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The Frog Princess is a Slavic folktale focusing on the importance of recognizing someone’s inner beauty, regardless of their outward appearance, as well as the possibility of redemption after failure....

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Interview with Illustrator Flora of Flaroh Illustration

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Join World History Encyclopedia as they chat with Flora of Flaroh Illustration, a freelance illustrator who loves to create art inspired by archaeological artefacts and myths. Kelly (WHE): What is...

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Ancient Chinese Han Officials Loved Bath And Hair Washing Day

thehistorianshut.com

The Han Dynasty of ancient China was founded by a man named Liu Bang, an anti-Qin rebel who became king of Han in 206 BCE and, after having defeated his rival, Xiang Yu, ascended to the rank…

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488 years ago today in 1532, barely forty years since Christopher Columbus landed at the Bahamas, the Spanish conquistador and newly appointed Governor of New Castile, Francisco Pizarro, arrived at th... View More488 years ago today in 1532, barely forty years since Christopher Columbus landed at the Bahamas, the Spanish conquistador and newly appointed Governor of New Castile, Francisco Pizarro, arrived at the town of Cajamarca with his ‘army’ of 180 men to treat and negotiate with Atahualpa, the Sapa Inca and Emperor of the Inca Empire. Within 24 hours of the meeting between the Emperor and his strange and supposedly helpless barbarian guests, the largest Empire in the Americas would be brought to heel and effectively condemned to the shadows of history.

The bastard son of a Spanish infantry colonel and a second cousin once removed of the other notorious Conquistador, Hernán Cortés, Pizarro was a man who had grown up with the aspiration of following in the footsteps of giants and achieving his own glory. The discovery of the New World provided just such an opportunity to him. From 1509 to 1528 he had undertaken numerous ventures and voyages to South and Central America. From his base at Panama he had launched two expeditions one after another down the Pacific Coast of South America in search of the fabled ‘El Dorado’. On both occasions he had been met with disaster as he fell foul of inclement weather, ran out of supplies, and came into confrontation with native tribes. By 1527 the Governor of Panama had written Pizarro off as a failure and was unwilling to support any more of his expeditions. After sending ships to retrieve him from his failed expedition on the Isla del Gallo, Pizarro had stubbornly refused and literally drawn a line in the sand with his sword declaring that there “lies Peru with its riches; Here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." After a few more months on the expedition however, he and his ‘Famous Thirteen’ who chose to stay him, were forced to abandon the venture.

Unimpressed with the Governor’s lack of faith in him, Pizarro chose to seek aid from the Spanish crown itself. At Toledo he met with the Habsburg Emperor, Charles V, and told him of the riches he might bring if given the chance. The Emperor was impressed with the account of this unlucky adventurer and gave him his blessing. Queen Isabel gave the seal of approval to Pizarro, giving him the legal authority to conquer Peru and install himself as Governor of New Castile. He was to do so however, not with a great royal army at his back, but with just 250 men. By the time he set sail on his new adventure in late 1530 however he had just 180 men and 27 horses. He arrived in what is now Ecuador in early 1531 and acquired reinforcements from fellow Conquistador, Hernando de Soto.

After a brief but violent confrontation with natives of the island of Puná, he and his men docked at Tumbes in what is now northwest Peru expecting to find the same hospitality he had received there years ago only to find it in a state of ruin from the ongoing Incan Civil War. All the time while Pizarro had been making his failed ventures, the Incans had been expanding and consolidating their vast empire. In 1525 however the Emperor, Huayna Capac, had died and his realm had fallen into chaos as his heir Huáscar vied with his brother Atahualpa. By the time the Spaniards had arrived, the civil war had been underway for sometime, and was of little consequence to the warring brothers. Pizarro made no attempt to divide and conquer however. He waited in Tumbes, founded the city of San Miguel de Piura, and only started to advance into Inca territory 18 months after his initial arrival. By then Atahualpa had emerged as the winner, his victorious armies having marched from triumph to triumph. The Sapa Inca had heard of the exotic visitors who had traversed the great ocean and had sent a noble to scout them out. Upon hearing of how few they were in number he invited them to Cajamarca where he could see these alien adventurers for himself and take them captive.

