Mon: Badminton with Dad
Tue: Prepare for Friday presentation on the Tipping Point
Wed: Rehersal for Friday presentation after work
Thurs: Get new furniture with family
Fri: Presentation and going to Photo Clinic @ PSS to get photos critiqued. Summision of assignment at end of month
Sat: Very busy
Sun: Cell group in the morning and attending Helmi's wedding in the afternoon.
Phew!
Vlad the Impaler (1431 - 1476)
After the Van Helsing movie, I got more interested in this Bram Stoker's fictional character, inspired by one of the best-known figures of the Romanian history — Vlad Dracula, nicknamed Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) — who was a ruler of Wallachia (1456-1462).
Searched the web and I found a lot of interesting facts, especially one done up by Stanford University.
Vlad Tepes was born in December 1431, in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. Vlad's father, governor of Transylvania, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before.
The main goal of such a secret fraternal order of knights was mainly to protect the interests of Christianity and to crusade against the Turks. The boyars of Romania associated the dragon with the Devil and decided to call Vlad's father "Dracul" — which in Romanian language, means "Devil"; "Dracula" is a diminutive, which means "the son of the Devil."
Vlad Tepes adopted the method of impaling criminals and enemies and raising them aloft in the town square for all to see. Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to killing, could be punished by impalement. Crime and corruption ceased; commerce and culture thrived, and many Romanians to this day view Vlad Tepes as a hero for his fierce insistence on honesty and order.
In the beginning of 1462, Vlad launched a campaign against the Turks along the Danube River. Vlad was very successful and managed to gain several victories. To punish Dracula, the Sultan decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Wallachia. Vlad burned his own villages and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army would find nothing to eat or drink.
Nevertheless, following his retreat from Wallachian territory, Mehmed encouraged and supported Vlad's younger brother Radu to take the Wallachian throne. At the head of a Turkish army and joined by Vlad's detractors, Radu pursued his brother to Poenari Castle on the Arges river.
Vlad, who was definitely not the kind of man to kill himself, managed to escape the siege of his fortress by using a secret passage into the mountain. He was however, assassinated toward the end of December 1476.
The only real link between the historical Dracula (1431-1476) and the modern literary myth of the vampire is the 1897 novel. Bram Stoker built his fictional character solely based on the research that he conducted in libraries in London.
Learn something new today? Will let you all know about the other characters featured in the movie!
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