The Almost Forgotten: Recent Episodes
The Almost Forgotten
The podcast focuses on the lives and times of great historical figures that have mostly fallen through the cracks of our collective memories. We may have heard of these people, but they don't get the attention that some do. Here, they get their due. http://almostforgotten.squarespace.com on Twitter: @thealmostforgot
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Matthias Corvinus became King of Hungary as it was beginning to deal with the Ottoman threat. He united the fractured kingdom, bringing powerful magnates to heel and creating a strong centralized state. He created a significant power in Southeast Europe that was able to hold of the Ottomans and take lands from the Holy Roman Empire.
Margaret lived in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and was the daughter of the King of Denmark. Despite obstacles, and general opposition to ruling queens at the time, she not only became the Queen of Denmark, she also was able to gain the crown of two more Scandinavian kingdoms, uniting them in a personal union that last more than century.
Alauddin Khalji became the Sultan of Delhi, and greatly expanded the kingdom. He fended off multiple Mongol invasions, and he in turn invaded most of the Indian subcontinent to his south. He turned a relatively small Sultanate into a great power, and ruled over most of India.
Baibars was the Sultan of Egypt and Syria in the 13th century. Born on the Eurasian Steppe, he was enslaved as a teen, and became a slave soldier. He rose through the ranks to become a general, and eventually the Sultan of Cairo. He helped stop the Mongol advance into the Levant, and effectively ended the Crusades in the Middle East. And he stabilized the Cairo Sultanate for generations.
The Lombards made their way into Italy in the 6th century, and were the bridge between the rule there of Roman Empires, both Western and Eastern, and the Holy Roman Empire. Liutprand was perhaps their greatest king, pulling together a kingdom from the various disunited Lombard dukedoms and creating a state that was the most powerful one on the peninsula for centuries earlier.
Songsten Gampo was the king of a small state in southern Tibet, which had only just begun to expand beyond its perhaps centuries-old domain. From this, he created a long-lasting Tibetan Empire, which ruled most of the Tibetan Plateau for centuries and, thanks in no small part to Songsten Gampo, became the center of Buddhism for perhaps the whole world.
Dion was born in Syracuse and became a trusted advisor to the city’s tyrant. But Dion’s relationship with the next tyrant was no so hot, and after falling out, Dion became a reformer. As a student of Plato, he saw an opportunity to implement the philosopher’s ideal Republic, and he seized the moment to try.
Leukon was the tyrant, then king, of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a territory on the Crimean Peninsula, at the very edge of the Greek world. He took the territory, capitalized on its relationship to the rest of the Greek world to create an important Hellenized kingdom that would last for centuries.
Shutruk-Nakhunte was the most powerful king of Elam. He took this often times disunited culture, and created an empire out of it. Elam existed for thousands of years, but under Shutruk-Nakhunte they managed to be one of the great powers in the region, a rarity for them despite their long-lived civilization.
Burgundy is in turmoil after the death of Charles. His daughter Mary is his heir, but France, as well as the Netherlands, aren’t going to allow her to take power easily. Burgundy, though, survives in some way, beyond Mary, through her marriage into the powerful Habsburg family, and leaves a lasting legacy, at least in the Low Countries
Charles inherited a truly powerful state in Europe upon the death of his father. He was learned and brave, a strong military commander, and looked like he was going to be a leading man in European affairs for generations. But his obsession with his eastern frontier, coupled with a few tactical blunders, made it so that never happened, and ended Burgundy’s dominance.
Philip the Good became the new Duke of Burgundy after his father’s murder. He worked to expand Burgundy’s power, and ruled during its height in a way that kept it strong and secure. But he also missed real opportunities to make it something more.
With Philip the Bold’s death, his strategy of adding more territories to his heir is fulfilled, and John the Fearless inherits what is becoming a Burgundian state. John is even more ambitious than his father, seeking to control France, add to his own territory, and use any means at his disposal to accomplish his goals
The history of the Duchy of Burgundy continues with the first Valois Duke, Philip the Bold. Philip was a gifted statesman who help grow the duchy into a state that would eventually rival France itself.
