Real History

Welcome to my tumblr, where I post out interesting figures from history.

While these figures are largely chosen at random, there are two ongoing series. Under the #ROMA series, I will be posting the Roman emperors in chronological order, as well as the important characters that surround each of them. And to answer your question, yes I know this will take a while. Enjoy the ride.

Boudica was a leader of the ancient British tribe the Iceni and is one of the most famous, or infamous, figures in ancient British history.

Though she is often referred to as ‘Queen of the Iceni’, Boudica was actually merely the wife of the king, Prasutagus, though in the end she would come to earn her regnal title in spirit if not in practice.

Occupying territory in what is now Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, the Iceni were one of the very few tribes in southern Britain that were not outright conquered by the Romans after their invasion in 49 CE. Instead, Prasutagus became a client king, loyal to the emperor but not directly governed by the Roman state.

Boudica and Prasutagus had only two daughters. Aware of how vulnerable his children would be after he was gone, Prasutagus drew up a will namig both Emperor Nero and his daughters as his heirs. This, he hoped, would allow his family to continue enjoying their client status.

But it was not to be. Almost as soon as Prasutagus died in either 60 or 61 CE, his will was disregarded by the Romans. The Iceni were to be formally absorbed into the empire. Catus Decianus, the procurator of Britannia, called in all the loans that had been given to the Iceni and Roman troops were sent to pillage the countryside. Eventually they made their way to the royal residence, where Boudica herself, no doubt still in mourning, was acosted and then flogged.

But the worse was yet to come. Boudica’s daughters, aged 10 and 12 respectively, were raped by the Roman soldiers.

This outrage was merely the icing on the cake and the Iceni almost immediately rose in revolt, with a wrathful Boudica at the helm.

It was fortuitous timing, because the bulk of the Roman forces in Britannia were busying invading the island of Mona (modern Angelsey, Northwest Wales) under the command of governor Suetonius Paulinus.

The first target of the rebels was the provincial capital at Camulodunum. The town had once been the seat of the Trinovantes, but had since been rebuilt as a Roman settlement populated by retired veterans and their families.

As virtually their entire tribe marched south, the Iceni were joined by the Trinovantes, who were just as eager to throw off the Roman yoke.

Cassius Dio reports that by the time the rebel army arrived in the vicinity of Camulodunun, it numbered 120,000. This almost certainly includes the women and children.

By contrast, Camulodunum had no defenses to speak of and no defenders to man them anyway. The city was immediately overwhelmed. What followed was an orgy of violence.

Some of the townspeople took refuge in the newly built Temple of Claudius, but many others were not so lucky. Thousands were massacred and many had their bodies mutilated as the Britons took vengeance for their mistreatment at the hands of the Romans.

For two days, the survivors held out in the temple. Eventually, Boudica ordered it to be burned, with everyone still inside. The destruction at Camulodunum was so thorough that, to this day, there remains a black destruction layer in the soil beneath the old city, filled with ash and shards of pottery and roof tiles.

While the Temple of Claudius was under siege, the Britons also destroyed a large detachment of the Legio IX Hispana sent to relieve the city.

With Camulodunum practically levelled, Boudica now turned her attention to the other major Roman settlement in the south: the trading centre at Londonium.

By this point word had reached Paulinus on Mona and he reacted decisively. He marched his army down the major thoroughfare that later came to be known as Watling Street, which terminated in Londinium itself.

With no troops to defend itself, Londinium was destined to suffer the same fate as Camulodunum. Once again, a major Roman city was subjected to a bloody sack. Once again, thousands were butchered and mutilated as the Britons vented their fury.

After Londinium, so went Verulamium (modern St Albans). By this point, Boudica’s army had slaughtered around 80,000 people, almost all of them civilians.

The Britons seemed unstoppable. Thousands flocked to Boudica’s banner, swelling her numbers to truly massive proportions.

Paulinus and Boudica met somewhere along Watling Street, though the precise location has been lost to history. Possessing perhaps 10,000 men, Paulinus faced off against a horde Cassius Dio records as numbering 230,000 men. Again, this likely refers to entire group, including the women and children. In any case, Boudica’s fighting men still outnumbered the Romans at least 5 to 1.

For the Britons, it seemed victory was at hand. All they had to do was destroy this small army.

But Paulinus had chosen his battlefield carefully, arraying his forces across a small defile that meant the Britons could only approach from the front.

As for the Britons, they occupied the plain below. The women and children arranged the hundreds of wagons in a great arc across the plain so that they could watch the coming spectacle.

When Boudica finally gave the order, her warriors surged forward in a direct assault, intending to overwhelm the Romans by numbers alone. Unfortunately, Boudica, formidable though she may be, was not an experienced military commander and the situation that her army now found itself in was exactly the kind of situation in which the Roman army was nigh on unstoppable.

