Damn, Girl-St. Adelaide, Empress of Italy

Empress Adelaide was quite the lady. And by 'quite the lady' I mean she was a hecking badass. Her life reads like a Dumas novel met Game of Thrones, except with significantly less sex, violence, and dragons. She was crowned Holy Roman Empress in her own right, co-ruled said empire along with her second husband, Otto I, and exerted enormous political influence over Otto's successor, all while supporting religious orders, and bringing the German church further under the Pope's control.

Adelaide was born in Burgandy, France, and was married to Lothair, King of Italy, when she was fifteen. She reportedly helped Lothair rule Italy, and was quite popular with the Italian people. However, in 950 Lothair was poisoned by his adviser Berengar, who decided that a vicious coup was in order. Berengar ignored Adelaide's claim to the Italian throne, and imprisoned the widowed Adelaide when she refused to marry his son, Adalbert. Adelaide wasn't super keen on being imprisoned, so with the help of her maids she started to tunnel a hole in the castle wall. Meanwhile her priest bro, Warinus, was tunneling from the outside of the castle walls. The two teams kept digging until they were able to escape. Very Count of Monte Cristo, no?

Adelaide escaped, and with Warinus' help got a letter to the German king Otto I, promising to marry him if he helped her reclaim her lands in Italy. Otto jumped at this opportunity, 'cause who can say no to becoming King of Italy? In 951 they were married, and, surprisingly enough, liked each other, despite a 20 year age difference. It took them eleven years, but they were able to reclaim Adelaide's lands in Italy, and fuse Germany and Italy together, creating a Holy Roman Empire.

Pope John III crowned Adelaide Empress (and Otto Emperor, but we're not talking about him), and she proceeded to co-rule the Empire from Saxony with Otto. They had five children, four of whom survived birth. Adelaide was extremely popular with the people, and well known for her charitable works and support of religious reform. She was also popular with her son, and when her husband died her son, Otto II leaned on her as his closest adviser.

Adelaide and Otto I

Until Theophano came along, that was. Theophano was a Byzantine princess, and more than a match for Adelaide. The power struggle between the ladies combined with Adelaide's excess donations to religious orders led to Adelaide leaving court, and returning to her childhood home of Burgandy to live with her brother, King Conrad.

A few years later the two reconciled, and just in time, because Otto II soon died, leaving his three year old son, Otto III as king. Theophano and Adelaide joined forces, and kept the Holy Roman Empire intact until Otto III came of age. Otto III wasn't as appreciative of Adelaide as his to predecessors, and so Adelaide retired to a nunnery. She died on December 16, 999.

To this day Adelaide is remembered as one of the greatest ladies of the middle ages. She exercised enormous power, and her religious works saw her canonized nearly a century after her death. She was an exceptional woman who ruled her dowry lands in her own right, and enabled her husband and son to successfully run an empire that would gradually become a world power.

Sources
Encyclopedia.com
New World Encyclopedia
Epistolae
Women in World History
Encyclopedia Brittanica

Gnoming for Sport and Profit

'Gnoming' or 'The Traveling Gnome Prank' is when you steal someone's garden gnome, then send them pictures of said gnome from various exotic location. Gnoming started in the seventies, and continues to this day usually as a more or less innocuous prank.

The first roaming gnomes were fellows by the names of Harry and Charlie. They traveled with human Henry Sunderland to Antarctica in 1977. Charlie was sent down to a research station by the south pole, where he survived a fire, and became a mascot for the researchers there. Upon returning to civilization Sunderland published the photographs of his garden guardian friends, and so a craze began.

After that 'gnoming' became something of a prank. Miscreants would steal garden gnomes from unsuspecting owners, then send the owners pictures of where the gnomes had gone. Many gnomes went on grand world tours with their new friends, and became partial inspiration for the 2001 French film Amelie, which made its way to Broadway in March.

What's more, gnoming became inspiration for a multi-million dollar ad campaign run by Travelocity in the early 2000s. A friendly looking gnome with a big red hat and an English accent promoted to travel company with his testimonials from exotic locales.

Gnoming is, for the most part, a lighthearted prank, but some people take it very seriously. There are several organizations, The Garden Gnome Liberation Front being the most popular, dedicated to freeing the clay creatures from their lives of garden ornamenting. These groups steal hundreds of gnomes, often depositing them in forests, or occasionally in large groups in public places. There was also a staged mass gnome suicide in 1998, which I cannot fathom the purpose of.

Gnoming is, essentially, one of the most ridiculous pranks around. It's more or less harmless, even if it is technically against the law.

Sources
Christchurch City Library
Daily Mail
The Mirror
csmonitor

A Brief Overview of the Wives of Henry VIII-In Summation

I'm not very good at conclusions, I never have been. I can't tell you how many rough drafts of papers I turned in that ended with: 'In conclusion, yes.' But since this isn't a first draft of a college paper, I will attempt to be more cohesive and coherent about this.

