Toussaint Louverture

Fig.1: "Turn around, the revolt is
back there!"

There are a lot of sucky things about slavery. But probably the worst part about it of all was that once you were a slave, chances are you'd be a slave for the rest of your life. Sure, there have been a bunch of slave revolts throughout history, but rarely do they get very far, and even the "successful" ones get squashed in the end (just ask Spartacus, if you can pinpoint which one he is). The glaring exception is the revolt against colonialism and forced servitude on the Caribbean island now known as Hispaniola, led by a man who called himself Toussaint Louverture (fig.1). While he was not a slave at the time the revolt began, nor did he initiate the revolt, nor did he live to see it finish (man, that's a lot of qualifiers), his impact on the events in French-held Saint-Domingue from 1791 to 1804 led directly to the independence and rule by former slaves in the western part of the island, now called Haiti. As such, he is considered to be a founding father of his country, on par with contemporaries like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (I see no irony there whatsoever).

Ayutthaya Kingdom of Thailand

Fig.1: Stuff like this was a prime target for those Europeans and their label makers.

Typically if you received a visit by the Europeans in the early modern period, soon you would face the unhappy prospect of watching them move in, snag all your resources, diminish your population to a subservient status, and take full control of the TV remote. One of the few places that escaped this fate was the country of Thailand in Southeast Asia (also known as Siam in the European practice of renaming nations whatever the heck they wanted). This was due in part to the actions and policies of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which ruled the region from the 1350s until 1767. The kingdom was centered on the city of Ayutthaya (fig.1), considered in 1700 to be one of the most populated locales in the world, and unquestionably had the worst rickshaw traffic known to man. When those rascally Europeans came floatin' about, the Ayutthayan government successfully played the different embassies off each other, and even earned the respect and full friendship of Louis XIV of France, the most powerful and fluffy-haired king in the world! Let's find out more about these Thai fighters, and see how they avoided domination from any empires.

The Queen Ranavalonas of Madagascar

Fig.1: More like Catherine 
the Great Cross-dresser!

Even though those of us with testosterone and Adam's apples don't like to admit it, many kingdoms' best rulers have been of the female variety. Elizabeth I (England), Catherine (Russia), Maria Theresa (Austria), and Zelda (Hyrule) are all great examples of queens that have led their nations to military success, established economic stability, and some have even dressed as a man in order to teach the only decent swordsman in the kingdom various tunes for his ocarina in order to help him on his quest to defeat this really evil ginger guy (that would be Catherine the Great, of course, fig.1). In the case of the African island kingdom of Madagascar, you can argue that their three most notable monarchs have been ladies, and coincidentally, they all had the same name! Well maybe not coincidentally, cause all three took that name while becoming queen, but don't mess up my groove! Ranavalona I (r. 1828-1861), Ranavalona II (r. 1868-1883), and Ranavalona III (1883-1897) were all significant in shaping their country's future in the wake of increasing European jerkiness influence in the region. Their legacy is so great that approximately 10% of Malagasy girls today are named "Ranavalona," with the rest being "Emily" since there has to be at least a billion of them on Earth at one time.

Angkor Wat

Fig.1: The Who Temple of Angkor Wat, located 
behind the Why Garden and the I Don't Know 
Shrine.

We've all seen the Abbott and Costello bit where Abbott visits the Angkor region of Cambodia, and Costello inquires about the specifics of his vacation:

Costello: Which temple did you see in Angkor?
Abbott: Angkor Wat.
Costello: That's what I'm asking you.
Abbott: I'm telling you: Angkor Wat.
Costello: Yes, Angkor what?
Abbott: That's right.

And then it goes downhill from there. Well lost in the hilarity is the fact that Angkor Wat, the object of confusion, is considered the largest religious monument in the world: at over 20 million square feet, it is 12 times larger than the Temple Mount in Israel, can fit about 800 Christ the Redeemer statues from Brazil within its walls, and is approximately 3.8 billion times holier than that Celtic symbol you got tattooed on your lower backside. On top of that, it is the largest tourist attraction in Cambodia, as well as its national symbol, making it akin to the Eiffel Tower in France, the Taj Mahal in India, and practically any old marble piece of crap in Greece.  It is still considered a holy place of worship by Cambodian monks to this day, which I'm sure the million visitors per year does absolutely nothing to diminish.

Timbuktu

Now you're probably thinking, "Sima Dave, if you want to become the next Grand Historian, you shouldn't be writing about make-believe places like Timbuktu!" Well, my naïve child, I'm here to tell you that Timbuktu is a real city, despite its reputation as a magical faraway place! It's actually a city in Africa (Mali, to be precise), but we shouldn't hold that against it. Back in the day, Timbuktu was a major Medieval trading post, and people from all over Saharan Africa and the Middle East came to buy precious commodities like salt, gold, ivory, slaves, and rare 8-tracks. Europeans ate up descriptions of the city, and even offered rewards to those who could infiltrate society there and make it out alive, much like the girls' locker room. Of course looking at the town now, it looks like just any other third-world, war-torn, desertifying North African Hooverville, so how could this place really have once been the land of wealth, culture, and absolutely delicious falafels?

Fig.1: The original inhabitants of Timbuktu.

Timbuktu was most likely settled in the twelfth century by nomadic pastorialists who wanted a nice place to chill along the Niger River. Timbuktu would pale in comparison to Gao, another city along the Niger two hundred miles to the southeast, for a couple hundred years. But then trade routes began to shift, and Timbuktu became the major city in the region by 1375; this of course caused the people already living in Timbuktu to brag that they were there before it was cool, and thus the hipster movement was born (fig.1). Timbuktu's rise to prominence can be attributed to its incorporation into the Mali Empire around 1324 (fig.2). The ruler of Mali, happily/alliteratively named Mansa Musa, peacefully annexed the city, which opened the door to supplying merchants with rare items of wealth from all over the empire. Manua Musa also solidified Islam as the dominant religion of the land, which is a great thing, since Islam is an infallible religion and nothing bad or funny can be said of it. There...no jokes...so please don't issue a fatwa on me.