The Mental Floss History Of The World Part 21

1509.

Hernando Cortes begins Spanish conquest of Aztecs.

1517.

Martin Luther posts his "95 Theses" in Wittenberg.

1519.

Ottomans besiege Vienna.

1527.

Moghul Dynasty founded in India.

1532.

Francisco Pizarro begins Spanish conquest of Inca.

1558.

Elizabeth I becomes queen of England.

1584.

Second Ottoman siege of Vienna.

In Case You Haven't Heard of that "Renaissance" Thing...

While it's hard to say that something like the Black Plague was a good thing, it may actually have provided the jolt that ended the medieval period and started the Renaissance. This movement-literally, a "rebirth"-had an economic and an intellectual component. With a third of the labor force gone, surviving workers had much more leverage when bargaining for employment; it was in the wake of the Black Death that "free cities" dominated by merchants prospered, and peasant farming collectives became more common. On the intellectual side, the decimation of the population-while devaluing life in the short term-actually made people more thoughtful about what it meant to be human.The Renaissance was a mostly European endeavor, but it wouldn't have been possible without contributions from Arab scholars and Greeks fleeing the collapsing Byzantine Empire. In the medieval period, Arab scholars in Spain ama.s.sed huge collections of ma.n.u.scripts from Greek and Roman poets and philosophers that were unavailable in Europe. Meanwhile, Greek scholars fleeing the Ottomans in the old Byzantine territories also carried copies of ancient ma.n.u.scripts to Italy, where they found work as teachers and translators (a step down, but at least they weren't disemboweled and burned alive).This "Renaissance" was actually firmly rooted in the Catholic tradition. As a matter of fact, most Renaissance scholars were devout Catholics who felt that their movement was perfectly compatible with the teachings of the Church. But the basic method behind it-throwing out existing interpretations of ancient texts and thinking about what they meant from one's own perspective-opened a huge can of theological worms, because it implied that the teachings of the Catholic Church about the Bible were open to debate. (This provided the basis for Protestantism, which proved to be a bit of a problem.)Renaissance scholars shared two things above all: their respect for ancient Rome and Greece, and their desire to emulate ancient Greek and Roman ideals. These ideals-education, reason, and personal virtue-provided a complete program for life: a program that has come to be called "humanism" because it prizes the independence and potential of individual human beings over other values such as authority and tradition.One of the first Renaissance thinkers was a poet and essayist named Petrarch (13041374), whose Italian family moved to Avignon, France, when he was young. Petrarch spent a good part of his life sitting around thinking and writing about why it was so important to sit around thinking and writing, as well as mooning over a long-term crush named Laura, who was married to someone else (long-term, as in four decades; and of course, it never went anywhere). This description makes Petrarch sound kind of self-absorbed and annoying, which he may have been, but with his beautiful poetry and essays he was a one-man literary revolution. He's also credited as the inventor of mountain climbing-yup, you heard right. Petrarch turned his ascent of Mount Ventoux into an engaging mini-adventure story that is still read today.Books have led some to learning and others to madness.-Petrarch Another early Renaissance great was Dante Alighieri (12651321) who wrote a hilarious-if somewhat petty-book called Inferno, Inferno, in which he imagined all the people from history he hated being punished in h.e.l.l in various twisted ways. Although perhaps slightly creepy, Dante was innovative because he wrote in his native Italian so that ordinary people could read his books. In fact, his books became so influential that many standard spellings and grammar for modern Italian are traced back to them. in which he imagined all the people from history he hated being punished in h.e.l.l in various twisted ways. Although perhaps slightly creepy, Dante was innovative because he wrote in his native Italian so that ordinary people could read his books. In fact, his books became so influential that many standard spellings and grammar for modern Italian are traced back to them.For the most part, Renaissance thinkers were literary types who stayed away from contemporary politics, but later Renaissance scholars were not afraid to take it on, sometimes at personal risk. The great political movement of the Italian Renaissance, civic humanism, was born in the northern Italian city of Florence, in the face of terrible oppression.In the medieval period, Florence and its big cousin to the north, Milan, had generally gotten along. But all this changed in 1386, when Milan came under the tyrannical rule of a military strongman named Gian (p.r.o.nounced "John") Galeazzo. In 1394 the powerful Galeazzo attacked Florence, and everyone was sure the tiny city-state was a goner. But under the leadership of a great Renaissance humanist Coluccio Salutati, the Florentines pulled together and withstood the Milanese enemy.Salutati helped formulate an ideology called civic humanism, which still permeates modern democratic society. Civic humanism applies humanist ideals to the political world, encouraging leadership, self-sacrifice, and integrity in the people who wield power. Like earlier strains of Renaissance thought, it was built on cla.s.sical sources, and placed the greater good above individual concerns. Armed with this ideology, against all odds the Florentine republic outlasted Gian Galeazzo, who died in 1402.

PRINCE OF PRAGMATISM.

As far as political theory goes, Coluccio Salutati was the "nice" side of the Italian Renaissance. The much more interesting, "bad" side was depicted by another Florentine, named Niccol Machiavelli, who grew up in a very different city a century after Salutati.Florence fended off the Milanese bully Gian Galeazzo only to become prey to much larger bullies: France and Spain, which fought for control of Italy throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Born in 1469, Machiavelli grew up in an Italy devastated by foreigners-often with the help of local princes, also vying for power.This situation disgusted Machiavelli, and he began studying the cla.s.sical world, including ancient Greece and Rome, to understand what made rulers successful. He summed up his controversial conclusions in The Prince The Prince, a book of advice he sent to the Medici family, who ruled Florence."Politics have no relation to morals," wrote Machiavelli, who also observed, "Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy." Power came from the ability to inflict violence and terrorize people, and Machiavelli advised: "Before all else, be armed." In an ideal situation, the ruler will enjoy the affection of his people, but when the chips are down, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."Contrary to accepted Christian morality, Machiavelli openly advocated lying ("A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise") and murder ("If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared"). He made no exception for "innocent" people who opposed the ruler, reasoning that there was a greater good: the well-being of the general population.Ironically, the amoral (many said immoral) philosophy depicted in The Prince The Prince had one goal: protecting the common people from foreign invaders such as the French and Spanish, who were terrorizing Italy. By defeating his foreign and domestic enemies, Machiavelli wrote, the ruler guaranteed the peace and tranquility of his realm, and the safety of his people. So, ultimately, he had humanitarian aims. had one goal: protecting the common people from foreign invaders such as the French and Spanish, who were terrorizing Italy. By defeating his foreign and domestic enemies, Machiavelli wrote, the ruler guaranteed the peace and tranquility of his realm, and the safety of his people. So, ultimately, he had humanitarian aims.

