Awesome stories and good reads.

[Thomek]

Anyone here know about great historical stories or interesting characters? I thought we could make a thread here.

I'll start:

18y old Norwegian King who went on a crusade to the holy land in y1107:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Crusade

[[ptx]]

Not so much a story as an enigma - the Bronze Age collapse.

Pretty much a case of WTF.

[Vibe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks

[Cepeshi]

replying so i get to see updates, yeah, i know about notify but that is for suckers

[Tagora]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalulu

P.S. I'm not going to focus on stories but on people from certain eras of history that I find fascinating.

[Tagora]

http://www.oldenwilde.org/srasmus/oldentext/merrymount.html

[Tagora]

[19th Cent. UNITED STATES]

So if anyone is like me and absolutely craves everything related to the old west, here's a link to a PBS article on ALFRED DOTEN, 1829-1903, who journaled his entire life from sailing from Massachusetts (?) aboard the YEOMAN to California.  I'm going to see if I can get a hold of his journals soon so I can at least glance through them.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldrush/peopleevents/p_doten.html

[Tagora]

[16th Cent. ITALY]

CARLO GESUALDO (1566 –1613):

"..Italian composer-prince who murdered his wife and her lover, was into wild bouts of self-flagellation, and who at the end of the 16th century wrote some of the most chromatic vocal music ever conceived in self-pitying lamentation for his human condition." 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/mar/18/carlo-gesualdo-composer-psychopath

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Gesualdo

[IR_Kuoin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_(water_spirit) Nordic lake monster

[Tagora]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_(water_spirit) Nordic lake monster

Ah, this reminded me of legends on the Rhine.  My mother's name is Loreley, which comes from the German Lorelei, a rock on the Rhine where a beautiful woman's apparition sits bewitching sailors. 

(click to show/hide)

I know not what it should imply,
That I am so forlorn;
A tale from times so long gone by
From my thoughts will not be torn.
The air is cool and it darkens,
And the Rhine does calmly flow;
The peak of the mountain sparkles
In the sinking sun’s last glow.
The most beautiful maiden so
Alights, but wondrously up there.
It blazes, her golden bow,
She combs her golden hair.
She combs it with golden comb
And thereby sings a song;
A seeming wonder-tome
With a melodye violent-strong.
The seaman in his tiny yacht
It grasps with wilding woe,
He looks not at the rock-reefs as he ought,
He looks only up from below.
I believe the swells do devour,
In the end, both skipper and skiff;
Smitten, in his final hour,
By the Lore-Ley with her riff.

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

"More weight!"

Good shit.

[Sandersson Jankins]

Frisian 7-foot-tall giant goes on a pirating rampage after his village is burned. Allegedly could bend coins using just hit thumb and forefinger, and wielded a 6.6kg greatsword that was capable of beheading multiple Hollanders with one swipe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Gerlofs_Donia

[Tyrell]

Anyone here know about great historical stories or interesting characters? I thought we could make a thread here.

I'll start:

18y old Norwegian King who went on a crusade to the holy land in y1107:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Crusade

Thanks for that link, that's really interesting.

[Zanze]

http://badassoftheweek.com/


Most of what this guy has written of. (He does include Pier, and I am positive he mentioned the norwegian crusade at some point...)