The battle was a slaughter. Once the initial momentum of the Briton charge was spent, the Romans went to work and ground their enemies into the dirt. And the British numbers now worked against them. The sheer mass of warriors meant that those at the front were unable to retreat and they were cut down.

Paulinus delivered the coup de grace when his cavalry swept in from the flanks and a full on rout ensued.

But the disaster was about to get worse. The wall of wagons made it much harder for the Britons to withdraw and tens of thousands were killed as they attempted to squeeze through the narrow gaps en masse.

Tacitus reports that between 70,000 and 80,000 Britons died on that day, a truly staggering number. Paulinus’ victory could not have been more complete. Rome continued to rule Britannia for 350 years.

Mabel de Bellême was a 11th Century Norman noblewoman.

It is difficult to overstate just how vicious Norman politics were in the 10th and 11th Centuries. Competition for land was fierce and bloody feuds between noble families abounded. Disputes were often settled at the point of a sword. Even in the Middle Ages, the Normans were a particularly warlike people.

The House of Bellême, one of the most powerful noble families in the region with huge estates that straddled the southern border between Normandy and the County of Maine, had a reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty.

Sometime around 1050, Mabel married Roger de Montgomery, a companion of Duke William, later known as William the Conqueror.

Mabel inherited the huge Bellême estates from her father in 1060, her older brother Arnulf having died in 1049.

In the early 1060s Mabel continued the her father’s feud with the Giroie family by convincing, with her husband, Duke William to confiscate their lands and transfer them to the Bellêmes. When William later promised to forgive Arnold de Echauffour (son of the man her father had mutilated) and restore his estates, Mabel decided to murder Arnold. Her initial attempt was unsuccessful when her victim declined to drink a goblet of poisoned wine she had offered. Ironically, the wine was instead accidentaly consumed by her brother-in-law, who died not long after. Despite this setback, Mabel later got her man by bribing one of Arnold’s servants to administer poison to his master.

Mabel appears to have had an antagonistic relationship with the clergy. She had a penchant for bring large retinues to monasteries. When the abbott of Saint-Evroul complained that she and her men were pushing the monastery’s limited resources to the limit, Mabel replied that next time she would bring an even larger entourage.

Werner Voss was a German fighter pilot during the First World War.

After the outbreak of war in July 1914, Voss initially joined the cavarly at the age of just 17 before transferring to the Luftstreitkrafte, the air arm of the German Army, in August 1915. There he would discover that he was born to fly.

It quickly became apparent after he began training that Voss was a naturally gifted pilot, so much so that immediately after graduating from flight school, he was retained as a flight instructor.

In November 1916, Voss was transferred to Jagdstaffel 2, the most famous German fighter squadron of the Great War. This particular squadron was, thanks to superb commanding officers such as Oswald Boelcke, at the cutting edge of fighter tactics. This was still in the very earliest days of aerial combat and many of its foundational principles were forged in combat by men such as the pilots of Jagdstaffel 2. They were young, fearless and ultra-aggressive.

It was at Jagd 2 that Voss met another gifted young pilot, Manfred von Richtofen, later known as the Red Baron. Despite the differences in social class, the two young men became close friends, spending much of their leave with each other’s family.

However, the business of Jadg 2 was aerial combat and this was an arena in which Voss excelled.

By mid-September 1917, Voss had scored 47 victories. Von Richtofen regarded his friend as his closest rival in talent and skill.

On the morning of 23 September Voss downed yet another Allied aircraft. Later that afternoon he departed on a second, fateful patrol.

Isolated from the rest of his squadron, Voss was engaged by ‘B’ and ‘C’ Flights of the British 56 Squadron.

In perhaps the most frenetic dogfight of the war, Voss, by now flying his iconic Fokker Triplane, put on a masterclass in aerial combat. Despite being attacked from literally every direction, Voss went toe-to-toe with his British adversaries, some of whom were aces in their own right.

With freakish skill, he danced his tri-plane through the air, evading British fire and hitting his mark in response. He shredded the tails and wings of some and put holes in the engines of others. Several British pilots were forced to make emergency landings.

Though the British accounts are sometimes contradictory, it is believed that Voss had at least two opportunities to retreat to safety but refused to do so for reasons unknown. This would prove fatal.

Despite showing astounding skill, Voss was eventually caught by enemy fire. After remaining in the air for a few moments, his tri-plane crashed to the earth.

Though he had eventually fallen, he had fought no less than 8 British fighters for a total of 8 minutes, an eon in aerial combat terms. He had landed hits on every single one of his opponents.

Though they did not know who it was they had shot down at the time, his battered British adversaries were amazed by his courage and skill mourned that they were unable to take their mystery opponent alive.

The hectic character of the dogfight led to differing accounts from the survivors, ensuring that it remains one of the most debated aerial engagements of the war.