Burgundy is a region in eastern France, which had once been an independent Germanic Kingdom. It became a Duchy of France before entering a Golden Age in the 14th and 15th century and turning into something even bigger
Nzinga was queen of an African kingdom in today’s Angola. She fought with, and at times allied with, the various colonial and indigenous powers in the region, lost most of her kingdom, gained another, and was able to resist European occupation and keep her kingdom relatively free for decades.
Bayinnaung was a prince and leading general of a small Burmese kingdom. He helped lead it to become a large empire, only to watch it dissolve when his king was killed. But he quickly restored it, before expanding it more himself, creating the largest land empire in Southeast Asia.
Jan Zizka was dead, but the Hussite cause was not. They continued to fight the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. They found a new leader in Prokop the Great, and were able to keep Sigismund at bay, but internal turmoil helped splintered the Hussites, but also helped usher in a real compromise.
The Hussites, now fighting both the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, find the leader they need to survive against impossible odds in Jan Zizka. Zizka was an incredible commander, who never lost a battle, and helped lay the groundwork for two centuries of a semi-independent Bohemian Church.
The Hussite Wars started in 1419 with the first defenestration of Prague. Here we discuss the road to the war, including the situation in Bohemia, and the preaching and then killing of Jan Hus.
Matilda was the Margrave of Tuscany and for a time was the most powerful leader in northern Italy. She acted as an almost independent leader rather than a subject of the Holy Roman Empire, fighting with it over policy and supporting papal authority over imperial in an effort to reform and revitalize the church
Abd al Rahman, once a legitimate heir to the largest empire in the world, had to hide and flee in exile when his dynasty was overthrown and his family was destroyed. But he wound up in Spain, where he consolidated the fractured Arab conquest and reignited his dynasty.
Cyaxares was the king of the Medes, who helped destroy the mighty and terrifying Neo-Assyrian Empire, create a massive empire based in the small region of Media, and laid the foundation of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Piye was the King of Kush at a time when Egypt was weakened. He ruled over southern Egypt before trouble to his north brought him into conflict with the Egyptian kinglets in the Lower Nile region up North. He defeated them, and brought the Nubian Kingdom of Kish to it’s greatest heights
Ur-Nammu was the first king of the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur. He helped restore native dominance in Sumer after centuries of foreign rule, instituted reforms and rebuilt the Sumerian infrastructure, and helped usher in the final era of Sumerian rule in Mesopotamia under the Neo-Sumerian Empire.
The 30 Years War has helped rekindle the 80 Years War, and the Dutch are again fighting for their nation's survival. But now they do so as a burgeoning major power on the European stage, led by William the Silent's youngest son, the new Prince of Orange, Frederick Henry. The Dutch stave off conquest and are formerly recognized by Spain and the rest of the world as an independent power with the Peace of Munster, a constituent part of the Peace of Westphalia.
Maurice continued to lead the Dutch Republic's army to victories, while Johan van Oldenbarnevelt ran the government. They negotiated a 12 Years Truce with Spain, but the outbreak of the 30 Years War brought renewed hostilities in the 80 Years War
Alexander was stuck in the Netherlands with a large army, so he returned to his old gig of attacking and taking Dutch cities. This time the Dutch had an answer, though, in the form of Maurice of Nassau, William the Silent's son
Without William, the Dutch Republic presses on, and they get the Earl of Leicester to help them out against Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma, and Philip's governor in the Netherlands. The Dutch begin to run as a republic. Philip launches the Spanish Armada to take Farnese and his troops from the Low Countries to England.
The Dutch Republic is slowly being retaken by Alexander Farnese. The Dutch form the Union of Utrecht to unite the remaining provinces, and then finally declare independence with the Act of Abjuration. And we see the end of William the Silent.
The Spanish under Alba had crushed the revolt, but William gained a new foothold in Holland and Zeeland. Alba was gone, the Spanish were mutinous, and William took advantage, while the Dutch scrambled for a new royal figurehead
William the Silent tries to arrange an invasion of the Netherlands. He succeeds in raising forces, but in the end the Dutch Rebels are beaten back. They do establish a foothold in Holland and Zeeland, though, thanks to the Sea Beggars
As King Philip II of Spain attempts to destroy heresy in the Low Countries, and tramples on the rights and privileges of the people there, the Dutch nobility have begun to push back. Philip responds by sending his greatest general, the Duke of Alba, while the Dutch people have their own responses in mind.
