In the early 8th century the fate of the world hung in the balance when a series of defeats tested the might of the Umayyad Caliphate!

From Spain to China the diabolical onslaught of Jihad was halted and pushed back.

[Thread]🧵 • Jihad •

After the death of Muhammad, his followers invaded the Roman Empire and Persia.

Both empires suffered devastating defeats at the battles of Yarmouk and al-Qadisiyyah, respectively.

The Muslims captured the Levant from the Romans and Iraq from the Persians before effectively destroying the remnants of the Persian army at Nahavand in 642.

The Fourth Crusade was a disaster not only for the eastern Roman Empire but for all of Christendom.

The new Latin Empire diverted manpower and funding desperately needed by the faltering Kingdom of Jerusalem.

This is a thread on the disastrous fallout of 1204.

[Thread]🧵 The original plan for the Fourth Crusade was to sail to Egypt to deal a critical blow to the Fatimids before marching on Egypt.

Poor planning meant that the crusade was diverted to sack the Catholic city of Zara and then Constantinople in order to secure the funds for their Venetian transport bill.

Today in AD 1204:

An exasperated crusader army sat outside Constantinople, baying for blood and gold, ready to sack the city.

What followed was one of the most tragic incidents in the history of the world.

[𝐌𝐞𝐠𝐚 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝]🧵 In decades prior, Western nations had grown increasingly frustrated with their perceived duplicity of the east Roman Empire, due to the biased accounts of past crusaders looking for someone to blame for their failed expeditions, and the idiotic actions of the emperor Isaac Angelos during the Third Crusade.

They lost respect for the empire’s dwindling power amid the misrule of the usurper emperors after the death of the capable & conciliatory Manuel I who launched multiple expeditions to aid the Kingdom of Jerusalem in attacking Fatimid Egypt.

By far, one of the most underrated generals of the 12th century was Andronikos Kontostephanos!

A great warrior who led campaigns against the Egyptians, Hungarians and Venetians but whose life ended in tragedy.

[Thread] 🧵 Born in 1122 in Constantinople to Stephanos Kontostephanos and Anna Komnene, the daughter of the emperor John Komnenos, Andronikos was destined for a life of imperial service as the nephew of the reigning Roman Emperor Manuel!

At this time the empire was on stronger footing than in the latter half of the preceding century following the First Crusade but now had to find its way in a world where hostility and alliances were to be found with kingdoms on all of its borders.

The Middle Ages are known for duels, jousts and single-combat, but often only in Western Europe.

Less attention is paid to the exciting duels and single-combats fought in the east Roman Empire!

[Thread]🧵 • Valaris & Artabazes •

During the Roman reconquest of Italy, Valaris won fame when he rode up to the Roman battle lines before the Battle of Faventia and issued a challenge to any Roman soldier brave enough to face him!

Artabazes accepted his challenge and the two fought a duel.

Valaris was struck under a gap in his armour at the armpit, but Artabazes was cut by Valaris’ spear while sinking his own spear into him!

Valaris died immediately and Artabazes died of his wounds three days later, and the bravery of the two men has been talked of ever since.

Today in AD 1190,

One hundred and fifty Jews died in the tragic massacre of Clifford’s Tower in York.

[Thread] 🧵 With the arrival of the Normans in 1066 came a number of Jews from Rouen who settle primarily in the cities of England where they could rely on royal protection.

𝐁𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡!

Two thousand & sixty nine years ago today:

Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered by a pack of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus & Cassius Longinus!

His death would ignite a war that would change the world forever.

[𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝]🧵 After defeating Pompey and the senatorial faction in the civil war that erupted from the power struggle prompted by his unauthorised conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar was left as the most powerful man in Rome and had the Senate declare him dictator in perpetuity

Mighty were the Romans, and mightiest among them was 𝐀𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧, the general who came from obscurity to rescue the empire and restore the world.

[Thread]🧵 • 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐲 •

The stability of the Roman Empire faltered in the third century. Beginning with the fall of the Severan dynasty upon the murder of Emperor Severus Alexander in the aftermath of a defeat of his army by Germanic tribes who had slowly grown in strength over the preceding centuries.

The troops declared Maximinus Thrax as emperor but this led to the Year of the Six Emperors which saw all claimants killed.

The 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐳𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐭 was a defeat which plunged the Roman Empire into a civil war that brought the Empire down to depths of despair never known before!

A tale of disaster and betrayal…

[Thread]🧵 At the beginning of the 11th Century, the Roman Empire was at the height of its medieval power thanks to the indomitable spirit and military capability of Basil II Boulgaroktónos who extended the empire’s borders on all fronts.

Æthelfrith, the mighty king of Bernicia ruled for 23 years and ‘ravaged the Britons more than all the great men of the English’

Victor in war against the Gaels, and the Britons, and the Angles!

[Thread] 🧵 Æthelfrith, son of Æthelric, son of Ida, became king of the Angles of Bernicia in AD 593!

