This fascinating and astonishing revelation certainly amazed thousands of historians, war scientists, and plain, curious ordinary people; yes, there are hundreds of secret, abandoned, Soviet military tanks gradually rusting away somewhere within the Eastern European state of Ukraine.
I wonder if they come cheap. Could use a pair of them but only if they're included with Amazon Prime, I don't want to pay the shipping
I've always been absolutely fascinated with abandoned places. Alfred Hitchcock once said that 'photos were like little pieces of time' and I think that's the same with abandoned places. Like time has frozen.
Enter Mansa Musa, 10th emperor of Mali. He was one of the richest men in history. A devout muslim, he made hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) between 1324 and 1325. Brought with him a ginormous amount of gold that was distributed to all the poor he met on his journey as zakat (alms) but he went a bit overboard: his 12000 slaves, were each one loaded with 2 kg of gold and he gave it all away causing a crisis of the price of gold that plummeted for ten years. He was a great devout king but definitely not a mind for economics !
One of my own personal faverout periods of History to learn is The Golden Age of Piracy. This lasted between roughly the 1650's and the 1730's when Piracy was most active One of the most infamous pirates was a man by the name of Henry Every. He managed to get away with one the biggest hauls in History! At around September 1695, Every and his men tracked down a Mughal Empire fleet heading to Surat, India. As well as carrying Muslims returning from pilgrimage, the fleet contained treasure ships owned by the Grand Mughal of India himself. Every partnered himself with several other pirates and their ships and after tracking the fleet for months as well as sacking a lumbering escort vessel called the Fath Mahmamadi for 50,000 pounds of gold and silver, the three remaining pirate vessels cought up with the richest prize of the entire fleet, the Grand Mughal flagship Ganj-i-Sawai. The ship was huge and very capable of destroying Every and his allies. The ship boasted several dozen cannons and over 400 riflemen. Against all odds, Every and his men managed to capture and sack the Ganj-i-Sawai and they brutalized the male crew and I won't say what they did to the poor women. Every and his men remained on the ship for a week, taking all silver and gold and dishonoring the men and women. The male crew members' clothes were stripped and many of the women jumped over board or committed suicide. The Gold, Silver and Jewels taken from the very bloody raid was worth somewhere between 325,000 and 600,000 British pounds. Equivalent to around tens of millions of pounds today!!!! In the aftermath of this raid, the Grand Mughal of India arrested several English members of the East India Company because he thought they had betrayed him and England had to compensate the Grand Mughal. As for Every and his men....they fled to New Providenc, pirate friendly territory. Some of his men were rounded up and executed but the majority managed to get away including Every himself. No one truly knows what happened to him and the treasure but it has spawned many theories and conspiracy theories. There is evidence to say were he went but I will post some of them if there is interest. I LOVE talking about the Golden Age of Piracy!!!
There are no 100% reliable information about the fate of Captain Henry Every after 1696. It remains a large mystery to this day!
That is a strategy Julius Caesar was known for. Thus, Caesar opted simply to besiege the settlement and starve out the defenders. Battle of Alesia - Wikipedia
William James - Wikipedia According to William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, a secretary he once employed, but refused to name, made a sinister prediction concerning an alleged future victim of Jack the Ripper. Booth related that on 10 February 1891 his secretary became twitchy and agitated on hearing people discuss the Whitechapel murders, and suddenly exclaimed, 'Carrotty Nell will be the next to go'. Booth and his friends agreed, this was a strange and morbid thing for the usually timid man to say. Three days later, 25 year old prostitute Frances Coles (nicknamed Carrotty Nell) due to her red hair, was murdered. Thomas Sadler was arrested for the murder, but later released through lack of evidence. Booth's secretary, who had predicted Carrotty Nell's fate, vanished into obscurity before the police could question him about his sinister foreknowledge. This story appears to have confused Salvation Army General William Booth, who did not favour any suspect, with Salvation Army Commissioner David Lamb, who suspected a visiting sign writer who mentioned Carrotty Nell would be the next victim. Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide - Unknown Secretary
The King of Pirates, and The Biggest Pirate Heist in History There were a lot of downsides to being a 17th-century pirate. Never mind the severely unhygienic coworkers and cramped living conditions. If you were caught, you were usually tortured and killed in ways that made a stint in Guantanamo look like a weekend in Ibiza. So what was the upside of the pirating life? Sometimes you got away with it, loaded with tons of filthy lucre. Take Henry Every, for instance. A lack of primary sources means that many of the details of his life are guesswork, but we do know that he seized a ship (the Fancy, which is a spectacular name for a giant craft bristling with guns), assembled a pirate crew, and sailed into the Indian Ocean, where in 1695 he attacked a convoy that included the Ganj-i-sawai, an enormous treasure ship owned by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, ruler of virtually the entire Indian subcontinent. The attack was so audacious that it nearly vaporized England’s relationship with the emperor, who threatened to flatten the outposts of the East India Company in retaliation. It resulted in a manhunt for Every that spanned oceans —and ended in a way that perhaps nobody expected. Every Man for Himself Henry Every (also known as Avery, in some accounts, or even Evory) was born near Devon in 1659, although other, arguably more questionable sources cite a different date. As a young man, he became a sailor with the Royal Navy, which at that time was part of a “Grand Alliance” against an expansionist France. After leaving the Navy, Every spent a few years as a slave trader. He then ended up on the Charles II, as part of a privateer convoy headed for the Spanish West Indies. Before the expedition could put so much as a single cannonball through the hull of a French ship, it stalled in a port in northern Spain. The sailors, unpaid for months, decided to take matters into their own hands. Every not only participated in the mutiny, but quickly rose to lead it. It’s a short skip from privateering to outright piracy. Every convinced his new crew that their fortunes lay far to the east. The Charles II, now renamed Fancy, headed for the Indian Ocean. The King of Pirates, and the Biggest Pirate Heist in History
The BUCCANEERS The buccaneers were the semi-lawful sailors and soldiers who harassed Spanish ships and ports in the Caribbean Sea during 17th century. To Spain, they were just the ordinary pirates, but for their nations the buccaneers were a lot more than that. ... The Buccaneers got their name from the word boucanier.
During the Golden Age of Piracy, Spain and England were not on friendly terms due to the War of Spanish Succession. Both England and Spain made use of Privateers. Privateers are effectively Pirates that have been commissioned by a Government to raid, pillage and destroy the rival governments' vessels. Many privateers either began as or transitioned into full on Pirates.
The Great Michael Great Michael, was a carrack or great ship of the Royal Scottish Navy. She was the largest ship built by King James IV as part of his policy of building a strong Scottish navy. She was ordered around 1505 and completed in 1512. When Michael was launched she was the largest ship afloat, with twice the original displacement of her English contemporary Mary Rose, which was completed in 1510. The Great Harry Henry VIII of England was unwilling to be outdone, and ordered the building of the 1000-ton Henry Grace à Dieu, later known as Great Harry, which was even bigger. These ships were the first great ships, the precursors of the later ship of the line. Great Michael
