged.

>>38201429
It's a good thing he failed.

If it wasn't for Soviet Russia, the USA would have never bothered with goddamn nuclear power and rockets to the moon.

>>38205446
There was also that king from Mali(?) that had so much gold, that while he travelled to Mekka, he gave away so much gold as charity that he nearly killed the trade around the Mediterranean.

>>38213046
That king from Mali IS Mansa Musa. If I'm not mistaken, he was (when adjusted for inflation) richer than the entire Rothschild family combined.

>>38207307
Why didn't they experiment with a not-freakshow shitting our messages? Great way to get them past enemy lines.

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> Olga of Kiev
> husband murdered by Drevlians
> Drevlians send twenty of their best men to persuade Olga to marry their Prince and forfeit the throne
> She had them buried alive.

> Then she sent word to Prince that she accepted the proposal,
> but required their most distinguished men to accompany her on the journey
> lured them into house, locked the doors and set fire to the building, burning them alive.

> invited Drevlian army to a feast
> After the Drevlians were drunk, her soldiers killed over 5,000 of them.

> Then returned to Kiev and prepared an army to attack the survivors.
> The Drevlians begged for mercy and offered to pay for their freedom with honey and furs.
> pretended to be generous and asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house,
> used birds to set fire to the Drevlian city

> When people fleeing from the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them.
> Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave to others as slaves to her followers.
> The remnant she left to pay heavy tribute

> Became one of the first and greatest Russian saints (Isapóstolos - "Equal to the Apostles")

>>38197944
Inferior moorish genes. The musselman is naturally a coward, you see.

>>38213176
>All that shit
>She becomes a saint
What the fuck Russia?

>used birds to set fire to the Drevlian city
How does that even work?

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>>38196669
Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta

He raped Christian nuns and Jewish ladies alike; boys and girls who resisted him he would either murder or torture in terrible ways. Often, if he stood godfather to a child, he would compel the mother to commit adultery, then have her husband killed. He surpassed every barbarian in cruelty; his bloody hands wreaked dire torments on innocent and guilty alike. His excommunication was a distinction he earned by trussing up the fifteen-year-old Bishop of Fano, and publicly sodomising him before his applauding army in the main square of Rimini.

He oppressed the poor and plundered the rich; neither widows nor orphans were spared. A man blessed with wealth or a beautiful wife or handsome children would find himself facing a trumped up criminal charge. He hated priests and despised religion, thought nothing of the world to come, and believed the soul died with the body. He did build a splendid church at Rimini dedicated to St. Francis, but he filled it so full of pagan works of art that it seemed less a Christian sanctuary than a temple whither heathens might worship the devil. Inside, he erected a magnificent marble tomb for his mistress. The craftsmanship was exquisite. The inscription ran, in pagan style, “Sacred to the deified Isotta.”

Before taking Isotta for his mistress he had two wives whom he killed in succession, using violence or poison. A third, whom he had married before the other two, he divorced before ever having intercourse with her, though he kept her dowry. Once, not far from Verona, he met a noble lady on her way from Germany to Rome for the jubilee; he raped her (for she was very beautiful) and left her there in the road, wounded from her struggles and dripping with blood.

Such was Sigismondo, a man with no tolerance for peace, a devotee of pleasure, patient of any hardship, eager for war, the worst of all men who have ever lived or ever will live, the shame of Italy, the disgrace of our age.

>>38213215
>How does that even work?

go inna city
put birds on fire
release birds
enjoy bbq night

>>38213224
Every time I read a story about some noble who raped and plundered etc. it turns out the guy was an Italian condiettiri.

You really should take all that information with a grain of salt.

Italian "historicians" had a habit of making shit up on the spot to discredit political figures.

You can take Rome out of Italy, but you can't take the Roman out of the Italians.

It's the same shit with the "debauchery" of Roman Emperors. When a Roman Emperor does nasty shit, that generally means that he just had some policies that people didn't like.

>>38213176
Hell hath no fury and all that.

>>38213255
Yeah whatever I'm going to have my magical realm, thank you. I don't care about revisionism. Besides, even impartial sources describe Malatesta are a total rotter.

>>38213274
>Besides, even impartial sources describe Malatesta are a total rotter.

Yeah right.

You really should take Italian history with a grain of salt, especially when the person in question has had political issues with the Vatican.

>>38213288
>>38213274
I'm going to fap to Vatican propaganda and there's nothing you can do to stop me

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During the English Civil War the 7'4" Cornish giant, Anthony Payne, was enlisted as a bodyguard to the Royalist Sir Bevil Grenville. He fought beside Sir Bevil, Who commanded the King's army in the victorious battle at nearby Stamford Hill in 1643. Payne lived and died in the Grenville manor house at Stratton - now the Tree Inn, Bude. It is said that, when the giant died (in 1691), the house had to be restructured to allow his huge coffin to be carried in and out. He was supposed to have weighed 38 stone (532Lbs. - 242kgs.)

It is also said that it was Payne who carried his Master, Sir Bevil's, body home after his death at Landsdowne.

>>38213215
>What the fuck Russia?
The woman was an amazing administrator.

>How does that even work?
Get birds, tie straps of cloth doused in alcohol to their feet, set the straps on fire, release the birds.
The birds automatically fly to their nests, which were usually near the wooden houses.

>>38213331
Actually they used sulfur.

Like a delay fuse.

If you straight up light that shit, you just get a bunch of panicing birds flying in all directions.

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>>38196535
Central Asia

Too many Not-Europe, Not-Middle Easts Not-Japans, and Not-Chinas in fantasy.

And no, I'm not just talking of not-Mongols, that's actually the cheapo way.

Baldwin’s disappearance did not just cause problems in Constantinople, but also raised considerable difficulties back in his native Flanders. It seems that some did not believe—or did not choose to believe—that he was dead. The ambiguous status of a prisoner meant that it was hard for families to move on with their lives: some captives died in jail, a few were incarcerated for decades and then returned home, while others simply disappeared. The fact that Count Baldwin had left two infant daughters, and that he ruled over one of the most wealthy and important areas of northern Europe, created conditions ripe for controversy, and various political players tried to exploit the situation for their own ends.

The detailed ramifications of this episode are not relevant here, but an historian has drawn attention to a bizarre episode that stemmed from the turmoil in Flanders and the mysterious fate of its crusading emperor. After Baldwin’s death, his daughter Joan steered the county into a closer relationship with the French crown—a policy opposed by some within Flanders. In 1224 a hermit in the village of Mortaigne, near Tournai, was identified as a crusading companion of Baldwin, but this he denied. Within a year, however, as various nobles and clerics came to see him and talk to him, the man eventually stated that he was the count himself. In Holy Week 1225 he showed scars that the real Baldwin had allegedly possessed. Inconveniently, however, he was about a foot shorter than the count, his local geography was hazy and his French was rather more erratic than people remembered. One writer put these factors down to advancing age and time spent in Greek prisons. With this flexible approach to memory and physical likeness, the town of Valenciennes received the individual they called ‘emperor’ and he took a ceremonial bath and had a shave.

>>38213417
Such was their delight at his ‘reappearance’ that the monks of St John’s abbey kept his whiskers and drank his bathwater. The man now began to tell of his escape from Johanitza, the tortures that he had endured (which included the loss of some toes), his suffering during several periods of captivity at the hands of Muslims, and his final journey back to the West.

Joan of Flanders sent her lover to interview the hermit and he was convinced that the man was her long-lost father. More and more towns came out in support of the returned hero—and thereby created a vehicle to assert Flemish independence from France and to turn against Joan’s rule. She tried to have him discredited: Baldwin’s former chancellor could not recognise him, and the hermit could not remember the old court official. In spite of testimonials by men claiming to have seen Baldwin killed on the battlefield (another error because, as we have seen, all the sources indicated that he was captured), the imposter rallied massive popular support and Joan was forced to flee to Paris.
The hermit was taken so seriously that King Henry III of England wrote to him to ask for a renewal of earlier alliances between Flanders and England. Joan turned to her ally, King Louis VIII of France (1223-6), for help. The king sent his aunt Sibylla, who was also Baldwin’s younger sister, to meet the claimant. She did not recognise the man, but hid this from the hermit and convinced him to meet King Louis. Before this, with his confidence now at a peak, the impostor processed through Flanders dressed as an emperor and with his adherents walking ahead, bearing a cross and banners. He even issued charters, knighted ten men and confirmed documents with a seal that described him as the count of Flanders and Hainault and the emperor of Constantinople.

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I think that Charles II "the Bad" of Navarre´s timeline could be interesting to play a campaign set in the Hundred Years War, from other point of view.

He was the eldest son of Joan II of Navarre, the surviving daughter of Louis X of France (and sister of John I), and Philip of Evraux, thus saw himself as legit heir to the French throne.
But he only inherited the states of Evraux from his father, and kingdom of Navarre from his mother, what made him a count in Normady and the king of a poor and irrelevant kingdom in the Pyrenees.
In disagree with such a poor prize, he cunningly maneuvered during the Hundred Years War, changing sides with his own gain as only goal.
He led the French forces during the Jaquerie when he almost reached the so much desired French throne but his star faded quickly.
He also offered his port city of Cherbourg to the English, siding with the invaders to pressure the French kings to offer him the lands and titles that a true French Prince of Blood deserved.
Sadly for him his actions agaisnt the French monarchy meant not only that he was dennied the Burgundian Duchy that he aimed but also that he lost all his states but Navarre.
His shcemes were not limited to France, he also contacted with both sides during the Castilian War of Succesion, offering his forces and even more importantly, the control of the Pyrenaic passes to the Black Prince and to Bertrand du Guesclin.

