Aaron Cripps’ Fab Five: A Childhood Favorite, a Specter, a Pope & More

Hello, like our host my name is Aaron and I’d like to thank him for inviting us to contribute to his Fab Five series. I write a blog, Europeenses which nominally traces the route of a long distance cycle tour through parts of North-West and Central Europe that I had intended to make this year. Changing circumstances meant that I’m not able to make the tour but as I’d already started to research and draft entries I decided to go ahead with the blog anyway. In it, I write about historical events that relate to the towns, cities, or regions I’m theoretically passing through, with a handful of short biographies, regional recipes, and other pieces thrown in for good measure. Just over two months in I find myself not that far from reaching the end of the ‘journey’, which means I’ll have to rethink the purpose of my blog. Luckily Europe has a lot of history and connections with every part of the world, so I shouldn’t have too much of a problem.

Currently I work as a Librarian at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff College Library, which allows me to indulge my interest in history on a regular basis. Some of the Library’s archive collection has been digitized, so if you’re interested in World War One Tanks, The Independent Bombing Force of 1918, Operation Sealion, or Operation Overlord, you may like to take a look at some scanned documents from our archive. For my five I’ve chosen a person whose writing influenced my love of history, a person whose writing influenced history, a person who was influenced by that writing, a person who worked to end that influence, and finally a person whose actions didn’t ultimately influence history, but who nonetheless played an important role.

War Paint (Part 9): Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas

Part 9 in a 10 part series. To view other entries into the War Paint Series, follow the link.

We’ve now sailed clear through the Romanticism of the 19th century. The last few entries into the War Paint Series have been of a truly epic nature. Romantic ideas about war were left to the Napoleonic Wars and Colonial Wars of the previous century. Cavalry charges were replaced with mechanized warfare, creating casualties like never before. Cultural ideas about war began to shift along with the greater killing capacity. No longer would a man have to defeat another man in hand to hand combat, or shoot him from a distance close enough to see ‘the whites of his eyes.’ Hundreds could be mowed down by one man strategically positioned with a machine gun.

Aztec king Cuauhtémoc was executed today in 1525 by Hernán Cortés’s Spanish forces in what is now southern Campeche, Mexico. Now WE know em

This is a reblog from Now We Know Em, a blog I’ve just discovered. Cuauhtémoc is regarded as the last ruler of the Aztec, though this depends on who you ask. His reign was short and followed Montezuma II’s. You’ll learn more if you read on!

I’ve been looking for some good material to reblog regarding the Age of Exploration / Discovery. If you know of any, send it my way, either in an e-mail or to my Facebook page.

Statue of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City.

Cuauhtémoc was the Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521.

The name Cuāuhtemōc means “One That Has Descended Like an Eagle”, commonly rendered in English as “Descending Eagle” as in the moment when an eagle folds its wings and plummets down to strike its prey, so this is a name that implies aggressiveness and determination.

Cuauhtémoc took power in 1520 as successor of Cuitláhuac and was a cousin of the former emperor Moctezuma II.

His young wife, who would later be known as Isabel Moctezuma, was one of Moctezuma’s daughters.

He ascended to the throne when he was 25 years of age, as his city was being besieged by the Spanish and devastated by an epidemic of smallpox brought to the New World by Spanish invaders.

Once upon the throne, Cuauhtémoc unsuccessfully called for reinforcements from the countryside to aid the defense of…

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Undine’s Fab Five: One of the Greats of American Literature, a Pair of Conspirators & More

Edgar Allan Poe in an original daguerreotype taken by Edwin H. Manchester, 1848.

This is the seventh part in our weekly Fab Five Series, where I ask other bloggers, writers, podcasters and friends to give their five favorite historical figures. The criteria is up to them…so is the work!

Undine here. I am the author of the blogs Strange Company and the World of Edgar Allan Poe. I love history, particularly in all its odder manifestations, and I love making lists, so the Great Yesterday Unhinged Challenge was virtually irresistible to me.

I used no particular “rule” in selecting my personal Historical Fab Five. These are all very different people who, for their own differing reasons, happened to arouse my curiosity, endear themselves to me, impart important lessons to me…or simply amuse me. In one way or another, they’ve all meant something vital in my life.

So, let the parade begin!

1. Edgar Allan Poe. He is more than a great writer, he is a great thinker, who is sadly underrated as a scientific philosopher. His more esoteric writings, such as “The Domain of Arnheim” and “Ulalume” contain spiritual insights that are both profound and, once you grasp what he is trying to communicate, easily accessible. He was not a writer who talked “down” to his audience; rather, he sought to bring us up to his level. And “Eureka” is the only book I have ever read that has truly helped me make some sort of sense out of this seemingly utterly nonsensical universe of ours. For that alone, I will always feel a deep sense of gratitude towards him. On a merely aesthetic level, he wrote some of the most musical, bewitching poetry and prose works in modern English, and his critical insights played a key role in the development of American literature.

