died before the age of 40 but compensated by living a full and interesting life that did not consist of fruitless guerrilla warfare interrupted by long boring spells in the slammer
literally the sultan’s favorite boyfriend
you think i’m kidding but i’m not fucking kidding
so his dad who was ruler of wallachia (aka southern romania more or less) sent radu and vlad to the ottoman court as political hostages when they were kids and they grew up there along with the future mehmet the fucking conqueror
you know. the dude who conquered constantinople in 1453, brought an end to the eastern roman empire etc etc
that dude
turns out mehmet had a ridiculous crush on radu
so one day mehmet tried to get handsy and radu thought to himself, what should i do in my precarious position as political prisoner from a small-fry principality on the fringes of the empire when the heir to the ottoman throne is putting the moves on me?
I KNOW I’LL STAB HIM IN THE LEG
so he did. he did that
and then he went and climbed a tree and refused to come down until mehmet got patched up and probably limped over all c’mon baby don’t be like that
like i bet stabbing the sultan got you a one-on-one appointment with the royal executioner. except not for radu because he was that much of a badass
meanwhile vlad was probably planning to LISTEN WHO FUCKING CARES
anyway
so radu eventually of his own volition became mehmet the conqueror’s boyfriend and they went on many exciting adventures together
like the siege of constantinople
where was vlad at the time? being kicked out of his own country because his standard approach to politics was ‘devise new and exciting ways to torture and kill people slowly’. despite what certain history books will have you think he was super unpopular with… everyone basically.
radu was highly educated and spoke multiple languages and was all about turkish and persian literature. also possibly converted to islam though sources tend to contradict eachother on that
by the time radu was 22 mehmet gave him a command and started sending him places
like wallachia to overthrow his brother who was being politically inconvenient
SO MUCH GAME OF THRONES-GRADE BACKSTABBY DRAMA HAPPENED YOU HAVE NO IDEA
also radu married a serbian (or possibly albanian) princess named maria despina and had one daughter
died suddenly in his late 30s, which is code for ‘probably poisoned’
and in conclusion: a genuinely interesting historical figure you don’t hear enough about because his brother was a vampire or something
Onfim was a child who lived in Novgorod, Russia, in the 13th century. He left his notes and homework exercises scratched in soft birch bark (beresta) which was preserved in the clay soil of Novgorod. Onfim, who archaeologists believe was six or seven at the time, wrote in Old Novgorodian; besides letters and syllables, he
drew battle scenes and drawings of himself, his family, and his teacher.
One time Henry VIII had a book when he was little and he wrote in really massive writing on the first page “this boke is myne” and I just find it so funny because that’s such a child Henry VIII thing to do
AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A BOSTON TEA PARTY BECAUSE A BOSTON TEA PARTY DON’T STOP UNTIL BOSTON IS PUT UNDER MARTIAL LAW AND EVERYONE IS DISILLUSIONED WITH PARLIAMENT AS A WHOLE.
She was born during the reign of James I, was a youngster when René Descartes set out his rules of thought and the great fire of London raged, saw out her adolescent years as George II ascended the throne, reached adulthood around the time that the American revolution kicked off, and lived through two world wars. Living to an estimated age of nearly 400 years, a female Greenland shark has set a new record for longevity, scientists have revealed.
And you’ll never guess how old she has to be before reaching sexual maturity…
326 Miles 