As his plots were avoided or destroyed he died as the king of Navarre and no more.


I think that a campaing in which the PC are some loyal to Charles and help him in his plans, deals and wars could be cool, helping him to try to seize his legit throne of France, or to get the lesser prize of Burgundy, fighting at Corochel, streghtening his influence over the neighbouring Castilian provinces or adventuring to the Mediterranean to aid Charles brother, Louis, to get a realm to himself.

>>38213424
The cities of Lille, Courtrai, Ghent and Bruges all welcomed him as he went on to an audience with the king at Péronne. Louis received the ‘emperor’ with due courtesy and started to question him. Perhaps the man was by now so assured that he did not anticipate such an interrogation: in any case he was ill-prepared. He could not recall where, and how, he had done homage for Flanders to Louis’s father, King Philip; nor was he able to recollect being knighted, or his marriage to Marie of Champagne. His supporters argued that he refused to respond to such questions out of pride; soon, however, he asked for a rest and a chance to eat. Once he had left, several churchmen rushed forward to claim they recognised the man as a jongleur who had once tried to impersonate Count Louis of Blois, another noble killed on the Fourth Crusade. The bishop of Beauvais claimed to have had the man in his prison; he was a professional hoaxer and a charlatan who had lost his toes to frost-bite, rather than torture. Even as he left the interview chamber the impostor realised that he was in trouble and escaped back to Valenciennes, where many of his baronial supporters abandoned him, although the poor continued to proclaim their loyalty and prepared to resist Joan by force. Next, the hermit fled first towards Germany and then southwards into Burgundy where he was captured and sent to Louis. The French king had found the whole affair at Péronne highly entertaining and passed the prisoner on to Joan with a recommendation that she spare his life. Joan was far less amused and had the hermit tried and condemned to death at Lille. He was made to confess his true identity as a jongleur and put in the pillory between two dogs. He was then tortured, hanged and his body impaled upon a pole surrounded by armed guards. The mob, it seems, still refused to accept that he was not Baldwin and accused Joan of patricide.

>>38213331
>The woman was an amazing administrator.
I can believe that, but that's not something you really base sainthood on (unless Orthodox and Catholic sainthood work differently. Almost all Czars were declared an Orthodox saint at some point, while Catholic kings only rarely reached that status (eg. Saint Louis)).

>>38213430
This backstabber is pretty amazing. Had he succeeded, he might've become king of both France and Castille. Imagine that,, his story would've been amazing.

Why did he consider himself the true heir of France then? I assume he was of the Valois family, the same family that ended up winning the Hundred Years War from the Plantagenets. What made his lineage more legitimate than that of the then established Plantagenet pretender? Or was he just ambitious?

>>38204498
We just finished a thread full of this clusterfuck of a topic. Check the archive for something that looks vaguely about weapons.

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Charles II on the wedding night of his nephew and the future King, William of Orange, watched the entire consummation whilst shouting encouragement from the sidelines.

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>>38213089
>>38213046

Yep, glorious Musa I of Mali (it should be noted that while he's generally referred to as Mansa Musa here in the west, 'Mansa' was actually his title and roughly equates with 'Emperor')

>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/mansa-musa-worlds-richest-man-all-time_n_1973840.html
>400 billion dollars

Of course, while everyone tends to focus on the ridiculous amount of gold he brought with him on his Hajj - and with good reason because it was a fucking ridiculous amount - I think equally impressive is the amount of people with whom he made the journey. The crazy bastard didn't just bring along his family and servants, he basically brought a whole city- some sixty thousand people. Sixty thousand people - slaves, soldiers, friends, courtiers, everybody - on a three thousand mile journey from Mali to Mecca, half of that through the fucking Sahara desert.

>>38213024
What

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>>38213176

>>38216614
>That map
Why didn't they follow the established trade routes? You'd expect the trade route to pass by more habitable areas than whatever route they took through bumfuck nowhere.

>>38216270
>Yes William, keep thrusting!
>Do the thing that I taught you, with the finger!
>God Uncle C, I know how to please a woman!

>>38216954
I wouldn't say he was the smartest man
especially since he just threw away metric tons of gold in the desert, which we still haven't found

>>38203982
read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom
and this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Greek_Kingdom

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>>38204756
and hats

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>>38217213
>too pleb to combine the things you are famous for

Scythians a shit

>>38216614

>Muslim
>Not reformed West African

Disgusting

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>>38216954

There were routes and settlements along the path he took as well. There were the Hausa states immediately to Mali's east and the Kanem/Bornu civilization centered around Lake Chad and extending well into the Sahara.

But yeah, the Mansas of Mali could be wonderfully eccentric. Musa himself only got the job because his predecessor was even crazier than he was. Basically he was a deputy who was put in temporary charge by the previous Mansa who tried to sail across the Atlantic with hundreds of ships full of men and gold and never returned.

>>38198408
kek'd

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>>38213224
>He did build a splendid church at Rimini dedicated to St. Francis, but he filled it so full of pagan works of art that it seemed less a Christian sanctuary than a temple whither heathens might worship the devil.

>>38217493
>There were routes and settlements along the path he took as well.
This makes me wonder more about life in the Sahara. What places were (and are) inhabitable and what aren't, and how did/do people survive there, and what did/do they do for a living?

This is especially interesting to me because in my campaign setting, there is this large stretch of "savage lands" (not sure if it's going to be steppes or desert, desert seems more likely) so I want to know what I can reasonably put in it (and beyond it).

Still, it's good to know that at least he took a reasonable route to Mecca.

Speaking of people traveling a really fucking long way for pilgrimage...
During the crusaders’ stay in Constantinople they came across peoples from lands they had never previously known. One day when the nobles were visiting the emperor, the king of Nubia arrived at the palace. Robert of Clari reported some curiosity about his black skin - as a northern Frenchmen, he was unlikely to have met individuals from the lands below Egypt—and, more remarkably to the knight, the presence of a cross branded onto the royal forehead. Prince Alexius gave the king a full and formal welcome, as befitted a royal visitor, and introduced him to the crusader nobles. Through interpreters they learned that the king had come to Constantinople as a pilgrim.
He claimed that his own lands were 100 days’ journey beyond Jerusalem and that when he started out he had 60 companions; 50 of them had perished on the way to the holy city and now only one remained alive. After visiting Constantinople this intrepid man wanted to go to Rome, then on to Santiago di Compostela in northern Spain before returning to Jerusalem to die: a suitable resting place for such a pious and devoted pilgrim. The nobles learned that all Nubians were Christians and that when a child was baptised, he or she was branded with the sign of the cross. In all respects they were impressed with this visitor and, as Robert of Clari commented, ‘they gazed at this king with great wonder’.

>>38217770
nubians/ethiopians are pretty based in general
>archeo-christian bastion surrounded by muslims
>controlled egypt at one point
>only african nation that remained sovreign during colonization
>beat the italian army
>still remains relatively stable compared to shit holes like Somalia and Rwanda
>

>>38214758
>I can believe that, but that's not something you really base sainthood on (unless Orthodox and Catholic sainthood work differently. Almost all Czars were declared an Orthodox saint at some point, while Catholic kings only rarely reached that status (eg. Saint Louis)).

She invited (catholic, but you have to take what you get) priests to Kiew after traveling to Konstantinople for a baptism. She was the last bastion before the re-paganisation took over again for a few decades after her.

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>>38217713

Well, the deep Sahara (stretching say around five degrees latitude in each direction from the Tropic of Cancer) is pretty sparsely populated but various African peoples bordering it both north and south have managed to build significant settlements right on the edge and occasionally pretty deep into the desert. The great West African trader states straddled the semi-arid savanna of the Sahel and the very arid Sahara with various water sources like the Senegal and Niger rivers and Lake Chad allowing them to expand agriculture and urbanization into regions that were otherwise more or less full-blown desert (the great cities of Timbuktu and Gao, for example, were/are situated on the northernmost bend of the Niger river and within territory most would classify as the Sahara and not the Sahel). The Berber-related Garamantes, meanwhile, managed to build an entire urbanized empire deep in the desert by relying on deep wells and a massive irrigation system.

You also have various nomadic groups descended from those who were just too stubborn to leave the region with it started drying up a few thousand years ago. While they certainly can't maintain the large populations and sedentary cultures of their agriculture-based cousins who fled to the Sahel they can still manage to exist within the desert by moving themselves and their herds from oasis to oasis as needed.

>>38219080
>The Berber-related Garamantes, meanwhile, managed to build an entire urbanized empire deep in the desert by relying on deep wells and a massive irrigation system.
Wait a second, pre-colonial irrigation systems large enough to sustain an entire empire? I NEED to know more about this.

Thank you for giving me all this information, by the way. I'd ask for information like this on /int/ but there you're lucky if you get even the slightest informative morsel among the torrent of
>lol niggers
With /tg/ you really do no longer need any other boards!

