The Great Migration

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Roses are Red, Tulips are Expensive

If you were a man or woman of refined tastes in Holland in 1636, you needed some blinged-out, multicolor tulips, or you were little better than a peasant with their pathetic solid-color tulips.  After the tulip had arrived from the Ottoman Empire several decades earlier, it had quickly become a status symbol for the new wealth of the merchant class.  As new cultivars of different colors were developed, interest centered on those which had streaks of color across their petals (it would later be discovered that this is caused by infection of the bulb by a virus).

As the Dutch East Indian company brought huge profits into the country, the people of Holland had more money than they knew what to do with.  As a result, people started dumping more and more of it into tulip bulbs.  Because bulbs take a long time to mature into flowering plants, people started trading in futures contracts, which were promises to purchase bulbs at a later date (so as to allow the market to proceed without waiting for the actual bulbs to be ready).

Once speculators got involved, things began to go a little crazy.  People were paying increasingly ludicrous amounts of money for stamped pieces of paper which promised a tulip bulb come Spring.  They would then turn around and sell that piece of paper to someone else later that same day.  Meanwhile, growers began marketing their diseased tulips under names like Admirael van der Eijck, Viceroy or Semper Augustus (because who wouldn't trade their life savings for something with "Augustus" in the name?)

By the Winter of 1636-1637, single bulbs of disease-ridden tulips were selling for hundreds or thousands of florins.  By comparison, a skilled laborer's yearly wage might be only 150 florins in total.  Bulb exchanges were set up in the major Dutch cities where people could make and lose fortunes on tulip futures.  Then, suddenly, in February, everyone came to their senses.  Sellers couldn't find any more buyers willing to sell their first-born child for a flower, and the prices collapsed.  People were left holding now-worthless bulbs that they had days before paid several years' worth of income for.

Buddha and Hercules Were BFFs

The city of Bagram in Afghanistan is famous as the home of a major US military base, but its history stretches back for millennia.  The city was originally known as Alexandria on the Caucasus because the area was conquered around 320 BC by Alexander the Great, and he named anything he could after himself (thus the "on the Caucasus" to distinguish it from the all the other Alexandrias he'd left in his wake).  Alexander built up a fortress and town, and stationed thousands of Macedonian troops there.

After Alexander's death, the Greek presence in the area didn't simply disappear.  Instead, his generals and other influential members of his army claimed sections of his empire for their own, and established a series of kingdoms stretching from Greece to Pakistan.  Bagram was initially part of the large Seleucid Empire (led by General Seleucus), but was soon traded to the bordering Maruyan Empire of India.

After about a century and a half of Indian rule, the city was retaken by the Greeks under Demetrius I of Bactria.  By this time, the surrounding Indian culture had exerted itself on the descendants of Alexander's army.  Buddhism was the official religion of Demetrius' kingdom, and he struck coins depicting Hercules standing guard over a meditating Buddha.

This Greco-Bactrian kingdom, and its successor the Indo-Greek Kingdom persisted until 10AD, which means that when Jesus was born, Afghanistan was ruled by Greek guys named things like Apollophanes or Strato who built statues of toga-wearing Buddhas and told stories of the Trojan Horse and Hercules.  You can't make this stuff up.

Can't Handle This

Oklahoma's a pretty boring state - the only things to see are tornadoes, virulent homophobia, the shattered dreams of Native Americans, and a panhandle.  While the first three are tragic, the panhandle at least makes for a moderately aesthetically pleasing geographic feature.  However, the panhandle wasn't always part of Oklahoma.

Originally, the strip of land was part of Mexico, along with all of Texas and rest of the modern Southwest.  When Texas seceded from Mexico and joined the US in 1850, they brought the strip with them.  However, they ran into a little issue with the Missouri Compromise.  The Compromise prohibited slavery in states North of 36°30′, and Texas wanted some slaves.  They were more than happy to give up the empty strip of land at their Northern tip in exchange for getting in on the whole owning human being shindig the rest of the South seemed to be enjoying so much.

Unfortunately for Texas, slavery only lasted another 13 years, so they barely had time to make the most of it.  Even so, they weren't allowed to have it back after the Civil War.  Instead, it remained an unincorporated no-man's land until 1886, when the Secretary of the Interior suggested that those who settled on it would be granted squatters' rights, and could keep whatever land they claimed.

You don't have to say "squatters' rights" twice to 19th century homesteaders, so settlers flocked in by the thousands, and by the end of the year they had set up a temporary government for what they named the Cimarron Territory.  Efforts to join the new territory to Kansas got all the way through the House and Senate, but the bill was never signed by President Cleveland.

Instead, the settlers dispatched a delegation to Washington lead by their elected President, Owen Chase to seek recognition as an official territory in their own right.  A second delegation consisting of those opposed to Chase's presidency followed soon after.  Congress wasn't about to lower themselves to speaking with the leader of a bunch of squatters from some remote rectangle of prairie, and neither delegation was granted an audience.  In 1890, the strip was finally joined to the newly created Oklahoma Territory, ending its 40-year run as a no-man's land in the middle of America.

But I Don't Want To Be Pope!

As it became clear that Pope Paul I was nearing his death in 767, the various political factions of Rome began maneuvering to get their preferred successor elected to replace him.  A powerful noble family from nearby Nepi, lead by a man named Toto and his brother Constantine, sought to stage a military overthrow of the Papal government, naming Toto the Duke of Rome, and forcing the consecration of Constantine as the new Pope.

After Paul's death, the Nepi family set their plans in motion.  They invaded the city, and forced the local clergy to ordain Constantine as a monk, then a subdeacon, then a deacon and finally as the Bishop of Rome, all within the span of a few days (it's amazing how quickly a sword pointed at some select throats can cut through the church's bureaucratic red tape).  Meanwhile, Toto assumed military governorship of the city, and trapped his rivals, Christophorus and his son Sergius, both high-ranking officers of the church, within the Lateran Palace.

Christophorus and Sergius begged Toto to allow them to leave peacefully so that they could retire to exile in a monastery.  Once they receive his permission, however, they instead went to the Lombard king Desiderius, and requested his help in restoring ecclesiastical authority.  Desiderius, hoping to acquire a loyal ally on the Papal throne, agreed, and sent a contingent of troops, led by his priest Waldipert (apparently anything passed for a real name back then) to drive out Toto and Constantine.

The Lombard army defeated Toto's forces, and he was killed in battle.  Soon after, Constantine was arrested and imprisoned.  Waldipert then sought to elevate someone loyal to Desiderius to the Papacy, rather than restore the authority of Christophorus and Sergius.  To this end, he entered the nearby  monastery of St. Vitus, picked out a random lowly priest named Philip, and declared that God and Saint Peter had anointed Philip as the new Pope.  After dressing Philip in the Papal regalia, and having him lead a traditional ceremony they declared him Pope Philip I.

Unfortunately for the Lombards, the people of Rome weren't going to accept a second sham consecration, and Philip's Papacy received little support.  By the end of the day, he was forced to leave the Lateran Palace, and return to his monastery, never to be heard from again.  Christophorus and Sergius returned to power and oversaw the election of Pope Stephen III, who is viewed as the legitimate successor to Paul I.

