A History Teacher Reacts | Sam O'Nella - Creative Weapons of the Medieval Era

hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video with mr. Terry as I continued my never-ending quest for historical knowledge alright today we are going to watch another video from Salmonella watched a couple now and ready to kind of continue on so going through their videos saw this one I thought it was kind of interesting it was called creative medieval weapons and we're gonna check this out here in just a moment alright the original video link will be down in the description if you liked it make sure you go over there give them like comment and subscribe if you want to continue with me as I scour the internet for more and more awesome history videos be sure to subscribe and enable notifications so you know when videos premiere and when live streams happen as well alright I'm one of their plug before we kind of get going here we have started a teespring campaign so if you'd like a cool history themed shirts go down to the description below and you can get yourself one proceeds help support this channel as well so you're also in a way kind of making a donation while getting cool piece of merch for yourself alright with that I think we'll go ahead and get started so guess Salmonella creative medieval weapons series guy [Music] hey kids when most people think of the Middle East Sam they think of them as being like humanity's dumb teenage years now all we did was play harpsichord in our room and burn heretics with our friends but that's not entirely true now you did would argue that the medieval era saw just as much genius as any other period in time it's just most of that genius went towards finding new and creative ways to brutally slaughter those who disagree with go back to the whole stereotype of kind of the European Middle Ages and a lot of times people will you know just say the Middle Ages meaning it was this like Dark Age or whatever this this period and like the whole world was like that and that's not the case at all there are brilliant advances going on and again what would be the the Middle Ages here extremely successful civilizations you got the Song Dynasty over in China who are [Music] technologically advanced and culturally very advanced you got the Islamic kingdoms that are out preserving you know ancient of what would be ancient European culture like them really harnessing and and keeping you know Greek classics and that sort of thing it's also part of the Golden Age of Africa over there then over in the Americas you got the Maya civilization and especially in the early the middle of what would be the Middle Ages but even from the European perspective this idea of the Dark Ages isn't necessarily I mean it depends on what you say is dark is not as much as people as you think you know it just it's the the issue is that it gets sandwiched this kind of age purge again is around a thousand years if you're talking about between the Roman Empire the fall of the Roman Empire and sort of the birth of the Renaissance so you're talking around you know 400 AD to you know the 1400s so about a thousand year timespan but yeah it's it's way more blown as this like total backwards period as one would say yeah there are some things that have there that are regressed but not probably what you might think you know what I mean all right let's try so most of that genius went towards finding new and creative ways to brutally slaughter those who disagree with here's a few highlights first we'll talk about the war wolf so as you can imagine medieval castles were not easy to break into they were basically like those jungle gym things at chuck-e-cheeses massive in size intentionally confusing layout and security everywhere and by the end of your visit you'd probably end up with some kind of disease so in order to help penetrate fortresses medieval armies would often utilize those those places are so gross those tunnels you go through a chuck-e-cheese or ball pits can't come out of there without getting pinkeye or something or dysentery that's great some kind of disease so in order to help penetrate fortresses medieval armies would often utilize siege weapons one of the most popular of which was the trebuchet now this device is interesting enough on its own but it gets better so around 1300 ad King Edward the first of England was in the process of invading Scotland however one fortress known as Stirling Castle was giving him a lot of trouble he laid siege to the building for many months without any real progress then one day he woke up and had a revelation hey guys listen why are we wasting our time building all these regular-sized trippy shades where we could just build one giant one and call it a day so that's what he did this gargantuan war machine was known as the war wolf and stood at around six stories tall to give a bit of perspective hold out rouse King Kong was in his largest film depiction so basically whoa yeah a buddy King Kong here six stories I don't know any trebuchet user actually made that big no I mean obviously they most of them weren't siege warfare was basically the warfare of the Middle Ages as as they said at the beginning how castles and the way that the feudal societies in Europe would sort of defend themselves was extremely successful for four centuries right it was like impenetrable number two this is before the era of gunpowder and cannons which when you fast forward centuries that technology makes it over you start to see that especially in Europe around the Hundred Years War between France and England but up until then yeah there was really nothing that could combat this like you know with castles you know I mean you you it made some Knights obsolete because you're doing with more range things and kind of things I again though just it worked real well so it was always interesting to me to study how how a military or something overcomes you know a certain obstacle and that's right I mean really isn't that the history of warfare itself and the development of Warfare's opponent has something that seems to have an advantage how are you going to figure that out to go against you you know what I mean so they were having the same issue over in the east the Mongols in fighting China took the Mongols about a hundred years to defend China for a lot of the reasons that of why things were impenetrable to west because like in China they had big walled cities and they also actually the Mongols were using because trebuchet technology and trying to innovate eventually more with like gunpowder and stuff like that because that's actually originated over in China so yeah the study of siege warfare is difficult because it's it's it was a pretty slow process to actually overcome those obstacles but I mean when you got King Kong on your side here maybe maybe you're pretty good so let's see what they said a bit of perspective this is