Tlahuicole was a famous warrior of the Tlaxcala Confederacy, a Pre-Columbian polity that was a long-standing geopolitical rival of the neighbouring Triple Alliance, more commonly known as the Aztec Empire.

Tlaxcala and its regional allies Huexotzinco and Cholula had been engaged in intermittent warfare against the Triple Alliance and sometimes among themselves for decades prior to the arrival of the Spanish in 1519.

Though details of most of his life are scarce, his apparent exalted status among the Tlaxcalteca makes it reasonable to assume that Tlahuicole was heavily involved in the bloody battles of the first decades of the 16th century.

The first real details of Tlahuicole’s life date to around 1516. Texcoco, second city of the Triple Alliance, had fallen into civil war amongst rival claimants to its throne. One claimant was backed by Moteczuma II of Tenochtitlan and another was supported by Tlaxcala.

Tlahuicole led the Tlaxcaltec contingent in this conflict but was ambushed and captured by a Huexotzinca commander.

Tlahuicole was sent to Moteczuma as a prize, but the emperor apparently held him in such high regard that he offered to release Tlahuicole. This generosity stung Tlahuicole’s honour and he refused, saying it would be shameful if he returned to his homeland while the other Tlaxcaltec prisoners were sacrificed to the gods. He was adamant that he should share the same fate as his countrymen.

Moteczuma could not countenance sacrificing such a great champion and instead offered an alternative solution. He would give Tlahuicole command of an army marching against the Purepecha, a powerful people that had invaded Triple Alliance territory. Hoping to die in battle, Tlahuicole accepted.

After winning several bloody victories, he returned to Tenochtitlan with many spoils and captives. Again, Moteczuma offered to send him back to Tlaxcala and again he refused. He also rejected the offer to command all of the Triple Alliance’s armies, sinch that would inevitably result in him leading a Mexica army against his own people.

Finally, Moteczuma consented to give the great warrior what he wanted most. To die in battle.

Tlahuicole was fully equipped for battle and tied to a stone in a great, open square. With Moteczuma and his court spectating, eight of Anahuac’s greatest warriors attacked one at a time. Each were defeated, though Tlahuicole did not kill them. The ninth opponent landed a blow to Tlahuicole’s head, stunning him. The Anahuaca warrior then killed his adversary.

The so-called Spanish Road was a route that linked the Duchy of Milan to the Spanish Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries.

When Philip II of Spain began imposing Counter-Reformation policies in his massive domains, there was little issue in most of his lands. This was not the case in the Netherlands. In 1568, the majority-Calvinist provinces rose in revolt, triggering the Eighty-Years War.

Philip was immediately faced with a problem: how to get his armies to the Low Countries? Transporting them by sea inevitably involved running a gauntlet of hostile French, English and Dutch fleets. The risks were unacceptable.

The only solution was to go overland. Fortunately, Philip had also received the Counties of Franche-Comte and Luxembourg as well as the Duchy of Milan. After securing alliances with the Count of Savoy and the Duke of Lorraine, the Spanish now had a means of marching the roughly 1000km from Italy to the Netherlands entirely within friendly territory.

A 10,000-man Spanish army made the journey for the first time in 1567. This force became the Army of Flanders, a permanent standing army that was widely considered the most formidable fighting force in Western Europe for the first 80 or so years of its existence. By 1574, it had swelled to 86,000 men.

The Spanish Road thus became a crucial artery down with men, material and most importantly money flowed to the Spanish Netherlands.

However, the French were determined to sever this connection. Savoy was defeated by France in a brief conflict in 1600-1601 and was forced to cede the provinces of Bugey and Bresse in the north on the border of Franche-Comte. This cut the Spanish Road for the first time.

The Spanish were forced to search for an alternative. They found it in the Stelvio Pass, northeast of Milan. After traversing the pass, Spanish troops could march through the allied Austrian Habsburg domains of the Tyrol, Further Austria and Upper Alsace to reach Franche-Comte.

To reach the Stelvio Pass, any army had to march through the Valtelline, an alpine valley that now became perhaps the most strategically important region in Europe.

This importance only increased with the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1619.

Annexed by Spain in 1620, Spanish troops, supplies and money flowed down the Spanish Road anew.

When France finally entered the Thirty Years War in 1635, a French force was despatched to contest Spanish control of the Valtelline. Another French army managed to defeat the Austrians at Breisach in 1638 and permananty annexed Upper Alsace. Thus the Spanish Road was severed in two places. It was never reconstituted.

The subsequent decisive failure of Spanish efforts to reinforce the Army of Flanders by sea was a major factor in bringing the Eighty Years War to an end in 1648, highlighting the importance of the Spanish Road..

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger was a Roman philosopher, politician and dramatist.

Born in the Iberian province of Baetica, Seneca was brought to Rome as a child.