And Then There's That Other R the Reformation The Protestant Reformation that swept northern Europe is a lovely example of people at their best and their worst. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, religious reformers dissatisfied with the Catholic Church displayed remarkable idealism and self-sacrifice. But their movement also became a tool for opportunistic princes who resented Rome's meddling in their affairs and would stop at nothing to throw off the "yoke of Rome." In the long run, this led to the deaths of millions (and we mean millions millions).Like a bad quiche, the first rumblings of dissent came in the fourteenth century, when the growing power of the French kings allowed them to sponsor their own popes in Avignon, beginning in 1305. The result was the so-called Great Schism in the Catholic Church-a period when the involvement of the various competing popes in politics led to widespread disillusionment among common people. It's not hard to see why, with first two, then three, then four (!) popes vying for power.What happened? In 1409, the French and pro-"Italian" faction agreed to withdraw their claimants to the papal throne and elect just one pope, who would return to Rome and end the Great Schism-but the whole plan fell apart. The two sides did indeed elect a new pope, Alexander V, who was supposed to replace the two current popes, Gregory XII and Benedict III. But Gregory and Benedict backed out at the last minute, so now there were three popes. This situation continued until 1417, when a new council of the Catholic Church elected yet another pope, Martin V, to replace the three popes currently holding office. Before the three deposed popes voluntarily abdicated, there were technically four popes ruling the Catholic Church. If TV had existed, this could have been a great reality show: "This is the story of four popes, all of whom claim to be infallible..."With management a mess, it's not surprising many early "Protestant" critiques actually came from inside the Church. Several Protestant revolutionaries began as Catholic scholars. These early dissenters included an English professor at Oxford University named John Wycliffe and a Bohemian activist named Jan Huss, who was inspired by Wycliffe.From 1376 to 1379, Wycliffe wrote a series of essays arguing that corrupt Catholic priests forfeited all their spiritual authority. This was controversial, as it denied the effectiveness of the Catholic Ma.s.s, absolution, and penance, which allowed ordinary people to atone for their sins. Wycliffe also said that Christians should be able to read the Bible in their native language, rather than listen to a priest read it in Latin, a language meaningless to commoners. Wycliffe was almost imprisoned for uttering these revolutionary ideas and might have been burned alive, but thanks to powerful protectors in England, he escaped. His successful defiance was a sign of things to come.Jan Huss wasn't so lucky. Like Wycliffe, Huss believed that preachers should speak to ordinary people in their native language-in his case, Czech. Beginning in 1402, Huss ruled the roost in Prague, preaching dissent against corrupt priests, bishops, and the pope. But the Church brought the hammer down in 1414, calling Huss to a Church council to have him "explain" his views. The Holy Roman emperor, Sigismund, promised Huss his safety, but reneged on the deal, and Huss was burned at the stake in 1415.Much to the dismay of the Church hierarchy, the trouble was just beginning. The next century brought a firestorm of dissent stoked by two more maverick theologians: Martin Luther and John Calvin.Like Wycliffe and Huss, Martin Luther began a devout Catholic but ended in radical opposition-and also like them, his opposition sprang from fundamental contradictions in the Church's teachings. A Catholic monk in Wittenberg, Germany, Luther objected to the Church's entanglement with political authority, its ownership of property, and especially the sale of "indulgences," which promised the absolution of sin for a fee-basically "Get out of h.e.l.l Free" cards, which he considered totally worthless. Luther staked out his basic position in his famous "95 Theses," which he nailed to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg in 1517. Luther also advocated "justification by faith"-meaning Christians were redeemed by faith alone, with no need for sacraments or absolution by a priest.When I am angry I can pray well and preach well.-Martin Luther Though Pope Leo X would probably have liked to burn Luther at the stake for this impudence, Luther got away with it because powerful German princes found his ideas a useful justification for their own defiance.John Calvin took a different route. Born in France in 1509, Calvin studied theology all over Europe. Unlike Luther, he had a vision for Protestant society sketched out in his head. Calvin made his major contributions to Protestant thought in Geneva, Switzerland, after its inhabitants rebelled against their northern Italian rulers and established an independent city-state in 1536. The city invited him to establish a Protestant church, which he did in 1540. In keeping with his strict ideas, "immoral" activities such as dancing and drinking were soon made illegal. Fun town.A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that G.o.d's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.-John Calvin

IT'S A GOOD THING PAPAL INFALLIBILITY COVERS PROSt.i.tUTION AND SODOMY If you're still wondering why the authority of the Catholic Church collapsed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, just consider the "Ballet of the Chestnuts," an uber-depraved party thrown by the son of Pope Alexander VI in 1501. This bizarre and deeply naughty celebration was attended by fifty prost.i.tutes, and got its name from the after-dinner, ahem, "activities." The prost.i.tutes had their clothes auctioned, and were then made to crawl around on the floor to pick up chestnuts-a rather thin excuse to get them on all fours. An orgy-game ensued in which the "players" (the super-rich male attendees) had their o.r.g.a.s.ms tallied by a servant, with each in pursuit of the highest score; this particular "rule" was ordered by the pope himself, who was also in attendance.Aside from these occasional blowouts, the popes probably got away with most of their debauchery...but there were times it just couldn't be covered up: specifically, when they died "in the act." In 939, Pope Leo VII died of a heart attack in bed with his mistress; in 964, an enraged husband found his wife in bed with Pope John XII, then bludgeoned him to death, naked in bed (a great way to go); incredibly, the exact same thing happened to John XIII in 972; and then in 1471, Pope Paul II died of a heart attack...while being sodomized by a page boy.

SPINNING THE GLOBE.

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France: Growing Pains French kings began centralizing administration in the late 1200s, but it wasn't until the fifteenth century that they finally consolidated the new French state. In the end, most of the feudal fiefdoms were welded into a single royal domain by Louis XI. Coming to power in 1461, Louis XI had his work cut out for him, and cut he did: long-standing family ties, limbs, heads-whatever needed cutting.The back story: in 1415, the English king Henry V took advantage of a civil war between two French n.o.ble families, the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, to invade a weakened France and reclaim the French throne, which he believed he had inherited. Eventually the English were sent packing, but the destructive war made it clear to the future King Louis XI that he could never again allow his n.o.ble relatives to gain so much power. Feuding and rebellion could weaken the country and open it to foreign rule. Thus he set out to break the power of the n.o.bles once and for all-with some rather dirty tricks.