There was little reason for Atahualpa to fear Pizarro and his ragtag entourage. Though he had only sat on his father’s throne as supreme ruler of the Empire for a few months, both he and his generals were fresh from campaigning. His soldiers were all hardened veterans, and more to the point he is said to have 80,000 of them. Against this enormous host, this failed adventurer was arriving with his group of barely 200 men. Though the Spaniards did have about a dozen arquebusiers with matchlock firearms and a handful of falconet cannons, they would have been of little consequence given the numbers stacked against them. Had they taken the Incans on in a pitched battle there is little doubt they would have been massacred to a man. Only by cunning and wit could they win this match.

Atahualpa was relaxing at the thermal baths just outside Cajamarca when Hernando de Soto arrived with an interpreter on hand, inviting the revered Sapa Inca to a meeting with Pizarro. Confident of his safety, the Emperor accepted. The next day he arrived into Cajamarca with his honour guard. Adorned in his finest clothes he was brought to Pizarro while sitting on a litter carried by eighty couriers. His guards meanwhile were in full ceremonial dress and bar some knives were completely unarmed to show how unafraid they were of these pale-skinned strangers. With his army of countless thousands waiting just outside the town, this imposing entrance sent the message loud and clear to the Spaniards of how great and powerful he was. As the Emperor’s entourage came to a halt, the Dominican friar, Vincente de Valverde emerged from a building to speak on behalf of the Spanish throne. Atahualpa gave the austere Dominican a golden cup of chicha. The Friar paid no heed to it and instead displayed the Holy Bible and demanded not only that the Emperor convert to Catholicism but that he recognised Charles V as his sovereign overlord.

The Emperor, quite understandably, flew into a raging fury at the friar’s demands and yelled that “If you disrespect me, then I will disrespect you!” He bellowed that he would have them all slaughtered for their arrogance. At that exact moment, the Spanish, all of whom had been hiding in the surrounding buildings up to that point, burst out into the open and attacked. A cavalry charge thundered through the town and cannons and muskets roared into life. The Incans were taken completely off guard and took fright at these alien animals stampeding into them. Pizarro himself galloped amongst the horsemen and with sword in hand charged for Atahualpa and his generals. He and his men hacked and slashed at the carriers of the litter who fearlessly refused to abandon their leader. Even as the litter collapsed, the Incans deliberately sacrificed themselves to save their Emperor. In the end however, it was Pizarro himself who saved the emperor by blocking the sword of one of his soldiers and took him prisoner instead.

In that single bewildering moment, Atahualpa, the political and spiritual centre of the Incan world, had been taken prisoner, and his huge army rendered helpless. Hardened warriors though they were who could have easily slaughtered Pizarro and his opportunist rabble, their morale melted away in mere minutes and they broke and ran, unable to cope with losing not only their head of state but also the commanders who had lead them to victory so many times in the years prior. In exchange for his life, Atahualpa offered to pay a ransom of gold and silver, enough reputedly to fill a large room. This ransom was paid but against Pizarro’s own wishes, he was killed anyway. Pizarro subsequently claimed Atahualpa’s own wife as his own and converted her to Christianity. Though subsequent Incan leaders tried to resist the Spanish conquest, their had been lost the moment Pizarro captured Atahualpa. By the late 1570s the last stronghold of the Inca Empire would be wiped from the face of the earth.

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https://www.worldtruth.online/document/1480/first-principles-what-america-039-s-founders-learned-from-the-greeks-and-ro/

From American Cato to American Carnage

sententiaeantiquae.com

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an interesting book in possession of a good topic, must be in want of a title. The title of Thomas Ricks’ new book, ‘First Principles,’ is less th…

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Online course to create a Medieval Christmas Feast - Medievalists.net

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Medieval Christmas to be brought to life with a virtual cooking course.

History

Book of the Month Club: Insular Art Forms: Their Essence and Construction - Medievalists.net

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Our next book in the Book of the Month Club will be Insular Art Forms: Their Essence and Construction, by Robert Stevick.

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Medieval Scottish Deer Parks and Beyond, with Kevin Malloy - Medievalists.net

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Kate Buchanan is joined by Kevin Malloy to discuss Kevin’s journey to studying medieval Scottish history, his work on medieval deer parks, and how researching medieval Scottish history can lead to oth...