Antipope Philip, as he is now known, never had any ambitions to the Papacy, and was merely chosen as a candidate of convenience by Waldipert.  He certainly didn't wake up that morning expecting to be Pope, and went to bed that evening Pope no longer.

Nice Island, I'll Take It!

In 818, Emir Al-Hakam I of Cordoba faced a revolt from al-Ribad, one of the large suburbs of the city (at the time, Cordoba was one of the biggest cities in the world, having nearly half a million people).  The people were upset by Hakam's harsh tax policies, which he had enacted after the last revolt in 805, hoping to keep the people poor and helpless.

Unfortunately for the rebels, their attempt to storm the palace was easily defeated, and many of the mob were slaughtered in the streets.  After torturing and executing the ringleaders, Hakam took the extreme measure of rounding up and exiling every resident of al-Ribad, about 60,000 people.  Hakam was not one to put up with that kind of shit, apparently.  Most of the exiles moved to Morocco, but a large number, perhaps as many as 10,000, took up Mediterranean piracy.

Led by Abu Hafs, this pirate band, along with their families and their former neighbors, invaded and occupied the Egyptian city of Alexandria, intending to make it their new home.  The rulers of Egypt, of course, were not on board with this plan.  You can't just sail up to one of the most famous and important cities in the world and declare yourselves the new owners.

The Egyptians quickly marshaled their forces and besieged the city, reclaiming it about a year later.  So, the Cordobans set out again looking for a new home, and arrived at the island of Crete, then part of the Byzantine Empire.  After defeating the local garrisons, they set up shop on the island, and built the fortress of Chandax as their new capital.

Although the Byzantines sent several military expeditions to reclaim the island, the Cordobans successfully defended their new home for well over 100 years.  During that time, they launched raids across the Aegean sea, and occupied several smaller islands nearby.  It wasn't until 961 that Nikephoros II Phokas, one of the great generals of Byzantine history, and later a Byzantine Emperor, was able to retake Crete and drive the Cordobans out for good.  Today, over 1,000 years after their defeat, Chandax (now called Heraklion) remains the capital of the island.

You Don't Wanna Steppe To This

In the early 1600s, the Dzungar tribe of Western Mongolia sought to unify the neighboring tribal kingdoms under their rule.  The nearby Torghut and Dörbet, however, felt that to be "totally uncool, bro" and "a bit of a dick move," so they followed the example of other steppe nomads, and migrated.  Specifically, they headed all the way across Central Asia, and arrived at a patch of grazing land along the Volga River, just North of the Caspian.  Once there, they formed the Kalmyk Khanate.

The land that they settled was nominally under the control the Russian Empire.  The Kalmyks, who were Buddhists, were seen as a buffer against neighboring Muslim states, so the Russians were quite happy to let them stay - under nominal Russian authority, of course.  They even established trade agreements, and recruited Kalmyk horsemen for the Russian military.

As time went on, however, the Russians wanted to make that authority a little less nominal, and began chipping away at the Kalmyk autonomy.  By 1770, the head of Kalmyks, Ubashi Khan, decided that he was sick of Russia's crap, and said "Screw you guys, I'm going home".  After sending an emissary to Tibet to consult the Dalai Lama for approval and selection of an auspicious date of departure, Ubashi Khan set out in January 1771 with 200,000 of his countrymen (and an estimated 6 million herd animals) on a long walk back to Mongolia.  It was intended to bring the entire tribe, but an early melting of the Volga left some groups stranded on the Western side of the river.

Those left behind were probably fortunate, as the journey was not an easy one.  The Kalmyks had made enemies among the tribes across the steppe, and the Russians were not pleased with the departure.  Over half of the population was lost along the way, either to skirmishes with these enemies, or to starvation and exposure in the Siberian winter.

Those who remained in Russia lost their autonomy, but maintained many of their traditions, including Tibetan Buddhism and much of their nomadic lifestyle.  Neither of these sat well with Soviet authorities after the Russian revolution, and the Kalmyks saw their temples destroyed and their monks attacked.  Because of this harsh treatment, when the Nazis occupied Kalmykia during World War II, they found many willing to fight against the Soviets.  When the Soviets retook the area in 1943, they decided to forcibly deport the entire Kalmyk population, over 100,000 people, to Siberia as punishment.  Over half of those deported died in Siberia before being allowed to return in 1957.  Luckily, the Kalmyk people have experience with deadly migrations, forced or otherwise, and persevered.  Today, the Republic of Kalmykia within the Russian Federation is the only region of Europe in which Buddhism is the dominant religion.

Not Quite Israel

The Russian Empire, as the name suggests, was an Empire for Russians.  However, because of its vast territory, it contained many areas in which other ethnicities were the local majority.  These areas often faced mistreatment from the Russian authorities, and were seen as foreigners even in their own homelands.

One of the promises of the Bolshevik revolution was that these various minorities would gain autonomy and self-determination in the Soviet state, which helped the revolutionaries find recruits among non-Russians.  Once the Empire was overthrown, it was time to make good on the promise.  Because the new Soviet authorities didn't want territories to start seceding left and right, they came up with a system by which each recognized nationality would receive a semi-autonomous state within the union.

While some nationalities had clear historical identities, languages, territories, etc. others were trickier.  Some were heavily divided along tribal lines, and had little nationalistic desire.  Others lacked things like a written language or a shared culture.  One of the trickiest cases was the Jewish population - they had all of the qualifications except for a historical territory within the country.

In 1928, a solution was found.  As a quick glance at a map will tell you, Russia has more territory in Siberia than it knows what to do with, so a patch of land along the far eastern border with China was selected as a new Jewish homeland.  Although this might seem like a strange and arbitrary choice of location, it had a few key benefits for the Soviet government.  First, it was felt that creating a Jewish homeland somewhere in the European part of the country would only exacerbate the antisemitism among the population.  Second, the Siberian border regions were largely unsettled, and the hope was that the Jewish territory would provide much-needed development and protection.

For obvious reasons, not many Jews were keen on the idea of abandoning their homes and trekking thousands of miles to the Siberian wilderness.  By 1948, 30,000 Jews had moved to the region, many fleeing mistreatment under Stalin.  After the establishment of Israel, the majority emigrated, and only around 2,000 Jews remain today.

Although most of the Jewish population has left, the cultural institutions remain.  In the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, the local schools teach Yiddish, Yiddish radio and newspapers are in operation and children learn about Jewish history and traditions.  The capital Birobidzhan features statues of Jewish cultural icons, and a giant menorah sits in the town square.

Swap Meet

Many parts of the world have passed from one country to another, some a great deal of times.  But the most frequent sovereignty flip-flopper is certainly Pheasant Island along the border between France and Spain, which has been exchanged between the two at regularly scheduled intervals for the past 350 years.

In 1659, France and Spain had been at war for the past quarter century, and were ready to sign a peace treaty, but they needed an agreeable, neutral location in which to do so.  They met at Pheasant Island, a tiny piece of land in the middle of the Bisaboa River which forms part of their common border.  Obviously, the most important thing about a treaty ending decades of brutal war is who gets to claim credit for hosting the peace summit.  To avoid any imbalance on this key issue, it was agreed that the island would become a condominium - a piece of land over which two countries share control.