Very little is known of his early years but that he was highly educated is beyond doubt. Attalus the Stoic, Sotion and Papirius Fabianus were among his tutors. It is from these men that Seneca learned the tenets of the philosophical school to which he himself would ascribe: Stoicism.

After he was elected to the office of Quaestor, he was permitted to sit in the Senate.

In 41 CE, Seneca fell afoul of the empress Messalina, who accused him of adultery with Julia Livilla, sister of Caligula and Agrippina the Younger. The emperor Claudius sent him into exile, where he would spent the next 8 years.

Seneca’s earliest surviving written works date to this period.

In 49 CE, the newly ascendant Agrippina recalled him to Rome, contrived for him to gain the Praetorship and appointed him as tutor to the future emperor Nero.

When Nero assumed the throne in 54 CE, Seneca formed a political partnership with the Praetorian Prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus. Together, they were able to influence and guide the younger emperor. Indeed, contemporary sources consider the first 5 years of Nero’s reign as good and competent.

But it was not to last. As Nero grew older, their influence appears to have slowly waned. When Burrus died in 62 CE, Seneca’s influence entered a swift decline. Likely recognising this, he attempted to retire that same year but Nero refused him.

Seneca tried again 64 but was again denied, though by that point he spent very little time in Rome anyway, preferring to live quietly on his country estates and continuing his philosophical writings.

In 65 CE, a conspiracy to assassinate Nero was foiled. Many prominent members of Rome’s political class were implicated, including, supposedly, Seneca. As he had done with many others, Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide, which the aged philosopher duly did. Modern historians consider the veracity of claims of Seneca’s involvement to be suspect.

Daniel Montbars was a French buccaneer active at the second half of the 17th century and one of the most brutal pirates of his age.

In contrast to the pirate stereotype, Montbars hailed from a well off family in southern France was raised as a gentleman, in the old aristocratic sense.

He first left France in 1667 to serve alongside his uncle in the French Royal Navy in war against Spain.

Their ship was dispatched to the West Indies but, fatefully, the vessel was destroyed by Spanish warships at some indeterminate time after their arrival. Montbars’ uncle was killed in the battle but Montbars himself, likely only in his early 20s at the time, managed to escape.

Stranded in the essentially lawless West Indies, Montbars did what any sensible man would do and made his way to the infamous haven of vice and, even worse, pirates: Tortuga.

His apparent determination to go to Tortuga rather than the French colonies on, say, Martinique or St Kitts seems to speak to his motivation for serving in the Royal Navy in the first place. It appears that Montbars possessed a real hatred for the Spanish, an animus that only intensified after the death of his uncle at Spanish hands.

Thus the decision to go to Tortuga, and everything that came after it, highlights that Montbars was a man determined to fight and kill Spaniards.

And fight and kill Spaniards he did. After arriving in Tortuga, he joined a buccaneer crew, ‘buccaneer’ being a term used to describe the freebooters who preyed primarily on Spanish shipping in the Caribbean during the 17th century.

Evidently Montbars was possessed of some talent as a sailor and a leader, because he quickly became the captain of his own ship. Finally, he had the means to really get stuck into the Spanish.

In contrast to most modern conceptions of piracy, in the 17th century such outlaws did not confine their activities to the sea. Coastal settlements were also fair game.

Montbars attacked dozens of Spanish settlements, his crews pillaging, raping and slaughtering as they went.

Venezuela suffered particularly harshly at his hands, with ports all along the coast subject to his wrath. Even Maracaibo, on the shores of the lake of the same name, did not escape his predations.

Montbars himself became known for offering no quarter to his Spanish victims and for torturing those unfortunate souls he captured. He is perhaps most infamous for the method of fatal torture in which the victims belly was cut open, the end of their intestine extracted and nailed to a post. They were then forced to ‘dance’ by beating them with a burning log. In this way, they essentially eviscerated themselves.

Such was the frequency, geographic proliferation and sheer brutality of Montbars’ depredations that across the Spanish Main, he was known as Montbars the Exterminator.

However, Montbars was no alone his savagery towards the Spanish during the period. He was matched in his viciousness by his contemporaries, Roche Braziliano and Francois L’Ollonais.

For such a notorious pirate, surprisingly little is know if his ultimate fate. The date and circumstances of his demise are unknown, though 1707 is the most commonly proposed year of death. Even this still leaves several decades unaccounted for, given he is known to have been active mostly in the 1670s.

The sisters Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị are famous figures in ancient Vietnamese history.

Members of the Lac Viet ethnic group, the two sisters grew up in a wealthy aristocratic family in what is now Hanoi.

Most of modern Vietnam is the 1st century CE had been ruled by the Chinese Han Dynasty since 111 BCE. This period is known in Vietnamese history as the First Era of Northern Domination.