>You also have various nomadic groups descended from those who were just too stubborn to leave the region with it started drying up a few thousand years ago.
Yeah, mostly the Touaregs, right? Didn't they mostly rely on trade between the empires of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Moorish civilizations? They'd mostly be carrying salt and gold back and forth across the desert, right?

Shit, it's already giving me ideas for that desert in my setting. Various hostile and uncivilized Orcish tribes with a few friendlier Orcish tribes that thrive on trading (ie not!Tuaregs), and maybe a few desert civilizations with weird, "unusual" races.

I'm having half a mind of putting minotaurs in there somewhere, but those guys are huge and need to eat a lot. It makes me wonder what a reliable form of vegitation is that the more established desert civilizations used.

But again, thanks for all this information. In terms of historical knowledge Africa truly is the Dark Continent to me, so I'm happy with all the information you're posting.

>>38219080

I just saw that the infographic mentions Israel controlling the Sinai and realized it's from 1971, but aside from referring to the Sahel by the somewhat out-of-vogue 'Sudan' it still seems pretty correct. If anything, we've only added to our knowledge of sub-Saharan African since then. For starters, I don't seem to see any mention of the Great Lakes kingdoms and peoples who, like the Nok culture in Nigeria, had probably independently developed iron-working by the mid-first-millennium BC and are believed to have made carbon-steel at least as far back as two thousand years ago.

>>38219296
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat

Massive irrigation systems were pretty common throughout the Middle East and many are still in use. Unfortunately for the Garamantes their irrigation systems were based around non-renewable fossil water so when their reserves were all used up they were gone for good.

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>>38219296
The Garamantes (probably from Berber language: igherman; meaning: cities) were a Saharan people who used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded a prosperous Berber kingdom in the Fezzan area of modern-day Libya, in the Sahara desert. They were a local power in the Sahara between 500 BC and 700 AD.
They used lot's of slaves and used deep weel to reach the huge lakes undergroudn to the sahara, but seems than in a lot of they cities they run out of reacheable water and the civilization started to crumble.

>>38219497
>>38219571
Cool system, but such a shame that it relied on non-renewable sources. Still pretty awesome, considering it allowed them to found prosperous cities in the middle of the desert. I think I've found my justification for desert civilizations.

That does make me wonder what crops the Garamantes and other, comparable civilizations would grow. Just because they have a source of water does not automatically mean they have arable land... right?

>>38218136

Nubians and Ethiopians are the same broad family as the Egyptians (Copts) themselves. Afro-Asiatics are Best Africans.

>>38204559
>seen here: Heracles sculpture-bombing Buddha

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>>38214758
>Why did he consider himself the true heir of France then? I assume he was of the Valois family, the same family that ended up winning the Hundred Years War from the Plantagenets. What made his lineage more legitimate than that of the then established Plantagenet pretender? Or was he just ambitious?

He was not a Valois, by his father side he was an Evraux, that just like Valois, were a cadet branch of the Capets, but his mother, was a Capetian.
The main Capetian branch died when Philip IV and his male sons (and grandsons) died shorty one after another. Phillip IV eldest son was Louis X, this Louis had a son who died infant and daughter, that daughter was the mother of Charles.
He saw the most legitimate heir cause he could claim descendance from Philip III from his father, just like Philip VI the first king of Valois did, and of Philip IV from his mother, as the Plantagenet pretender did.

>>38219668
>Just because they have a source of water does not automatically mean they have arable land... right?

Wrong, you can grow food in desert soil just fine if you mix in some camel poop.

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>>38219668
They raised figs, wheat, grapes, dates, cattle, goats and even horses, heck they even exported salt, slaves and wheat in echange of oil and manufactured products from the Romans for example.
Also what is now desert in those times was still a productive land, with they irrigation system (than needed lot's of slaves) they could use it and make a very good and fertile land.
>>38219785
Yep, they have the cutest women too.

>>38219923
>>38219886
>Wrong, you can grow food in desert soil just fine if you mix in some camel poop.
Really? Wow, never knew that. Looks like the Sahara (and other deserts) coudl very well be productive land, if only there were a reliable way to get fresh water there.

In a modern context it would probably demand huge canals from the Niger, Senegal and Nile rivers or Lake Chad.

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>>38220014
After so many years, you would need a lot of compost and a way to impede the wind to erode the soil, also under the sahara we have a really huge amount of fossil water, you only need to extract it. But because it is in a fucking desert were nothing grows and not a lot of things valuable, and with the actual world situation, I doubt it could be profitable in any manner.

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>>38200473
Bolshevik kike scum.

Ivar the Boneless and his Great Heathen Army. Cause I like the guy who can be great with a major hindrance.

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>>38220014

Back in the 60s a German engineer wanted to create a huge lake in the northern Egyptian desert by blowing tunnels 50+ km to the Mediterranean with nuclear bombs.

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon#Civil_engineering_and_energy_production

Apparently nobody was willing to give him hundreds of 1.5 megaton explosives.

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>>38220963
>NUCLEAR
Was that guy crazy or am I stupid? I understand the desire for a large lake, but fucking NUKES? Wouldn't that ruin both the lake and the land surrounding it for generations to come? Chernobyl has only recently been declared radiation free.

Speaking of Saharan plans, would the trans-Saharan railway the French had planned (but never finished because of decolonization after WW2) perhaps have increased the sustainability of life in the Sahara? There wouldn't be any water pumped up from the ground or a lake, sure, but the main railway (and perhaps potential side railways that branch off from it) could easily transport all the necessities for life from a place like Senegal or Northern Algeria deep into the desert.

>>38220108
Oh, also the garamantes used the earth of his wells to fertilize the soil. And they used to hunt troglodyte "ethiopians" with chariots with four horses.

>>38221067
Chernobyl is on a completely different scale compared to even the largest nuclear bombs.

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>>38221067

I honestly don't know how it would have played out in terms of radioactive material and the surrounding environment. All I know is that professor probably started every meeting with "Good news, everyone!"

>>38221251
Living on nuked soil is still a serious fucking cancer hazard.

You won't drop dead sure... but it'll cut your life short for a significant degree.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still statistically higher up the cancer list than the rest of Japan.

And Chernobyl isn't even that radioactive. The issue with Chernobyl is that the (former Russian-friendly) government of the Ukraine was so corrupt they essentially haven't done anything to clean up Chernobyl, despite getting millions from the EU and the USA to clean it up.

After the Ukranian revolution, they finally went to work cleaning up the reactor after a period of 20 something years of twiddling their thumbs and putting Western tax money on Russian bank accounts.

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Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

This motherfucker had to be somebody's Player Character.

>>38219497
>non-renewable fossil water

Might they just have died out from generations of drinking that?

>>38221834
looks like james may

>>38221883
No you dumbass.

All the water on the planet is at least a couple billion years old.

Fossil water just means that the water comes from an really really really really ancient deposit. It's not fossilized water.

Water can't fossilize. Because it's a liquid. It's not organic material.

Can't remember the name, but during the War of 1812 there was a British naval captain that goaded an American ship into a fight. After a bunch of exchanging shots the brits boarded, and the captain stepped up himself swinging a claymore. He ended up getting sliced in the head - he survived, but had difficulty writing and speaking after than and retired.

>>38221918
>today we're going to test out the ox cart of billy the smith from mothputt, and we're not just going to test it out with oxen... we're using unicorns... yes indeed. we actually got unicorns from africa to pull our ox cart. you might say that these unicorns are fat, armoured, grey and seemingly have two horns, not just one, but that just tells you you should judge reality by what you see, not by what you read!

>>38216270
>passing on proper leadership takes a firm hand and seasoned leadership skills.

http://badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=84324331289

Ivaylo the Cabbage. Some random fuckin' swineherd peasant in Bulgaria, who eventually rallied a bunch of angry other-peasants, beat the shit out of invading Mongols, beat the shit out of their useless noble lords, killed the fucking Tzar, and made himself Emperor.

He pretty much immediately lost the throne and was assassinated after being deposed among the Mongols, but who gives a shit about that part.

>>38197619
That's a myth though.

>>38221883
Jesus H. Tittfy Fucking Christ. I now this is 4chan but the average /tg/ poster is usually smarter than that. I mean, that's /b/ level stupidity right there.

>>38222480
Oddly enough, "bedding" was normal for royalty up through the mid-1700s. Producing an heir was supremely important so interested parties routinely watch royalty fuck and not just during the wedding night either.

Queens and princesses giving birth could expect a crowd of spectators too.

>>38221996
Philip Broke. His wounds meant he couldn't be considered for active service, but he remained in the RN as a gunnery specialist and was promoted to admiral.

Pomp.

>>38213430
>or adventuring to the Mediterranean to aid Charles brother, Louis, to get a realm to himself.

Oh, God, that's when Navarre sent an army to forsaken Albania, right??

>>38226429

Yeah, that's happened on 'Reign' a few times. Renaissance nobility, much like CW viewers, apparently really enjoy watching young people fuck.

>>38213394
I want more West Asian settings. Persians and Scythians and Pashtuns and Timurids, oh my.

Does /tg/ know any good intro texts to the ancient near east?

>>38232865

Whatever you do, don't check out that book of arcane sigils written in Sumerian and bound in human skin. It took me, like, six months to get all the souls of the damned out of house.