If you can't lie, you can't govern.-Louis XI

For example, in the case of the aged Duke of Burgundy, Louis waited until the man was senile, then seized his lands in Picardy (northern France) by pressuring him to rewrite his will. Of course this subterfuge infuriated the duke's rightful heir, his son Charles the Rash, who soon earned his nickname by organizing a revolt of the French n.o.bility against the king.As Burgundy's rebellion drifted along, Louis XI was working to form his own powerful standing army. To secure funding for a new army of professional soldiers, Louis called a meeting of the rarely used French general parliament (called the Estates-General) in 1468. He didn't really have a choice: as fighting rebellious n.o.bles cost more and more money, the loyal n.o.bles, clergy, and wealthy merchants who were lending him money and paying taxes demanded a say in how the money was spent.It all came to a head when the Swiss towns that belonged to the Duke of Burgundy rebelled in 1475. All the duke's old enemies (with a name like "the Rash," he had a lot) sprang out of the woodwork to ally themselves with Louis XI. The most powerful, the Duke of Lorraine, killed the Duke of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy in 1477. Louis conquered Burgundy for himself-a giant increase in his power-and from there it was all gravy. When the Duke of Anjou died without a male heir, Louis picked up his territory in southern France, too, increasing his power even more. In fact, over his reign, French royal territory almost doubled.England: Bow Down or Get Out The English kings began welding England into a single nation shortly after French kings centralized rule in their own kingdom, with similar results. But England, unlike France, had a wild card: a popular Protestant movement that undermined the Catholic Church. The two trends-royal centralization and Protestant Reformation-converged in a uniquely English "compromise."In England the final push to centralization was provided by the long, b.l.o.o.d.y War of the Roses-which was not nearly as pleasant as it sounds. After a good number of peasant dwellings were burned (no surprise; the little guys always got the worst of it) the last man standing after the War of the Roses was Henry Tudor, who took the name Henry VII after defeating his rival, Richard III, in 1485. When Henry died in 1509, rule pa.s.sed to his son Henry VIII-who had some, ah, issues with his wives and the Catholic Church.Building on his father's achievements, Henry VIII wielded unprecedented control over England. Because the pope wouldn't allow him to divorce his wife-or his second wife, or his third-in his endless quest to produce a male heir, Henry simply established a new church, independent of Rome, called the Anglican Church. He also enriched the royal treasury by looting Catholic monasteries and established a special court with its own secret police, the Star Chamber, to dispose of uncooperative n.o.bles. Thus Henry VIII paved the way for the greatest monarch in English history: his daughter Elizabeth.Before coming to power in 1558, Elizabeth's att.i.tudes were shaped by the reign of her half-sister, Mary, a devout Catholic who rejected their father's attempt to establish a separate English church and earned the nickname b.l.o.o.d.y Mary for her execution of hundreds of English Protestants. Elizabeth herself was nominally a Protestant, but concluded that religion should take a backseat to politics-period. As a result, her policies angered Protestants and Catholics alike.

There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles.-Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth dealt with the religious problem first, issuing a revised "Book of Common Prayer" in 1559, a text that basically papered over religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants by being very, very vague. No one was happy with the Book of Common Prayer-especially a fanatical Protestant group called the Puritans-but that was sort of the point: religion was great and all, but obedience to the English monarch came first. Indeed, dissenters from both the Catholic and Protestant camps soon found out what it meant to cross Elizabeth.Catholic opposition to Elizabeth was led by Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, whose conspiracy provided the queen with a perfect opportunity to crush Catholics and n.o.bles in one big bloodbath. She allowed Thomas to enter into a conspiracy with the pope, then produced evidence of his treason (possibly manufactured), and had him executed in 1571.But Elizabeth also subdued Protestants who opposed her religious reforms. She paid special attention to crushing the Puritans and Presbyterians, Protestant sects who believed (correctly) that Elizabeth was trying to shift political control of the church from the pope to herself.Spain: Spreading the Love In Spain, although Ferdinand and Isabella were extremely powerful, they operated almost entirely through the old feudal system. And their grandson, Charles V, ruled in the same way. These monarchs wanted above all to gather land and subjects-even if they didn't fit neatly into their existing empire. By distributing ma.s.sive bribes (gold looted from the New World), Charles V got himself elected Holy Roman Emperor, a big boost in prestige. But his European empire was a crazy quilt, including Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, parts of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and chunks of Germany.Of course, Ferdinand, Isabella, and Charles V did have one thing going for them: religion. To kick off the empire, Ferdy and Izzy summoned their Spanish subjects to a common cause by proclaiming a new Crusade against the Muslims of southern Spain. By the mid-1400s, Muslim Spain had been whittled down to a "rump kingdom" (seriously, that's what they called it) in the southern peninsula called Al-Andalus. Ferdinand and Isabella finished it off with the capture of Granada in 1492, followed by the expulsion of all Jews in Spain, for good measure.

A BAD HAIR CENTURY.

Hoping to cement his scattered European empire with truly "cosmetic" changes, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ordered his entourage to cut their hair, because it was the current fashion in northern Europe. Although they obeyed, they wept as they cut their waist-length locks. In southern Europe, the length of one's hair, like the length of one's beard, was a sign of one's age-and therefore of authority. Unfortunately, Charles V was never able to grow a beard, and his followers were also forced to trim their beards to imitate their girlish leader.

Around this same time, Ferdinand and Isabella were presented with a great opportunity to continue their "crusade" when a little side venture involving a Genoese sailor named Christopher Columbus produced unexpected results. In 1492, they had funded a small expedition by Columbus to find an ocean route to Asia. Columbus returned in 1494 with reports of islands he thought were modern j.a.pan and Indonesia (actually Haiti and Cuba).

I speak Spanish to G.o.d, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse.-Charles V

The royal couple agreed to fund return expeditions, and soon out-of-work European thugs and petty n.o.bility calling themselves "conquerors" (conquistadores) realized that there were two wealthy native empires-the Aztec and Inca-located across the ocean. These kingdoms were technologically primitive but socially advanced, with large, complex urban centers-in other words, wealthy targets ripe for the picking.

These people are very unskilled in arms...with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.-Christopher Columbus

The Aztecs: Running an Empire on Blood and Chocolate The Aztecs were into blood-human blood, baby. In fact, they believed their G.o.ds required human blood to live. So, as their power grew in Mexico in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, they sacrificed ever greater numbers of captives from the neighboring tribes and cities. They were probably offing somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty thousand people a year by the time of the arrival of Hernando Cortes in 1509. Even better was the preferred means of sacrifice: cutting open the rib cage and offering the victim's still-beating heart to heaven in a brazier filled with burning coals. Nice.

YES, OUR MONEY GROWS ON TREES.

From at least the fourteenth century, the Aztecs used cocoa beans as coins, valuing them because they were both rare and delicious. Indeed, if they felt like splurging, they weren't afraid to down their tasty money, drinking it in a thick beverage called chocolatl chocolatl, which probably tasted more like our modern coffee than it did hot chocolate. Calling cocoa beans "the food of the G.o.ds," the Aztecs also offered them to divinities alongside human sacrifices that could claim hundreds of victims from neighboring tribes. Taxes from neighboring tribes were also collected in the form of cocoa beans. Hernando de Ovieda Valdez, a historian who accompanied Hernando Cortes in his conquest of the Aztecs, recorded the prices of different goods and services in cocoa beans: a rabbit cost four beans; a slave, one hundred. A visit to a prost.i.tute would cost you ten beans.

Aside from this incredibly brutal aspect of their religion, the Aztecs achieved a level of social complexity and urban organization exceeding any other Native American state in history. With about two hundred thousand inhabitants, the capital Tenocht.i.tlan, located on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, ruled an empire with millions of subjects.The Aztecs began building their empire in the late fourteenth century, driven by the ambition of their warrior caste and the orderly organization of Aztec society in general. Beneath the warrior caste of Eagle and Jaguar knights, most Aztecs were farmers, tending giant floating gardens on Lake Texcoco, where they grew corn, cotton, and vegetables. Meanwhile, Aztec merchants traveled the length of Mexico looking for luxury goods such as gems, precious metals, dyes, and plumage from exotic birds.In some ways, the Aztec religious pantheon resembled the divine households of the Olmecs, Toltecs, and Mayans. But Aztec G.o.ds had a mean streak a mile wide. There was Coatlicue, a clawed G.o.ddess representing pain, who wore a skirt made out of snakes and a necklace of human hearts. Xipe Totec was the G.o.d of spring and rebirth, but also of suffering, requiring priests to skin a sacrificial victim alive and then don the skin to symbolize the cycle of life.To be fair, not all Aztec G.o.ds were cruel. The sun G.o.d, Huitzlipochtli, protected the Aztecs and granted victory in battle. Xochipilli, the "good times" G.o.d, embodied dawn, dancing, and love. And Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered serpent," represented wisdom and creation. In fact, in the fifteenth century, Quetzalcoatl became the object of a popular cult that forecasted his return in physical form to free the Aztecs from the burden of human sacrifice. Unluckily for them, the last Aztec emperor, Montezuma (or Moctezuma) II, may have mistaken the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes for the returning messiah Quetzalcoatl-with disastrous results.The Inca: Another Golden Target Like the Aztecs, the Inca Empire was relatively young, and the neighboring tribes they conquered were not terribly fond of them.When the Spanish showed up in 1532, the Inca Empire was a fairly recent construction, less than a hundred years old. It was founded in 1438 by a dynamic military leader named Pachacuti, who subdued the central mountain valleys of modern Peru. His successors added modern Ecuador, Bolivia, and northern Chile. Geographically the Inca Empire was far larger than that of the Aztecs, measuring 2,500 miles from north to south.The Inca developed a sophisticated urban society with large cities supported by productive agricultural hinterlands. Again, like the Aztecs, they demonstrated both impressive engineering skill and an ability to mobilize ma.s.s labor for big projects by constructing huge ceremonial structures. The chief Inca ceremonial centers, Cuzco, the capital, and Machu Picchu, a mystical mountain redoubt, required tens of thousands of laborers to move stone blocks weighing up to fifty tons to positions high in the Andes Mountains.The Inca also constructed fourteen thousand miles of roads that rivaled Roman roads in their durability; in fact, some Inca roads are still used today. Deep ravines in the Andes were spanned with rope bridges. Like the Romans, the Inca used their elaborate system of roads to facilitate trade and the movement of armies.The empire was blessed with enormous mineral wealth, including silver and gold deposits, and Spanish conquistadores' eyewitness descriptions of Incan cities, while mind-boggling, are likely accurate. It seems the walls of the Court of Gold in Cuzco-an astronomical observatory housing about four thousand Inca priests-were hung with thin sheets of gold; a solid gold disc representing the Sun G.o.d reflected sunlight on the sheets to illuminate the building's interior.Of course this incredible wealth made the Inca Empire a prime target for Spanish conquest, as with the Aztecs in Mexico. In 1532, shortly after Hernando Cortes conquered the Aztecs, a Spanish adventurer named Francisco Pizarro attacked the Inca and-wait for it-looted the empire. The Spanish melted down priceless Inca objects into gold bars, which they shipped back to Spain, and enslaved the Native American population to mine rich ore deposits at places such as Potosi, Bolivia.China: On the Money Any comparison of Western Europe and China at this time has to look at the numbers-the number of people, for starters. In 1300, China probably held upward of one hundred million people. And these were all subjects of one emperor. Compare this to Europe, which had about fifty million people. It's no surprise that the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty found themselves hopelessly outnumbered. But the Mongols weren't doing themselves any favors. In 1348, the last Mongol emperor, Togan Timur, appointed a particularly nasty SOB named Bayan as his prime minister, who suggested the best way to end Chinese dissent was to exterminate nine tenths of the population. Shockingly, the Chinese did not like Bayan, or his boss Togan, and 1348 saw the beginning of a twenty-year rebellion, led by a charismatic commoner named Yuanzhang.So who was Yuanzhang, who took the imperial name Hongwu, and founded the new Ming Dynasty? As with earlier dynasties, he founded a new administration that mirrored the structure of previous ones-but unlike most self-made emperors, he was a peasant. In fact, he was able to succeed in part because the old aristocracy had been sidelined by the Mongols. As emperor, Hongwu was deeply insecure about his humble background, and ruthlessly suppressed his enemies-real and imagined. But he also pa.s.sed agrarian and tax reforms to make life easier for peasants. To keep the Mongols out, Hongwu undertook the reconstruction of the Great Wall, which was supposed to seal off northern China from Mongolia. Previous Chinese dynasties had built long walls along the route of the Great Wall, but the modern structure of that name is mostly a Ming construction.China was broke when the Mongols left, and it was about to get broker. After taking over the reins of power, Hongwu gave almost all the copper coins in circulation to the Mongols, basically as "protection money," so they wouldn't invade China again. The Mongols would have laughed at paper money, which they considered worthless-and how right they were. To make up for the shortfall in copper coins, Hongwu introduced paper money in the late fourteenth century, leading to a boom in trade. But he soon discovered the great thing about paper money: you can print as much of it as you want! There was just one small problem: it became worthless, falling to one seventieth of its previous value, and in 1425 the Mandarin bureaucrats were forced to reintroduce copper coinage. Despite the mixed results, China still deserves credit as the first state in history to try using paper money on a large scale. It was an example that would be followed by Europe in the seventeenth century, often with a similar outcome (a lot of useless paper stuff).India: Babar's Shop In the early sixteenth century a Mongol prince named Babar (yes, the cartoon elephant is probably named after him) founded the powerful Moghul (Mongol) dynasty.Babar came from the same stock as the earlier warlord Tamerlane, who claimed to be a descendant of Genghis Khan and certainly slaughtered and conquered with similar flair. Around 1500, Babar decided to follow the example of his ill.u.s.trious predecessors by saddling up and kicking some serious a.s.s. But Babar was actually a just, evenhanded administrator as well as a capable military commander. With a reputation for delivering both serious smack-downs and good government, he was soon in control of a large amount of northern India.Still, it would fall to Babar's weird, charismatic grandson Akbar to consolidate the empire. Akbar (who sadly does not have a cartoon elephant named after him) a.s.sumed the throne in 1561, at the age of thirteen, and immediately began expanding his territory to cover all of northern India as well as Pakistan and even Afghanistan. Governing from the central city of Delhi, Akbar developed a sophisticated administration to rule his vast empire. He appointed military governors who were held responsible for any government misdoings in their province, including corruption-sometimes on penalty of death.