The Chinese regional governor in the first half of the 1st century CE was said to be a cruel tyrant. His actions appear to have been the catalyst for a rebellion against Han rule.

Some accounts record that the execution of Trưng Trắc’s husband was the trigger, while others state that she stood to have her substantial future inheritance drastically reduced by new laws. Whatever the case, in 40 CE the Trưng sisters instigated a massive Lac Viet revolt against the Han.

Beginning in the north, the rising quickly spread south to what is now central Vietnam.

It is said that 65 towns declared their support for the Trưng sisters.

The scale of the revolt overwhelmed the local Han forces and they fled northwards.

As the leader of the rebellion, Trưng Trắc was declared queen of a new Vietnamese state, ending almost 250 years of Chinese domination and 129 years of direct Han rule.

However, the Han emperor Guangwu was not prepared to relinquish his southernmost territories so easily.

Late in 42 CE, the general Ma Yuan led an army of more than 30,000 men into northern Vietnam, while a large war fleet sailed down the coast.

Despite their determined resistance, the sisters were outmatched. After suffering several defeats, the sisters were captured in early 43 CE. Ma Yuan had them beheaded and sent their heads to the imperial capital at Luoyang.

Ma Yuan’s victory initiated the period of Vietnamese history known as the Second Era of Northern Domination, which would last more than 500 years.

Jeanne de Flanders was the Duchess of Brittany in the 14th century.

Her husband, John de Montfort, was the son of Duke Arthur II of Brittany and the half-brother of John III.

When his brother died without a male heir, de Montfort resorted to military force to make his claim to the Duchy in the War of Breton Succession.

When her husband was imprisoned by King Philip VI of France, Jeanne declared their infant son the leader of the Montfort cause. She raised an army and marched to the town of Hennebont.

Charles of Blois besieged the town in 1342. Jeanne herself commanded the defence of the town, dressed in armour and fully armed.

At one point, she observed from a tower that Charles’ camp was lightly guarded, so she led 300 men in an assault on the camp. They destroyed supplies and burned down many tents. The besiegers attempted to cut her off from the city, so she and her men rode to Brest instead. In Brest, she gathered more soldiers, slipped out and into Hennebont with a force larger than she is left with.

As a result, she became known as Jeanne la Flamme or Jeanne the Flame.

The siege was eventually lifted after the arrival of English reinforcements. Jeanne herself later sailed to England to seek further aid from King Edward.

When her fleet was attacked en route by Louis of Spain, Jeanne led the defence of her ship against a boarding action while wielding a sharp glaive.

By 1345, the Montfort cause in Brittany was essentially taken over by the English.

That same year, Edward had Jeanne confined at in England. It was said the reason for her confinement was that she had become insane, but there is no evidence for this. It is more likely that Edward wanted to more firmly secure Brittany under his power.

She spent the rest of her life in captivity, living long enough to see her son become Duke John IV of Brittany before she died in 1374.

Jeanne de Flanders is a member of the relatively small club of identifiable female individuals who fought in combat. The chronicler Jean Froissart commented that she “had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion.”

Sextus Afranius Burrus was Prefect of the Praetorian Guard from 51 CE until his death in 62 CE.

Burrus was hand-picked by Agrippina the Younger to serve as Prefect, in exchange for his support of her son Nero as heir to Emperor Claudius.

Though details of his life and service are relatively scarce, it can be reasonably assumed that he played an important role, as Prefect, in securing Nero’s place on the imperial throne after Claudius’ death in 54 CE.

Ancient sources record that Burrus and philosopher/political advisor Seneca worked closely to assist Nero in the early years of his reign. Though the details of this arrangement are not clear, is seems that in effect, the two men dominated the imperial administration through their astute guidance of the emperor.

In fact, the first eight years of Nero’s rule were considered to be an excellent example of good government by no less than Trajan himself, on of Rome’s greatest emperors.

However, it is also clear that both Burrus and Seneca were intended to be conduits through which Agrippina, their original patron, could assert her influence on her son. The extent to which this intention matched reality is unclear, but there is not doubt that Nero himself eventually began to see them as his mother’s minions as his relationship began to break down.

The great test of Burrus’ loyalty came when Nero decided to assassinate his mother in 59 CE. Once again, details are scarce but it does appear that the Prefect assented to the murder of his one-time patron, perhaps in an attempt to preserve his own influence over the emperor. In truth, it seems that his power was steadily eroding anyway.

Burrus died in 62 CE at the age of 61. Tacitus reports that, despite rumours that he was poisoned, he died from a tumour in his throat that eventually inhibited his ability to eat and breathe.

Hor-Aha was the second king of the First Dynasty of Egypt.

The name by which he is known to us is a rendering of his Horus-name, one of several royal names that Egyptian rulers held. More fully, it is Horus-Aha, meaning ‘Horus the Fighter’. His other names are unknown.