William the Silent, Prince of Orange-Nassau, was a leading noble in the Habsburg Netherlands. King Charles V split his empire in two, and gave the low countries to Spain, despite its cultural and religious similarities to the Holy Roman Empire. William would find his new sovereign, King Philip II of Spain to be a harsh and uncompromising ruler who would help sow the seeds of revolt in the territory.
Roger II consolidated all of the Norman holdings in Sicily and Southern Italy into one united and long lasting kingdom. His ability as an administrator and statesman helped propel him past the other Norman leaders to become the first king of the Normans in Italy.
Norman Robert Guiscard, entered at the dawn of the Norman conquest of Italy, defeated his enemies and pushed aside his competing family members to take the whole of southern Italy, much of Sicily, and parts of the Balkan Peninsula.
Queen Seondeok of Silla, helped lead the kingdom to eventually unite the Korean peninsula within a few decades of her reign
Ardashir rose from being the commander of a fortress in southern Persia to leading the overthrow of the Parthian dynasty. He created the Sassanid Empire, which lasted 4 centuries, and greatly influence culture in the region even to this day.
The greatest king of the Hittites, Suppiluliuma helped turn the Anatolian kingdom into perhaps the most powerful empire in the world, for a time
Brief overview of what's to come, plus some interesting follow-up from a previous subject
Eugene of Savoy was denied the ability to serve his native France in the military, so he went to Vienna, where he spent the next 50 years commanding forces, much of it against France.
Jayavarman VII was a prince who saw his empire invaded and capital sacked. He became king and expanded the weakened Khmer empire to perhaps its greatest territorial extent. He also left a legacy of architectural wonders that still attract visitors today.
Queen Arwa al-Sulayhi ruled Yemen for over 50 years. She was a strong ruler and became the patron of a branch of Islam that survives today thanks in part to her efforts.
Clovis united the Franks and helped solidify them as the dominant power in northwestern Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. He created the first Kingdom of France and also helped built out what would becomes Charlemagne's Empire.
Zhang Qian was sent by the Han Chinese emperor to enlist the help of a distant nation in war against a common enemy. Zhang was unable to form an alliance. Instead, he formed the relationships that led directly to the silk road, connecting China and the west.
Ptolemy and Seleucus continue to battle with their neighboring Hellenistic kingdoms. Their empires and Macedon continue on for more than a century, before decline and eventual destruction at the hands of the Romans
Antigonus rules all of Asia, but chasing out Seleucus gives Ptolemy and the others an opportunity to check his power
After the death of Perdiccas, Antigonus chases Eumenes halfway across the empire. In Europe, a fight begins over Antipater's position after his death
Perdiccas uses his role as regent to the Macedonian kings to try to consolidate power. But the other Diadochi - Ptolemy in Egypt, Antipater in Europe, and Antigonus in Anatolia - have plans of their own
Alexander the Great's successors deal with the death of the young king and the fracturing of his massive empire
A brief overview of the next few episodes and why'll they'll be different, but the same, as last season
John III Sobieski was a Polish general who became king, stopped the last great Ottoman push into Central Europe, and saved his country numerous times
Hayreddin started out as a corsair before ruling over the western Mediterranean for the Ottomans and eventually founded their navy
The last prince of a once-mighty empire, who fled his city and founded a powerful maritime, trade-based kingdom
Dandolo became Doge of Venice when it was a city-state with a few dependencies. By the time he died, Venice was an empire
Otto helped unite East Francia and established the Holy Roman Empire into basically the country it was for 1,000 years
Sui Wen-di was able to take over the Northern Zhou and continue its expansion until he had united China, ushering in 6 centuries of unity and prosperity
Zenobia was a Syrian queen who helped defend Rome against Persia, then declared her own kingdom and fought against Rome
Mithridates was King of Pontus, and built an empire to rival Rome on his way to a showdown with the late Republic
Chandragupta Maurya founded India's biggest empire for 2000 years, and was grandfather of Ashoka the Great
Marcus Furius Camillus brought Rome back from the brink of extinction and helped set it on its path to glory