about as tall as King Kong was in his largest film depiction so basically picture a giant [ __ ] ape launching boulders like their baseballs and you've got a pretty good idea of what the war wolf was capable of it was so intimidating that when the Scots saw the English constructing the beast outside the castle they immediately surrendered at fear but then Edward was like huh [ __ ] that I'm gonna test this bad boy out and proceeded to take potshots on the castle anyway another devious product of the Middle Ages was the flammable substance known as Greek fire contrary to popular belief Greek fire was not invented by the ancient Greeks Rick Riordan Rick it was actually invented in the 7th century AD by the Byzantines who happened to inhabit Greece at the time historians still don't know exactly what it was made of but those semantics they're a lot like napalm sticking to ships stinking to people even floating and continuing to burn on the surface of the water yeah they well let me consult also had these siphoned like tubes that they put on the front of their boats to pour Greek fire on the enemy kind of like makeshift flamethrowers these worked yeah the most useful for it was a naval combat to feed another ship I mean it's not gonna you're not really gonna do much and specifically siege warfare with to set a great fire but yeah it becomes a big deal later on especially around the Byzantine Empire as it was used especially in fighting against Constantinople because there you have multiple things you have some of the thickest walls and all of the medieval era as well as water as you you know if you're especially from the east coming over you had to have some kind of naval presence because it's right there on the straight but yeah Greek fire is kind of an interesting thing because again they still don't really know what it was like it was I think it was more it was almost like jellied as Waya as well - which again kind of napalm does that so it sticks to what it's you know what it's what it's up against thus creating a more deep longer lasting burn cool put on the front of their boats to pour Greek fire on the enemy kind of like makeshift flamethrowers these were retired pretty quickly though mostly because when you put the words makeshift and flamethrower next to each other you're bound to run into some progressive entually our next bright idea comes from a woman known as Olga of Keith so Olga was the princess who ruled the area around the capital of modern-day Ukraine from 945 to 960 3 AD and she had quite a track record for being just a total badass for example the DREV lands a tribe of people under Keith's control once sent 20 men to Kiev in order to convince Olga to marry their prince under the pretense that if they did marry the Prince could claim her rule over Keith in response she had all 20 of them buried a look she then sent a letter to the prince saying she accepted his proposal but she would need a bunch of his most distinguished governor's to escort her on the journey once the men showed up Olga was like hey guys long journey huh how'd you like to take a bath in this here bathhouse they were like yeah sure that sounds great ok I have fun you guys all right yeah man it's like a sauna in here it is a sauna [ __ ] you have a point so long story short this lady just did not give a heck my favorite story about her starts with her besieging a Trevelyan city that refused to pay tribute to her the people in the city were already well aware of the type of rampaging that Olga was capable of so they were already scared shitless but when she showed up she was like all right you know what guys I'm gonna play nice just bring me three pitch and three sparrows from each household and I'll be on my way one gay what uh what are they for exactly we're uh we're just hungry I mean we got some food too we could just give I'm sorry did I [ __ ] stutter all right Birds it is then what is the creatures were in August hands she watch of her soldiers time off bound piece of sulfur to one of the birds is feet which was then set alight the birds were then released all at once and when they flew back into the city their nests acted like little piles of tinder resulting in nearly every house in the entire school in flames simultaneously and while the whole place burned to the ground Olga just sat and watched by the way whoa that's crazy no idea you'd think of that before so you got all the birds basically lit him on fire and then when they landed they burned everything holy crap that's like evil genius right there holy Wow Olga banshees ruthless simultaneously and while the whole place burned to the ground Olga jizz sat and watched by the way it's worth mentioning that after her death Olga was canonized as a Catholic saint presumably around the same time as Saint Tiffany who went around pushing in the soft spots of babies in Saint Jerry the goat [ __ ] who as the name implies [ __ ] a lot of goats in conclusion pay your taxes to my loyal subscribers I'll see you in three months I'm salmonella and thank you for watching [Music] no comment on the last couple Saints there we go another thing needs to be said right there well so mostly this was a breakdown of just some of the really messed up I guess you could call me a creative weapons of the middle or the the medieval era so those are just stories of some messed up rulers doing some messed up stuff but in a way maybe that categorizes this the the middle or the Middle Ages in general there so alright well good another goods video from Sam there yeah awesome alright there's a link to the original video if you like the original video make sure you go over there give them a like and subscribe to give them support you know so just a few plugs on the way out again like I said the beginning and there is a or there's been a teespring campaign has launched you should be able to find a link to that down in the description if you'd like to check out some history themed merch there a few other things if you'd like to support the channel also in other ways one way to do that would be to join our patreon right now patrons of all donation levels are able to participate in a weekly poll that decides on some of the highly popular highly recommended videos to get kind of fast-tracked to to get on this channel so that's why anyway you can support as well alright another invitation to join our discord if you haven't if you'd like to be part of a historical discussion community that's a great place to do that there will also be a link down below as well as some other ways that you can support the channel as well okay with that I think we'll go ahead and call it here I thank you once again for watching we'll see you next time bye

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 832,258

Keywords: react, history, medieval, middle ages

Id: uhfJLIZoC9k

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2019