Ruling in the mid-31st Centurt BCE, Hor-Aha was the successor of Narmer, who had united Upper and Lower Egypt for the first time. It is likely that he is Narmer’s son, but this is not known for certain.

There are few artefacts that have survived from his reign, but those that have, such as an ivory box, vessel fragments and fine copper axe-heads are an indication that Egyptian craftsmanship continued to develop under his rule.

Perhaps the only activity that is known for sure is that he led an expedition against the Nubians far to the south, up the Nile valley in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

On an ivory year tablet recovered from Abydos, a year is listed as “Year of Smiting of Ta-Sety.” ‘Ta-Sety’ means Land of the Bow, one of several terms the Egyptians used to refer to their southern neighbours, who were noted for the skill of their archers.

Given the lack of details we have about Hor-Aha, his significance as king lies not with anything he did but with the fact that he appears to have succeeded his father without issue

A ruling regime is often most vulnerable at a time of succession, when transitioning from an established ruler to a new one. This time is even more fraught when the former greatly expanded their territory as Narmer did. It is not uncommon through history for great kingdoms and empires conquered by a single leader to collapse, or at the very least experience rebellion and/or upheaval, upon their death.

Hongi Hika was a Māori rangatira (chief) and one of the most famous warriors in the history of New Zealand.

He was born in 1772 into the Ngāpuhi iwi, or tribe, which inhabited the Northland Peninsula in the far north of New Zealand’s North Island.

Like most Māori iwi, for the Ngāpuhi warfare against the neighbouring tribes was a part of life. Hongi Hika certainly grew up entered adulthood amidst this warrior culture.

However, it wasn’t until his mid-30s that Hongi gained prominence among his people.

In 1806, the Ngaāpuhi launched a major attack on the neighbouring Ngāti Whātua. At the Battle of Moremonui, the Ngāpuhi were decisively defeated. Only a few escaped, Hongi among them. This battle is also notable because it was the first occasion that European muskets were used by Māori in battle, kicking off the period of rampant intertribal warfare known as the Musket Wars.

Though the few Ngāpuhi musketeers had been overrun and killed, the battle nonetheless impressed upon Hongi the potential of the new weapons when used with proper training, sufficient numbers and effective tactics.

In the aftermath of the defeat, Hongi became the war leader of the Ngāpuhi. He saw the value of trade with the Europeans, especially in muskets.

The Ngāpuhi controlled the strategic Bay of Islands, where most European ships first arrived in New Zealand. Hongi used this to his advantage by encouraging exchange with European sailors and settlers and provided protection for the earliest missionaries in the North Island, though they appear to have experienced a profound lack of success in converting the Māori for the first few decades.

In 1814, Hongi and his nephew sailed to Sydney to strengthen ties with European traders and missionaries. Hongi used the opportunity gather information about European military tactics and acquired muskets and ammunition.

With each passing year, trade through the Bay of Islands only increased. The use of European agricultural tools and techniques increased the productivity of Ngāpuhi farms and gave them produce to trade for weapons.

In 1817, Hongi launched a major attack on the neighbouring Ngāti Maru, taking thousands of prisoners.

The next year, he assaulted the Ngāti Porou, burning dozens of villages and capturing several thousand slaves.

In 1820, Hongi and his nephew travelled all the way to England, where he spent five months. During this time, he even met King George IV, who gifted him some armour. It is often believed that this armour was steel plate, but in reality it was actually chain mail. It was likely intended as a ceremonial garb, but Hongi wore it into battle nonetheless.

While he was in England, he travelled to Cambridge, where he assisted Professor Samuel Lee in writing the first dictionary of Māori words. He also met Baron Charles de Thierry, with whom he made a deal to supply muskets and gunpowder for his warriors.

On his return journey, he exchanged many of the gifts he had received for weapons in Sydney and picked up the muskets sent by Thierry.

Mere months later, Hongi led 2000 warriors, half of whom carried muskets, against the two major Ngåti Pāoa settlements. Hongi and his warriors crushed their enemy and killed thousands of men, women and children. During the battle, Hongi wore his chainmail armour, which apparently saved his life on at least one occasion, prompting rumours that he was invincible.

Hongi followed up this success with another attack on the Ngāti Maru, killing many hundred and taking thousands of prisoners. Both of these campaigns were seemingly considered revenge for defeats the Ngāpuhi had suffered decades earlier.

The following years were filled with successive expansionist campaigns. Though Hongi was defeated on one occasion, he revenged himself and was otherwise invariably successful. In 1825, he was even able to finally avenge the disastrous defeat at Moremonui almost 20 years earlier.

In 1827, Hongi was shot in the chest during a skirmish. He had apparently decided not to wear his armour that day.

Though he lingered for a full 14 months, Hongi never recovered, dying in March 1828 at the age of 55.