GOOD KHAN, BAD KHAN.

Babar and the Moghuls were nice guys compared to their distant cousin Tamerlane, who ranks as one of the meanest b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in history, hands down, no contest. Also known as Timur ("iron" in Turkic), he learned the ways of horse-mounted warfare early on from his father, chief of a small nomadic tribe. Timur was lame in one leg from a battlefield injury acquired as a young man (Timur+lame=Tumerlane), but this didn't impair his skill in cavalry combat. In 1369 he eliminated his chief rival for the throne of Samarkand, then led his motley collection of followers on a series of lightning campaigns against Persia, Iraq, Syria, Russia, India, and China.Some essential numbers: Timur ordered the death of seventy thousand inhabitants of the Persian city of Isfahan in 1387. At Delhi, in northern India, in 1398, his army slaughtered one hundred thousand unarmed captive Indians. In 1400, he buried alive four thousand Armenian prisoners. His soldiers ma.s.sacred twenty thousand civilians in Baghdad, where Timur ordered each soldier to return with at least two human heads. Last but not least, after his soldiers allegedly killed eighty thousand people in Aleppo and twenty thousand in Damascus, he built twenty pyramids of skulls around the devastated cities.One account recorded conditions in Delhi after Timur's visit: "The city of Delhi was depopulated and ruined...followed by a pestilence caused by the pollution of the air and water by thousands of uncared-for dead bodies."Although he left behind plenty of skeletons, Timur made no bones about being evil. Before burning Damascus to the ground and killing most of its inhabitants, he gathered the leading citizens for a little lecture, saying, "I am the scourge of G.o.d appointed to chastise you, since no one knows the remedy for your iniquity except me. You are wicked, but I am more wicked than you, so be silent!"Timur was planning an invasion of China to reunify the empire of Genghis Khan when he died at the age of seventy.

The most remarkable thing about Akbar was his extreme religious tolerance. To get on the majority Hindus' good side, Akbar took the wise step of repealing the jizya, jizya, or Muslim tax on all non-Muslims; repealed a tax on visits to Hindu pilgrimage destinations; and allowed legal cases to be tried in Hindu courts. or Muslim tax on all non-Muslims; repealed a tax on visits to Hindu pilgrimage destinations; and allowed legal cases to be tried in Hindu courts.These were all smart steps. But his descendant Aurangzeb, who ruled three generations later, was a Muslim zealot who persecuted Hindus and alienated the Hindu majority. This kind of cruelty paved the way for the British conquest of India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the Brits benefited from Hindu resentment toward their Muslim rulers.

I love my own religion. Is there anything that I will not do for my religion?...The Hindu Minister also loves his religion. Does he not have the right to love the thing that is his very own?-Akbar the Great

Ottomans (No, the Plural Is Not Ottomen) The Ottomans were originally employed by the Byzantine emperors as border guards holding off fierce Mongol incursions into Asia Minor-modern-day eastern Turkey-on the theory that "it takes a nomad to fight a nomad." Later the Ottomans were almost "out-nomaded" by Tamerlane, who killed Sultan Bajazet I, "The Thunderbolt," in 1403. But Tamerlane died, and the Ottomans continued their climb to power. They turned on their weak Byzantine masters (never hire Central Asian nomads as your security detail) conquering Constantinople in 1453.The city's ma.s.sive triple walls had protected it for centuries, but the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II ordered a Hungarian metallurgist to build him a twenty-seven-foot monster cannon nicknamed the "Basilic" ("King"), which could hurl a twelve-hundred-pound cannonball as far as a mile-the most powerful gun in history up to that point. Meanwhile, Ottoman naval commanders figured out how to get around the giant underwater chains protecting Constantinople's harbors: they drafted local peasants to carry their ships overland around the barriers.On the morning of May 29, 1453, the b.l.o.o.d.y final battle began with human-wave a.s.saults by poorly armed Ottoman Bashi-bazouk fanatics. The exhausted Byzantines were able to fend off another attack by Turkish regulars on the northeastern walls, and even stopped a third a.s.sault by the sultan's elite shock troops, the Janissaries. Ironically, this fateful battle was decided by a slight oversight: the Byzantine defenders forgot to lock one of the small gates in the northeastern wall, and the Janissaries poured into the city. The last emperor, Constantine XI, probably died fighting in the streets. Because no one saw him die, there was an enduring myth that he would one day return to save the Greeks from Ottoman rule. (Didn't happen.)

