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.

An actual quote from William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England, a near-contemporary account of this occurrence from the conquests of William the Conqueror: 

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Favoured by God’s assistance, he [William] easily reduced the city of Exeter, when it had rebelled; for part of the wall fell down accidentally, and made an opening for him. Indeed he had attacked it with the more ferocity, asserting that those irreverent men would be deserted by God’s favour, because one of them, standing upon the wall, had bared his posteriors, and had broken wind, in contempt of the Normans.

 

Next time somebody starts an RP, let me know first, because they always seem interesting, but I always notice them after they've been going too long to hop in.

If you ever feel like your governor is bad, just be glad they aren't Henry S. Johnston of Oklahoma (governor from 1927-29), who was impeached and removed by the Oklahoma state legislature for "general incompetence." I mean, yikes. That's gotta sting a little. (I was going to end here, but... it gets more interesting).

The remainder of Johnston's term was served by his lieutenant governor, William J. Holloway. In the next election, Oklahomans said "ah what the heck, why not?" and elected this guy, "Alfalfa Bill" Murray:

At one point, Texas and Oklahoma agreed to build a toll-free bridge (for reference, we will call this The Bridge) across the Red River (which composed the border of the two states). However, the owners of a nearby toll bridge (for reference, we will call this The Other Bridge) sued Texas and obtained an injunction against the opening of The Bridge. Texas, in accordance with the injunction, closed The Bridge, barricading it on the Texas end.

Alfalfa Bill wasn't having this, so he ordered The Bridge open, invaded Texas (claiming that both sides of the river actually belonged to Oklahoma), and demolished the barricades. Texas Gov. Ross Sterling sent troops to guard the prompt rebuilding of barricades.

While this was happening, Alfalfa Bill blew up The Other Bridge, and declared martial law over both bridges. At this point, the opposition crumbled, The Bridge was opened, and the injunction was lifted.

Alfalfa Bill mobilized the National Guard 47 times as governor, and declared martial law a whopping 30 times (both were, and, if I am correct, still are, records). The end.

Today's history thingummybob (credit to @Channelknight Fadran for alerting me to this story):

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Once there was an Australian guy in France named 'Fats.' Well, his real name was Lawrence Dominic McCarthy, but he was a bit pudgy, so his fellow soldiers called him Fats. 

This was in WWI, by the way.

If you know one thing about WWI, it's probably this: trenches. Basically, two sides would dig big long trenches and sit there taking potshots at each other, for somewhere between weeks and years. Every now and again, one side or the other would amass their troops, and send them charging across no-man's land, usually to get massacred, but occasionally to conquer the enemy trench and end the stalemate.

Fats clearly wasn't a big fan of the whole 'amassing' thing, so one day as his troops were amassing, he grabbed a pal and charged off essentially by himself, leaving the rest of his troops in the dust.

By some miracle, he made it to a machine gun nest, which he promptly cleared. Then, with nothing but his rifle and pal, he entered the German trench and captured THREE more machine gun nests. His buddy was wounded, but Fats continued fighting (picking up some German grenades along the way). By the end of the day, he had captured over 1,500 feet of trench, killed 22 Germans, and captured over 50.

After this, as Fadran correctly puts it: "the German prisoners surrounded him and proceeded to congratulate him on his pure, unbounded awesomeness."

One official historian called this "perhaps the most effective feat of individual fighting in the history of the Australian Imperial Forces." The end.

Okay, here's your history story for the week.

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The year is 1198. Pope Innocent III wants very much to unleash another crusade upon the Holy Land, and he wants two men at its head: King Richard the Lionheart of England and King Philip II of France, some of the most powerful nobles in Europe.

Unfortunately the two kings were not on speaking terms. They had a falling out after the last crusade. So the Pope dispatched a legate (one Peter of Capua) to Richard to try and mend the gap.

Peter informed the King that his hostility towards Philip was harming the Christian presence in the Holy Land, and would he consider making up?

Richard responded with the classic "he started it" argument, pointing out that Philip had absconded from the Third Crusade early on and used the opportunity to steal much of Richard's land in northern Europe. When Richard returned to Europe, he was imprisoned by rivals, and Philip exerted influence to keep him imprisoned. So, concluded Richard, he would only come to an agreement if Philip returned every last piece of stolen land.

In a masterpiece of passive-aggression, Peter of Capua replied: "Ah, sire, how true it is that no one can have everything that he wants."

Richard had no response to this put-down, and agreed to a five-year truce conditional upon the return of only some of his lands.

Peter had now what he wanted, but unwisely decided to press the advantage. Would King Richard mind also releasing from captivity Bishop Philip Beauvais? After all, it wasn't right to hold a churchman prisoner.

As a matter of fact, Richard did mind. (Bishop Philip had encouraged Richard's jailers to treat him harshly during Richard's own captivity, and had taken up arms against Richard. He was "one of the men Richard hated most in all the world," according to a near-contemporary history).

Richard had, to put it simply, had enough, and unleashed an impressive rant:

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 "By my head, he is deconsecrated for he is a false Christian. It was not as a bishop that he was captured, but as a knight, fighting and fully armed, a laced helmet on his head. Sir Hypocrite! What a fool you are! If you had not been an envoy I would send you back with something to show the pope which he would not forget! Never did the pope raise a finger to help me when I was in prison and wanted his help to be free. And now he asks me to set free a robber and an incendiary who has never done me anything but harm. Get out of here, Sir Traitor; liar, trickster, corrupt dealer in churches, and never let me see you again!"

Peter had no passive-aggressive response with which to mollify the King. And to cap it all off, Richard threatened to have the legate castrated.

Peter bowed before this superior line of intellectual argumentation, and left.

Neither Richard nor Philip II ended up participating in the Fourth Crusade, which succeeded in doing little other than sacking allied Constantinople. The end.

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I'm considering posting a weekly humorous historical fact/story. But I figured I would gauge interest first so that I'm not just posting into a disinterested void. 

Here is a free sample (not that the rest of it wouldn't be free, but... yeah.):

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In the late 800s AD, there was this Viking leader named (impressively) Sigurd the Mighty. At one point he challenged a Pictish leader (with the much less impressive name of Mael Brigte the Bucktoothed. Remember that. It's important.) to a 40v40 battle to settle a quarrel. Mael Brigte agreed, and arrived on the appointed day.

However, Sigurd decided to pull what is known as a pro gamer move, and brought 80 men instead of 40.

Needless to say, he was victorious. To celebrate the totally fair and well-earned victory, he beheaded Mael Brigte and hung the poor guy's head on the side of his saddle. Sigurd clearly hadn't read Proverbs 16:18...

On the ride home, Sigurd cut his calf on Mael Brigte's evidently outrageous front teeth. The cut subsequently became infected and Sigurd died. The end.

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So yeah. Should I do more?

He is risen!! Happy Easter!

Some pictures of the little guy.

I just realized I ought to have announced this 10 days ago when it happened, but...I GOT A DOG!

His name is Psmith, he's a 15-week old Papillon.

I finished Rhythm of War. It was very good, though reading about fabrial mechanics and toning forks and anti-light and so on and so forth can grow a bit tedious.

[Deleted for expletives] Moash [Deleted for expletives]!!

 

Well, since I discovered the status update ability (>cough<like last week>cough<), I've been itching for something worthwhile to post, and...

Rhythm of War has finally arrived from the library! Soon I can enter spoiler zones to my heart's content!