BreezeCauthon

Dang, Fadran is gone 

I hop on here every once in a while, and it always makes me happy to see that Fadran is still going strong.

I was stung by a bee for the first time today.

That is all.

After some consideration, I have decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Shard. My reasoning is twofold.

First, my summer is getting pretty busy. Currently I am working on a political campaign, running a lawn mowing business, serving on the board of my local civic association, and practicing for a play (plus, summer vacations).

Secondly, I would like to purpose to spend a little less time in front of the computer.

So - goodbye! Y'all really are great. I'll miss you. I'll probably pop in now and again to say hi, so I guess this isn't goodbye permanently.

During the Hundred Years' War, French forces captured the town of Jageau, held by British nobleman William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. Suffolk himself was also captured - by a regular soldier, which was quite humiliating.

But Suffolk, being an enterprising man, denied the French this humiliation by, just before being taken captive, knighting the soldier who captured him. There was nothing so very embarrassing about being captured by a knight, after all.

It was a win-win. Suffolk saved face, and the French got a legend in the newly-made Sir Guillaume Renault. The end.

During the Siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, the Crusaders launched an attack on the city with a large covered battering ram. As it advanced inexorably, the Arabic defenders struggled desperately to set it on fire.

Despite their best efforts, the ram reached the first layer of walls and opened a hole in them. The panicked Arabs rained all their firepower down on the ram. The Crusaders managed to gather their limited supply of water and put the fire out.

There was a brief pause. The Crusaders realized, with horror, that the ram was stuck in the wall and was blocking their line of advance.

There was only one thing to do.

In an ironic reversal of the situation, the Crusaders began raining fire down on their own ram, while the Arabs, responding in the only way they logically could, began pouring water from the ramparts, trying to preserve the obstruction.

(The ram eventually ended up being destroyed, preparing the way for an assault on the main walls later on.)

The end.

In the late 1380s, Khan Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde launched attacks into the Timurid Empire. Tamerlane (a corruption of Timur the Lame, so called because of crippling injuries to his right leg and hand), leader of the Timurids, was outraged, and before retaliating, conducted an investigation of his own troops to see how they had responded to the attacks.

Most were exonerated, but one soldier was found guilty of cowardice. As a punishment, the soldier was forced to shave his beard, dress in drag, and run barefoot through the city of Samarkand. You gotta hand it to Tamerlane for creativity.

Honestly, the dude got off pretty light considering that cowardice has often been considered a crime worthy of execution (and Tamerlane was hardly a merciful ruler).

Incidentally, Tokhtamysh's distantly removed great-great...-great uncle was the fabulously named Great Khan Monke.

At one point during the Hundred Years' War (actually a series of conflicts lasting 114 years) between France and England, the two sides became involved in a proxy war for the throne of Castile (a powerful kingdom in modern Spain).

England backed King Pedro (known, presumably depending on one's allegiances, as either Pedro the Cruel or Pedro the Just), while France supported another claimant, Pedro's half-brother Henry of Trastamara. 

But there was a third country involved in this proxy war - Navarre, a neighboring Spanish kingdom, led by the ignominiously named Charles the Bad. Navarre was officially an ally of Pedro, but Charles, being the Bad boy that he was, didn't stick to his word. In 1365, he secretly agreed to allow French forces through Navarre to attack Castile and elevate Henry to the throne.

But Charles, being Bad, didn't intend to follow this agreement either. Probably thinking he was terribly clever, he attempted to close the Castile-Navarre border to the British troops, refusing to aid either side. Unfortunately for Charles, the French weren't fazed by this and simply marched into Castile anyway. Charles ended up just paying them a bunch of money to not plunder too much.

Eventually, Pedro was deposed and fled to English-controlled Aquitaine, a region in France. The English launched a campaign to reinstate him. As a part of this, Charles agreed to open the Navarrese borders into Castile and support the English/Pedro-ish cause in exchange for money and territory.

In a boldly original move for Charles, he then went to Castile and agreed, in exchange for money and territory, to close the borders and support Henry's cause.

The English didn't think much of this, and prepared to invade Navarre. Charles rushed back to them and agreed to open the borders after all. Then, having made promises to both sides and not wishing to keep either of them, he hired a French knight to 'kidnap' him and 'hold him hostage' until the fighting in Castile was over. Apparently, Charles and his accomplices were pretty Bad actors, because everybody saw through the ruse and making fun of Charles became a popular source of entertainment in Western Europe.

Charles' death, incidentally, was a strange one. The exact story varies, but everyone agrees that for whatever reason, his doctor prescribed for him to be wrapped tightly in a linen sack doused in alcohol, which by some freak accident caught on fire and... well, that was that for Charles. The end.