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The Crazy Succession Crisis In Early 9th-Century Denmark

thehistorianshut.com

King Godfrid And The War That Almost Was Charlemagne came very close to open war with what could have been one of his deadliest foes—King Godfrid of Denmark (also spelled Godofrid, Godefrid,…

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Predjama – The Castle in a Cave - HeritageDaily - Archaeology News

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Predjama is a Renaissance castle located in the village of Predjama in the Republic of Slovenia. - HeritageDaily - Archaeology News

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"Herman the Iron fell prostrate on the ground, and Guy was lying on top of him, smashing the knight’s face and eyes with his iron gauntlets."

Trial by Combat: The Bloody Business of Justice - Medievalists.net

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As a community of the faithful, medieval people believed that no matter how evenly or unevenly matched the fighters were, the one who was innocent would prevail, but trial by combat was not often a bl...

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Leto

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Leto is a Titan and the mother of the gods Apollo and Artemis in Greek mythology. Leto’s twin children were the result of an amorous encounter with Zeus, and to avoid his wife Hera’s...

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Ancient Persian Governors

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The Achaemenid Persian Empire functioned as well as it did because of the efficient bureaucracy established by its founder Cyrus the Great (r. c. 550-530 BCE) which was administered through the satrap...

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100 years ago today in 1919, as the world at large was held in the grip of a flaming cluster, in the devastated expanses of the former Romanov Empire, the Red Army stormed the Siberian city of Omsk, u... View More100 years ago today in 1919, as the world at large was held in the grip of a flaming cluster, in the devastated expanses of the former Romanov Empire, the Red Army stormed the Siberian city of Omsk, until then the capital of the Whites. Fifty thousand White soldiers and ten of their generals fell into the hands of the Red Army and the dreaded claws of the Cheka. In the wake of this disaster, there began one of many great retreats which was to mark the end of the White movement, as thousands of White soldiers and their families fled eastwards across the frozen wastes in what became known as the Great Siberian Ice March.

1919 had been the most intense year of the Russian Civil War. The enormous sprawling empire once ruled by the Tsars had been torn and ruptured apart between all the myriad factions that had cropped up and struggled to achieve domination. Under the command of the Supreme Leader, Admiral Kolchak, the Whites had thrown everything they had at the Bolsheviks and on a number of occasions it seemed that victory was almost theirs, that Moscow or St. Petersburg would fall, that the people would rise up and overthrow Lenin’s dictatorship of the proletariat. With the aid of the British, French, Americans and Japanese, not to mention a host of other nations, this seemed a foregone conclusion, especially now that the war in Europe was over. Yet the Bolsheviks had dug their heels in. The harder pressed they had become from enemies both within and without, the more people they had rounded up for torture and death, and the more coercively they had conscripted hapless peasants and workers to take up rifles in defence of the Revolution. In sharp contrast to Kolchak who at best had only nominal control over all the competing warlords under his wing, the Red Army was a tightly bound and unified fist of war. Thus, once the Whites had exhausted themselves, the Bolsheviks unleashed their punishing counterattack, steamrolling across Siberia and reversing all the gains which the Whites had made over the year.

Knowing that defeat was inevitable, Kolchak had abandoned Omsk the day before the Reds had arrived and had taken the Trans-Siberian Railway to Irkutsk. The railway however was controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion who first halted him and then gave him safe passage to the British mission in Irkutsk. The frosty city though had fallen under the control of the Mensheviks who soon arrested him and then handed him over to the Bolsheviks whereupon he was promptly condemned to death. With the Supreme Leader first out of the picture and later dead, it fell to the Swedish-Russian general, Vladimir Kappel, to pick up the pieces. Kappel was a well respected officer whom had served with the Don Cossacks during the Great War and though he was a devoted monarchist he so utterly despised the Bolsheviks that had he had been willing to serve under Kolchak. With Kolchak gone and Omsk lost, he decided to pull the surviving forces eastwards to Chita, capital of the White territory ruled by the decadent monarchist warlord, Ataman Semyenov. With the Trans-Siberian Railway controlled by the now rather unreliable Czechoslovaks, they set out on their perilous journey on foot. So began the Ice March.

