Carthage Must Be Destroyed

In light of the recent events in Egypt, I wanted to talk about the ethnoreligious group in Egypt known as the Copts. "If you come to a Coptic person and tell him that he’s an Arab, that’s offensive. We are not Arabs, we are Egyptians... When we hear the word "Copt", that doesn’t only mean "Christian", it means "Egyptian"." –Bishop Thomas of Cusae and Meir, a Copt. HISTORY You may or may not know much about Egyptian history after the pharaohs. I will bring us up to speed. For most of their ancient history, the people in Egypt were ethnic Egyptians and they did the Egyptian thing–pyramids, embalming, and senet . In 434 B.C., the Persians took it over for a wee-bit. A hundred years later along came Alexander, who the Egyptians viewed as a liberator, and following his early death, the Hellenistic (Greek civilization outside of Greece) Ptolemaic Kingdom reigned along the Nile. The capital moved from Memphis to newly established Alexandria. Hellenizati...

When most of us look at a crescent on a flag, we generally think of one thing: is it waxing or waning? .... ok, not that. We generally think of something other than that: Islam. A great many nations use the crescent in their national flag. Algeria, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey are just a handful. This is flag for the Republic of Turkey. Although a republic now, Turkey is still very heavily Islamic, with over 97% of its population considering itself Islamic. The same could be said of other countries using the crescent–Algeria (99% Muslim), Azerbaijan (99%), Tunisia (99%), Pakistan (97%), and so on. So the Christians have the cross and the Muslims have the crescent, right? Not exactly. The history of the crescent predates Islam and even Christianity. The city of Byzantium, which later became Constantinople and then Istanbul, adopted the crescent flag before the birth of Christ. No one knows for sure why the flag was used. Some speculate that it was adopted after the Romans defea...

Ottomans, Poles, Austrians, Germans, Catholics, Muslims, sieges, cavalry charges, heroics, awesome quotes, coffeehouses, secret messengers, strangulation and subterranean battles ALL IN ONE STORY. I'm just saying. After eight months of researching I finally have enough material to write a new post. Crazy, you think? or perhaps lazy... No. Dedication. Dedication towards my passion of history makes me thorough. I have travelled far and wide, endured hardships that are unimaginable, and danced with death itself all to bring to you an unspoiled and rich story that will send you on an emotional roller coaster and heal your troubled soul. I ask you to stand with me this day and count yourself among the blest to be educated once again at the feet of my blog. Just stare at the shiny colored box for a few minutes and come away a better person. By the way, it's so good it'll be a trilogy. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and finally brought an end to the Roman Empir...