In the early dawn, as the Turks poured into the City and the citizens took flight, some of the fleeing Romans managed to reach their homes and rescue their children and wives. As they moved, bloodstained, across the Forum of the Bull and pa.s.sed the Column of the Cross, their wives asked, "What is to become of us?" When they heard the fearful cry, "The Turks are slaughtering Romans within the City's walls," they did not believe it at first...But behind him came a second, and then a third, and all were covered with blood, and they knew that the cup of the Lord's wrath had touched their lips. Monks and nuns, therefore, and men and women, carrying their infants in their arms and abandoning their homes to anyone who wished to break in, ran to the Great Church. The thoroughfare, overflowing with people, was a sight to behold!-Eyewitness account of the Greek historian Doukas on the fall of Constantinople

Ottoman power peaked under Suleiman the Magnificent (one of history's best names). Coming to power in 1520, he is known in the Muslim world as "the Lawgiver" because of the code of law he issued in 1501, which is an amalgam of Islamic Shari'a and good old-fashioned Turkish tribal law.Suleiman also dispensed a substantial amount of whup-a.s.s. He laid siege to the great Christian city of Vienna, Austria, in 1519, forcing the Holy Roman emperor Charles V to summon troops from all over Christendom to defend the city. The siege failed, but Suleiman picked up the Balkan Peninsula as a consolation prize. He also conquered Iraq, Armenia, Libya, and Algeria.Unfortunately many of Suleiman's successors sucked. In fact, his son Selim II is remembered as "the Drunk"-a nickname that speaks for itself. Meanwhile, newcomers called the Portuguese were already scheming against one of the Ottomans' main sources of revenue: customs duties on spices from Asia.WHO'S UP, WHO'S DOWN [image]

Explorers: UP UP Spain wasn't actually the first European power out of the gate in the race to explore and brutally conquer the rest of the world. That dubious honor goes to Spain's smaller neighbor Portugal.The pioneering king who launched Portugal's empire was Prince Henry, fittingly called "The Navigator." Born in 1394, Henry (at the tender age of nineteen) led the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta, in modern-day Morocco, where he saw the incredible riches of Africa and Asia on display in the markets, including spices, Oriental rugs, gold, and silver. It occurred to him that Portuguese sailors could reach the sources of these luxury goods directly via sea, cutting out the numerous middlemen who dominated the land routes.Henry showed an early interest in seafaring and recruited cartographers from all over Europe to help him at his headquarters in Sagres, Portugal. Around the same time, Portuguese merchants were perfecting a new type of ship, the caravel, which became the workhorse of global exploration. They also invented important navigational tools, such as the quadrant, and filled books with ways to calculate lines of lat.i.tude (distance north or south of the equator) through observations of the sun.Beginning in 1420, Henry supported Portuguese colonization of the Canary Islands, the Madeira Islands, and the mid-Atlantic Azores. He also sponsored voyages of discovery down the west coast of Africa. He also gets credit for initiating one of history's most barbaric types of commerce. In 1444, Portuguese traders bought slaves from native African princes who were later sold back in Lagos, Portugal. After Portugal settled Brazil, Portuguese slave traders transported millions of African slaves to work on rubber, sugar, and tobacco plantations. The success of slavery in Brazil set the precedent for the importation of slaves by other colonial powers such as Spain and England.

THIS AIN'T THE SAME OL' SHIP As England competed with Spain and Portugal for control of the seas in the sixteenth century, one of the main English advantages was the sleeker, more aerodynamic hull that English shipwrights introduced sometime around the middle of the century. The old-fashioned Spanish galleons, with large wooden "superstructures" housing officers' quarters and storage rooms fore and aft, didn't stand a chance against new English ships, called "razed" or "race-built" galleons, which basically chopped off the luxury housing for officers, thus decreasing drag-an all-important consideration when wind was the sole source of power. These faster ships would allow England to gain control of trade routes, and also allowed English privateers to outfight Spanish ships again and again.

The exploration of Asia was driven by l.u.s.t for black pepper from India. Why go to all that trouble? Because the Ottoman Turks had a monopoly over all the overland and maritime trade routes between India and Europe, and made a fortune charging customs duties on all the goods crossing their territory. To get to the source and cut the Ottomans out of the equation, Christopher Columbus, sponsored by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, tried to find a new ocean route linking Europe to Asia across the Atlantic Ocean to the west-but b.u.mped into America on the way.Meanwhile Portuguese navigator Vasco de Gama tried another route, heading east around the southern tip of Africa, and made it to India in 1498. When de Gama returned to Portugal with a hold full of black pepper, his expedition earned a profit margin of 6,000 percent! Over the next twenty years, 95 percent of all cargo from India unloaded in Portugal was black pepper-an indication of the incredible demand for the stuff.The vast profits earned by Portugal gave other European kings ideas, and before long, explorers of all nationalities were fanning out over the globe in pursuit of fame, adventure, and most of all, money, money, money. Of course, it was still plenty hazardous for the second wave. Spain hired Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailor, whose crew circled the globe for the first time-though Magellan himself didn't make it, as he was eaten by natives in the Philippines in 1572. The English roster included Henry Hudson, who explored the East Coast of North America, until his men mutinied in 1611. Francis Drake, the first Englishman to circ.u.mnavigate the globe, began his voyage with six ships in 1577 but returned with just one in 1580, having lost the majority of his crew.Ivan the Great: UP UP (And Legitimately Pretty Great) (And Legitimately Pretty Great) As too many Russian princes learned, those who defied the Mongols usually met grim, early deaths. But in 1480, Ivan the Great struck boldly (kind of) by making camp for a couple months across a frozen river from the Mongols. (Both armies actually may just have been waiting for the ice on the river to melt to have an excuse to go home.) Nonetheless, in a brilliant show of "soft power," Ivan intimidated the Mongols by displaying his army of 150,000, including cannon and cavalry, before returning to Moscow to think about death.Yes, Ivan was obsessed with his own mortality, and left his army facing the Mongols across the frozen river to ask advice from monks, bishops, and his mother about whether to fight. Ivan was also under intense pressure from the Russian commoners, who would suffer the most from Mongol retaliation. Archbishop Va.s.sian urged Ivan to fight, asking, "Is it the part of mortals to fear death?"

