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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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:
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
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
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