The Almost Forgotten

David became king of Georgia after it had been devastated by years of Turkish pillaging. He pushed the invaders out and restored the fortunes of his relatively new kingdom. By the time he died, Georgia neared the apex of its power, ruled most of the southern caucuses, and had entered a Golden Age.

One of several Viet leaders who helped his land on the road to sovereignty, Dinh Bo Linh united the land of An Nam, a Chinese protectorate that had gained some amount of autonomy, and brought it to full independence as the Kingdom of Nam Viet.

Goujian was the king of Yue at the end of Ancient China’s Spring and Autumn Period. He was defeated by the state of Wu and taken captive, where he served as a slave and plotted his revenge. Eventually returning to his own kingdom, his dedication to getting his revenge has become something of legends.

In the 20th century BC, Gungunum made himself king of the Sumerian city of Larsa. He brought Larsa from an inconsequential minor city to the dominant city state in Sumer, allowing him to claim the title of King of Sumer. His was the last dynasty that could be considered Sumerian, before the region shifted to what we now call Babylonia

Jacob Kettler was the Baltic German Duke of Courland and Semigallia, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century. Kettler decided the best way to modernize his duchy was to copy the major powers of Western Europe, by making the Duchy of Courland a colonial power

Matthias Corvinus became King of Hungary as it was beginning to deal with the Ottoman threat. He united the fractured kingdom, bringing powerful magnates to heel and creating a strong centralized state. He created a significant power in Southeast Europe that was able to hold of the Ottomans and take lands from the Holy Roman Empire.

Margaret lived in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and was the daughter of the King of Denmark. Despite obstacles, and general opposition to ruling queens at the time, she not only became the Queen of Denmark, she also was able to gain the crown of two more Scandinavian kingdoms, uniting them in a personal union that last more than century.

Alauddin Khalji became the Sultan of Delhi, and greatly expanded the kingdom. He fended off multiple Mongol invasions, and he in turn invaded most of the Indian subcontinent to his south. He turned a relatively small Sultanate into a great power, and ruled over most of India.

Baibars was the Sultan of Egypt and Syria in the 13th century. Born on the Eurasian Steppe, he was enslaved as a teen, and became a slave soldier. He rose through the ranks to become a general, and eventually the Sultan of Cairo. He helped stop the Mongol advance into the Levant, and effectively ended the Crusades in the Middle East. And he stabilized the Cairo Sultanate for generations.

The Lombards made their way into Italy in the 6th century, and were the bridge between the rule there of Roman Empires, both Western and Eastern, and the Holy Roman Empire. Liutprand was perhaps their greatest king, pulling together a kingdom from the various disunited Lombard dukedoms and creating a state that was the most powerful one on the peninsula for centuries earlier.

Songsten Gampo was the king of a small state in southern Tibet, which had only just begun to expand beyond its perhaps centuries-old domain. From this, he created a long-lasting Tibetan Empire, which ruled most of the Tibetan Plateau for centuries and, thanks in no small part to Songsten Gampo, became the center of Buddhism for perhaps the whole world.

Dion was born in Syracuse and became a trusted advisor to the city’s tyrant. But Dion’s relationship with the next tyrant was no so hot, and after falling out, Dion became a reformer. As a student of Plato, he saw an opportunity to implement the philosopher’s ideal Republic, and he seized the moment to try.

Leukon was the tyrant, then king, of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a territory on the Crimean Peninsula, at the very edge of the Greek world. He took the territory, capitalized on its relationship to the rest of the Greek world to create an important Hellenized kingdom that would last for centuries.

Shutruk-Nakhunte was the most powerful king of Elam. He took this often times disunited culture, and created an empire out of it. Elam existed for thousands of years, but under Shutruk-Nakhunte they managed to be one of the great powers in the region, a rarity for them despite their long-lived civilization.

Burgundy is in turmoil after the death of Charles. His daughter Mary is his heir, but France, as well as the Netherlands, aren’t going to allow her to take power easily. Burgundy, though, survives in some way, beyond Mary, through her marriage into the powerful Habsburg family, and leaves a lasting legacy, at least in the Low Countries

Charles inherited a truly powerful state in Europe upon the death of his father. He was learned and brave, a strong military commander, and looked like he was going to be a leading man in European affairs for generations. But his obsession with his eastern frontier, coupled with a few tactical blunders, made it so that never happened, and ended Burgundy’s dominance.

Philip the Good became the new Duke of Burgundy after his father’s murder. He worked to expand Burgundy’s power, and ruled during its height in a way that kept it strong and secure. But he also missed real opportunities to make it something more.

With Philip the Bold’s death, his strategy of adding more territories to his heir is fulfilled, and John the Fearless inherits what is becoming a Burgundian state. John is even more ambitious than his father, seeking to control France, add to his own territory, and use any means at his disposal to accomplish his goals

The history of the Duchy of Burgundy continues with the first Valois Duke, Philip the Bold. Philip was a gifted statesman who help grow the duchy into a state that would eventually rival France itself.

Burgundy is a region in eastern France, which had once been an independent Germanic Kingdom. It became a Duchy of France before entering a Golden Age in the 14th and 15th century and turning into something even bigger

Nzinga was queen of an African kingdom in today’s Angola. She fought with, and at times allied with, the various colonial and indigenous powers in the region, lost most of her kingdom, gained another, and was able to resist European occupation and keep her kingdom relatively free for decades.

Bayinnaung was a prince and leading general of a small Burmese kingdom. He helped lead it to become a large empire, only to watch it dissolve when his king was killed. But he quickly restored it, before expanding it more himself, creating the largest land empire in Southeast Asia.

Jan Zizka was dead, but the Hussite cause was not. They continued to fight the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. They found a new leader in Prokop the Great, and were able to keep Sigismund at bay, but internal turmoil helped splintered the Hussites, but also helped usher in a real compromise.

The Hussites, now fighting both the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, find the leader they need to survive against impossible odds in Jan Zizka. Zizka was an incredible commander, who never lost a battle, and helped lay the groundwork for two centuries of a semi-independent Bohemian Church.

The Hussite Wars started in 1419 with the first defenestration of Prague. Here we discuss the road to the war, including the situation in Bohemia, and the preaching and then killing of Jan Hus.