Usually, a condominium is simply jointly administered, with both countries simultaneously contributing to governing it.  However, in 1659, kings signing treaties were pretty much free to agree on whatever crazy scheme they wanted, and the countries instead decided that the island should swap back and forth every six months.  To understand how silly of a plan this is, it's important to know that, aside from a little monument marking the location of the treaty and a handful of trees, the island is empty.  It's too small to have any real significance or value.

Still, the two powers managed to find another use for it aside from signing treaties.  Dating back even before the 1659 treaty, the island had been used to exchange brides between the two royal families.  In 1615, Louis XIII of France and Phillip IV of Spain met on the island and exchanged sisters.  Louis married Philip's sister Anne, and Philip married Louis' sister Elisabeth.

Although the sister swaps have stopped now that France no longer has a monarchy, the shared custody of the island continues to the present day, making Pheasant Island the oldest condominium on the planet.  Since 1659 it has changed hands over 700 times.

Pop Pop!

In World War I, we didn't have fancy satellites and drones to keep tabs on enemy positions.  That work had to be done by a dude with binoculars and a radio sitting somewhere high up.  In many instances, this meant putting him in a basket and strapping it to a giant hydrogen-filled balloon so he could float above the battlefield and report what he saw.

Just as there were guys whose job it was to sit in the balloon, there were guys on the enemy side whose job it was to stop them.  These 'balloon busters' would fly in low in biplanes and attempt to shoot down the observation balloons with incendiary rounds.  While it might sound like a dude in a wicker basket beneath a giant stationary balloon filled with explosive gas would be a pretty easy target for a fighter plane with specialized ammunition, the task was actually quite dangerous for the balloon busters.  Observation balloons were valuable assets, and their owners would devote significant resources to their defense, including ground-based anti-air installations and fighter plane escorts.

The greatest of these balloon busters was the Belgian Willy Coppens, who shot down a whopping 35 German balloons (as well as two enemy airplanes) between April and October of 1918.  In one of his most remarkable attacks, the balloon he was targeting was loosed from its moorings, and rose up beneath his plane.  He shut off his propeller to avoid tangling it in the fabric of the of damaged balloon, and sat parked on top of it until his plane slid off and he could fly away to safety.

As he racked up more victories, Willy became a prime target for the Germans, who set up special traps to take him out.  In one instance, they booby-trapped a balloon with explosives, so that when he shot it down, the resulting explosion would be enough to take his plane down with it.  He narrowly escaped, of course, because he was a badass.

In October 1918, less than a month before the end of the war, he was severely wounded when an incendiary round hit him in the leg as he secured his final balloon destruction.  He managed to crash land behind friendly lines, but his leg had to be amputated, ending his career as a pilot.  He died in 1986 at the age of 94.  As an old man, he probably went around to children's birthday parties and popped their balloons with a pea shooter.

Ladder to Heaven

One of the most important holy sites of Christianity is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  It's believed to be built atop the location where Jesus was crucified, as well as the cave of his burial and resurrection.  Like everything important in Jerusalem, control of the church has been a hotly contested issue for centuries, with the various major Christian denominations fighting (sometimes via literal combat) for administrative authority.

Back in the 600s, Caliph Omar, one of the companions of Muhammad, was invited by the Christian Patriarch to pray inside the church.  He declined and instead prayed a nearby so as to preserve the church's status as a Christian holy site.  This precedent meant that the various Muslim authorities who would rule Jerusalem for much of the next 1400 years were often neutral arbiters, forced to settle the disputes of the various Christian factions.

Early on, control of the front door was given to the local Muslim Nusaybah clan, who are to this day (along with a second family, the Joudeh) in charge of unlocking and opening the gate every day.  Meanwhile, the inside the church has been the site of fierce and violent battles for control of the various holy sites.  Monks of the various orders fought each other with stones and staffs, and bribed and cajoled the Muslim authorities to take sides.  In 1757, a mob of Greek Orthodox launched a surprise attack to take over the entire building.  The Catholic Franciscans barricaded themselves inside, but were eventually overrun and thrown out.

The conflict nearly grew to a major war in 1853 when Napoleon III of France demanded that the Ottomans restore the pre-1757 arrangement, but Tsar Nicholas I of Russia threatened to invade the Ottomans if they did so.  The situation was defused (if one can call it that) by an Ottoman decree that the present status quo would remain in effect, and could not be changed.  The Greek Orthodox Church would possess the majority of the power, while the Catholics and Armenians would hold smaller responsibilities.  The Coptic, Ethiopian and Syraic Churches also have minor authorities.

The adherence to this status quo is so strict that even trivial changes require the approval of all parties involved.  Because everyone refuses to get along, this tends to result in failure to accomplish the most minor of tasks.  One of the most notorious is a small ladder, which was resting against a window at the time of the Ottoman decree.  Because the window ledge is common ground, moving the ladder would require the approval of all six of the orders.  It has therefore remained propped against the window for over 150 years.  (It was moved briefly in 1997, probably without authorization, but quickly replaced).

In 2002, eleven monks were hospitalized after a Coptic monk moved his chair into a few feet into the shade, the Ethiopians disapproved, and a brawl broke out.  Theologians agree this is almost certainly what Jesus would have done.

A Fly on the Wall

By the 1800s, the major powers had mostly decided that you couldn't just go about invading whoever you wanted on a whim - instead, you needed a justification (known as a 'casus belli') for an attack.  The problem with this was that everyone still wanted to go about carving up the world and painting the maps their color of choice.

In the 1820s, France looked across the Mediterranean, saw the ports of Algeria and said "man, I gotta get me some of that!"  The trouble was, they didn't have any particularly good reason why Algeria should be theirs - at least not besides the fact that France was big and who was going to stop them?  Luckily, there was a standing dispute between the nations that could be exploited - back in the 1790s France had contracted to purchase grain from some powerful merchants in Algeria, but had never paid.  The merchants, in turn, owed money to the ruler (called the Dey) of Algeria, and claimed they couldn't pay up until France paid them.

The argument over who should pay whom went back and forth for a few years before coming to a head at a meeting between the French ambassador and the Dey, in which the Dey became upset with ambassador's lack of answers, and smacked him with his fan/fly swatter.  As any schoolkid will tell you, "he hit me first!" is an excellent casus belli, and the French were not about to waste the opportunity.

After first blockading the Algeria ports for three years, they launched a full invasion in 1830 and began the occupation of the country.  It took decades of bloody war for French forces to establish control, and decades more to extend it deep into the desert territories.  And the French didn't half-ass the situation either: they went full-on brutal, oppressive colonial overlords.  One of the French commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel de Montagnac, wrote in 1843:

"All populations who do not accept our conditions must be despoiled. Everything must be seized, devastated, without age or sex distinction: grass must not grow any more where the French army has set foot. Who wants the end wants the means, whatever may say our philanthropists. I personally warn all good soldiers whom I have the honour to lead that if they happen to bring me a living Arab, they will receive a beating with the flat of the saber.... This is how, my dear friend, we must make war against Arabs: kill all men over the age of fifteen, take all their women and children, load them onto naval vessels, send them to the Marquesas Islands or elsewhere. In one word, annihilate all who will not crawl beneath our feet like dogs."