He has overtaxed us, and refused to pay tribute to the Horde, and now that he has irritated the Khan, he declines to fight!-An old Muscovite woman on Ivan

Eventually Ivan returned to the scene of the battle, but moped for several weeks in his tent while the armies traded insults across the river. Then, for reasons that are still unclear, both armies simultaneously panicked and withdrew. The Mongols' withdrawal became a headlong retreat as soldiers fled toward Central Asia. This bloodless defeat signaled the end of Mongol power in Europe."Witches": DOWN DOWN Comically ignorant and frighteningly hateful, medieval Christians blamed women for basically everything that went wrong, which not coincidentally was a great excuse to kill them and steal their property. As a "vessel of the Devil," the first woman, Eve, caused the downfall of man by tempting Adam with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve was the eternal archetype for all women, whose greed and l.u.s.t led to sin and corruption.So considering their evil origins, it's no surprise that women were frequently accused of being witches in medieval Europe. Of course there was no way to determine the truth of these accusations, but that didn't stop "experts" from issuing a big book of rules for investigating and prosecuting witchcraft. The Malleus Maleficarum, Malleus Maleficarum, or or Hammer of Witches, Hammer of Witches, was a well-intentioned but fanciful work of fiction written in 1486 by two German Dominicans who were also Inquisitors. was a well-intentioned but fanciful work of fiction written in 1486 by two German Dominicans who were also Inquisitors.According to the Malleus Malleus, "all witchcraft comes from carnal l.u.s.t, which is in women insatiable." Unsuspecting women can be corrupted by demons that a.s.sume the form of handsome men, but they can also be recruited by other witches, who prey on them when something goes wrong, offering an easy fix through witchcraft. Witches can cast spells, fly, transform themselves into animals known as "familiars" (such as bats or black cats), and magically move objects from far away, including stealing men's p.e.n.i.ses: "There is no doubt that certain witches can do marvelous things with regard to male organs." They also practice cannibalism and infanticide and have s.e.x with the Devil. Not good stuff.But how to tell if someone was a witch? The Malleus Malleus instructed readers how to carry out a "legal" process that basically always ended with the woman dead, regardless of her guilt. There should be more than two witnesses willing to testify that the accused is a witch. Paradoxically, one of the key proofs of being a witch was denying that witches existed. Meanwhile, the judge might not be able to listen to the testimony of a witch, because she could use her words to enchant him. The proof? Sometimes judges released the accused women after talking to them! Of course, a woman could be so corrupted by the Devil that she was unable to confess to being a witch-meaning she was an extra-bad witch. And it goes without saying that any woman who didn't cry during her trial was automatically guilty of being a witch. instructed readers how to carry out a "legal" process that basically always ended with the woman dead, regardless of her guilt. There should be more than two witnesses willing to testify that the accused is a witch. Paradoxically, one of the key proofs of being a witch was denying that witches existed. Meanwhile, the judge might not be able to listen to the testimony of a witch, because she could use her words to enchant him. The proof? Sometimes judges released the accused women after talking to them! Of course, a woman could be so corrupted by the Devil that she was unable to confess to being a witch-meaning she was an extra-bad witch. And it goes without saying that any woman who didn't cry during her trial was automatically guilty of being a witch.

D'ARC TRIUMPHS In 1425, at the age of thirteen, Jeanne d'Arc, an illiterate peasant girl, began hearing voices that she believed to be G.o.d and Catholic saints instructing her. According to Jeanne, the voices were later accompanied by a blazing light, and she was eventually able to see whichever saint was speaking to her. One theory holds that the progressive character of the visions may have been symptoms of mounting schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.In any event, the voices explained Jeanne's mission to her by 1428 at the latest, when she decided she had to help the embattled king of France, Charles VII, free the land from English domination. At that time, the English were about to capture Orleans, sealing the fate of France. Although Jeanne protested that "I am a poor girl; I do not know how to ride or fight," the voices insisted that she take command of the French armies and destroy the English. By this time, the French situation was so desperate that Charles VII was willing to try anything, including putting a seventeen-year-old peasant girl in charge of his armies. However, he wisely first sent her to be examined by French doctors and bishops in the nearby city of Poitiers to determine if she was a fraud.Returning to Orleans, Jeanne immediately scored a brilliant victory over the English by leading the king's troops on a lightning dash into the city to reinforce it. The sudden arrival of help cheered the defenders, who went on to throw off the English siege before routing them in a series of battles that ended with Charles VII being crowned as French king in the holy city of Rheims in 1429. Jeanne's success saved France, but not her. She was captured by John of Luxembourg in a later battle, who handed her over to his English allies. Charles VII did nothing to help the teenage girl who had saved his crown and his kingdom, remaining silent as English church officials tried and convicted Jeanne of witchcraft and heresy-in part because she wore men's clothing on the field of battle and in prison-and burned her alive on May 30, 1431. She was nineteen years old.

Ultimately, the guilt of witches can be "proved" by physical "trials" using a red-hot iron or dunking them underwater. In the first trial, if the accused woman can carry a red-hot iron three paces without getting burned, she's a witch. If she gets burned, she's not a witch, although she is mutilated for life. In the second, the accused woman is bound with stones and thrown into a pond. If she survives, she's a witch, and if she drowns, she's innocent. (And dead!)If the accused woman lived long enough to be convicted of witchcraft, she would be burned alive. In the end, fifty thousand to one hundred thousand women-and a few men-were burned as witches in Europe in the medieval and Renaissance periods. Many of the women were probably accused of witchcraft because they were rude or eccentric (exhibiting behaviors that today would be cla.s.sified as signs of mental illness), were too independent, questioned the authority of male officials or the Catholic Church, or owned property. In cases where the witch owned property, upon her death the land would be divided three ways, among the Catholic Church, the Inquisitors, and the royal treasury-thus giving all three ent.i.ties a good incentive to find her guilty.Jews: DOWN. AGAIN. DOWN. AGAIN.

Comically ignorant and frighteningly hateful, medieval Christians blamed Jews for basically everything that went wrong, which not coincidentally was a great excuse to kill them and steal their property.Blackmailing Jews was also a favorite tactic of bankrupt kings looking for new sources of income. In 1290, Edward I ordered the expulsion of all England's Jews. (In one story, a sea captain "helping" some of the English Jews to flee left his cargo of refugees-to drown-on a sandbar in the English Channel at low tide.) French n.o.bles expelled the Jews several times, confiscating all their property, but always invited them back when commerce began to suffer. Later, Jews were said to be poisoning wells during the first wave of the Black Death, 13481349, and were killed en ma.s.se; in Basel the entire Jewish population was moved to a wooden building on an island in the Rhine River, where they were burned alive.As usual, not the best era to be Jewish.Mali (and Western Africa): DOWN DOWN Although it had been one of the most powerful empires of medieval times, Mali completely collapsed during this period. The demise of this wealthy West African state had nothing to do with European meddling (which was just getting started) and everything to do with a cla.s.sic African phenomenon: the overthrow of established powers by nomads from the Sahara desert.The Tuareg and Songhai were familiar troublemakers who launched rebellions during the reign of Mansa Musa II in the early 1370s. Unfortunately, Mansa Musa II wasn't much of a king: his prime minister, Mari Djata, a.s.sumed responsibility for crushing the rebels and took care of the Tuareg (temporarily). But he couldn't defeat the Songhai rebellion. From there, it was all downhill for Mali.In fact the Songhai would go on to form West Africa's next great state, covering even more territory than Mali. Like the Malinese before them, the first Songhai kings grew wealthy off the trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold. But Portuguese merchants exploring the west coast of Africa did an end run around the kings of Songhai, going straight to the source. West Africa's economy then entered a long downward spiral from which it has never recovered.SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE...

