First stop was Hungary, but yes.

The crusaders incurred a huge debt contracting with the Venetians, and when the lackluster crusade didn’t turn up enough people (rich OR poor) to fund the full debt for the transport fleet (which was much larger than it needed to be, since they were expected a larger turnout for the crusade), there was a ‘no refunds’ policy taken by Venice. Venice demanded payment in other forms - first to subdue some local Christian cities they regarded as ‘rightfully’ Venice’s.

After that, the crusaders were still short on cash and running low on supplies, as the strongarming was only to cover the remainder of the contract that they couldn’t afford, and the contract’s duration for providing supplies to the crusaders was running low - in large part because of the time taken by the strongarming detour. They could have disembarked as-planned, but would have done so with almost no food deep in hostile territory, which was not the original plan - hardly an auspicious start to a ‘successful’ crusade. The deposed Byzantine Emperor contacted part of the crusade and offered to pay off their whole debt to the Venetians and provide troops and support to the Holy Land if they put him back on the throne. The Venetians, seeing a chance to fuck over the Byzantines, their traditional enemies, were strongly in favor of the plan.

Of course, this ran into one small problem - the Byzantine Empire was in no shape to pay off massive debts or provide large armies to military adventures at this time. It was only barely holding itself together. When the crusaders sacked Constantinople and put the previous Byzantine Emperor on the throne, they found out that his promises were largely empty, and that even the entire Byzantine treasury couldn’t pay what they were promised.

… so they couped (and killed) the Emperor they themselves had installed by coup, and instead founded what is usually referred to as the “Latin Empire” in modern histories, a Catholic crusader state which ruled over Constantinople and the surrounding area, with only the fringes of the Byzantine Empire remaining free from Catholic control. This section of the crusade never did actually tangle with the Muslims, and the section of the crusade that DID reach the Holy Land (largely made of crusaders who refused to do either sack, Hungary or Byzantine) disbanded because they were too few by that point to convince the local crusader states to start another war with the Muslim polities.

The Pope was reportedly legitimately unhappy about every part of this.

Oh, thank goodness! I always wondered what happened. I wish him the best!

I’m betting we’re about to see the Venezuelan political pendulum swing with the impertus of a howitzer shell towards fascism.

Implying it’s not already fascist?

Hey, if it isn’t my favorite ableist!

Just a reminder that the comm has moved to !historymemes@piefed.social

Yeah, prefer not to use that option yet.

There’s a pinned post explaining

Damn, sorry, I’m still adjusting to Piefed markup. !historymemes@lemmy.world

Does that work?

For context, this was on a post about Uyghur genocide denial.

If one’s first response on a post about Uyghur genocide denial is to deny the genocide and defend genocide denialists, walking it back when called out is not particularly believable.

Denying genocide and then walking it back later, whilst defending genocide deniers does not inspire much confidence in the walking back.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.

Unruffled denying Uyghur genocide

Holodomor denial left up in a comm where the only two mods are dbzer0 admins, they both participated in the thread, the material was reported, it was specifically pointed out to one of them, and the comm regularly removes Zionist genocide apologia and denial under the (legitimate) justification that genocide denial is against the rules

Saxon customs on facial hair, one presumes. Many Germanic peoples of this period wore thick mustaches as a cultural affectation, and depict themselves/are depicted with such.

Fun fact: there’s no Classical Latin word for mustache. The term ‘Gothic Beard’ (‘barbam Gothicam’) is suspected to refer to it.

Perfection

Yeah, don’t fucking come here. Not now, not in the future. We can’t be trusted again for a very long time - longer than just an election or two.

Roller skates, definitely

The Romans did like a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence…

Explanation: The legendary founders of the city of Rome, Romulus and Remus, supposedly were suckled by a wolf. A great story beginning with a tall glass of wolf milk!

(alternatively, ‘lupa’, ‘she-wolf’, was Latin slang for a prostitute - something the Romans themselves speculated may have been the true meaning of the story)

You’re right that it changes nothing about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine being reprehensible, but those are two different polities, with different leadership.