The Eighth and Ninth Crusades

Welcome back to Crusades Month, where they, just like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, only got worse and worse as they continued to churn them out! Here is a history of the last two "numbered" crusades, which came to an end not just due to ambivalence about restoring Christianity to the Holy Land, but also because you were lucky to find someone from the time period that could count any higher than nine.

Fig.1: Even this guy was dead a 
hundred years before the Eighth 
and Ninth Crusades.

By the late 1200s, the crusading spirit had been alive in Europe for nearly two hundred years, and like many other things that are that old, it was really starting to get rotten and moldy. No crusade had seen any long-term military success since the First one, and those guys were long dead (with or without the abbreviated lifespan of the Medieval Age). The Crusader Kingdoms that were left behind were falling apart; the Kingdom of Jerusalem had not even included the city of Jerusalem since 1187, with Acre remaining as the only stable Christian city in the Holy Land. Even the Byzantine Empire that was destroyed by the wayward Fourth Crusade had come back to reclaim Constantinople in 1261, meaning the Crusaders couldn't even hold on to places were Christianity already reigned supreme. Nevertheless, Europeans still longed to see the land they read about (or, let's be honest, accepted their seemingly infallible priest's word about) in the Bible be rid of the scourge of Islam. (Not that I think there's anything wrong with Islam! So please don't hurt me!) And so two more numbered crusades would be called in the late 1260s by two European kings. Unfortunately they would be half-hearted crusades, so they will each be half-heartedly discussed in the same history (hey, if they're not going to put everything they have into this, why should I?).

The Pyramids at Giza

Fig.1: If the pyramids were built today, insurance companies would claim they need to be replaced in thirty years to account for "regular wear and tear" and "water damage."

Close your eyes and think of Egypt. What's the first thing you see? No, not the horrendous special effects in The Mummy franchise. You're probably thinking of the pyramids at Giza, carefully guarded by that watchful sphinx. This complex (officially called a "necropolis," meaning "city of I see dead people") is one of the most famous attractions in the world, visited annually by millions of tourists who don't mind having sand in their hair forever. Not only is the Great Pyramid the oldest of the Ancient Wonders of the World, it's the only one still standing! (I know I'd trust those contractors more than the slackers that made the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!) Most importantly, without these Ancient Egyptian works of engineering, we wouldn't have any clue what a polyhedron with the characteristics of a conic solid and a polygonal base is called, cause we sure ain't learning that crap from the 10th grade math teacher in whose class we spent more time playing Candy Crush.

Second Punic War

Fig.1: Long, drawn-out fight scene directed 
by Peter Jackson.

Most of the time when you go see a sequel to one of your favorite films, you end up walking out of the theater saying, "It was alright, but not nearly as good as the original." But then there are those glorious moments where the sequel actually tops its predecessor, allowing you to nerd out and buy a brand new set of action figures (I know that's what I did for Crocodile Dundee II). This was the case for the Second Punic War between the powers of Carthage, based on the African coast in present-day Tunisia, and Rome, based where at least one person you know is currently "studying" abroad. It amplified everything good about the First Punic War: large-scale land battles, cutthroat naval engagements, political intrigue, constant reversals within the chain of command, huge shifts of momentum, and (best of all) nonstop, gratuitous, family-unfriendly violence.  But what the original lacked in overall character development, the sequel came through with one word: Hannibal.

Akhenaten

Fig.1: The all-holy Egyptian pantheon, in an all-holy Egyptian conga line.

History is full of stories of monotheism (the worship of a single god) against the established forces of polytheism (the worship of too many gods to shake a stick at). The Jews in ancient Israel fought for centuries to protect their religion against the polytheist cultures of Assyrians, Persians, and Romans. Roman Emperor Constantine elevated Christianity as the state religion during his reign in the fourth century, creating much strife with the population who followed Roman paganism for hundred of years. The prophet Mohammed fought for and spread the good news of the almighty, infallible religion of Islam against the hedonistic false idols popular in Arabia at that time (there, I played nice, so don't hurt me!). And adherents of Pastafarianism battled hard to make the Flying Spaghetti Monster the one true god over lesser Noodle Monsters such as Linguine, Fettuccine, or (Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid) Macaroni! But perhaps the first (albeit, unsuccessful) instance of this occurring is three thousand years ago in Ancient Egypt, where one crazy pharaoh loved the sun so much, he certainly would have married it if that was an option.

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.