Eastern Europe

  • Arrhichion – Olympic victor even in death

    He was a champion pankratiast (martial art blending boxing and wrestling) in the ancient Olympic Games. He was the winner of the pankration at the 52nd and 53rd Olympiads. Little did he know that the 54th would be his last. His fatal fight was described by the geographer Pausanias and by Philostratus the Younger. Pausanias states: “For when he was contending for the wild olive with the last remaining competitor, whoever he was, the latter got a grip first, and held Arrhachion, hugging him with his legs, and at the same time he squeezed his neck with his hands. Arrhachion dislocated his opponent’s toe, but expired owing to suffocation; but…

  • Enrico Dandolo’s Revenge or The Fourth Crusade

    Enrico Dandolo had an ax to grind.  At first, it seemed like he had a pretty good life.  He was born in the early 12th century to an influential Venetian noble family.  His father was Vitale Dandolo, who was a famous jurist and diplomat.  His uncle, another Enrico Dandolo, was the patriarch of Grado, the highest ranking churchman in Venice.  Young Enrico followed in his father’s footsteps and went on many diplomatic for the Republic.  He was a shrewd politician and survived a disastrous mission Constantinople in 1171.  The Byzantine Empire was the biggest kid on the block, and had seized the goods of thousands of Venetians living in the…

  • Anna Anderson-  The Fake Anastasia

    News of the execution of the Romanov family in 1918 rocked the world.  (For more on this please see this post:  http://www.historynaked.com/assassination-tsar-nicholas-ii-romanovs/ )  However, in the face of this devastation people tried to keep the faith that someone may have made it out.  European newspaper ran stories that one or more of the Romanov children had escaped.  The one name that kept coming up was Anastasia Romanov.  However, there was no proof.  Only hope. Then in 1920, a young woman was fished out of a the water after jumping off a bridge in Berlin.  Her suicide attempt failed and the young woman had no identification and refused to tell her…

  • More Magic Beans- This History of Chocolate

    That most delicious of desserts that we all crave.  It was rightly named as “food of the gods” by the ancients.  However, the chocolate the pre-Olmec cultures were making was nothing like the chocolate we eat today.  It was consumed as a beverage, and was quite bitter.  The peoples making this drink were living in Mesoamerica prior to the cultures of the Olmecs, Mayan and Aztecs.  Anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania have found cacao residue on pottery found in Honduras from as early as 1400 BCE.  Some sources place the discovery of chocolate even earlier at 1900 BCE.  Anthropologists surmise native peoples found the cacao plants in the tropical…

  • Bona Sforza

    One would generally think the Queen of Poland would be….well….Polish.  In this case, she was not.  Bona Sforza, as her name would indicate, was Italian.  However, as the wife of King Sigismund I she exercised great power over the country. A member of the powerful Sforza family of Milan, Bona was born on February 2, 1494 the second child of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, sixth Duke of Milan and his wife Isabella of Naples.  Fun fact, Isabella is thought be some to be the inspiration for the Mona Lisa.  Raised in Bari and Milan, she was educated by the imminent Italian humanists Antonio de Ferraris and Crisotomo Colonna.  From them she…