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Bombard mortar and granite ball projectile of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, 1480–1500. Founded at the request of Pierre d’Aubusson, the bombard was used for close defense of the walls (100–200 meters) at the Siege of Rhodes. It fired 260 kg granite balls. The bombard weighs about 3,325 kg. Musée de l’Armée. Mons Meg is a medieval…
European matchlock musketeers of the Elizabethan period. By the early 1570s the Puritans had grown significantly in numbers and in economic and political clout. They were not only unsatisfied, however, but increasingly discontented. At the same time that they were trying and failing to pressure the government into killing Mary…
“Friedrich Augustus. Elector of Saxony (1694-1733); king of Poland (1697-1704; 1709-1733).” A member of the Wettin dynasty and an elector of the Holy Roman Empire (Saxony), Augustus was elected king of Poland in 1697, after deeming that Warsaw was worth a Mass, converting to Catholicism, and agreeing to permit extraordinary…
1568. Battle of Jemmingen. Spanish arquebusiers. Angel García Pinto for Desperta Ferro magazine Gonzalo de Córdoba, (1453-1515). “el Gran Capitan.” Castilian general who reformed the tercios, reducing reliance on polearms and bringing more guns to reinforced pike formations that could operate independently because of their increased firepower. He fought in…
Russian admiral. Along with Peter I, Apraxin was the founder of the modern Russian Navy. In 1700 Peter appointed Apraxin governor of Azov, where he was ordered to build and sustain a Black Sea fleet for operations against the Ottoman Empire. He built blue-water ships and river boats and barges,…
Contemporary Byzantine tradition ascribed the deliverance of Constantinople to a miraculous intervention by the Virgin Mary (Theotokos). Constantinople in 1422; the oldest surviving map of the city. Ottoman troops roaming the outskirts of Constantinople had seized almost all the lands surrounding the city by the year 1391, that is, a…
Sultan Bayezid breaks the siege at Nicopolis and comes close at night to the besieged castle of Nicopolis and encouarages the castle commander Dogan Bey. Source: Hünername, Doğan Kardeş, İstanbul 1969 When Emperor Manuel II traveled to the West at the end of 1399 in search of financial and military…
European matchlock musketeers of the Elizabethan period. By the early 1570s the Puritans had grown…
Dominant military forces of the Middle East between the fourth and fifteenth centuries. At Manzikert…
1568. Battle of Jemmingen. Spanish arquebusiers. Angel García Pinto for Desperta Ferro magazine Gonzalo de…
The history of medieval naval warfare is the history of the galley. Since ancient times,…
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