All this because someone got slapped with a fly swatter.

Chinny Chin Chin

What happens when your family tree is circle?  Beginning in the 1500s, the Habsburg family set to find out.  For over 100 years, the descendants of Philip I and Joanna of Castille married only among themselves to prevent other families from gaining claims on Habsburg titles.  The process culminated in Charles II of Spain, son of Philip IV and his niece Mariana (this was hardly the only instance of uncle-niece marriage in Charles' ancestry).  Charles' lineage was so intertwined that he was more inbred than the offspring produced by siblings.  This was not good.

The Habsburg line was famous for the pronounced chin that ran in the family, but in Charles this feature manifested as a miserable deformity, as his jaw was so far forward that he could neither chew nor speak intelligibly and drooled uncontrollably.  His handicaps were both physical and mental, and the young Charles did not learn to walk until he was eight years old, and was not capable of receiving any manner of schooling.  He was incapable of being king in every sense, but, since this was medieval Europe, he was king none the less.

Due to the staggering degree to which Charles was unfit to rule, the actual administration of the Spanish Empire fell to the nobles of the court, who spent much of their time jockeying for power and influence while the economy crumbled around them.  Charles' reign (insofar as playing children's games while a country collapses counts as a 'reign') was disastrous for Spain.

The one problem that only Charles could fix was that he was the last of the Spanish Habsburg line, and had to produce an heir or the family would go extinct.  The task of mating with the disfigured drooling imbecile fell to the 16 year old Marie Louise of France (who was at least a mildly distant relative).  She fell into a deep depression and died some years later, without producing any children (it is pretty likely Charles was infertile).  A second marriage to Maria Anna of Neuburg similarly failed to produce offspring.

When Charles died in 1700, the Spanish Habsburgs died with him, and the War of the Spanish Succession was fought to determine who would inherit his crown.  His autopsy report said that his body "did not contain a single drop of blood," which modern scientists consider to be "the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Baptistest

Mississippi has a lot of Baptists - 55% of the population, making it the most Baptist state in the US.  However, it's only the second most Baptist state in the world.  First place goes to an isolated mountainous state in the very far Northeast of India called Nagaland, where a solid 75% of the population is Baptist.

For centuries, its difficult terrain and obscure location kept Nagaland and its indigenous tribes largely uncontacted, except for brief, often hostile encounters with neighboring groups.  This meant that ancient customs and religious practices persisted undisturbed by upheavals in the rest of India such as the arrival of Islam or European colonization.  When the British finally sought to establish control over the area in the mid 1800s, they found a region described as "headhunters' paradise" (anyone other than the British would've found someone else to conquer upon hearing that description), and had to fight against decades of guerrilla resistance from the local tribes.

When Baptist missionaries arrived in 1870, they found that the area's isolation meant that there was little competition from other major religions for converts.  The traditional animist religions were replaced by Christianity over the next hundred years, and headhunting was eliminated (apparently "Headhunters for Jesus" didn't catch on).

Nagaland's history of isolation and cultural differences with the rest of the subcontinent meant that they felt little reason to join India in the 1950s, aside from the fact that the British told them they had to (as is so often the case throughout history).  A nationalist insurgency has been simmering in the region ever since, with a fragile ceasefire holding back open war between the Indian military and Maoist rebels.

Sell Out

Thomas Palaiologos

The Byzantine Empire ended in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople and the death of Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, but the Palaiologos family wasn't about to give up the a title like Emperor of the Romans just because of a minor detail like that.  Constantine's nephews Demetrios and Thomas continued to claim the Byzantine mantle from their despotate in Morea.

After Demetrios defected to the Ottomans and Thomas died in exile following the capture of Morea, the claim passed to his son Andreas Palaiologos.  Although Andreas had no hope of recovering the empire from the Turks, he still titled himself the Emperor of Constantinople.  He lived in Rome under the patronage of the Pope, who provided him with a stipend to live on.  Either because he squandered the money or because it was simply not very much (historians disagree whether the Pope was providing him enough to live the "baller" lifestyle befitting an emperor), Andreas sought to find a way to parlay his title into some additional spending money.

First, he sold the rights of inheritance to the French king Charles VIII.  Presumably, Charles his successors were content to use the title to impress some medieval ladies, as they made no attempt to recover the territory to go with it.  Regardless, it provided Andreas with a nice sum of cash with which to live the life of an emperor-in-exile back in Rome.

Andreas turned out to not be particularly fiscally responsible, and burned through all the money from the sale in a few years.  Figuring that if selling a defunct title worked once, there's no reason it shouldn't work twice, he again sold the rights to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.  Andreas burned through this money as well, and died a pauper in 1502, despite having managed to sell the Byzantine Empire twice in a period of 8 years.

While this was all going on, his younger brother Manuel also decided to get in on the action, and traded the rights to title to the Ottomans in exchange for a hefty pension.  Thus, the last claimants of the Byzantine crown managed to sell it to three different monarchs, each time for a tidy profit.

Independence Days

Many colonies of the Americas spent decades striving for independence.  For the Dominican Republic, independence seems to have been a last resort.  Although they were often unhappy with their situation, the people of the Dominican Republic repeatedly tried to be part of another, larger nation rather than go it alone.

This history started in 1821, when residents of the Spanish colony declared themselves the Republic of Spanish Haiti.  Some factions of the newly created country supported union with their Haitian neighbors on the other side of the island.  The newly established government, however, immediately sought to join the Republic of Gran Colombia (modern day Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, roughly).  Despite the difference, both sides seemed to agree that being an independent nation just wasn't for them.

The disagreement was quickly settled a few months later when Haiti simply invaded the nearly defenseless Spanish side, and annexed it.  Although Haiti's administration did end slavery (Haiti was formed by a successful slave revolt, so they weren't too keen on the institution), it also brought a number of harsh restrictions that proved severely unpopular.

In 1844, the Dominicans finally had enough of Haiti's crap, and again declared independence.  Haiti spent the next decade launching a series of invasions to try to re-establish control, but they were repulsed.  However, this constant threat allowed the Dominican rulers to justify dictatorial powers and distract from their terrible mismanagement of the country.  The wars and poor governance left the country strained defensively and economically, and the Dominicans sought the protection of a major power.

After failing to become a protectorate of France, Britain or the US, the president of the republic decided to ask to rejoin Spain, their former colonial overlords, in 1861.  This marks the only time in history that a former colonial nation has voluntarily surrendered their independence and resumed being a colony.  The move quickly proved unpopular with the Dominican populace, and they again rebelled and re-achieved independence in 1865.

Next, in 1869, they petitioned to join the United States, on the premise that the island could be home to former slaves freed during the Civil War, who were still treated poorly in much of the country.  The proposal was strongly supported by President Grant, and the treaty made it all the way to the US Senate before being defeated 28-28 (a two-thirds majority is required).