30,000 soldiers, their families, their possessions, and all the Tsar’s gold, ventured out into the ice and snow. Behind them the Red 5th army loomed closely, biting and snapping at their heels, at all times encouraging them to hasten their pace. With all centralized authority having collapsed with the fall of Omsk, the countryside became a wilderness of spontaneous insurgencies and rebellions by local groups aspiring for vengeance, glory and loot. Slicing through the harsh and unforgiving Arctic winds, Kappel and his men stubbornly fought off the rebels at village after village. Once their path forward was secure again the distant rumble of the pursuing Reds would prompt them to rise and march once more. With the railway off bounds to them, the caravan of ragged soldiers and refugees were forced to cross the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world. Completely exposed to the full wroth of the howling winter winds, they traversed the great lake. As temperatures plummeted to forty degrees below freezing, scores of people, if not already dead from exhaustion or typhus, were finished off by the bite of winter in the air. The dead remained frozen like ice statues on the surface of the lake until it melted in the following year, their corpses and possessions descending down to the abyss below.

Kappel himself was not even spared during this crossing. His horse had broken through the ice, and not wishing for anyone to worry, did not tell anyone about the incident for a day. By the time a doctor saw to him he was already suffering from frostbite and gangrene was starting to develop. Lacking any anesthetics the doctor used a simple knife to remove his left foot and a number of toes on his right foot. He did not survive much longer, dying in early 1920 from pneumonia, his last words being “Let my soldiers know that I’ve always been committed to them, loved them and proved it to my death,” The handful of survivors who made it to Chita, took his body with them so as to save him from desecration by the Reds - though this fate eventually befell him in 1955 at the hands of Mao’s Reds. Semyonov had support from the Japanese Empire and thus the Bolsheviks chose to back off once the refugees had reached Chita, unwilling to provoke another foreign power while they were still struggling to deal with Poland.

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History

Love and Eroticism in Medieval Norwegian Runic Inscriptions

www.medievalists.net

Although other emotions are obvious in various inscriptions, clearly the one most often and most explicitly expressed is love, at times more specifically erotic interest.

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The Middle Ages as seen through National Geographic

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Our 10 favourite videos on the Middle Ages created by National Geographic.

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History of Finland – Catholicism & Northern Crusades

about-history.com

Religion The settlement of the Aland Islands by the Vikings from the territory of modern Sweden began at around the year 500. By 800, the ...

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Battle of Tricamarum

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The Battle of Tricamarum (533 CE) was the second and last major battle of the Vandalic War (533 – 534 CE). The battle was fought ...

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Why Did the Clovis People Mysteriously Vanish? - HISTORY

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Ancient people of North America’s Clovis culture migrated to South America roughly 11,000 years ago, then mysteriously vanished, researchers have discovered.In

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Leonard Bernstein’s Philharmonic debut makes front-page news

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At a time when classical music received nearly as much coverage as professional sports in the popular press, it was major news indeed when an ...

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Baby Fae dies

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âBaby Fae,â a month-old infant who had received a baboon-heart transplant, dies at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California. The infant,

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Erwin Rommel is born

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Erwin Rommel, the German commander known as the âDesert Foxâ for his cunning in North Africa during World War II, is born in Heidenheim, Germany.Rommelâs ...

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Brazil’s last emperor deposed

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After a 49-year reign, Pedro II, the second and last emperor of Brazil, is deposed in a military coup.The Brazilian monarchy was established in 1822, ...

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The Armies of the Crusades

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The armies of the Crusades (11th-15th centuries CE), which saw Christians and Muslims struggle for control of territories in the Middle East and elsewhere, could ...

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First stock ticker debuts

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On this day in 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New York City. The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock market ...

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Georges Clemenceau named French prime minister

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On November 15, 1917, with his country embroiled in a bitter international conflict that would eventually take the lives of over 1 million of its ...

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Second moratorium against the war held

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Following a symbolic three-day âMarch Against Death,â the second national âmoratoriumâ opens with mass demonstrations in San Francisco and Washington,

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs heckled at university

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Gen. Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses a gathering at Brown University and approximately 60 students walk out to protest his

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President Carter hosts shah of Iran

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On this day in 1977, President Jimmy Carter welcomes Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, and his wife, Empress (or âShahbanouâ) Farrah, to Washington. ...