Hongi Hika had a profound impact on Māori culture. His devastating raids and wars led to massive loss of life and dislocation of surviving populations. His immense success using European muskets naturally prompted other iwi to make use of the new weapons. The Musket Wars, of which Hongi Hika himself had been the driving factor for many years, continued until 1837. Thousands of battles and raids across all of New Zealand radically altered the Māori geo-political landscape.

Jannetje Johanna Schaft was a Dutch resistance fighter during WW2. Born in 1920 in Haarlem, she was strongly influenced by her politically and religiously active parents.

In 1938, Schaft began studying law at the University of Amsterdam.

Despite the country’s neutrality in the growing war in Europe, German forces invaded and occupied the Netherlands in 1940.

For the first few years, the occupation was not especially oppressive. However, as the war dragged n, German control began to tighten.

In 1943, university students were required to swear allegiance to the occupation regime. Schaft, like many others, refused to do so and was forced to abandon her studies as a result.

Not long after leaving university she joined the Council of Resistance, one of the largest resistance organisations in the country.

Typically, female members of the resistance were given ‘less dangerous’ tasks such as acting as couriers. For Schaft, this was not enough. She demanded to be involved in the dirty work, the real stuff. She wanted to work with weapons.

Schaft frequently worked with Freddie and Truus Oversteegen to blow up railroad tracks and bridges with dynamite. The trio also got their hands really dirty, carrying out assassination operations on German soldiers. Perhaps most famously, they were not above using their feminine wiles to get to their targets. They would go to bars and taverns frequented by German soldiers, approach prospective targets and ask them if they wanted to go for a ‘stroll in the woods.’ Having lured the soldier out into the forest with the promise of sex, they then killed them.

At some point, Schaft was seen at the site of an assassination, with witnesses describing a ‘girl with red hair.’ This moniker was listed among the occupation’s most wanted.

In 1944, Schaft’s identity was inadvertently revealed by a fellow resistance fighter to Nazi agents posing as nurses. Her parents were sent to Vught concentration camp, but Schaft refused to surrender herself to the authorities, though she did cease resistance work for a time.

Eventually, her parents were released from the camp and Schaft subsequently returned to the resistance.

Having resumed her assassination and sabotage operations, Jannetje Schaft was once again a wanted woman. Knowing this, Schaft dyed her distinctive hair black and wore glasses in an effort to conceal her identity.

For a time, it worked.

However, in 1945, she was arrested at a military checkpoint for having secret resistance documents in her possession. She was taken to a prison in Amsterdam, where she was brutally interrogated, including torture and left in solitary confined for an extended period of time. Though Schaft herself refused to turn on her comrades, another resistance fighter identified her by the red roots of her hair, which had begun to grow out.

In the last months of the war, the occupation regime and the Dutch resistance had agreed to cease executions and assassinations. Despite this, in April Schaft was taken to the dunes of Overveen, where she was shot dead.

She was 24 years old and the war ended just three weeks later.

Hayreddin Barbarossa was an Ottoman corsair and admiral who became one of the most feared pirates in history.

Though he was born as Khizr, the name by which is most commonly known (Hayreddin Barbarossa) is a combination of a derivation of the Arabic honorary name Khayr ad-Din (“goodness of the faith”) and the Italian Barbarossa (“red beard”).

The latter part he inherited from his elder brother Oruç, who had rescued thousands of Muslim Mudejars from Spain, earning the nickname Baba Oruç or Father Oruç. This was later corrupted in Italian to Barbarossa.

Khizr was born in 1478 on the Greek island of Lesbos to a Turkish or Albanian father and an Orthodox Christian Greek mother. He had three brothers, all of whom took to the sea as part of their father’s expanding pottery business.

At an unknown date, the eldest of the four, Oruç, began operating as both a trader and a privateer against the Order of St John, whose piratical operations based on Rhodes were a scourge in maritime trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Ilyas followed his brother’s lead but was killed during at attack by the Order.

At this point, Oruç became a dedicated corsair, raising Christian shipping in the Aegean before leading a fleet into the Western Mediterranean. In 1504, Khizr joined his brother and served under his command. Oruç was a formidable naval commander and it seems clear that Khizr learned from his example.

Over the next five years, the corsairs captured dozens of ships and raided the coastlines of Italy and Spain. In 1509, Oruç evacuated thousands of Mudejars from Spain, earning the nickname Baba Oruç and becoming known to the Italians as Barbarossa.

The maritime conflict in the region quickly escalated as the various Christian powers unsuccessfully attempted to eradicate the corsairs. At one point in 1510, the brothers captured 23 ships in less than a month.

In 1516, Oruç’s forces captured Algiers from the Spaniards. Oruç consolidated his new power base and declared himself Sultan of Algiers. However, the rising power of Spain posed a growing threat, so Oruç submitted himself to Ottoman Sultan Selim, who accepted Algiers as new province and appointed Oruç as the governor.