The country spent the next century or so struggling through coups, economic troubles, civil wars, assassinations and other problems.  They never did manage to become part of another nation, and were forced to go it alone as the independent Dominican Republic.  Surprisingly, Dominican Independence Day is not a day of mourning.

Stand Up For Yourself

By 1480, the Russian principalities had been paying more-or-less regular tribute to the Mongols and their successors for well over 200 years.  Ivan III, Prince of Moscow decided that was damn well long enough.  The Golden Horde (the Mongol successor state in Eastern Europe) was, of course, rather fond of the practice of having bags of gold dropped off every now and then, and so did not take this news well.  The Khan of the Golden Horde readied his troops, and marched against the Russians.

The two forces encountered each other in October of 1480 on opposite banks of the Ugra River.  The initial attempt by Khan Ahmed of the Horde to cross the river was rebuffed after a few days of skirmishing, so Ahmed decided to wait for additional troops to arrive from his ally, Casimir IV of Poland-Lithuania.  Meanwhile, Ivan III needed time to reconcile with his brothers, who were plotting against him while his army was occupied.

So, both sides bided their time, Ahmed waiting for Casimir and Ivan negotiating with his brothers, and then gathering their forces after coming to agreement, the whole time sitting just across the river from one another.  This situation persisted for weeks, and winter began to set in.  Ivan, not wanting to risk an assault across the river, decided to retreat to a winter camp a ways back from the banks.  Ahmed, seeing the no forces were coming from Poland (Casimir was involved in his own civil war), and suspecting that the Russians were luring him into a trap across the river, decided to retreat as well.     

The Russians decided that this totally counted, and celebrated their glorious victory against the Horde.  For his part, Ahmed was soon killed in battle against a rival Mongol faction.  The "Great Stand on the Ugra River" marked the end of Mongol influence in Russia - two armies stood across the river from each other, and then both went home without a fight.

Creative Debt Solutions

When people come up short on their bill payments, they turn to all manner of schemes for quick cash: pawning a family heirloom on a reality TV show, manufacturing and selling methamphetamine, or selling some organs on the black market.  Charles I of Spain didn't have any of those options available in 1528 when he found himself unable to repay loans from the wealthy Welser family of Augsburg, so he came up with a different solution - he signed over the entirety of Venezuela.

At the time, Venezuela was an entirely unexplored jungle, filled with inhabitants who were not keen on having their land taken over by men from across the ocean in payment for someone else's debt.  A huge amount of money and effort would need to be poured into subduing the natives and building colonies before any value could be derived from the venture.  Given this, Charles' offer would seem to be less of a payment and more of an imposition.

However, that calculation fails to account for the most important fact about Venezuela: it's home to the great city of gold that would later come to be known as El Dorado.  The Welsers  spent much of their time in Venezuela (or "Klein-Venedig" as they called it) outfitting expeditions to find the city, as doing so was the only hope they had of not losing even more money on the project that was supposed to be a loan repayment.

They sent multiple poorly-planned expeditions to the interior, which wandered around the jungle for years, being slowly whittled down by the heat, unfriendly natives, hunger, difficult terrain, disease and mutiny.  The expeditions invariably returned empty-handed, with only a small fraction of their initial men.

As the Welser forces became depleted from this fruitless treasure hunting, the Spanish were able to re-assert control of the colony, eventually revoking the Welsers' charter and executing Bartholomew VI Welser.  The Welsers are estimated to have spent 3 million florins (about $600 million in modern money) on their efforts in Venezuela, and the all they got was malaria and a decapitation.

Trapezium Nullis

If you want to start your own country, it's tough to find any land to lay claim to.  The entire map is painted one color or another, so unless you want to try your luck in the frigid wastes of Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica, or look for an abandoned ocean platform like Sealand, the prospects look pretty grim.

However, thanks to the wonders of international politics and border disputes, there is one patch of land that no one seems to want.  As with all border issues, the problem can be traced back to the British.   At the end of the 19th century, the British had control over the area, and they decided that the border between the region administered from Cairo and the region administered from Khartoum should be a straight line.  Any third world country which has a straight-line border drawn by a British cartographer has probably run into issues with it, and in this case the British themselves found a problem.  There's a triangle of land along the coast of the Red Sea which is closer to Khartoum and to Cairo, but was North of their line.

So, 3 years later, they drew a new line, this one dipped a bit below the old line, and then rose back above it to place that triangle under Khartoum's authority.  The area in that little dip is called the Bir Tawil Triangle (despite being roughly a trapezoid).  Fast forward to today, and both countries want the valuable Red Sea coast line, and couldn't care less about Bir Tawil.  Egypt claims the original straight line border, which places the coast line on their side, and gives Bir Tawil to Sudan, while Sudan claims the revised border, which does the opposite.  Both sides vehemently insist that Bir Tawil does not belong to them (as accepting it would mean ceding the much more valuable territory), and it is therefore essentially the last unclaimed habitable territory in the world.

Pen Pals

In 1246, Europe was pretty scared.  The Mongol horde had appeared out of the steppes of Asia, and seemed to be an unstoppable military force bent on destruction and conquest.  The Russian states had already fallen, and the armies of Eastern Europe were facing defeat.  Things were not looking good, and there seemed to be no hope of stopping the Mongolians from marching all the way to the shores of the Atlantic (and then, presumably, turning around and killing everyone a second time on their way back home).

Pope Innocent IV, being the leader of Catholic Europe, decided it was time for action.  Given that beating the Mongol armies back with force didn't seem to be working, he turned to the only other tactic available: a sternly-worded letter.  Innocent penned a letter to the Great Khan (Genghis was dead at this point, as was his son Ögedei, so his grandson Güyük was next in line), in which he took the opportunity to "...express in strong terms our amazement that you, as we have heard, have invaded many countries belonging both to Christians and to others and are laying them waste in a horrible desolation..."  He then proceeded to kindly ask the Mongols to cut the crap, saying, that he "...admonish, beg and earnestly beseech all of you that for the future you desist entirely from assaults of this kind..."

The Pope then gave the letter to a friar named Giovanni and sent him off to deliver it, which required travelling all the way from Rome to actual Mongolia - a trek of 3,000 miles which took them over 100 days, all for a letter which, for all they knew, may well have gotten them executed.

Güyük, as the two umlauts in his name would generally indicate, was not a man to be messed with.  The Pope's stern tone did not, as it turned out, convince him or his people to stop their conquering spree (which at this point had been going strong for 40 years), or to apologize for any feelings they may have hurt along the way.  Instead, Güyük sent the emissaries back with a letter of his own (the original copy of which is still in the Vatican archives), in which he interpreted the Pope's letter as an offer of submission, and demanded that the Pope and all the kings of Christendom personally travel to Mongolia so that they could bow before him.  The letter ended with a pretty clear threat: "If you fail to act in accordance therewith, how can we foresee what will happen to you? Heaven alone knows."

