Episode 9.10 - Turenne

Turenne was a major figure in France during the golden age of the Ancien Regime. Napoleon said his “audacity grew with years and experience” as some of his greatest victories were when he was in his mid-60s. He was a great general in an age of greats, a brilliant strategist, and was a supporter of the common soldier in an age of aristocracy.

Sources

  • Thomas de Longueville, Marshall Turenne

  • H.M. Hozier, Turenne

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.9 - Hohenstaufen Pt 3 - Frederick II

Frederick II was the grandson of Barbarossa and of Roger the Great of Sicily. He inherited kingdoms from both lineages, and then lost and regained them both. He wound up ruling a vast territory and at least in some of his lands, began shaping his kingdom in a way that would be a lead-in to post-feudal Europe, even if he didn’t quite get there himself.

Sources

  • Thomas Curtis van Cleve, The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen - Immutator Mundi

  • Lionel Allshorn, Stupor Mundi - The Life & Times of Frederick II

  • Marcel Pacaut, Frederick Barbarossa

  • Eugene Cox, “The Kingdom of Burgundy, The Lands of the House of Savoy and Adjacent Territories”, The New Cambridge Medieval History

  • David Abulafia, “The Kingdom of Sicily Under the Hohenstaufen and Angevins”, The New Cambridge Medieval History

  • John Freed, Frederick Barbarossa - The Prince and the Myth

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.8 - Hohenstaufen Pt 2 - Henry and Philip

Frederick Barbarossa was succeeded by his sons, Henry and Philip. Both were capable rulers who looked to follow in their father’s footsteps and expand imperial power. Henry had significant successes, but neither lived long enough to truly become remarkable emperors. And they were succeeded by the rival Welf clan, although that King, Otto, didn’t last too long on the throne, either.

Sources

  • Thomas Curtis van Cleve, The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen - Immutator Mundi

  • Lionel Allshorn, Stupor Mundi - The Life & Times of Frederick II

  • Marcel Pacaut, Frederick Barbarossa

  • Eugene Cox, “The Kingdom of Burgundy, The Lands of the House of Savoy and Adjacent Territories”, The New Cambridge Medieval History

  • David Abulafia, “The Kingdom of Sicily Under the Hohenstaufen and Angevins”, The New Cambridge Medieval History

  • John Freed, Frederick Barbarossa - The Prince and the Myth

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.7 - Hohenstaufen Pt 1 - Frederick Barbarossa

Frederick Barbarossa was Holy Roman Emperor in the 12th century. He forced his way into the imperial office, and then forced the office back into relevance after a century or so of decline. He was an incredibly energetic leader, a strong general and politician. He expanded the power of his empire, and is considered one of the greatest of the Holy Roman Emperors.

Sources

  • Marcel Pacaut, Frederick Barbarossa

  • Eugene Cox, “The Kingdom of Burgundy, The Lands of the House of Savoy and Adjacent Territories”, The New Cambridge Medieval History

  • David Abulafia, “The Kingdom of Sicily Under the Hohenstaufen and Angevins”, The New Cambridge Medieval History

  • John Freed, Frederick Barbarossa - The Prince and the Myth

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.6 - Yuknoom the Great

Yuknoom led the powerful Maya kingdom ruled by Snake Dynasty. He installed vassal kings in neighboring cities and succeeded in dividing the royal line of his main rival, the city of Tikal. He eventually sacked Tikal itself, and continued to grow the power and influence of his city, in what many historians consider the golden age for the Snake Kingdom.

Sources

  • Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens

  • Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Maya Superstates

  • David Freidel, The origins and development of Lowland Maya Civilisation

  • Francisco Estrada-Belli and Alexandre Tokovinine, Chochkitam: A New Classic Maya Dynasty and the Rise of the Kaanu’l (Snake) Kingdom

    Ramón Carrasco Vargas, Verónica A. Vázquez López and Simon Martin, Daily Life of the Ancient Maya Recorded on Murals at Calakmul, Mexico

  • Josh Gabbatiss, “Thousands of Ancient Maya ‘Snake King’ structures discovered hidden in the depths of the Guatemalan jungle”, The Independent

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.5 - Harsha

Harsha took over a growing kingdom in eastern Punjab, during a time of divided polities after the collapse of the huge Gupta Empire. He expanded his lands east along the Ganges river, absorbing kingdoms along the way, before uniting lands to the west and further south, eventually creating an empire that ruled almost all of Northern India.

Sources

  • D. Devahuti, Harsha, A Political Study

  • Bindeshwari Prasad Sinha, Dynastic History of Magadha

  • Vasudeva S. Agrawala, The Deeds of Harsha

  • Radha Kumud Mookerji, Harsha

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.4 - Kanishka

Kanishka led the Kushan Empire at its height, connecting China and India to lands west in the early era of the Silk Road. Kanishka was a strong leader who expanded the empire, stabilized it, and help connect cultures and cultural ideas across Asia.

Sources

  • Craig Benjamin, Empires of Ancient Eurasia

  • Shonaleeka Kaul, Cambridge World History, Ch.18 South Asia

  • B.N. Mukherjee, The Rise and Fall of the Kushana Empire

  • Baldev Kumar, The Early Kushans

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.3 - Mithridates I of Parthia

Mithridates took charge of a relatively small kingdom that nominally held lands south and east of the Caspian sea. By the end of his reign, he had turned it into a powerful empire that ruled from Syria to India, and had grown to be the major rival to the power to their west, the Roman Empire.

Sources

  • Craig Benjamin, Empires of Ancient Eurasia, The First Silk Roads Era 100 B.C. - 250 A.D.

  • Edward Dabrowa, The Arsacids and Their State

  • Edward Dabrowa, Mithridates I and the Beginning of the Ruler-Cult in Parthia

  • Cambridge History of Iran, The Political History of Iran Under the Arsacids

  • Richard Nelson Frye, The Ancient History of Iran

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.2 - Bardylis

Bardylis united the tribes of Illyria in the late 5th and early 4th century BC, created a powerful kingdom that held sway over Macedon and threatened the Peloponnese, and may have helped drive the development of the combined warfare that would allow Alexander to conquer the Persian Empire.

Sources

  • Didorus Siculus, Library of History

  • John Wilkes, The Illyrians

  • N.G.L. Hammond, Mediterranean Archaeology, “Macedonia Before Philip and Philip’s First Year in Power”

  • Timothy Howe, “Plain Tales from the Hills: Illyrian Influences on Argead Military Development”

  • N.G.L. Hammond, The Annual of the British School at Athens, “The Kingdoms in Illyria Circa 400-167 B.C.”

  • N.G.L. Hammond, Cambridge Ancient History, “Illyrians and North-West Greeks”

  • J.R. Ellis, Cambridge Ancient History, “Macedon and North-West Greece”

  • Robin Lane Fox, Ed., Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon

Names Mentioned

Episode 9.1 - Argishti of Urartu

Argishti ruled the ancient kingdom of Urartu, located in today's Armenia and Eastern Turkey. During Argishti's reign in the 8th century BC, Urartu held sway over its powerful neighbor, the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Sources

  • M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia

  • Paul E. Zimansky, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, “Ecology and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State”

  • Paul E. Zimansky, Ancient Anatolia, 10,000 - 323 B.C., Sharon E. Steadman and Gregory McMahon, Eds.

  • Boris Piotrovsky, Urartu

  • R.D. Barnett, The Cambridge Ancient History, Ch. 8, Urartu

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.9 - Gaspar Yanga

Gaspar Yanga was possibly born as royalty, although no one is sure, but when he died he was certainly considered by many to be a king. Captured in Africa, brought to the Americas, he soon escaped enslavement near Veracruz in today’s Mexico. He soon became the leader of a community of others who escaped, but they were hunted by the Spanish authorities. Yanga led the resistance, and won, not only the freedom of him and his people, but also official recognition by the crown.

Sources

  • Marisela Jiménez Ramos, Black Mexico: Nineteenth-Century Discourses of Race and Nation

  • El Primer Libertador de las Americas"/The First Liberator of the Americas”, Callaloo, Yanga, Mata Clara and Nearby Villages: Africa in Contemporary Mexico

  • David M. Davidson, Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1650

  • Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion, “Gaspar Yanga’

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.8 - Abbas the Great

Abbas the Great, the shah of the Safavid empire, was great military leader, reformer, and diplomat. He took a shrinking, disintegrating Persian empire and enabled it to grow its greatest extent, in no small part because of his own personal military campaigns

Sources

  • Eskander Beg Monshi, History of Shah Abbas the Great, translation by Roger M. Savory

  • Cambridge History of Iran, “Ch 4 The Turkmen Dynasties”

  • Cambridge History of Iran, “Ch 5, The Safavid Period”

  • Cambridge History of Islam, “Ch 5, Safavid Persia”

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.7 - Ram Khamhaeng

Ram Khamhaeng was the king of Sukhothai, and he ruled on of the first truly Tai-led kingdoms that was able to unite the surrounding states into something bigger. His success helped to unify the people and define the culture of what would persist in Thailand to this day.

Sources

  • George Cœdès, The Origins of the Sukhodaya Dynasty

  • George Cœdès, The Indianize States of Southeast Asia

  • David K. Wyatt, Thailand: A Short History

  • Cheuy Suetrong, “Reflections on King Ram Khahhaen of Sukhothai”, Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.6 - Somerled

Somerled was a Norse-Gael like born in what is today western Scotland, on the lands bordering the Irish Sea and the North Channel. He became King of the Isles, ruling many of those that the Vikings had taken over of the prior centuries. Despite his Viking heritage, while much of eastern Scotland was Anglo-Normanizing, he helped served as a bridge from the Viking Age to a Gaelic Scotland.

