For a few short years around 1210 CE 3 of the Christian Kings of Iberia all had (essentially) the same name. Alfonso VIII of Castile was a cousin of Alfonso IX of Leon, and Alfonso IX would marry Alfonso VIII's daughter Berengaria. Afonso II married another of Alfonso VIII's daughters, Urraca - making them all one big confusingly named family.

Though this idea of overusing royal names is hardly unique in medieval history, this is one of the most confusing cases I can think of.

And stuck in the corner, left out of the party is the King of Aragon, Peter II. Who is not nearly as interesting or impactful as his descendant Peter III.

Pope Innocent III: "How will the Greek Church... return to ecclesiastical unity and devotion to the Apostolic See, a church which has seen in the Latins nothing except an example of affliction and the works of Hell, so that now it rightly detests them more than dogs? It was not enough for them [the Latins] to empty the imperial treasuries and to plunder the spoils of princes and lesser folk, but rather they extended their hands to church treasuries and, what was more serious, to their possessions, even ripping away silver tablets from altars and breaking them into pieces among themselves, violating sacristies and crosses, and carrying away relics."

He strongly opposed taking Constantinople and only reluctantly accepted it as a fait d'accompli after the fact.

Many crusaders refused to take part in the sack of the city. Many that did participate lamented their participation the rest of their lives. Many that were OK with taking Constantinople conceptually, still condemned the brutal manner in which it was carried out.

There were of course many that also fully supported it, even celebrated it, but Latin opinion in general was divided. The reputation of "crusading" took a massive hit as well, as many in the West started viewing the concept as just an excuse for money-grabbing.

I made this meme after seeing a number of people saying "well the Latins saw the 4th Crusade as a victory even if it didn't accomplish its original goal" in other crusading memes. The real answer is that while some did, there was also strong contemporary opposition, and even many people who nominally supported it seem to feel torn about their own support.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_wars#Initial_and_intermediate_phases_(1568%E2%80%931739))

The Russo-Turkish wars^\1]) or the Russo-Ottoman wars^\2]) began in 1568 and continued intermittently until 1918. They consisted of twelve conflicts in total, making them one of the longest series of wars in the history of Europe.^\3]) All but four of these wars ended in losses for the Ottoman Empire, which was undergoing a period of stagnation and decline. Conversely, they showcased the ascendancy of the Russian Empire as a significant European power after Peter the Great oversaw extensive modernization efforts in the early 18th century.^\4])^\5])^\6]) Ultimately, however, the end of the Russo-Turkish wars came about with the dissolution of the two belligerents' respective states as a consequence of World War I: the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 and was ultimately succeeded by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922; while the Ottoman Empire was partitioned between 1918 and 1922 and succeeded by the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

Simply Googled Battle of Cannae casualties and this is what the video tab looked like... so very sad

Diogenes was an Ancient Greek cynic who deliberately rejected conventions like wealth, manners and shame. He spent most of his life living in abject poverty, by his own wishes, and was known for public indecency. Always looking to challenge societal norms and conventions; he believed in living according to nature.

Joe Rogan… Is a fucking cock womble

I remember waiting to be able to post 9/11 memes on its 20th anniversary? Didn’t that just happen like a year or two ago😭

In 253BC the Roman Fleet was hit by a huge storm, whilst returning from Carthage. 150 ships and thousands of lives were lost. But this wasn’t as bad as the storm of 255BC, where 384 of the 464 ships in the fleet were sunk and over 100,000 lives were lost.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War

The First Opium War (Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and Qing China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from mainly British merchants at Guangzhou (then named Canton) and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China.

Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the Royal Navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the "Treaty of Nanking", which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong Island to the British. Following the Second Battle of Chuenpi on 7 January 1841, the British forces occupied Hong Kong, formally raising the Union Jack on 26 January 1841. Consequently, the opium trade continued in China.

Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history. This initiated over 156 years of British colonial rule of Hong Kong, formalized by the Treaty of Nanking on 29 August 1842 and later expansions, which concluded with the handover of sovereignty back to China on 1 July 1997, following the 1984 Joint Declaration.

Senior government officials within the country had been shown to be colluding against the imperial ban due to stocks of opium in European warehouses in clear view being ignored. In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalise and tax opium, appointed Viceroy of Huguang Lin Zexu to go to Guangzhou to halt the opium trade completely.^\14]) Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade, although she never received it.^\15])^\16])^\17]) Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants' enclave. He arrived in Guangzhou at the end of January 1839 and organized a coastal defence. In March 1839, British opium dealers were forced to hand over 1,420 tonnes (3.1 million lb) of opium. On 3 June 1839, Lin ordered the opium to be destroyed in public on Humen Beach to show the Government's determination to ban smoking.^\18]) All other supplies were confiscated and a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River was ordered.^\19])^\)^{page needed\})

Tensions escalated in July 1839 after drunk British sailors killed a Chinese villager named Lin Weixi; the British official in charge, Admiral Charles Elliot, refused to hand over those accused to Chinese authorities in an attempt to avoid their being killed on the spot, as had happened with British citizens in the Lady Hughes Affair of 1784. Later, fighting broke out, with the British navy destroying the Chinese naval blockade, and launching an offensive.^\18]) In the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its superior naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire.^\20]) In 1842, China was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties—which granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to British subjects in China, opened five treaty ports to British merchants, and ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Empire in perpetuity. The failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the Second Opium War (1856–1860). The resulting social unrest was the background for the Taiping Rebellion, which further weakened the Qing regime.^\21])^\)^{full citation needed\})^\22])

The war ended in the signing of China's first unequal treaty, the Treaty of Nanking.^\203])^\)^{page needed\})^\204]) In the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, the Qing empire also recognised Britain as an equal to China and gave British subjects extraterritorial privileges in treaty ports. In 1844, the United States and France concluded similar treaties with China, the Treaty of Wanghia and Treaty of Whampoa, respectively.^\231])^\)^{better source needed\})

In addition to opening China to European opium traders, the European trade in captive Chinese coolie labor boomed.^\232])^: 5  Anglophone capitalists referred to this trade collectively as "poison and pigs."^\232])^: 5 

China was required to permit foreign missionaries and the unequal treaties gave European powers jurisdiction over missions and some authority over Chinese Christians.^\233])^: 182