Güyük died only two years later, before he could make good on this threat.  Although the Mongols continued to menace Eastern Europe, they never returned with the same unstoppable force as they previously possessed.  Europe was spared, and the Pope never had to share the fate of the Islamic Caliph Al-Musta'sim whose similarly disobedient attitude resulted in him being wrapped in a rug and trampled to death by Mongol cavalry.

The Air Bud Doctrine

In 1370, King Louis I of Hungary also obtained the crown of Poland, thereby binding the titles together in personal union.  He wanted to produce a son who could inherit both kingdoms and thereby keep them united.  His only child, a daughter, had died as an infant back in 1365, and, as Louis was already approaching 50, there was concern that he may not be able to produce an heir at all.  Luckily, having an additional crown seems to have improved his confidence in the bedroom, and his wife Elizabeth had three quick children - Catherine in 1370, Mary in 1371 and Hedwig in 1374.  All daughters.

Louis set about negotiating an agreement with the nobility that would allow a daughter to inherit his titles should he die without a son.  They came to a deal by which one of his three daughters, to be chosen by him, his wife, or his mother, would be the new monarch on his death.

This made the three girls the most sought-after brides in Europe.  At the age of four, Catherine was promised to the son of the King of France.  Also at age four, Hedwig was betrothed to the Habsburg family heir.  Mary got the worst end of the deal, and was engaged to her first cousin when she was one year old.  This was pretty weird even for the time period, and required Papal approval.  Figuring that if God had such a problem with this then maybe He should have given Louis a son in the first place, the Pope decided to give them the go-ahead.

After Catherine died in 1378 and Louis in 1382, Mary and Hedwig were left to inherit.  Initially their mother Elizabeth wanted Mary to rule over both countries, but the Polish nobles didn't want to remain in union with Hungary.  After much negotiation and a splash of civil war, it was agreed that Mary would rule in Hungary while the Polish crown would pass to Hedwig.

There was just one little problem.  The laws of Poland required a king - there were no provisions for a queen to rule.  Luckily, just as there is no rule saying a dog can't play basketball, there was no rule saying a ten-year-old girl couldn't be king.  So, on October 16, 1384, Hedwig was crowned King of Poland.

After reaching adulthood, Hedwig excelled at being king.  She personally led two successful military campaigns to recover lost Polish territory, handled diplomatic negotiations with the neighboring Teutonic Order, and restored the university in Krakow.  She spoke at least six languages and was known for her knowledge of the arts and sciences.

King Hedwig died during childbirth at the age of 25, but continued to be revered by the people of Poland.  She was later canonized as a Catholic saint, and is considered, ironically, the patron saint of queens.

An Army of One

If there's one thing the British Empire was good at, it was invading countries - and they had lots of practice.  In fact, the significant majority of the world has been invaded by British forces at some point or another, with only a few scattered areas including the Marshall Islands, Monaco, Burundi and Paraguay remaining before Britain collects them all.

In the late 1830's, Britain was worried that the new ruler of Afghanistan might be getting a bit too friendly with the Russian Empire and decided to fix it.  By invading, of course.  Initially, things went quite well.  Dost Mohammad Khan was deposed and exiled to India, the old, pro-British ruler Shah Shujah was restored, and the British set up camp just outside Kabul.  Although the area seemed peaceful on the surface, the son of the former ruler, Akbar Khan, was out gathering support from the rural tribes, who preferred his father to Shah Shujah.

In 1842, things turned ugly.  The low-level guerrilla warfare in the distant areas transformed into open revolt in Kabul.  In early November, an angry mob stormed the residence of one of the British officers, and murdered him and his staff.  A few days later, they looted a supply fort.  The man in charge of British forces in the area, Sir William Elphinstone, took little action, apparently hoping this would all blow over.

It didn't.  By late November, the Afghans had set up gun positions on the hill above the British position and began bombardment.  With winter closing in, and no reinforcements on the way, the British soon realized they would have to negotiate a safe retreat.  Akbar Khan, using the Brits' greatest weakness against them, invited some of the officers to tea to discuss a peaceful solution.  As soon as they stepped off their horses, the British delegation was killed.

Elphinstone, again, decided to let that slide.  In early January, he agreed to Akbar Khan's terms of surrendering the British gunpowder and many of their weapons in exchange for a guarantee of safe passage.   As one might expect given the story thus far, as soon as the 16,500 troops and other personnel got on their way, the Afghans opened fire and pursued.  Akbar Khan was still rather angry about the whole "invaded and deposed by father" situation, it turned out.

The next day, Elphinstone met with Akbar Khan again, who explained that the British had left sooner than expected, and he had not had time to negotiate their safe passage with the tribesmen.  Elphinstone, being the most gullible man in history, agreed to wait.  Again, they were betrayed, and Akbar used the time to set up additional ambushes in the mountain passes ahead.  Akbar Khan was not only still angry, but also a bit of a jerk.

By the fourth day, well over 3,000 people had been killed.  As the journey continued, many attempted to turn back under promises of protection from Akbar.  I'm sure we can all guess how that turned out.  Ultimately, out of the 16,500 people who set out from Kabul, only a single man, William Brydon made it back to Jalalabad.  When asked where the army was, he is reported to have replied, "I am the army".  In any other context, that answer would have been incredibly badass.

Pop Goes the William!

You know you've done well in life when you start out as "the Bastard" and end up as "the Conqueror".  This is exactly the moniker improvement that William of Normandy obtained when he became William I of England after winning the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066.  Unfortunately, just because you win one famous battle doesn't mean everyone immediately accepts you as King.

In fact, William had to spend the next several years brutally suppressing the Saxon population over whom he now ruled.   He burnt villages, slaughtered the inhabitants, destroyed farmlands and reduced the entirety of Northern England to smoldering rubble, barren fields and piles of corpses.

As any genocidal maniac will tell you, wreaking such utter havoc on a populace is hard work.  After such exhausting effort, William seems to have decided to treat himself to more than a few lavish feasts in later years, and his svelte figure depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry gave way to more of a Jabba the Hutt style mixture of cruelty and morbid obesity.

When William died in September of 1087, his nobles went off to attend to their affairs in light of his death, and the body was left with the local clergy.  After a few days, it was sent to Caen, a city in Normandy where William had wished to be buried.  At the funeral, William's taste for crumpets caught up with him, as his bloated corpse wouldn't fit into the stone sarcophagus that had been built for him.  One of the priests made the worst possible decision in this scenario and decided to attempt to manually force the corpse (which, remember, had been sitting out in the early September heat for a few days) into the coffin.  Williams stomach promptly burst open, spewing fluids over the priest, and filling the church with the terrible stench of rotten flesh.  If he were not already an unbelievably cruel mass-murderer, this would almost certainly have been a stain on his legacy.  Instead it was just a stain on the church floor.

Cabbage Patch Emperors

One of the best parts of being a king is that you get an awesome nickname, like the "the Wise", "the Strong" or "the Great" (which usually requires making friends with the guy in charge of picking the nicknames).  Sometimes, though, you get stuck with one of the crappier names, like Louis the Stammerer of France, or Ethelred the Unready of England.

But one monarch in particular showed up way late to nickname assignment day, and really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel:  Emperor Ivaylo the Cabbage of Bulgaria.  In 1277, things were not going well for the Bulgarians.  Mongols were raiding from the North, the Byzantines were eyeing an easy conquest from the South, the economy was in shambles, and the peasants were, of course, getting uppity.  Ivaylo at the time was a lowly swine herder, but he would soon turn out to be perhaps the most uppity peasant of all time.

Ivaylo decided it was time for action, and styled himself as savior of the Bulgarian people, anointed by God to drive out the Mongol invaders.  Given that the crumbling government had driven out exactly zero Mongols, the people were pretty much willing to give anything a try and rallied behind him.  Ivaylo's newly formed peasant army was soon able to push back bands of Mongol raiders.  The Bulgarian Emperor, Constantine I, didn't like a lowly peasant showing him up, so he gathered his army, attacked, and was decisively defeated.  Constantine was killed in battle, leaving his 7-year-old son Michael Asen as the heir to the throne.  Ivaylo, however, married the widowed empress, and had himself crowned emperor.  This was presumably because if you're going to steal a child's crown, you might as well also bone his mother.

Unfortunately, both the Mongols and Byzantines soon grew tired of his antics, and when the full force of the Mongol army was arrayed against him, Ivaylo's mix of serf moxie and swine-herding skills was not enough.  He was driven back to his capital and besieged by the Mongolians.  After three months, he was able to break through the Mongol lines and resumed his string of improbable victories.  He even defeated two armies sent by the Byzantines who presumably didn't want their peasants getting any wise ideas.  In the meantime, though, the nobility of Bulgaria had gathered their forces together, and Ivaylo's army was too beleaguered to fight a third enemy.  He tried seeking refuge with the Mongols, but was assassinated by the khan.  Historians regard this as being a rookie mistake.

Despite his eventual defeat, Ivaylo holds the world record for most successful peasant uprising in European history.  Unlike every other attempt, he actually managed to be recognized as emperor, and led his armies to victories over two of the most powerful nations in history - the Mongol hordes and the Byzantine Empire.  Normally such a feat would earn one of the cool titles like "the Great" or "the Really Great", but the Bulgarians instead named him Ivaylo the Cabbage, because that's way funnier.

Rube Goldberg Political Machine

In the 12th century, the Republic of Venice had a problem.  The office of the Doge (sort of like an elected duke) was always in danger of becoming a hereditary office, as the Doges came from powerful families and sought to pass the title to their sons.

Normally, you could solve this with a simple election, to ensure that everyone had a say in the matter and no one family could monopolize the title.  But Venice was full of wealthy, scheming bastards who were more than willing to place a few bribes to get the right man on the throne.  To combat this, they came up with a slightly complicated system to make sure it was difficult to buy your way to the top.

Starting in 1172, a new Doge would be elected as follows.  First, four members of the Great Council (sort of like congress) would be selected at random.  These four would then agree on a committee of forty (late increased to 41 after a vote ended in a tie) who would then vote for the Doge.  This way, it was difficult to know in advance who you needed to bribe.  Problem solved, right?

Wrong.  This plan severely underestimated the lengths to which the Venetian families would go in order to game the system.  So they did the only sensible thing and made it way more complicated.  Starting in 1268, the new system worked like this:  First, draw lots to select thirty random members of the Great Council.  Next, a second drawing of lots reduced the group to nine.  These nine were then tasked with agreeing on a group of forty.  In order for a group to be approved, seven of the nine had to agree on it.  After that, the chosen forty drew lots and were reduced to twelve.

At this point, you might think it'd be time to have a vote for Doge.  You'd be wrong.  The twelve then selected a group of twenty-five.   This time nine of the twelve had to agree for the twenty-five to be approved.  Once they had that, the twenty-five again drew lots to reduce the group back to nine.  This new group of nine would have to agree on a group of forty-five, requiring the approval of seven of the nine.  At this point, presumably, it'd be time for nap.

After a good long nap, the forty-five would draw some more lots (of course), and be reduced to eleven.  These eleven would then have to come up with a new group of forty-one, requiring nine of the eleven to agree on it.  Finally, these forty-one would actually vote on who the next Doge should be, with a super-majority of twenty-five out of forty-one being required to win.  By then, of course, everyone had completely lost interest in the whole process, and were quite happy just to have it over with.

And Every One Was A Henry (Henry!)

Louis XVIII of France, Alfosno XIII of Spain, Carl XVI of Sweden, once a particular monarch name becomes more popular than the others, the regnal numbering can get a bit cumbersome.  The Papacy even skipped Pope John XX and moved right on to Pope John XXI because they lost track of just how many Pope Johns there had been.

But one family decided to take things even further.  For 800 years the Reuss family ruled an oddly shaped patch of land in central Germany (as pictured).  At the end of the 12th century, Emperor Henry VI (Heinrich in German) did them a solid and granted them a few minor titles.  The family decided to repay him by naming their son Heinrich in his honor, which seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

It quickly transitioned into unreasonable territory, however, when they decided that naming one son Heinrich was not enough to show just how thankful they were for their new titles.  In order to show the true extent of their gratitude, they started naming every male child Heinrich.  And they kept doing it. For hundreds and hundreds of years.

To tell all the Heinrichs apart, each one got a number, and unlike normal regnal numbering, they numbered the ones who never got to be Count of Reuss.  So you'd have, say, Heinrich VII, and his younger brothers Heinrich VIII and Heinrich IX.  An endless stream of numerically increasing Heinrichs.  But the Reuss family wasn't crazy, of course.  They weren't going to let these numbers just grow out of control.  They decided that after they reached 100 (Heinrich C, I suppose), they'd reset back to Heinrich I.  Another branch of the family decided to start resetting at the turn of each century.

The current head of the family is Heinrich XIV, son of Heinrich IV, son of Heinrich XXXIX, son of Heinrich XXIV, son Heinrich IV, son of Heinrich LXIII, and so on and so on, stretching back through centuries and centuries of absurdly numbered Heinrichs.  All because the Emperor granted them some piddly honors way back when.

Saqaliba

You've been kidnapped from your fishing village by pirate raiders, sold into slavery, castrated, and forced to work in the court of the Caliph.  One day, the country starts falling apart around you.  What do you do? This is the situation that faced the court slaves, or saqaliba, of Cordoba in 1010 AD.

For years, the Caliph had been reduced to a powerless figurehead while his viziers ruled the empire, but the pathetic tenure of Caliph Hisham II took the situation to a new level.  He (nominally) took the throne at age 10, dressed himself in a veil and makeup, and kept an all-male harem.  As one could imagine, this set of traits did not make for an imposing supreme ruler in eleventh century Iberia.  The actual power was all in the hands of his chancellor and general, Al-Mansur, who wouldn't even let Hisham leave his palace.

Al-Mansur was quite happy to keep the weird gay shut-in on the throne, but when he died his sons Abd al-Malik and Abd ur-Rahman didn't realize what a good thing he had going.  They wanted the title as well as the power, because what's the point in running a massive empire if you can't tell the ladies that you're Caliph?  After a series of uprisings, assassinations and other various and sundry court intrigue, they brought the Caliphate crashing down around them.