Nikephoros Phokas, of warriors most renowned, the hope of Christendom, the morning star that approaches…

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐬!

[Thread]🧵 Long gone, by the 10th century, was the inimitable dominion of the Roman Empire. But despite a centuries long struggle with rival powers on all sides, the empire remained strong, and proud.

In AD 1265:

Simon de Montfort was hunted down and butchered by a medieval death squad at the Battle of Evesham!

This is how he met such a grizzly end.

[thread]🧵 Misrule by the inept & inconsistent Henry III led to widespread discontent and eventually rebellion by many of the major barons in England.

This culminated in the Battle of Lewes.

𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐚𝐥𝐥; 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐰𝐧.’

In AD 1209, the army of the Albigensian Crusade massacred the inhabitants of the town of Beziers!

It was a day of bloodshed and butchery.

[Thread]🧵 On the 21st of July, the army, led by the Papal legate & Abbot of Citeaux, Arnaud Amalric, reached the town of Beziers.

Not many townsfolk had decided to leave and the Bishop of Beziers attempted to negotiate.

He was given a list of 222 of Cathars & Waldensians to hand over.

In AD 1204:

Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor in Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade captured and sacked the city!

Within a year he was defeated, captured, and murdered.

[Thread] 🧵 In 1204, the Crusade army camped outside of Constantinople learned that their puppet emperor installed in the city, 21 year old Alexios IV, had been murdered and that they would not receive the money he had promised them.

The time to attack had arrived.

For twenty years Penda of Mercia expanded his dominion at the point of the sword and butchered anyone who stood in his way.

This is the brutal life of one of the last Pagan Kings in England!

[Thread]🧵 Penda, son of Pybba, who claimed descent from Wöden, was ‘a most warlike man of the royal race of the Mercians’.

It is claimed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that he became king in AD 626 and fought the West Saxons at Cirencester in 628. If he was not yet king, he was a leader of a powerful war band!

For fifty years Basil II ruled the Empire of the Romans, campaigning tirelessly to secure the borders and bring peace through war.

This is a thread on the mighty life of the greatest ever soldier-emperor:

• The Purple-born Bulgar Slayer •

🧵[Thread] Basil was born in the purple chamber of the imperial palace in Constantinople in AD 958, earning him the moniker ‘Porphyrogénnetos’.

Following the death of his father in 963, Basil’s early life was dominated by regent co-emperors; Nikephoros Phokas & John Tzimiskes, rebelling generals, and overbearing conspiratorial ministers.

When he was 18 the last of his regents, Tzimiskes, died, leaving him as emperor but still partially under the thumb of his chief minister & relative Basil Lekapenos who even provoked a failed rebellion by removing the general Bardas Skleros from power.

These attempts to usurp and control Basil had a profound impact on his rule and personality later in his life.

In AD 9:

Three Roman legions were slaughtered in one of the most shocking and notorious defeats the Roman Empire had ever suffered.

In the 𝐓𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐠 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 disaster!

[Thread]🧵 The territory under control of the Roman republic saw significant expansion in the first century BC. With Julius Caesar’s Gallic War came fighting with the Germanic tribes.
Caesar himself crossed the Rhine twice!

In the aftermath of the slaughter at Battle of Hastings, the 14 year old Edgar Ætheling was proclaimed King of England!

This is a thread on the long adventurous life of the last Ætheling of the Anglo-Saxon world.

🧵 • 𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐋𝐄 •

In AD 1016, the Danish King Cnut conquered England in the same year the Anglo-Saxon King Edmund Ironside died.

Cnut sent Edmund’s two infant sons, Edward and Edmund, to the Swedish court of Olof Skötkonung with the instructions that they be quietly murdered.

However Olof refused to kill the boys.

In AD 1485:

Richard III made his last charge against the Tudor forces at the Battle of Bosworth, where he died fighting alone among his enemies!

This is the story of the end of the Plantagenet Dynasty at the dawn of the modern world.

[Thread] 🧵 Richard ruled as king for two years after usurping and disposing of the sons of his older brother, Edward IV.

But the bitterness created among elite English society by the Wars of the Roses ran too deep & many still sought after a Lancastrian king.

In AD 1018:

The Lombard Melus & his Norman allies were crushed by the Catepan of Italy and his army of the legendary Varangian Guard.

At the 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐞!

[Thread]🧵 In AD 1009;
The 33rd year of the reign of the emperor Basil II:

Melus and his brother Dattus rebelled against eastern Roman control of Apulia in Italy and quickly took Bari before losing the city in 1011.

Fleeing to Salerno and the protection of the Pope, Melus had not given up his hopes of power in Southern Italy!

In AD 1415,

Henry V won possibly the greatest victory ever achieved by the men of England at the

𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓

[Thread]🧵 In AD 1413 Henry V as crowned king and reasserted the claim to the throne of France that stemmed from his great great grandfather Edward III.

Negotiations had failed by 1415 and Henry was resolved to invade France and won the backing of Parliament.