This conclusion is extra hard to write, because how do you close the book on such an extraordinary group of women? I've only scratched the surface here, there's so much more that could be said. I don't know exactly what it was, but something about being married to an unstable, tyrannical, king turned six seemingly ordinary girls into strong, admirable women, who will be spoken about forever.

Catherine of Aragon might still have been famous without Henry, she was the daughter of the brilliant Queen Isabella of Castille and Leon after all, but the story of her bravery and stallwartness in the face of Henry's persecution sets her apart from not only Henry's other wives, but from all Queens in history. She was brilliant, pious, and loving, and certainly deserved better than she got. She was a metaphorical saint to the point that there's a movement to canonize her so she can be a literal saint.

Anne Boleyn's ambition and drive spurred the English Reformation, and put England on a path that would change the face of history forever. She held the attentions of a capricious King for nearly a decade, and managed to enact enormous social change during that time, something none of Henry's other Queens did. She's controversial, sure, but you can't deny that without her not only would England not have her most illustrious monarch--Elizabeth I--but England may have forever remained a Catholic nation. She used her beauty and intelligence to shape history, not bad for a daughter of the minor nobility.

Jane Seymour was known for being gentle and kind, and as being the queen that Henry loved the most. She gave birth to Henry's only son--Edward--and managed to bring a sense of peace and prosperity to the English court. Jane made a home, and brought calm. You could say that she cleaned up Anne Boleyn's mess. She isn't known for having any great political power, or bringing about any great change, but you can't deny that she had an enormous emotional impact on Henry and the people around her.

Anne of Cleves and Henry may have been married less than a year, but she was the smartest out of all Henry's wives. She knew when to yield, and doing so bought her a life of wealth and independence, as well as the dubious honor of being close to the King. She lived a happy life, and died peacefully. Not something that any of Henry's other wives can say they did.

Catherine Howard was young and naive. She was thrust by uncaring relatives into a world that was much too complex for her, and she was crushed underneath the weight of it all. She was an unexceptional Queen of England, but her story is by far the saddest.

Catherine Parr managed to have Mary and Elizabeth restored to the line of succession, ending a civil war years before it began. It's thanks to her that England was able to enjoy the political stability of the Elizabethan era. She was clever and pious, and managed to weather the storm of Henry's dissatisfaction. She was married almost as many times as Henry himself, but never quiet managed to find happiness. She was the first of England's queens to publish under her own name, and served as role model to both Elizabeth I and Lady Jane Grey.

Henry VIII married six different women. While he definitely had a type--smart, pretty, musically talented--the women he married definitely were not carbon copies of each other. Each of these women had a distinct personality, and each of them had a distinct impact on Henry. While not all of them made large political marks, all of them influenced the monarchs of the Tudor era.

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four   Part Five   Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight

Austria vs. Austria-i.e. The Big Screw Up of 1788

So it's 1788 and, big surprise, Europe is at war. It's Russia/Austria versus the Ottoman Empire, and Austria is only a very reluctant participant. In fact, the only reason Austria is at war at all is because Austria is afraid of Russia, and the Ottomans pissed off Catherine the Great, so there they are.

Catherine the Great, not a woman you want to anger

The Austrian army is waiting for the Ottomans near the town of Karansebes, and as you can imagine, the Austrians aren't super happy to be traipsing around the countryside, so it's no surprise when a group of scouts buy a large amount of alcohol off a nearby band of Roma people.  The scouts took their booze back to camp, and started having a good time. They were getting a bit rowdy around the fire when a group of foot soldiers came over, and asked if they too could have some alcohol. The scouts, who obviously failed kindergarten, refused to share. The foot soldiers weren't too pleased, and resorted to fisticuffs.

Simple fisticuffs soon turned into a full on brawl. We've got groups of angry Austrians, some of them drunk, hundreds of miles from home, fighting an enemy they have no good reason to be fighting, and, dammit, they just want to get (more) drunk. Tempers are high, and soon the guns come out.

Men are shooting at each other. The scouts with the booze have erected fortifications, and the camp is in total mayhem when some bright fellow yelled that the Turks were attacking. That's when real pandemonium breaks out. Those in command are trying to organize the men, but the soldiers were drawn from all over the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they speak dozens of languages. Some of the orders sound like people shouting 'Allah, Allah', which only drives the frenzy.

The fighting goes on for hours until the Austrian generals manage to sound a general retreat, leaving some 10,000 men dead on the field. Two hours later the, very confused I'm sure, Ottomans took Karansebes without a fight.


There is debate about the validity of this tale, given that the incident wasn't written about until some 40 years later, but friendly fire does happen, and accidentally killing 10k of your own men, and then retreating from yourself isn't exactly something that the generals want to write home to the emperor about.

Unfortunately for the poor Austrians, the Austro-Turkish war would drag on for another three years, and neither side would come out on top.  The battle of Karansebes is an amusing anecdote, but like most fighting, it was a pointless waste of life in a pointless war.

Sources
Worldatlas
Today I Found Out