Oruç was killed during a Spanish assault on the city of Tlemcen in 1518. Khizr, having served loyally under his brother for many years, now inherited his position and his name, Barbarossa.

Khizr proved to be everything his brother had been and more. He started by expelling the Spanish force that had killed his brother and repulsing further Spanish-Italian reinforcements. In the subsequent years, he lead his fleet in a series of raids on Spanish and Italian territory, routinely defeating the naval forces sent against him and capturing dozens of Christian ships.

The fighting at sea continued to escalate through the 1530s, culminating with the huge Battle of Preveza in 1538, where Khizr decisively defeated a combined fleet of Spanish, Imperial, Papal, Venetian and Order of Malta warships. This spectacular triumph secured Ottoman maritime dominance in the Mediterranean that would not be broken until the Battle of Lepanto 33 years later. In the aftermath of Preveza, Khizr, by now Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, conducted annual operations against coastal cities and fortresses across the Western Mediterranean.

By this point, it seemed to Christians that the fearsome Barbarossa was nigh on invincible. He defeated all who were sent against him and seemed to attack coastal cities with impunity.

It is a testament to his power and reputation that Charles V even attempted to bribe him into changing sides on several occasions, as well as ordering several failed assassination attempts.

In 1545, Khizr retired after 40 years of nearly continuous war on land and sea. His son inherited his position as Pasha of Algiers. Khizr died a year later at the age of 67.

News of his passing was apparently greeted with rejoicing across Christendom. At last, the invincible warlord of the sea was no more.

Julia Agrippina or Agrippina the Younger was one of the most prominent and powerful women in the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

She was the daughter of the great general Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. She was born at a Roman outpost on the Rhine river while her father was on campaign in Germania.

Her early life was not a particularly happy time. Her father died suddenly in Antioch in 19 CE. Her mother returned to Rome and promptly accused the emperor Tiberius of ordering her husbands death. For his part, Tiberius was happy to punish her for the accusations. This caused a deep feud between the Julia and Claudia branches of the imperial family. Eventually, her mother and her brother Nero were sent into exile. The latter died in 31 CE and the former died of starvation in 33.

Agrippina the Younger married her first husband in 28, at the age of 13. This union would produce her only natural son, who was named Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus after his father. The nature of their relationship is unknown.

After Tiberius’ death in 37, Agrippina’s only surviving brother Caligula became emperor. This brought his sisters to political prominence. Indeed, Caligula seems to have been unusually devoted to his sisters, which of course fuelled rumours of incest.

Two years later, Agrippina was implicated in a plot to assassinate Caligula and was exiled. While in exile, her first husband died.

After the accession of her uncle Claudius, she was allowed to return and the inheritance of her son was restored.

With her political prominence and her place within the imperial family restored, Agrippina and her son became targets of the empress Messalina, who viewed the boy as a rival to her own son, Britannicus.

After Messalina’s downfall, Agrippina appears to have set her sights on marriage to her uncle Claudius. She was certainly an ambitious woman, both for herself but mostly for her son. His elevation increased her own influence.

The scandalous marriage between Claudius and Agrippina was framed by some as an attempt to heal the rift between the two branches of the imperial dynasty.

After the wedding, Agrippina quickly began engaging in back room politics to spread her influence. She eliminated any officials she considered loyal to the late Messalina and she had an intense political rivalry with the freedman Narcissus.

As her husband became increasingly ill, the prominence and influence of Agrippina continued to expand.

She successfully manoeuvred for her son to replace Britannicus as heir presumptive, an effort that culminated with Claudius officially adopting the boy. His name was changed to Nero Claudia Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known to history simply as Nero.

Claudius died in 54. Essentially every contemporary source accuses Agrippina of poisoning him, but it is just as likely that he died of natural causes. In any case, Agrippina moved swiftly, tightly controlling news of the emperor’s death until she could have Nero elevated as his successor.

If she has wielded great influence before, her power only grew in the early years of her son’s reign. She sat alongside the emperor while they held court, an unprecedented public display of power. It is said she also attended Senate meetings behind a curtain.

Agrippina dominated Nero’s first years in power, but her control soon began to slip. The lad began to increasingly chafe at his mother’s domineering presence. No doubt sensing her waning influence, Agrippina moved to bring Britannicus back to prominence. Whether this was a genuine attempt to replace Nero on the throne or merely to create an implied threat if Nero continued to defy her, it backfired. Nero had Britannicus poisoned in 55 and the relationship between mother and son became increasingly hostile.

This power struggle continued for several years before the emperor had had enough. In 59, her orchestrated her death. The ancient accounts of her demise contradict each other in their descriptions of the elaborate assassination scheme. According to Tacitus, Nero rigged her ship to sink when she came aboard, but his mother survived and swam ashore, forcing him to send assassins after her.