They get into the fucking walls, guys.

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>>38226429
>Queens and princesses giving birth could expect a crowd of spectators too

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Robert the Bruce was pretty cool.

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>>38238528
>Robert the Bruce
>Willian the Conqueror
>Robert Guiscard

What is it about Normans that makes them so based?

>>38238528
learning this in history lectures art tthe moment, plus for qa while scotlands economy consisted of traveling over the border stealing anything not nailed down and then selling it back tot he Enhglish at a mark up.


Apparently hostages and ransoms where huge business.

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>>38238911
That's the border reviers, the origin of the term "blackmail". It was a serious thing for a long time.

I've really become fond of Iron Age stuff lately.

Would like to play something set then, maybe early on with bronze stuff still around or later with some early steel as "super loot".

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>>38228446

Yup
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarrese_Company

>>38196535
Leo Major
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major

>>38196535
47 ronin anyone?

>>38196669
>Coolest mercenary ever.
I raise you one Werner von Urslingen. His breastplate read "Herzog Guarnieri, Herr der Gran Compagnia, Feind Gottes, des Erbarmens und des Mitleids." which means "Duke Guarneri, lord of the Gran Compagnia, enemy of God, pity, and mercy"

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>>38196585
>lead cavalry charge uphill against numerical superior and fortified pike force
>win
this guy....

>>38203982
What others said, also one of the texts of Buddhism, Milinda Panha, is a record of dialogue between a buddhist sage Nagasena and the Greek king Menander of Kabul.

>>38232865
Read Herodotus. Seriously, Histories read pretty much like a modern travelogue and not ancient bullcrap about so-and-so begat so-and-so. Lots of cool stuff in there. Though the various parts vary in reliability. He remains one of the most important sources on Scythians to this day, while the part on Egypt has a lot of made-up shit.

>>38240836
Thanks, anon.

>>38198408
>He fought the Spaniards ON the bridge, anon. If it was in the river the battle would've gone differently. Spaniards lose their power though when you remove them from water, just like merfolk or the Portuguese.

My sides have been captured and held for ransom.

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>>38196720
This guy

>>38241895
A true hero.

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>>38213224
>worst of all men who have ever lived or ever will live

The human race is awfully big.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS

Also proof that chaotic evil exists.

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>>38196535
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden

I think she's kinda interesting. Mostly because of her involvement in alchemy and her time as a patron in Rome. She's extremely easy to work into occult history settings, for Unknown Armies and the like. Paracelsus had a prophecy suggesting that she would establish some sort of metallic kingdom in Scandinavia. Her personality as a chauvinist and a person who valued ancient knowledge more than natural science and proto-liberal ideals also makes her contrast against the intellectuals she loved surrounding herself with. Speaking of, she also drove Rene Descartes into an early grave.

>>38230951
>Renaissance nobility, much like CW viewers, apparently really enjoy watching young people fuck.

Well there was that, but there were other reasons too. Marriages between powerful families, be they royalty, nobility, or filthy rich commoners, were essentially BUSINESS CONTRACTS. Marriages linked those families together like mergers and the offspring of those marriages were shared goal. Spectators watched the "lucky' couple fuck in order to ensure that the right groom knocked up the right bride.

Remember, until fairly recently paternity couldn't be tested for. Maternity was a little more certain IF you watched the mother "shit out" the baby in question AND were certain only the right man had been fucking her. (And even then history is rife with claims about babies being smuggled into birthing chambers.)

As prurient and silly as it seems to us, the importance of marriages and inheritances meant that the people of the time had well founded reasons for watching people fuck, keeping women locked up or chaperoned, and watching women give birth. It was the only way you could ensure that the marriage contract was being honored.

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>>38244503
>Maternity was a little more certain IF you watched the mother "shit out" the baby in question

Good use of quotation marks. Very nice.

>>38244576
>Good use of quotation marks. Very nice.

I've been in delivery rooms. Shit is something that never gets mentioned when people prattle on about the "miracle of birth".

John Hunyadi.

Kickass hungarian crusader who was basically a commoner who faked his way into being a knight, saved the King of Hungary's life, fought long and hard against the Ottomans, and had his son, Mattius Corvinus, become king of Hungary.

He's basically a real life PC.

>>38203814....Hellenistic influence on Buddhism is also interesting

my man, oldest representation of Buddha in China is a "Greek" coin. I got to see it in China.

>>38243074
Ah, the SS Penal unit, and its pedophile commander.

Even other SS units hated that guy.

>>38244734
My mother did mention it.

Then again, she is a doctor. I grew up without illusions about the homan body.

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>>38244862
And not unlike many PCs, after kicking ass and taking names and kicking in Ottoman teeth, he died of the plague in the army camp

History preserved his kickass mustache though

>>38245462
Come to think of it, there was a lot of kicking in my post.

But we're speaking of a man for whom the bell LITERALLY tolls (Ho ho ho!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Belgrade_%281456%29#Noon_Bell

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>>38245395
>>38244734

Actually, I have primary source evidence that childbirth in the Middle Ages was differed significantly from the modern era.

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>>38238888
The fact that they're vikings on horseback probably has something to do with it. I mean look at this stylish motherfucker.

>>38246300
He's a big guy.

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>>38243074
"Oskar Dirlewanger and Borislaw Kaminski walk into a bar..."

>>38246123
...C-section?

bumpo

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Howard,_2nd_Duke_of_Norfolk

This guy was pretty based and a weasel at the same time

> fought for four separate English kings in the wars of the roses
> picked the losing side twice and was wounded in two battles including Bosworth
> following bosworth he earns Henry vii's trust despite fighting on the opposite side, becoming one of his top men but losing his dad's Dukeship (his dad died at Bosworth fighting Henry)

Now for his most important triumph
> helps make sure Henry viii ascends the throne and is close to him
> perfidious Scots invade
> Norfolk is sent to fight a much larger Scottish force which invades while henry viii is in France
> completely annihilates the Scottish force
> kills the Scottish king and 10,000 of his soldiers
> gets his dad's dukeship back and changes his coat of arms to include the Scottish lion with an arrow through its mouth

the arrow is supposedly how king James died in the battle.

>>38250873

The Stewarts really didn't do too hot when it came to England, did they? I mean, yeah, James VI did become the combined king of both England and Scotland but that was basically by default and his son fucked up so bad he got the monarchy abolished.

>http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/02/buddah-mummy/

I find a lot of cool history related stuff on tumblr.

He's not lesser known but I always loved Charles the Hammer Martel
>odds are against him
>Islam making incursions at every turn, Spain has fallen, ROME is in danger, Austria is on the Byzantium in in peril, and the Muslims make an invasion of France
>calls together a last coalition of Christians in Western Europe, the Lombards and Aquitanians answer the call
>outnumbered, the two armies meet at Toures
>my boy Chuck blows the Muzzies out, setting up the reconquista
Without my boy the hammer, we'd all be speaking sand languages

Frederick William I of Prussia, King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg. Massively reformed Prussian society, improving many areas of life for the middle classes and strong economic manager. Also had an insane fetish for tall men, to the point where he cultivated a small army of them in the form of the Potsdam Giants, AKA the "Long Guys", of men over 6'2", who he recruited from all over Europe, even going so far as to kidnap tall men to force them to play soldier for him. He even instituted laws that encouraged tall men to sleep with tall women, so he could have even taller soldiers in future. It even became a disciplinary offence for any officer in other parts of the army to not send a tall man off to be in the Potsdam Giants. And despite all this, under Frederick William I, Prussia was only in a single war, and even then his giants never saw combat. Frederick William had over 3200 enormous men when he died, and all they ever did was march around so he could watch them. What a crazy fucker.

>>38255130
>Long Guys
For you

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>>38253938
Charles had been preparing for this confrontation since the Battle of Toulouse. He was well aware that if he failed, no other Christian army remained to defend Western Christianity. Though outnumbered and without any heavy cavalry, Charles had tough, battle-hardened infantry which believed in him implicitly. This infantry was heavily armed and passably armored. Seasoned and battle hardened, most of them had fought with him for years, some as far back as 717. He also had levies of militia, but these were virtually useless except for gathering food and harassing the enemy and Charles had no illusion of their ability to withstand a cavalry charge.

Abd er Rahman trusted the tactical superiority of his cavalry, and had them charge repeatedly. This time the faith the Muslims had in their cavalry, armed with their long lances and swords which had brought them victory in previous battles, was not justified. The disciplined Frankish foot withstood the assaults, though according to Arab sources, the Arab cavalry several times broke into the Frankish square. But despite this, Franks did not break. Muslim troops who had broken in had tried to kill Charles, but his liege men surrounded him and stood firm.

According to Muslim accounts of the battle, in the midst of the fighting on the second day (Frankish accounts have the battle lasting one day only), scouts from the Franks sent by Charles began to raid the camp and supply train (including slaves and other plunder).Some of the Muslim troops at once broke off the battle and returned to camp to secure their loot. To the rest of the Muslim army, this appeared to be a full-scale retreat, and soon it became one. While attempting to restore order to his men, Abd er Rahman was surrounded by Franks and killed.

