A Brief History On September 24, 1272, Prince Edward of England, leader of the Ninth Crusade, left Acre (Syria) for Sicily to recover from wounds. There he heard of the death of his son and later the death of his father. The evacuation of Edward marked the end of the Ninth Crusade, the last of the Medieval religious Crusades (though there is sometimes referenced a Tenth Crusade that is not really related to what we think of as the Historical Crusades). Digging Deeper Edward’s wounds were caused by an assassin wielding a poisoned dagger. Though Edward was able to kill…
Author: Major Dan
Major Dan
Major Daniel Zar is a retired veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He served during the Cold War and has traveled to many countries around the world. Prior to his military service, he graduated from Cleveland State University, having majored in sociology. Following his military service, he worked as a police officer eventually earning the rank of captain prior to his retirement.
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A Brief History On April 28, 1192, the Christian King of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat, perhaps better known as Conrad I, was murdered by an Islamic organization called the Order of Assassins, or the Hashshashins. A nobleman from Northern Italy, Conrad was one of the chief architects of the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and had only served as the elected King of Jerusalem for mere days before being assassinated. Digging Deeper Conrad was murdered while walking back to his home from a visit to Bishop Phillip of Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais, stabbed in the back and side by 2 assassins even…
A Brief History On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II announced at the Council of Clermont (in Clermont, France) before a mixed council of clergy and lay people (landholding nobles) a call to arms that would become known as the First Crusade, a Catholic invasion of the Moslem world with the goal of “liberating” Jerusalem and the Holy Sites and putting them back in Christian hands. Digging Deeper The call to arms was made in part at the request of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (various spellings) based in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) who was having trouble dealing with constant…
A Brief History On April 28, 1503, the armies of Spain and France fought in Southern Italy at a place called Cerignola (near Bari), a battle decided by the small arms fire of muskets and arquebuses, one of the first European battles where small arms fire from firearms decided the battle. Although hand held firearms using black powder had been around for nearly 200 years, such weapons had usually not been decisive in battles fought mainly with edged weapons and later with a combination of edged weapons and cannons. Digging Deeper Gunpowder is an invention normally credited to the Chinese…
A Brief History On April 27, 2011, a mind boggling 216 tornadoes ravaged the United States, from the Midwest to the South to the Northeast, all part of a larger weather phenomenon called the 2011 Super Outbreak that resulted in 306 tornadoes from April 25th to April 28th, 2011. Sadly, 348 people across the US died in the Outbreak, 324 of them from tornado activity and an additional 24 due to related thunderstorm, flash flood and lightning events. Digging Deeper The human carnage was the worst tornado related death toll since 1925, when a stunning 747 Americans were killed on…