Words [image]

It's strange to think of a time before phrases such as "c'est la vie" and "menage a trois" were common, but in the medieval period, the people of France spoke a variety of dialects, some of which were so different that they were basically different languages. In the north they spoke the langues d'oil langues d'oil-different combinations of Roman Latin and Celtic dialects of the pre-medieval period. There were five major dialects in this group. Meanwhile, in the south of France, people spoke the langue d'oc, langue d'oc, a dialect more closely related to Latin and Spanish languages such as Catalan. Finally, in the west of France, the inhabitants of the Brittany peninsula spoke an old Celtic language, a dialect more closely related to Latin and Spanish languages such as Catalan. Finally, in the west of France, the inhabitants of the Brittany peninsula spoke an old Celtic language, Breton Breton.Beginning in the late thirteenth century, however, the kings of France employed a new lingua Franca, or "French language," that would serve as the language of administration, and the model of correct p.r.o.nunciation and spelling. Because royal power was concentrated in Paris, this "official French" was strongly influenced by the Parisian dialect. In 1539 it was proclaimed the official language of France by Francis I, replacing Latin.Like France, the new English national ident.i.ty also required linguistic conformity.After the conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror, a "Norman" descendant of Vikings, Norman French was the language of the English royal court. Meanwhile, the regular people of England spoke a hodgepodge language descended from all the previous conquerors of the British Isles, including the ancient Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings. Over time, the "Old English" of the regular people fused with the Norman French of the kings to produce "Middle English" (Geoffrey Chaucer used this version of English in writing The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales). Just like French, the new English language was based closely on the dialect of the royal capital-in this case, London. It was adopted as the official language of Parliament in 1362, and was also used by the Protestant reformer Wycliffe for his "vernacular" (common language) English Bible in 1382.The Printing Press: The Most Important Invention Between the Wheel (c. 4000 BCE) and Sliced Bread (1928) The standardization of national languages such as French and English was possible only because of a world-changing invention: the printing press. The ma.s.s production of texts encouraged authors, printers, and readers to agree on standard spellings and rules of grammar. This process was accelerated by the ma.s.s printing of dictionaries, which codified national languages.The first printing presses were actually just blocks of wood that had been meticulously carved with a single page of text. Chinese printers used these primitive presses from at least the ninth century CE to print religious texts for wide distribution. The first European printers used them for similar purposes, including "Pauper's Bibles" (generally heavy on pictures and light on text).The Chinese n.o.bleman Bi Sheng invented the first moveable-type printing press in 1041 CE. But it was another leap to ma.s.s printing, as the individual characters or letters were still carved by hand in Europe and China. In the 1450s the German goldsmith Johann Gutenberg began ma.s.s-producing metal type by casting large numbers of metal letters with reusable molds. This made moveable-type ("typeset") printing far more economical.Gutenberg's first major publications were beautiful "Gutenberg Bibles," which incorporated much of the fine artistry of monastic calligraphy-including gold leaf and other precious materials-without the need for the tedious and sometimes inaccurate hand-copying that belabored the old process. Gutenberg's printing technique soon spread throughout Europe, and was quickly adapted to myriad non-religious uses, including technical manuals for mining and manufacturing and-of course-propaganda!From the end of the 1400s onward, printing presses were central to the propaganda struggle waged by Protestant sects against the Catholic Church, and to the furious counterattacks waged by the pope in Rome. In one famous example, a pro-Protestant cartoon depicts the pope issuing a "Papal Bull"...in the form of a giant, ga.s.sy fart.Hash Browns, Home Fries, and Latkes It might seem like a weird thing to get excited about, but after its discovery in the New World in the sixteenth century, the potato took Europe by storm. (Don't laugh.) The tuber grew well in dry, sandy soil, and was a perfect staple to feed the poor peasants of Europe. Potato cultivation began as a top-secret enterprise, with a cloak-and-dagger operation started by Sir Walter Raleigh, who received a couple of potatoes from his buddy and sometime rival Sir Francis Drake, who had just sailed around the world and picked up some potatoes in Peru or Colombia.Once Raleigh had perfected the cultivation of the potato, the story goes, he informed Queen Elizabeth, but her royal cooks-who were unfamiliar with the tuber-cooked the green "eyes" growing on the potato rather than the potato itself. This made everyone in the royal family sick, and put Raleigh firmly in the royal doghouse.Elizabeth outlawed potatoes for a hundred years, but their growing popularity in Spain, France, and Italy (where the Spanish introduced them after the discovery of the Americas) paved the way for their large-scale cultivation in the British Isles. Cultivation was particularly widespread in Ireland, where it expanded to the exclusion of other staple crops-setting the stage for disaster in the 1800s, when blight on the potato crop caused the horrendous Irish Potato Famine.Nutritious, Delicious Beer The medieval period and Renaissance have reputations for being rather drunken times, but ironically Public Enemy No. 1-good ol' beer-was usually consumed for its nutritional value, not to get drunk. Indeed, in the early medieval period, beer was probably more like porridge, but by the Renaissance it had more or less acquired its modern form, especially with the addition, in the early sixteenth century, of hops-a grain that helps preserve the beverage for longer periods of time and also gives it its bitter taste.People used all kinds of ingredients to flavor beer, from yummy things (blackberries) to weird items (garlic and tree bark) to positively bizarre stuff (chicken...yes, chicken). These ingredients probably reflected beer's continued status as a meal in itself in the late medieval and Renaissance period. Beer was also considerably safer to drink than water, because the fermentation process "cooked" the bacteria that caused diseases such as cholera and dysentery.In fact, beer was so important as a source of nutrition and recreation that it became one of the very first areas where the German states of the Holy Roman Empire decided to cooperate and inst.i.tute a uniform legal code: in 1516, the Bavarian Beer Purity Law became the first "consumer protection" regulation by legislating the required alcohol content, fermentation process, and appropriate ingredients for German beer. According to one anonymous monk, beer actually helped drinkers be better Christians: "He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. Amen."Amen.A Vodka You Can't Refuse...