After invading Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, Philip II of Macedon sent a message to Sparta: "If I invade Laconia you will be destroyed, never to rise again." The Spartans replied with a single word: "If".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples

>>38255392

epic post

>>38255130
WE NEED MORE BIG GUYS

>>38256070

lot of loyalty for hired guns

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Frederick Hohenstaufen II was a god damned PC.

You know the CHA-lords? Meet their originator, Emperor Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor of House Hohenstaufen. Let's list his accomplishments.

>Called "Stupor Mundi" (wonder of the world) by contemporaries.
>Excommunicated by pope on four separate occasions.
>Held five different royal titles at various times.
>Led his first military campaign as a teenager.
>Knew seven languages.
>Patron of sciences.
>Decided he liked trade more than fighting, so he pretended he was going to go on crusade and skipped it.
>Faked illness to get out of another crusade. Got excommunicated.
>Said, "Fine," and bargained with ruler of Egypt for land in and around Jerusalem. Won the holy land bloodlessly.
>Crowned himself king of Jerusalem.
>Was still excommunicated.

>>38256532

After the 3rd excommunication, why didn't he just make his own pope?

>>38256617
He just didn't give a flying fuck

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>>38256532

Oh God, this depiction of his birth is hilarious. His mother looks like she's trying to determine if she's being swindled.

>>38256532

I just read the wiki on this, and it's great. The pope excommunicates him twice, just because the first excommunication didn't quite stick.

The Canadian forces in WWI
>The Canadian Expeditionary Force suffered almost 100% casualty rate from when they were first deployed
>The only line that didn't break during the German Gas attack at Second Ypres
>Distinguished themselves as somewhere between brave and bugshit insane during most of their engagements
>German records indicate that the Germans were terrified of the Canadians, as they had a reputation for being insanely bloodthirsty during trench raids (rumours of Germans killed with their bare hands) and rarely if ever took prisoners
>Apparently either invented or perfected the creeping barrage, which becomes even more insane when you realize that to pull it off you have to march about 10 feet behind a barrage of WWI era artillery
>Building up to Passchendale they hadn't lost a single battle, although every victory was usually measured in insane casualties
and to top it off when they arrived the Minister of Militia, Sam Hughes, had them equipped with boots that fell apart in the rain, uniforms that got waterlogged easily, a shovel meant to double as a bullet shield that was too heavy for either, and the Ross Rifle, which while incredibly accurate would jam if you so much as aimed it at mud.

>>38196535
That one slave that ended up in Japan and served as a Samurai to motherfucking Nobunga.

>>38244065
>Speaking of, she also drove Rene Descartes into an early grave
There's a joke here about giving the dick but I can't quite figure it out.

>>38257824

She gave -him- the dick.

>>38257824
She grave'd him, the dick.

>>38257948

Yeah, yours is better.

>>38256617
>>38257091
>>38257615
>"Knock it off Fred, or I'll excommunicate you."

>"You already excommunicated me."

>"Well then I'll DOUBLE excommunicate you!"

>"Oh no, I think I just shit myself."

>>38257948
>>38257889
No, she dicked him over.

>>38257740
Dont forget that during WW1 the Germans gave the Canadian Soldiers the nickname "Stormtroopers" due to their ruthless efficiency and effectiveness during trench raids. And yes, that is where the name comes from.

Basically during WW1 Canada was the only army in play that didnt have hundreds of years of military tradition and pigheaded generals fighting for 'muh honor' (British generals were so cocky they actually ordered their men to walk across no mans land as to "give the germans a fighting chance")'

This meant that Canadian Generals and soldiers as well though outside the box when it came to warfare, and were the only ones to do so (blowing up walls in buildings instead of advanceing up the street, creeping barrage, turning raids into an actually viable battle tactic instead of a scare tactic.

We also sent Natives in usually s snipers who were ranled just below german's snipers (Germany had the best snipers by far in WW1) and who would routinely (due to common morphine addictions after being wounded) cowboy out on their own into no mans land and actually return with human scalps

>canadianfistbump

>>38258182
If you want a very interesting read, Vimy by Pierre Burton is an amazing story about the Battle of Vimy Ridge where the Creeping Barrage was invented and modern military tactics were revolutionized.

Tho, Im guessing anyone from outside of Canada doesnt care.

>>38258182
Right back at you bro.
>>38258242
Thanks, I'll check that out. I've always heard about how we pioneered all these amazing advances in warfare and tactics, but I'd honestly never given much credence to the stories until just recently.

>>38258310
Ive read it twice. Pierre Burton is great if you want no nonsense historical non fiction. All of the book is written through collected first hand stories from men he either interviewed personally, or from letters.

He was a canadian writer who wrote exclusively about Canadian history in a way that is informative but not boring.

He also has 2 great books (tho a tad dense) about the War of 1812 between USA and 'Canada' (or the British Colonies if u wanna be technically) including the story of the sacking of Washington where Canadain Militia, without any bloodshed, entered Washington, helped everyone evactuate (including George Washington himself and his wife) and allowing them to take all their belongings before burning the whole city to the ground as well as the white house. In fact, the White House is called The White House because shortly after the sacking and burning a French Diplomat was visiting to sell the US weapons (back then the US and France were close allies) and they had to quickly rebuild the wooden parts and white wash over the burned and charred bits so they wouldnt look like chumps loosing to a bunch of colonial militia men to France

>>38258527
>without any bloodshed, entered Washington, helped everyone evactuate (including George Washington himself and his wife) and allowing them to take all their belongings before burning the whole city to the ground as well as the white house
Holy shit, I grew up hearing about how we burnt down the white house but I never realized it was that orderly and polite.

>>38258182
>>38257740

The Canadians kicked a ton of German ass in WWII as well. They tried invading France two years before Operation Overlord and got massacred by the German defenses so when D-Day came they were in full revenge mode. IIRC the Canadian forces pushed farther into Nazi-occupied France on D-Day than any other landing force, British or American.

>>38196535
Sir Alexander Radcliffe, a person ancestor of mine.

At the Battle of the Spurs Alexander conducted himself with distinction and was knighted by Henry VIII at Lille. Returning to Lancashire, after peace with France had been arranged, Alexander applied himself to official duties wish so much zeal and ability that he rapidly rose to be one of the great figures in the county. He served the office of High Sheriff on four occasions, in 1523-4, 1528-9, 1538-9 and 1547-8. This was the high tide of the Reformation, and though his family were afterwards persecuted for recusancy it would appear that the sympathies of Sir Alexander with the new order were strong enough to provide proof of his loyalty. He was Serjeant of Salford when Henry VIII, deceived by his nephew, James V of Scotland, at the instigation of the wily Cardinal Beaton, determined to invade the kingdom of the Scots, and Sir Alexander gathered a great muster of his townsmen from the neighbourhood of Salford to take part in the expedition. Alexander died on the 5 Feb 1548 in his seventy-third year and was buried in the Collegiate Church at Manchester. At his death he was holding, besides his chief manor of Ordsall, lands in Salford, Flixton, Hope, Tockholes, and Livesey, tenements in Shoresworth, Pendleton, and Moston, and three parts of the manor of Newcroft in Urmston.

>>38258560
Yup. The most Canadian Sacking and Burning of a city in History. Some letters from Militia even state that 4 men helped George Washington's Wife carry an enormous trunk of valuables out of the city.

Also, most Canadian Militia refused to wear the redcoats during the war which pissed the Americans right off cuz we 'werent fighting fair' going into battle disguised as farmers and such.

The two most amazing stories tho are The Battle of Fort Detroit and The Battle of Queenston Heights. Amzing stories from both sides.

Canada took Fort Detroit while outnumbered 10:1 due to counter intel and psychological warfare. They bombared the fort for over 2 weeks straight causing the general to literally go crazy and surrender due to an inability to sleep. but also, mad prop to the US soldiers as they would run out during the bombardments and grab fired Bombs, pull out the fuses before they could explode, bringthem back, rearm them and fire them back. This went on for 2 weeks nonstop, so those guys had fucking balls of steel. They executed their own general for surrendering

I've always been interested in stories about the Russian military, either as the Red Army in WWII, or under the Tsars. There's all these fascinating stories about them. I mean, the Red Army was pretty famous for their sheer brutality, especially when they were rolling back over Germany, but you get these interesting stories about how they reacted to some of the atrocities they saw perpetrated.
Like in WWI, it was the Russian Army that first found out what sort of shit the Ottomans were doing to the Armenians first hand. Apparently after they discovered how the Ottomans had marched all these Armenian civilians to their deaths through the desert, they destroyed the Ottoman third army (I think it was the third army) in its entirety. Or in WWII, when the Red Army discovered Unit 731 in Japan. For those that don't know, Unit 731 was kind of like a brigade of Doctor Mengele's, doing some pretty horrific shit to pretty much anybody they cold get their hands on. When the war was near the end a fair number of them were scooped up in Operation Paperclip. This turned out to be a bit of a waste, as they hadn't actually adhered to the scientific method with any of their experiments and were really just a pack of sadists.
The Russians, when they came across their experiments, executed every member they could find.

>>38258617
>They tried invading France two years before Operation Overlord and got massacred by the German defenses
While true, this is generally considered a testing of German defenses and response time and without it Operation Overlord would have been a decisive failure

>Canadian forces pushed farther into Nazi-occupied France on D-Day than any other landing force, British or American.
Dont forget the Paratrooper who were inserted into France the Day beforre to secure all the major, tactically important, bridges so the Germans couldnt 1) blow them up during the retreat and 2) couldnt retreat along planned routes

>>38257740
Y'know, fer all the shit we southern cousins give you, you Canucks are alright when you remember you have spines. Sincerely a damnably impressed Montanan.

