The Mongol Influence on Europe & the Islamic world The term “Mongols” brings to mind a barbaric, blood thirsty people who roamed the lands of old, destroying civilized life wherever it existed and liberally taking the lives of innocent men. This cliché is only partly true. The ancient Mongols were fearsome warriors; they were practically born and raised on horseback and were infamously skilled with the bow. At the time, they constructed the most formidable and effective war mechanism the contemporary world had ever seen, through intense discipline and intimidation. The carnage and destruction they caused throughout the land was legendary, and fear was instilled in the hearts of every civilization in proximity to their ever expanding empire.
Franco Custodio HIS233 Jason Treter 25Sep10 The Vikings In 793 AD, a peaceful monastery in the northeastern England called Lindisfarne was savagely attacked by strange new invaders (“The Viking,” 2000 ). These warriors were described as blue eyed barbarians in horned helmet and believed to have been Norwegians who came from the North Sea. The attack was marked the beginning of the Viking Age. Just who and what are these Vikings? What is their main intention of attacking the monastery of Lindisfarne?
In both stories, Gilgamesh and Beowulf set out to conquer threatening gods outside their city. Beowulf defeats Grendal, a monster who was constantly killing members of Heorot. Gilgamesh kills Humbaba, an evil spirit of nature far in the cedar woods. Another similarity was the revenge from the gods. In Beowulf, Grendal’s mother seeks to destroy Beowulf for killing her son Grendal.
This part of the epic is starting to describe the torment and badgering that Grendel receives from the Danes in Herot. *Grendel’s motive for killing a portion of the Danes is not what one would normally think. In addition, this is what is what Grendel hears everyday from Herot,“ As day after day the music rang / Loud in the hall, the harp’s rejoicing / Call and the poet’s clear songs, sung / Of the ancient beginnings of us all / … Conceived by a pair of those monsters born / Of Cain, murderous creatures banished / By God, punished forever by the crime / Of Abel’s death ” (Raffel 40). The songs of Herot in which they call him a felon, torments Grendel day after day, by calling him the most dangerous and disastrous monster there is. Grendel had never disrupted the Danes or done anything to make them hate him so much.
Loki’s Children Loki, the Norse god of mischief was the wickedest among the Aesir. Typically in Norse folklore Loki is shameless, however; he did possess a large secret that he was ashamed of. Unknown to the rest of the Aesir, Loki had a secret bride. His bride, Angrboda, was the “ugliest, fiercest, and most dreadful” giantess to ever wreak havoc in Norse mythology.¹ Though Angrboda alone was a massive blemish on the reputation of a member of the Aesir, Loki had an even deeper truth that he hid in the most confidentiality. The bride of Loki was more than a wife.
The poem ‘Beowulf’ is an epic, and is the oldest surviving piece of English literature. The main character is a mighty warrior by the name of Beowulf. He sails across the seas to demolish a monster who’d been terrorizing the people of Denmark. He kills the monster, Grendel, but also takes up the challenges of killing Grendel’s angry mother and then a mighty dragon. The succeeds, and becomes extremely famous.
The Huns organized one of the largest invasions of the time composed of perhaps as many as half a million men. The Huns spread across Gaul and wreaked collateral damage on the great cities of Europe. The aftershock caused the Romans to quickly unite with the Visigoths, enemies of the Huns, to confront the Huns. The Huns were surprisingly halted and forced to retreat a hundred miles. The enemy pursued them and once again attacked.
Eastern Europe, including both the small Eastern nations and Russia, were absolutely devastated by war. The Soviet had 20 million dead. Because of this, the vengeful Soviet Union wanted to lash back at beaten Germany, aiming at both fierce punishments of Nazi leaders and dismantling German factories and basically making German economic recovery impossible. The Soviets' damages were so immense that they were determined to rebuild their shattered land by extracting enormous reparations from the Germans. This is why the Soviet Union sought to take over many of the eastern lands that were once under German control Poland and Hungary became nearly dependent to the Soviets, and the Soviets also began to eye obtaining Greece and later Turkey.
Corrupt idealistic governments, assembled individual men like pawns and threw them into trenches of hell with their enemies. All for the sake of political gain and false patriotism, the Great War robbed a generation of men of their freedom and future. Today individuals involve themselves in a perpetual conflict against powers outside of their control: technology, death, social convention,
The Holocaust was one of the most inhumane eras for not only the Jews but also other groups such as the Russians. In 1933 the Nazis came into power and believed threat the Germans were superior to everyone else. They also believed that the Jews were far inferior to them and were a threat to their German Community. As a result the Nazis started to persecute the Jews by burning them; they were put into gas chambers. There were over six million Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust.