HistoryMemes

2616 readers

1 users here now

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

327

Walls (i.imgur.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I love the story of the cannon which destroyed constantinople's walls: the cannon builder wanted to sell it to the byzantines first, but they turned down, because it was too expensive, so he sold it to the ottomans instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilic_(cannon)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

You can hardly make a TL;DR here - the second paragraph is 100% interesting:

Orban managed to build this giant cannon within three months at Adrianople. Due to its size, it was dragged by 60 oxen and 400 men to Constantinople.[6] The cannonball, which could be shot at a distance of one mile, weighed 1,200 pounds.[4] It was horribly powerful, and when it hit, it caused massive damage to Constantinople's walls. The cannon also killed some of its operators.[1] Additionally, due to the material the cannon was constructed of, and the intense heat created by the charge after each shot, the barrel had to be soaked in warm oil to prevent cold air from penetrating and enlarging the fissures.[3] The heat also prevented the cannon from being fired more than three times per day. Ultimately, it lasted all of six weeks before becoming non-functional.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wowee I didn't know Orban was that old. is he a vampire or something?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Orbán is a somewhat common surname in Hungary and surrounding countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban_(surname)

If you speak about our Mighty Beloved King and Savior of Hungary Orbán, Eternal Consumer of EU Funds he is usually compared 2 Hungarian folk entities: Kisgömböc and Döbrögi.

Kösgömböc is the stomach of a pig, "Pork puding" in English. There is a widely known folk tale about a bottomless Kisgömböc, which eats everything and grows huge. There is a very nice cartoon about this story from 1977, you can enable English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnAbMhMeHs

Döbrögi, written sometimes as Döbröghy is the antagonist of the folk tale based poem Lúdas Matyi, in English: Mattie the Goose-boy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattie_the_Goose-boy_(poem) Döbrögi is a fat local lord, and his favorite daily activity is messing with the poor peasants.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

TBF, the Byzantines were fucking broken by that point, and their coins has decreased substantially in size (according to the documentary I watched)