Feast of the Pheasant

The Feast of the Pheasant was celebrated in February 1454 and it is called the “greatest feast” of its time. It followed after a great militaric victory of the duke of Burgund against the citizens in Gent in the preceding year. Its purpose was to promote a crusade against the Turks, who had taken Constantinople the year before.

The Varangian Guard

Serving as an elite unit of the Byzantine Army its members served as personal bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperors.

The guard was first formed under Emperor Basil II in 988, following the Christianization of Kievan Rus’ by Vladimir I of Kiev. Vladimir, who had recently usurped power in Kiev with an army of Varangian warriors, sent 6,000 men to Basil as part of a military assistance agreement. Basil’s distrust of the native Byzantine guardsmen, whose loyalties often shifted with fatal consequences, as well as the proven loyalty of the Varangians, many of whom served in Byzantium even before, led the Emperor to employ them as his personal guardsmen. Over the years, new recruits from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland kept a predominantly Norse cast to the organization until the late 11th century.

collective-history:

Antarah and Abla, the Arab Romeo and Juliet

Antarah Ibn Shaddad was born in Najd (the northern Saudi Arabia). He was the son of Shaddād, a well-respected member of the Arabian tribe of Banu Abs, his mother was named Zabibah, an Ethiopian woman, whom Shaddad had enslaved after a tribal war. The tribe neglected Antara at first, and he grew up in servitude. Although it was fairly obvious that Shaddad was his father. He was considered one of the “Arab crows” because of his jet black complexion. Antara gained attention and respect for himself by his remarkable personal qualities and courage in battle, excelling as an accomplished poet and a mighty warrior. He earned his freedom after one tribe invaded Banu Abs, so his father said to Him: “Antara fight with the warriors”. Then he looked at his father in resentment and said: “The slave doesn’t know how to invade or how to defend, but the slave is only good for milking goats and serving his masters”. Then his father said: “Defend your tribe and you are free”, then Antarah fought and expelled the invading tribes. The way Antarah responded to his father in Arabian culture does not mean that he was afraid of fighting, rather that when Antarah’s father did not acknowledge him for all those years, Antarah was aiming to get his freedom and to be acknowledged by his society, and he earned that.

Antarah fell in love with his cousin Abla, and sought to marry her despite his status as a slave. To secure allowance to marry, Antarah had to face challenges including getting a special kind of camel from the northern Arabian kingdom of al-No’man Ibn al-Munthir Ibn Ma’ al-Sama’.

Antarah took part in the great war between the related tribes of Abs and Dhubyān, which began over a contest of horses and was named after them the war of Dāhis and Ghabrā. He died in a fight against the tribe of Tai.

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collective-history:

Bogatyrs (1898) by Viktor Vasnetsov with Alyosha Popovich on the right hand side.

Alyosha Popovich is a folk hero of Kievan Rus, a bogatyr. He is the youngest of the three main bogatyrs, the other two being Dobrynya Nikitich and Ilya Muromets.

In Byliny he is described as a crafty priest’s son who wins by tricking and outsmarting his foes. He is known for his agility, slyness, and craftiness. Alyosha Popovich is fun-loving, sometimes being depicted as a “mocker of women,” and may occasionally be a liar and a cheat.

He defeated the dragon Tugarin Zmeyevich by trickery. 

Alyosha Popovich and his servant, Yekim, set out for Kiev to meet Prince Vladimir. When they arrive at Kiev, Prince Vladimir is having a feast. Prince Vladimir offers Alyosha Popovich to sit next to him, but Alyosha Popovich refuses and decides to take the lowest place in the social hierarchy by sitting next to the stove. At the feast, the monster Tugarin insults the Prince by sitting between Vladimir and his wife. Tugarin also does not pray to God and gorges himself at the feast. Alyosha Popovich, who is disgusted with the way Tugarin is acting, insults the creature with stories about the deaths of a dog and a cow.Tugarin is provoked by these stories and throws a dagger at Alyosha Popovich. Then, Alyosha Popovich accepts Tugarin’s challenge to fight. The battle takes place in an open field, and when Alyosha Popovich arrives, Tugarin is already flying in the sky on his wings made of paper. Alyosha Popovich prays for rain, and Tugarin falls to the ground because his paper wings get wet. Finally, Alyosha Popovich knocks Tugarin’s head off with his staff, sticks it on a spear, cuts his body into small pieces, and presents it to Prince Vladimir’s court.

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collective-history:

Operation Northwoods memorandum.

Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated in 1962 within the United States government, and which the Kennedy administration rejected. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro. One part of Operation Northwoods was to “develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.”

Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated:

“The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.”

Several other proposals were included within Operation Northwoods, including real or simulated actions against various U.S. military and civilian targets. The plan was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to the Secretary of Defense. Although part of the U.S. government’s Cuban Project anti-communist initiative, Operation Northwoods was never officially accepted; it was authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy.

According to currently released documentation, none of the operations became active under the auspices of the Operation Northwoods proposals.

Full Document: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf

Caption from Wikipedia