Sources

  • Duncan and Brown, Argyll and the Isles in the Earlier Middle Ages

  • R.C. MacLeod, “The Norsemen in the Hebrides”, The Scottish Historical Review

  • Patrick Wadden, “Do Feartaib Cairnich”, Ireland and Scotland in the Twelfth Century

  • Duncan McCallum, The History of the Ancient Scots

  • W.D.H. Seller, The Origins and Ancestry of Somerled

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.5 - Tamar the Great

Tamar the Great built on the legacy of her great grandfather David the Builder. Under her rule, Georgia grew to its largest geographic extent, held off enemies and conquered new lands. Culture flourished under her rule, leading many to consider it the peak of Georgia’s golden age.

Sources

  • Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia

  • George Anchabadze, A History of Georgia

  • Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation

  • Cyril Toumanoff, Cambridge History

  • A.C.S. Peacock, “Georgia and the Anatolian Turks in the 12th and 13th Centuries”, Anatolian Studies

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.4 - David the Builder

David became king of Georgia after it had been devastated by years of Turkish pillaging. He pushed the invaders out and restored the fortunes of his relatively new kingdom. By the time he died, Georgia neared the apex of its power, ruled most of the southern caucuses, and had entered a Golden Age.

Sources

  • Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia

  • George Anchabadze, A History of Georgia

  • Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation

  • Cyril Toumanoff, Cambridge History

  • A.C.S. Peacock, “Georgia and the Anatolian Turks in the 12th and 13th Centuries”, Anatolian Studies

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.3 - Dinh Bo Linh

One of several Viet leaders who helped his land on the road to sovereignty, Dinh Bo Linh united the land of An Nam, a Chinese protectorate that had gained some amount of autonomy, and brought it to full independence as the kingdom of Nam Viet.

Sources

  • Kevin Weller Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam

  • Kevin Weller Taylor, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, “The ‘Twelve Lords’ in Tenth-Century Vietnam”

  • John K. Whitmore and Brian Zottoli, Cambridge History of China, Chapter 5 “The Emergence of the State of Vietnam”

  • Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Chapter 3 “The Early Kingdoms”

  • Nam Kim, Asian Perspectives, “Cultural Landscapes of War and Political Regeneration”

Names Mentioned

Episode 8.2 - Goujian

Goujian was the king of Yue at the end of Ancient China’s Spring and Autumn Period. He was defeated by the state of Wu and taken captive, where he served as a slave and plotted his revenge. Eventually returning to his own kingdom, his dedication to getting his revenge has become something of legends.

Sources:

  • Paul A. Cohen, Speaking to History: The Story of King Goujian in Twentieth-Century China

  • Cho-yun Hsu, Cambridge History of China, The Spring and Autumn Period

Names Mentioned:

Episode 8.1 - Gungunum

In the 20th century BC, Gungunum made himself king of the Sumerian city of Larsa. He brought Larsa from an inconsequential minor city to the dominant city state in Sumer, allowing him to claim the title of King of Sumer. His was the last dynasty that could be considered Sumerian, before the region shifted to what we now call Babylonia

Sources

  • Madeleine Andre Fitzgerald, “The Rulers of Larsa”

  • Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character

  • Bill T. Arnold, Who Were the Babylonians?

  • The Cambridge Ancient History, Chapter XXIII - Persia c. 2400-1800 B.C.

  • George G. Cameron, History of Early Iran

  • C. Leonard Woolley, The Sumerians

  • Patrick Carleton, Buried Empires

  • L. Delaport and V. Gordon Childe, Mesopotamia: The Babylonian and Assyrian civilization

  • Leonard William King, A History Of Babylon From The Foundation Of The Monarchy To The Persian Conquest

  • William Hallo, “The Last Years of the Kings of Isin”, The Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Names Mentioned

Episode 7.10 - Jacob Kettler

Jacob Kettler was the Baltic German Duke of Courland and Semigallia, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century. Kettler decided the best way to modernize his duchy was to copy the major powers of Western Europe, by making the Duchy of Courland a colonial power.

Sources

  • Karin Jekabsen-Lemanis, “Balts in the Caribbean: The Duchy of Courland's attempts to colonize Tobago Island, 1638 to 1654”, Caribbean Quarterly , June 2000

  • Edgar Anderson, “The Couronians and The West Indies, The First Settlements”, Caribbean Quarterly, June, 1959

  • National History Museum of Latvia, The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. 1561-1795

  • Allgemaine Deutsche Biographie

Names Mentioned