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Zebulon Pike spots an imposing mountain

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Approaching the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains during his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spots a distant mountain peak that

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Final installment of A Tale of Two Cities is published

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On this day in 1859, Charles Dickensâ serialized novel, A Tale of Two Cities, comes to a close, as the final chapter is published in ...

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Elvis makes movie debut in Love Me Tender

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On this day in 1956, Love Me Tender, featuring the singer Elvis Presley in his big-screen debut, premieres in New York City at the Paramount ...

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Plane crashes into Sri Lankan plantation

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A plane carrying Muslim pilgrims from Mecca to Indonesia crashes in Sri Lanka on this day in 1978, killing 183 people.The Icelandic Airlines DC-8 was ...

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Accused of rape, James Montgomery’s struggle for justice begins

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Mamie Snow, a mentally disabled white woman from Waukegan, Illinois, claims that James Montgomery, a black veteran, factory worker, and homeowner raped her.

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Nikita Khrushchev challenges United States to a missile “shooting match”

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In a long and rambling interview with an American reporter, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev claims that the Soviet Union has missile superiority over the United

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The March to the Sea begins

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On this day in 1864, Union General William T. Sherman begins his expedition across Georgia by torching the industrial section of Atlanta and pulling away ...

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Craig Breedlove sets new land-speed record

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On November 15, 1965 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 28-year-old Californian Craig Breedlove sets a new land-speed recordâ600.601 miles per hourâin his

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Articles of Confederation adopted

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After 16 months of debate, the Continental Congress, sitting in its temporary capital of York, Pennsylvania, agrees to adopt the Articles of Confederation and

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Himmler orders Gypsies to concentration camps

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On this day in 1943, Heinrich Himmler makes public an order that Gypsies and those of mixed Gypsy blood are to be put on âthe ...

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An excavation in northwest China has uncovered a 1,000-year-old ceramic box containing cremated human remains, which are described in an inscription as having belonged to Siddhārtha Gautama, also know... View More

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You, man or woman, old or young, who walk back and forth
In this place, I ask you, say this:
Holy one, great one, release her chains.
Bound in the dark tomb by bitter death,
Closed in, she has finished ... View More

Last Words from a Medieval Mother to her Son

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Yesterday, I stumbled across a passage from the Liber Manualis, written by a ninth-century Frankish woman named Dhuoda to her fifteen-year-old son.

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Recycling in Britain after the Fall of Rome's Metal Economy

www.medievalists.net

In actual fact, the bulk of contemporary evidence — which happens to be material rather than textual — clearly argues that the people of fifth- and early sixth-century eastern Britain were much more i...

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Empress Irene was the wife of Leo IV and, on her husband’s death, she reigned as regent for her son Constantine VI from 780 to 790 CE. From 797 to 802 CE she ruled as emperor in her own right, the fir... View More

Empress Irene - Ancient History Encyclopedia

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Empress Irene was the wife of Leo IV and, on her husband’s death, she reigned as regent for her son Constantine VI from 780 to 790 CE. From 797 to 802 CE she ruled as emperor in her own right, the...

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Conquistadors chopped off his hands, so this Native Chilean fastened knives to both of his wrists and went back for revenge

www.thevintagenews.com

The Mapuche are a group of American Indians who are from Chile, and there are some that live in Argentina as well. The Mapuche Indians are a very important

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Columbus and the Lens of History | HowardZinn.org

howardzinn.org

For Columbus Day, we feature an excerpt from Chapter One of A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn describes why he tells the story of Columbus’s arrival “from the viewpoint of the Arawa...

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Take-out restaurants existed in ancient Rome and were called "thermopolia"

www.thevintagenews.com

While we tend to think of take-out food as having originated in the modern era as a result of our "too busy to prepare my own meal" lifestyle, the truth is

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Built by the Huns? Ancient Stone Monuments Discovered Along Caspian

www.livescience.com

A massive, 1,500-year-old stone complex that may have been built by nomad tribes has been discovered near the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan.

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