War Paint (Part 8): Battle of Grunwald

Part 8 in a 10 part series. To view other entries into the War Paint Series, follow the link.

The Battle of Grunwald, as it’s most commonly known, was one of the largest in Europe’s medieval history, was a deciding event in Eastern Europe’s history and saw the rise of a great regional power, yet often flies under the radar. The battle was fought in 1410 by the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania against the Teutonic Order near the modern Polish village of Grunwald in the country’s north.

The battle was born out of a series of events known as the Northern Crusades, in which the Teutonic Order and Scandinavian monarchies attempted to Christianize the pagan tribes of the Baltic Sea. The Teutons had seized land belonging to Lithuania, but with the Grand Duchy’s conversion to Christianity in 1385 and their union to Poland, the tides turned back in favor of the Slavs. Fought between upwards of 70,000 participants, it forever changed the landscape of the Baltic and saw the Polish-Lithuanian Union, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, become the largest state in Europe. The Teutonic Order would maintain relevance for some time, but the financial burden placed on it following its defeat would lead to a series of internal struggles that would eventually see its demise.

Croatia, between a rock and a hard place.

In the next installment in our 1014 series, Robert Horvat gives the history of the medieval Kingdom of Croatia. Stuck between the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia was going to have a tough time of it. Robert details some of the struggles they faced around the turn of the millennium. In 1014, the kingdom was ruled by Krešimir III, who would sit on the throne for 30 years. Check out more of Robet’s blog if you haven’t already!

Lope de Aguirre: You Have to Earn the Nickname “El Loco”

Etching of Lope de Aguirre, date and artist unknown.

This is the first post in the Age of Discovery Series lasting throughout March.

Lope de Aguirre is one of the more infamous conquistadors of the many thousands of men from all over Europe who set out in service of the Spanish Crown in search of adventure, fame and, most importantly, wealth. His biography ticks all the boxes for adventure and exploits. He went down in a blaze of glory after failing to achieve every conquistador’s dream of getting wealthy. His unstable nature, paranoia and numerous murders earned him the nickname “El Loco”, Spanish for the madman.

Aguirre was born in the early 1500’s in the Basque region of Oñati. Born of a minor noble family, but not being the firstborn son and, thus, not expecting much of an inheritance, Aguirre did what many men of that age did, he agreed to go to the New World. He would spend the rest of his life there.

March’s Theme: Age of Discovery

Detail of the map Americae 1562 (the Americas), Diego Gutiérrez, Hieronymus Cock (engraver), Antwerp workshop, showing a badge with a monster-fish and some ships, 1562.

Hello all. I’m writing to announce a new wrinkle for Yesterday Unhinged. The weekend long posts are going to be done in month-long themes. The themes will be based on a certain country, region, era or topic. This will not change the scheduling of posts nor their frequency. I’ve been planning to reblog more and this will give me a topic to focus on. I plan on doing two reblogs per week, one that pertains to the 1014 series and one that pertains to the monthly topic.

Jenny Bennett’s Fab Five: An Amateur Who Changed The Skies, The Definition of Incompetence & More

Luke Howard, by John Opie, date unknown.

This is the sixth part in our weekly Fab Five Series, where I ask other bloggers, writers, podcasters and friends to give their five favorite historical figures. The criteria is up to them…so is the work!

Hello, I’m Jenny Bennett. A long-time blogger, I’ve just launched a new blog called “1870 to 1918”. This gives me the chance to delve into a fascinating period when the world’s major European empires swelled to their largest expanse, only to come to crisis and cataclysm in the First World War. It takes off from posts about the Boer War on my eclectic “Endless Streams and Forests” blog, which veers wildly from hiking to history and many other topics.

As you’ll see, my Fab Five people are not all people I admire. There are so many I could name that I have to admit the following five are simply ones that popped into my head this morning.

Luke Howard (1772 – 1864): Amateur meteorologist known for coming up with the classification of clouds into cumulus, stratus, and cirrus in his work Essay on the Modification of Clouds. Why is this so interesting to me? Because it was based on gazing at the sky, not performing any rigorous experiment, and yet his categories have such a rightness about them that they will likely be used indefinitely. His observations about the shifting shapes in the sky were an inspiration to the poet Goethe.

War Paint (Part 7): Liberty Leading the People

Part 7 in a 10 part series. To view other entries into the War Paint Series, follow the link.

La Liberté guidant le peuple is a seminal piece of art by French Romanticist Eugène Delacroix. Finished in 1830, after the July Revolution, which saw the toppling and exile of monarch King Charles X of France. It has become a symbol of the Republic, and the central figure, Marianne, bearing the tricolor flag and a Phrygian cap, is a timeless figure, the same represented by the Statue of Liberty.