We share a war cry too. LET 'ER BUCK!

>>38258776
>>38258623
>>38258527

War of 1812 is one of the dumbest wars ever, no offense

>>38258560
Y'all were terrifying when you fought us at Chateauguay. We promptly decided to leave the 49th Parallel and above to you and decided that fighting Santa Ana and the Dons was a safer bet.

>>38259051
None taken, it was a pretty stupid war. Most wars of that time period were pretty stupid, and that's part of why WWI was such a damn slaughter.

>>38259051
Hmmph. Only if you consider trade and sovereignty unimportant.

Now, as an American, I recognize that if Prinny had decided to get a bee up his nose we'd all be flying the Jack, but we gave s good as we got, at least on the sea.

We really just need to have a round three for the tiebreaker.

>>38259032

As a Canadian, I'd say not to worry about it. We largely just laugh off any shit that anyone gives us anyway.

>>38259152
The British were busy boning Boney, so I'm grateful you let our wee republic live.

>>38259152

>mfw I just realized that the time between WW1 and now is as long as the time between WW1 and the war of 1812

>>38259245
We're overdue for a major war involving Canada.

>>38259245
>>38259362
Well, that's a good enough reason for me to rationalize invading Canada.

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>>38259439
>>38259362

It begins.

>>38259517
As a Canadian, I demand Canada Annexation DLC in Fallout 4!!!!

>>38259587

>Fallout 4

>>38259362
You cant invade us, we buy ur stupid shitty BBQs and ur leftover old weapons/tanks/warships.

Who else can you get to buy the only 2 things your country still manufactures?

>>38259587
I really want to see what mutant horrors develop in Canada after the war.
I mean, imagine a mutant moose. Moose are ugly damn creatures to begin with, imagine one the size of a Yao Guai that looks like it's made of rotting meat.

Late Antiquity.

Not as unknown as some settings, but it's such an intriguing period that covers the transition from a particular cultural power (i.e the Western and Eastern Roman Empires) to the new and not quite aptly named Dark Ages.

I think one of my favourite historical people would have to be Richard Francis Burton.
Look him up.
What a bro.

>>38258527
>>38258560
The fun part is he is lying.

British regulars burned washington, and george had been dead for quite some time by that point.

Stupid fucking Canadians.

>>38258776
>pissed the Americans right off cuz we 'werent fighting fair' going into battle disguised as farmers and such.
This is bullshit.

Is making shit up about Canadian military history your hobby or something?

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Everyone goes on about the War of 1812 but nobody remembers the Fenian Invasions of 1866. The US invaded Canada and got away with it for the better part of an afternoon before going home again, point made.

Half-Canadian, Half-American here.

For all Canadians give Americans shit, I have yet to meet anyone more dickishly nationalistic than Canadians who think they can get away with it.

Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg.

A Tsarist Russian military officer who believed in an absolute monarchy. He fled Russia when the Bolsheviks started to win, and took a compliment of Cossacks into Mongolia, which he held against the Chinese for years. He became fascinated with Buddhism and came to believe he was Genghis Khan reincarnated, a fact the natives around him believed.

>>38260001
Damn right!

I don't know what the point was, but we made it!

>>38260416
I don't think anybody understood the point of the Fenian raids. I'm willing to bet most of the Fenians were a little confused about it, if enthusiastic.

DIOGENES THE CYNIC

MADE FUN OF PLATO

LIVES IN A BARREL

MASTURBATED IN PUBLIC

WAS ASKED BY ALEXANDER TO HAVE HIS ANY WISH GRANTED AND TOLD THE CONQUEROR OF THE KNOWN WORLD TO "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING SUNSHINE"

DIOGENES THE CYNIC

>>38259892
>>38259892
Do you even history? There was 1 Platoon of British Regulars in Canada at the time as the British were to busy dealing with Napoleon

>>38259939
So salty. This is taken from letter written home during the war on both sides. sorry if u cant into history ya sore losers

Not niche at all, but Otto Skorzeny was a fucking comic book villain. A Nazi giant with a facial scar who glided into Italy to rescue Mussolini and ran an international spy ring after the war's end? Hella.

>>38260001
>>38260416
>Brags about invading across the largest undefended border on the planet
Murrica really doesnt aim high does it

>>38196535
I guess I'm a bit of a fan of the New Zealand land wars after constantly having put to put up with it every year in history. Rare was the teacher who didn't constantly remind us that the Maori apparently invented Trench Warfare.

>>38260450
>'m willing to bet most of the Fenians were a little confused about it, if enthusiastic

"Sure, and why the hell are we over the Canadian border, can you be telling' me that, lad?"
"We're to be fighting the bastard English, Colonel Meagher, sir!"
"Good enough fer me, that! ON TO MONTREAL!"

>>38196535
The Last Man to Know Everything, Professor Thomas Young.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_(scientist)

>>38225010
Proof?

>>38260001
>>38260416
>>38260450

Direct response to the British response to the Trent Affair. Prince Albert is to be commended for keeping Britain from making war on the United States. If he hadn't calmed his wife down and given our embassy a face-saving way out, Lincoln would have been fighting a two-front war WITHOUT Sherman to rip anyone a new asshole, and his navy too tied up with the blockade to prevent British interference at sea.

>>38203071
After the Korean War he established the military nation of Zanzibarland, building nuclear deterrents and recruiting disillusioned mercenaries to his cause. Then his son sprayed him with deodorant, lit him on fire and left him for dead. After decades in a coma, he beat the same son in hand-to-hand combat, suffered verbal diarrhea and died.

Am I close?

>>38240836

I love that Herodotus describes Eastern Europe as "populated by men who can become wolves."

Like, Transylvania has been Gothic monster land since recorded history.

>>38261154
Herodotus was full of absolute pure shit. I don't really know why anything he said can in any way be reliable.

Giant Ants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-digging_ant

>>38261067
if big boss lived near point claire he probably wouldn't have felt the need to start a military nation

>>38258776
And then Tim Horton threw a lasso around a comet, brought it tumbling to earth and built a donut shop where it landed.

>>38261385
That is where Timbits get their shape silly, its a well know Canadian story

That stuff was true tho, wether you belive it or not. Unfortunately, Canada tends to story history in books rather than wikipedia so you will have to actaully read in order to verify it

>>38261385
Tim Hortons is a coffee shop that also deals in donuts. get you facts straight you fucking dunkin donut eating fatass

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>>38202371
>"That thing won't do you any good you know"
>Said to him while crossing a street holding an umbrella under fire in the middle of a battle
>"My goodness Pat, but what if it rains?"

My sides

Oh jesus those fucking Tommy's got me right in my sides

>>38256617

I'll make my own papacy! With blackjack! And hookers!

>>38260576

Otto Skorzeny also trained members of the PLO including Yasser Arafat. What an odd crossing of paths.

>>38250873
>> picked the losing side twice
He has better luck than my noble ancestors. We picked losing sides so many times, that by the time of the late medieval era, we didn't even have any fiefs left. Just a farm.

>>38262528
Antisemitism makes for strange bedfellows

>>38255392
Yeah, I watched a documentary on it. It's weird how some major events in history just happened due to a lucky break.

>>38262576
Then again, Israel happily froliced around with various racist/apartheid factions.

Israel worked together with (white) South-Africa to develop the nuclear bomb, and there's significant evidence that indicates that Israel conducted an illegal airburst nuclear test above somewhere East-Africa.

Scientists detected a strange explosion above East-Africa that has no real explanation except for a nuclear explosion. And Israel is the only country in the region with access to them. Despite their insistance they don't have them.

Israel is like Nazi-Germany. With nukes. Pretending to be a nice puppy.

>>38262690
And without the general holocaust and starting world wars.

It's more like Russia with US support, pretending to be a nice puppy. But the left likes them 'cause they're Jewish, and the right likes 'em 'cause they're beating on Muslims.

>>38262690
>muh Vela Incident

Your "significant evidence" is a load of sensationalist speculation, anon. Good job bringing the /pol/ poison in the thread.

>>38263041
Even if the Vela Incident wasn't a nuclear test, Israel still ILLEGALLY developed nuclear weapons with Apartheit-South-Africa, and to this day, as an ILLEGAL stockpile of 200-400 nuclear weapons.

If Israel was North-Korea, it'd be a radioactive crater at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

At technically, this isn't /pol/ poison. This is legit modern history.

>>38196535
Albrecht von Wallenstein
Little known figure that allegedly inspired the character of Griffith from Berserk. Crazy dude who made it from virtual nobody to being more powerful that his own kings, thought it would be funny if he tore down an entire quarter in Prague right beneath the royal castle to build his own palace larger than the royal one just to give a heartily "fuck you, I'm richer than you" to the king, and who eventually turned out to be about the biggest back-stabbing double-crossing opportunistic cunt of the 30-years war.