This put the saqaliba, Slavs who had been captured in raids or in battle, and brought to court to serve as eunuch slaves and advisers, in a tricky position.  Should they try to make it back to their homeland?  Keep their heads down and hope no one thinks they look like ripe assassination targets?  Those would probably be the sensible answers, but Mujahid al-Siqlabi (they apparently got spiffy new Arabic names in exchange for having their junk chopped off) had a better answer: get yourself a make-shift crown and a map, draw yourself a nice looking swath of territory and proclaim yourself a newly-minted petty king.  Then start duking it out with the other slaves who'd done the same thing.

Mujahid's Taifa of Denia somehow managed to get control of a nice patch of land along the Eastern coast of Spain, while other former slaves, generals and court dignitaries carved up the rest of Muslim Iberia among themselves.  This provided a lot of work for map-makers as the various kingdoms routinely attacked and absorbed one another until the Almoravids from Morocco arrived a few decades later to gobble the whole mess up.

Makhnovia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RPAU_flag.svg

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, a band of revolutionaries lead by Nestor Makhno established an anarchic society in Southeastern Ukraine.  This wasn't your normal podunk commune of a few dozen unwashed hippies.  The Free Territory had 7 million residents, a military over 15,000 and possibly the most badass flag in history which featured a skull and the motto "Death to all who stand in the way of freedom for a working people!"  In other words, they took this shit serious.

In fact, they took things a little too seriously for the liking of the Russian Red Army.  Makhno's territory banned all political parties, including the Bolsheviks (who were more accustomed to doing the banning), and forbade any participation in Soviet militias, police, or any other authoritarian force.  This did not go over well.

Deciding that Makhno was too communist for his own good, the Bolsheviks branded him a bandit warlord.  After a few years of attacks, they succeeded in destroying his army, occupying the territory, and sending Makhno into exile in Paris.  He would later work as a stage hand for the Paris opera, because what other job are you going to get with "leader of a revolutionary anarchic army" on your resume?

The Republic of Bou Regreg

This sounds like something out of history mad-libs: In 1627, a Dutch convert to Islam lead a group of Moroccan pirates from his personal city state to the shores of Iceland to seek plunder and slaves.

The man in question is Jan Janszoon.  He started his career as a privateer, authorized by the Dutch crown to attack Spanish shipping.  After being captured by North African pirates in 1618, he converted to Islam (possibly at gunpoint, or possibly because the pirate crew made some very insightful theological arguments) and joined their crew.  After his captain was killed in battle the next year, he took control of the city of Salé on the Moroccan coast.  Although nominally under the control of the Sultan of Morocco, the city was essentially a self-governing pirate lair.  Jan (by then called Murat Reis) was elected their Grand Admiral, a position more commonly known as "Pirate King".  

Using the Republic of Salé (also known as the Republic of Bou Regreg, a way better name) as his base of operations, he raided the shipping throughout the Mediterranean, as well as up the Atlantic Coast to England and Ireland.   In 1627, he took a captured Danish sailor as his guide to Iceland, where he and his band of Moroccan pirates came upon the peaceful fishing village of Grindavík.  As it turns out, peaceful Icelandic fishing villages are not rich with plunder, so the pirates decided to abscond with a few local families instead.  

The Icelanders were sold into slavery back in North Africa, but a few of them were eventually rescued and returned to Iceland.  For his part, Jan was eventually captured by the Knights of Malta, and imprisoned and tortured in their dungeons for five years.  After his rescue by Tunisian corsairs, he returned to Morocco to a hero's welcome, and was granted governorship of a lavish fortress.

The Münster Rebellion

In the early 1500s, Germany was a mess of small counties, bishoprics and free cities.  As the Protestant Reformation got under way, it was not uncommon for these miniature states to come under new religious administration.  One of the most extreme examples was the city of Münster in 1534.

Jan Matthys and Jan Bockelson were converts to the new sect of Anaptism.  Unlike the the modern Anabaptists who pretty much mind their own business (such as the Amish and the Mennonites), the Jans added something of a violent-expansion twist to their version.  They overthrew the government of Münster and proclaimed it the New Jerusalem of biblical prophecy.

As usually happens when a place is declared the New Jerusalem of biblical prophecy, shit quickly proceeded to get a little rapey.  Private property was abolished, trade or barter for profit was outlawed and a system pretty similar to communism was implemented.  The leaders of the movement soon declared polygamy legal, and took many wives - Jan Bockelson is accused of publicly executing a woman for refusing to be his wife/sex slave.  Things were not good.

Meanwhile, the deposed bishop of the city gathered his forces and laid siege.  Matthys, deciding that he was the unstoppable avatar of God's wrath, rode out with only 30 men to meet the army.  His plan was to lay waste to them and then proceed to conquer the rest of the world in God's name.

He was quickly killed, of course, his head placed on a pike outside the walls and his genitals nailed to the town gates, because that was apparently a thing to do back then.  Despite the impressive defense mustered by the fanatics, the city eventually fell to the siege.  The leaders of the movement were captured, tortured and brutally executed.  Their corpses were then hung in cages from the city cathedral.  Although the remains have since been removed, the cages can still be seen hanging from the steeple.

Knights of the Caribbean

The Knights Hospitaller were founded way back in 1099 to run a hospital (thus the name) in Jerusalem to provide medical care for pilgrims.  As is true in both video games and real life, being the medic all the time gets boring, so they started providing armed escorts for pilgrims as well.  They distinguished themselves in battle, and built a bunch of pretty badass castles throughout the Holy Land.

After the crusades turned for the worse, and the Holy Land was lost, they retreated to Cyprus, and then took the island of Rhodes from the Byzantines in 1309.  They held out in Rhodes even after the Ottomans had conquered the region including Constantinople, but were eventually flushed out by a an invasion of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman soldiers - and even then it took the Ottomans half a year to dislodge the 7,000 knights.

They then moved on to Malta (apparently they had a thing for island fortresses), where they started protecting Christian shipping in the Mediterranean from the Muslims.  Protecting soon turned to plundering, and the Knights started capturing and looting Muslim trade ships.  This practice brought in huge amounts of money to the otherwise struggling order.

In the mid 1600s, the Knights of Malta became one of the most unlikely colonial powers when they acquired a set of islands in the Caribbean.  Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy arrived in St. Kitts in 1638 under the pretense of governing on behalf of the French crown.  He quickly decided that he wasn't nobodies bitch, and started governing under his own authority, as well as capturing other islands in the area.  He took Tortuga (a small island off the coast of Haiti) as well as St. Croix, St. Bart, and St. Martin.

In addition to his other duties of establishing personal island kingdoms, de Poincy was also a high-ranking member of the Knights.  He persuaded them to purchase some of his islands for 120,000 livres (which is a lot, apparently).  The French were willing to accept the governance of the Knights, on the grounds that they should use the islands as a base to protect Christian shipping, and work for the "conversion of the savages".

The possessions of the Knights didn't last long, as they were quickly gobbled up by the likes of Spain and Britain.  Even so, the Knights earned the right to count themselves among the great European colonial powers.