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Arab successes opened the way for a second assault on Constantinople. Caliph Sulayman (r. 715–717) took up the project, according to Arab accounts because of a prophecy that a Caliph bearing the name of a prophet would capture Constantinople. The Umayyad forces began assembling at the plain of Dabiq north of Aleppo

Arab preparations, especially the construction of a large fleet, did not go unnoticed by the worried Byzantines. Emperor Anastasios II (r. 713–715) sent an embassy to Damascus, ostensibly in order to plea for peace, but in reality to spy on the Arabs. Anastasios, in turn, began to prepare for the inevitable siege: the fortifications of Constantinople were repaired and equipped with ample artillery, while food stores were brought into the city. In addition, those inhabitants who could not stockpile food for at least three years were evacuated.

Anastasios strengthened his navy and in early 715 dispatched it against the Arab fleet. At Rhodes, however, the sailors of the Byzantine fleet rebelled, killed their commander John the Deacon and sailed north to Adramyttium. There, they acclaimed a reluctant tax collector, Theodosios, as emperor.

Anastasios held out at Nicaea for several months, finally agreeing to resign and retire as a monk.

In these conditions of near-civil war, the Arabs began their carefully prepared advance.Supplies for several years were hoarded, and siege engines and incendiary materials (naphtha) were stockpiled. Whatever the true numbers, the attackers were considerably more numerous than the defenders; the Arab host may have outnumbered the entire Byzantine army. On the Byzantine side, the numbers are unknown. Aside from Anastasius II's preparations (which may have been neglected following his deposition), the Byzantines could count on the assistance of the Bulgarians, with whom Leo concluded a treaty that may have included alliance against the Arabs.

>>38263332
In early summer 717, Maslama ordered up his fleet and crossed the Hellespont at Abydos into Thrace. The Arabs began their march on Cοnstantinople, thoroughly devastating the countryside, gathering supplies, and sacking the towns they encountered. On July 15, the Arab army reached Constantinople and isolated it completely on land by building a double siege wall of stone, one facing the city and one facing the Thracian countryside, with their camp positioned between them.

The Arab fleet under Sulayman (often confused with the Caliph himself) arrived on September 1. Two days later, Sulayman led his fleet into the Bosporus and the various squadrons began anchoring in the suburbs: one part sailed south of Chalcedon to watch over the southern entrance of the Bosporus, while the rest of the fleet sailed into the strait, passed by Constantinople and began making landfall on the coasts between Galata and Kleidion, cutting the city's communication with the Black Sea.

The failure of the Arab navy to blockade the city, however, meant that the Byzantines could ferry in provisions. In addition, the Arab army had already devastated the Thracian countryside during its march and could not rely on it for foraging. The winter of 718 was extremely harsh; snow covered the ground for over three months. As the supplies in the Arab camp ran out, a terrible famine broke out: the soldiers ate their horses, camels, and other livestock, and the bark, leaves and roots of trees and reportedly resorted to cannibalism and eating their own excrement. Consequently, the Arab army was ravaged by epidemics.

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>>38263400
The situation looked set to improve in spring when the new Caliph, Umar II (r. 717–720), sent two fleets to the besiegers' aid: 400 ships from Egypt under a commander named Sufyan and 360 ships from Africa under Izid, all laden with supplies and arms. At the same time, a fresh army began marching through Asia Minor to assist in the siege. When the new fleets arrived in the Sea of Marmara, they kept their distance and anchored on the Asian shore. Most of the Arab fleets' crews were composed of Christian Egyptians, however, and they began deserting to the Byzantines upon their arrival. Notified by the Egyptians of the advent and disposition of the Arab reinforcements, Leo launched an attack against the new Arab fleets. Crippled by the defection of their crews, and helpless against Greek fire, the Arab ships were destroyed or captured along with the weapons and supplies they carried. Constantinople was now safe from a seaborne attack.

Still suffering from hunger and pestilence, the Arabs lost a major battle against the Bulgarians at Adrianople. This decisive battle clearly turned the table in favor of the Bulgarian-Byzantine coalition. Bulgarian Khan Tervel was later hailed as Savior of Europe by his contemporaries. It is unclear, however, whether the Bulgarians attacked the Arab encampment because of their treaty with Leo or whether the Arabs strayed into Bulgarian territory seeking provisions. The siege had clearly failed, and Caliph Umar sent orders to Maslama to retreat.

The Byzantines recovered some territory in western Armenia for a time.

The Arab attacks would intensify again over the next two decades, until the major Byzantine victory at the Battle of Akroinon in 739. After military defeats elsewhere and internal instability which culminated in the Abbasid Revolution, the age of Arab expansion came to an end.

>>38196669

I have a book about him and his life, that i haven't got around to reading. Should I?

>>38259622
Client state it us!

>>38264328
>should I read books
Yes.

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Pytheas was an ancient explorer from Marseilles in southern France who in 330bce wrote the oldest known record of life in northern Europe.

For over a century before Pytheas set out on his adventure the Carthaginians had closed the pillars of Hercules off to the Greeks to guard their monopoly on trading with northern Europe. Pytheus’s motive for travelling was undoubtedly on a search for the Carthaginians elusive source of tin.

When he arrived at the English Channel he reported slowly hugging the coast of France, stopping frequently for water and visiting the natives until after 5 days he reached the Kasiterides Islands (Britain). He noted the climate change, and how people worked indoors not out unlike back home, lived in log clay houses. He journeyed to Scotland where he met a tribe called the Pretani who told him of wondrous sites and lands to the north where the sun never sets.

Travelling further north he encountered dense fogs and began to see ice floating in the water and before discovering a new uninhabited land, Thule (Iceland). Pytheas then set out from Iceland until within site of the mountains of Greenland, a powerful current barred his way and drove him back to the shores of Britain (possibly the Gulf Stream).

Pytheas’s book was lost in the dark ages and his journey exists only in mentions by other writers who used and quoted it when writing their histories.

Charles XII.
Motherfucker was crazy.
Stupid stray bullet ended one of the most crazy-awesome Kings ever.

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>>38200473
That´s the Austrian noble who by some happenstance wound up in Mongolia and was elected Khan of Khans?

>>38244065
>Paracelsus had a prophecy suggesting that she would establish some sort of metallic kingdom in Scandinavia.
What the hell?

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Pythagoras, who combined philosophy and religion long before Plato and to whom Plato is deeply indebted, forbade his followers from eating beans.

Pursued by his enemies, he found himself at the edge of a beanfield. True to his vow to have nothing to do with beans, he refused to cross the field, was caught, and killed.

Rollo, founder of the duchy of Normandy was your regular viking chieftain.

He came to Normandy, kidnapped the daughter of the owner of the lands, married her.
When her father kicked the bucket, he inherited the lands and founded the duchy behind William the Conqueror and other awesome shit.

Life is also shady as fuck.

'nother real life PC

>>38264807
Also had an army so zealous that they actually thought that ducking or sprinting in battle was useless since it was God who chose who lived and died anyway, and the basically did the more silent version of the highland charge, they walk through enemy musket fire until they could see the white in their eyes, half the men shot, then they jogged to about halfway point between them and the enemy and the other half of the men shoot then the dropped muskets pulled steel and charged,

I have heard that they did that all while completely silent and would be whipped if they made sounds while charging, though the source for that is somewhat questionable

>>38264784
That's fucking cool.

And god damnit, why did they have to lose so many texts? 5/7 Homerian epics are missing, too.

>>38258560
White, English-speaking protestants have a habit of being really polite to each other when they go to war.

And if you don't fit all three of the criteria, we kill you, your women, and your children, and desecrate their bodies.

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Giuseppe Garibaldi, the last competent Italian commander

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This fucking guy. The goddamn Spider King.

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>>38260489
>DIOGENES THE CYNIC

this is 4chan

hail our new king!

>>38267743
I have Diogenes too, I like the underdog.
He's tied with Epictetus though.

>>38255652
>not mentioned: The spartans getting utterly rekt shortly afterwards
rebuttals like that are only impressive if you back them up with action

>>38268050
Phillip didn't invade. I call it a win.

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Fucking mounted Darth Maul over here

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>>38261203
I'll let Mr. Gonick explain it to you...

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>>38200473
>>38260380
Third for the Mad Baron!

>>38268372
That's the dumbest thing i've ever heard. The Spartans got slaughtered away from Sparta continually so there never was a point to physically take over the city. I like Sparta as much as the next guy, but that that point they were barely a fifth tier power with the self perception of being a third tier one.

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>>38253938

And why not Odo the Great?
He was teh leader of the Aquitanians, the one who had defeated the Moors years before at Tolouse, the one who protected the Southern border while dealing with the ambitious Charles. The one who understood that he had to side with his enemy to fight agaisnt Muslims. The one who was a leading commander at Poitiers. The one who was forgotten after that.

>The pic is another dude, cause there is not even a fucking image about him

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By June 1857, the Indian Mutiny had spread to several areas near Cawnpore. However, the Indian sepoys here initially remained loyal.

As stories of various atrocities of women and children filtered back to Cawnpore, the city became understandably on edge. Although no direct threat had yet occurred in Cawnpore, European families began to drift into the entrenchment and tried to find a space in one of the sturdier buildings available. The forces at Wheeler's disposal were pitifully small. He had barely 250 in total. He had to defend a thousand civilians.

At 1:30am on June 5, three pistol shots signaled the start of the mutiny. At least one Rissaldar-Major Bhowani Singh refused to join his comrades and was cut down there and then.

The following days, and indeed weeks, would only confirm what a difficult position this was to defend. The fact that it was the hottest time of the year only added to the miseries of the defenders. The one well was exposed to the enemy artillerymen and snipers who took delight in aiming at the desperately thirsty defenders. Water extraction would have to take place at night to stand any chance of success. A second dried-up well would have to serve as the make-shift burial chamber. The solid ground was too difficult to dig individual graves. Dead bodies would have to be piled up outside the buildings awaiting nightfall when they would be dragged and dumped with as much ceremony as could be summonsed given the circumstances.

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>>38269496
Although the attackers were becoming frustrated at their lack of success, it did seem as if time was on their side, at least in the short to medium term. It was known that Havelock was advancing up from Allahabad, but he had become severely bogged down and would not arrive in time. The defenders were becoming increasingly desperate, their already small numbers being steadily whittled down by the combined attritional effects of successive bombardments, snipers, assaults, disease and poor to non-existent medical supplies. Food and water were dangerously low and the hot season was still beating down the sun unmercifully on the defenders. The garrison had lost one third of its numbers. Personal tragedy had afflicted General Wheeler when his son Lieutenant Gordon Wheeler had been decapitated in the last assault on the barracks.

Finally, General Wheeler decided to surrender, in return for a safe passage to Allahabad. After a day of preparation, and burying their dead, the British decided to leave for Allahabad on the morning of June 27, 1857.
General Wheeler and his party were the first aboard and the first to manage to set their boat off. There was some confusion, as the Indian boatmen jumped overboard after hearing bugles from the banks, and started swimming toward the banks. As they jumped, some fires on the boats were knocked over, setting a few of the boats ablaze. Then, all hell broke loose. Nana’s general Tatya Topi ordered the 2nd Bengal Cavalry and some artillery to open fire on the hapless Europeans.

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>>38269536
Company forces reached Cawnpore on July 16, and captured the city. A group of British officers and soldiers set out to rescue the captives, assuming that they were still alive. However, when they reached the site, they found it empty and blood-splattered, with the bodies of most of the 200 women and children having already been dismembered and thrown down the courtyard well or into the Ganges river. Piles of children's clothing and severed women's hair blew on the wind and lodged in tree branches around the compound; the tree in the courtyard nearest the well was smeared with the brains of numerous children and infants who had been dashed headfirst against the trunk and thrown down the well.

The British troops were enraged. Upon learning of the massacre, the infuriated British force engaged in a surge of violence against the local population of Cawnpore, including looting and burning of houses, with the justification that none of the local noncombatants had done anything to stop the massacre. Brigadier General Neill, who took the command at Cawnpore, immediately began a program of swift and vicious drumhead military justice (culminating in summary execution) for any sepoy rebel who was unable to prove he was not involved in the massacre. Rebels confessing to or believed to be involved in the massacre were forced to lick the clotted blood from the floor and walls of the Bibighar compound while being whipped. The sepoys were then religiously disgraced by being forced to eat (or force fed) beef (if Hindu) or pork (if Muslim). The Muslim sepoys were sewn into pig skins before being hanged, and low-caste Hindu street sweepers were employed to execute the high-caste Brahmin rebels to add additional religious disgrace to their punishment.

The massacre disgusted and embittered the British troops in India, with “Remember Cawnpore!” becoming a war cry for the British soldiers for the rest of the conflict.

>>38253938
Mate, he just barely beat back a minor raiding party. Him winning or losing against that would have made jack all of a difference.

Anyone else kinda struggle to understand how much of the world Alexander conquered?

>>38269678
Gotta love that medieval propaganda machine.

Same with "the Great Heathen Army".

To the Christians, it was a war against the legions of Satan.

To the vikings, there was some good loot to be had.

>>38269799
The battle of tours is more significant as a propoganda machine justifying Charles Marles and the carolingian empire, so you are right about that. It's just typical of older historians to fall for it, hook bait and edward gibbons.

>Their kings are not permanent. They select and appoint the most worthy man. If there are unexpected calamities in the kingdom, such as frequent extraordinary winds or rains, he is unceremoniously rejected and replaced. The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion, and is not angry. The people of this country are honest. They resemble the Chinese, and that is why the country is called Da Qin (大秦, The "Great" Qin) ... The soil produced lots of gold, silver, and rare jewels, including the jewel which shines at night ... they sew embroidered tissues with gold threads to form tapestries and damask of many colours, and make a gold-painted cloth, and a "cloth washed-in-the-fire" (asbestos).

A Han Chinese envoy describing what he learned of Rome.

>>38269678
In 732, the Umayyads moved north again led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi. Commanding approximately 80,000 men

On the seventh day, after gathering all of his forces, Abdul Rahman attacked with his Berber and Arab cavalry. In one of the few instances where medieval infantry stood up to cavalry, Charles' troops defeated repeated Umayyad attacks.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/army/p/martel.htm

>>38269870
Use a legitimate source, use a source with legitimate numbers, and so on.

>>38269870
>In 732, the Umayyads moved north again led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi. Commanding approximately 80,000 men

>middle ages
>commanding 80,000 men

You think this is goddamn antiquity?

>>38269948
Typo obviously, 732 was the dark ages, or early middle ages.

>>38269942
At least I have a sauce

Is anyone else disappointed that the Children's Crusade wasn't a real thing?

Are there any good (but also real) mass child abduction stories that you know?

>>38270771
>>38270771
Abduction in what sense? In Rotherham and other England cities the "Asians" were/are doing massive "grooming" or abusing thousands of children.

>>38270142
>at least I have a sauce
If it's a shit source, then you're only hurting yourself.

>>38272041
As opposed to your uneducated opinion,

sure...

>>38260548
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington
A british officer, leading irish regulars.

Britain STARTED that war with over 5,000 men in canda plus the provincial militias, not a fucking platoon.

Again:is lying your hobby?

>>38265771
Actually, that wasn't a religious thing. Somebody sat out and did the math on how fast marching men could cover the ground, and figured that if they simply kept marching, the first enemy volley would be at nominal effective range, inflicting few casualties, and the second would likely be within the outer envelope, again, not inflicting serious casualties. THEIR volleys would be much more effective, and the march rather than run meant they remained in good order for the charge to melee that would follow.

This would allow them to break forces much more rapidly, and AVOID long shootouts, which would inflict too much attrition-Sweden didn't have the manpower for long battles.

ga-pa tactis were actually extremely logical across the board, religion was just a tool to keep the soldiers in line.

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Fleeing from the Red Army onslaught, the Wilhelm Gustloff left port jammed with over 10,000 German refugees, naval personnel and wounded soldiers. The vessel is designed to hold a maximum of 1,880 passengers and crew. Of the refugees, four thousand are infants, children and youths on their way to promising safety in the West.

The conditions in the Baltic were terrible, temperatures close to minus 20c and strong winds blowing so that sea spray iced up the decks it also froze the liferafts to the ship.

Captain Marinesko, the Soviet submarine commander, stalked the Gustloff for over two hours.The Gustloff was shining her navigation lights in case of a collision. There were four qualified captains on her bridge, all competing for command and control in typical Nazi management-by-power-struggle. But none of them seems to have opposed the shining of the lights. Captain Marinesko fired all his front tubes at once: Three launched successfully and hit the target. The three which worked were called: FOR THE MOTHERLAND; FOR THE SOVIET PEOPLE; FOR LENINGRAD. The torpedo which malfunctioned was called: FOR STALIN.

Gustloff was so crowded that there was no time to evacuate the forward compartments where the torpedoes hit the ship and thousands were caught like rats in a trap.The third torpedo (FOR LENINGRAD) hit the engine room and instantly cut all power so that all the lights went out and radio went down.

>>38271604
Pied piper irl stuff. I know the depressing ongoing basis stuff happens, but I'm looking for big singular events.

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By 500 BC, the Greeks had become the major military power and they made two significant contributions to the history of warfare. The first was the phalanx, a close order formation made up of hoplites, infantry equipped with 2.44m (8ft) spears and swords and dressed in horsehair-plumed helmets, breastplates and calf and shin plates known as greaves, with a 0.91m (3ft) diameter round shield held on the left arm. This tightly packed `mobile fortress’ was frequently more than a match for looser and less well-disciplined bodies of enemy. The other development engineered by the Greeks was the invention of torsion artillery, in the shape of the catapult. It was the Alexandrian mathematicians who developed the theory of the catapult, showing how there was a direct correlation between the proportions of the various parts and the diameter of the `straining hole’ through which the skeins which controlled the tension passed, and the Greeks who put it into practice. They had two types of catapult (or ballista, as the Romans were to call it). The katapeltes were used to project arrows, javelins and smaller stones-a 3.63kg (8lb) stone could be projected accurately to a range of 228m (750ft)-while the larger petrobolos could hurl stones of up to 25kg (55lb) in weight. The skeins themselves were made of twisted human hair and sinew. A further refinement was the use of fire arrows, either with their heads wrapped in inflammable material and ignited just before firing, or made red hot by heating in coal fires.

>>38247104
4u

>>38238888
>Eric Bloodaxe
>Thorfinn Skull-splitter
>Thorfinn the Mighty

Orkneyjar here, just being fucking brilliant before Christianity