That is why the kingdom of France went to Philip, son of Charles of Valois, who was the closest male heir and grandson of Philip III. The new Philip VI got the ironic nickname Fortunate. It was due to the fact, that without the sudden deaths of three Capet kings he would not have a single chance to become the ruler of France. But, since his father was the brother of the late Philip the Fair, he was therefore a nephew of Philip IV and the cousin of Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV.

Edward III was furious that his claim to the throne was rejected. He tried all kinds of diplomacy, intrigues and negotiations to achieve his goal, but everything failed. The only remaining solutions for him remained the use of force. These were the key events that led to the bloody Hundred Years War between England and France.

The Capet dynasty was one of the longest ruling families in Europe. So, when Philip IV, the Fair, died, there was no trouble on the horizon either. After all, Philip had three grown up sons Louis, Philip and Charles, who were supposed to continue the Capet dynasty for many years in future. Philip the Fair also had a daughter Isabella married to the king of England Edward II.

But everything went awry after all three sons died one after another, after ruling for a very short period of time. What was even worse: neither of these French kings was able to provide a single surviving male heir to the throne.

Still, it seemed that the dynasty would not end. The strongest claim to the throne belonged to Isabella’s son, king of England Edward III. However, the French interpretation of medieval Salic law only recognized the male line. French nobility demanded the throne be passed through the male descendants of late Charles of Valois. It was also evident, that no Frenchman would accept an English King as his ruler.

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Fifty five hundred of these warriors were sent by emperor Marcus Aurelius to guard Roman settlements in Britain against attacks by the Celts. In our times the archaeological evidence related to presence of this Sarmatian force was discovered in Britain. Sarmatians even built there their own retirement villages!

Around these times specialists observe the first appearance of Celtic dragon image, which highly likely came from Sarmatian sources. The most curious fact is that in the religion of the Sarmatians, the altar represented a sword embedded in a stone. As we remember from Arthurian legends, famous Excalibur was that kind of the sword. Excalibur could only be drawn from the stone by Arthur, the rightful king. In some versions of the legend the sword is not even called Excalibur but with another name - Sword in the Stone.

This establishes an interesting and valid possibility between the Arthurian legends and the Sarmatians. There is also another interesting coincidence. Arthur’s father was called Uther Pendragon, which, basically, means “Dragon’s head” and refers to the dragon head symbol on a shield. The evidence suggests that the Sarmatians with their armor created a military caste that survived several centuries and provided the leadership in the early feudal era.

Archaeological search still continues. So, there will be more discoveries that may establish Sarmatian presence and their influence on Celtic Britain.

What similarities can the system of knighthood in England share with nomadic tribes that lived on the vast steppes of what is now Russia and the Ukraine? How can any link between them be possible?

There is a theory that knighthood was brought to Britain by Sarmatians, an Iranian language speaking people who displaced the Scythians. Sarmatians tribes migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains around fifth century B.C. and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans. In fact, their realm was even wider. At some point it extended from China in the east and the Roman empire in the west.

Among other things Sarmatians adopted the dragon motif. They were skillful horse riders and archers, they were also famous for using heavily armored cavalry in their battles. They wore dragon emblems on their shields and armor.

A first big clash between Sarmatians and Romans took place in the third century AD. There was a big battle between them near the mouth of the Danube River on the Black Sea. Romans overcome the Sarmatians but were very impressed with their fighting prowess. That is why, one of the terms of the peace agreement with Sarmatians, included the following condition advanced by Romans. They demanded six thousand Sarmatians warriors and their horses join the Roman army.

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These proved to be one of the biggest mistakes Japanese emperor ever made. While Kammu eventually disbanded his army, emperor’s power was slowly declining. Powerful clansmen around Kyoto became ministers and their relatives purchased the positions of magistrates. They were greedy and imposed heavy taxes leaving many farmers without land. Soon they began to recruit these landless farmers as guards and train them intensely in martial arts. The recruits in small numbers would accompany tax collectors and their presence usually restrained thieves and bandits from attacks and robbery. Through protective agreements and political marriages, they accumulated political power, eventually surpassing the traditional aristocracy.

At the same time new clans were created by farmers who took up arms to protect themselves from the imperial magistrates sent to govern their lands and collect taxes. These new clans formed alliances to protect themselves against more powerful clans, and adopted Japanese armor and weapons. They also laid the foundations of Bushido, their ethical code and were supposed to behave in a certain manner. Up until fourteenth century samurai were generally illiterate brutes. Yet, naturally, they aspired to the more cultured abilities of the nobility but most of them never achieved their goal at that time.

Believe it or not, but initially a samurai was not a soldier but a public servant. Somewhere in the seventh century Japanese emperor Tenji introduced new reforms that divided imperial bureaucrats into twelve ranks. The first rank belonged to the highest emperor’s adviser. Those of sixth rank and below were referred to as “samurai” and dealt with day-to-day affairs. Although these samurai were civilian public servants, the name has been derived from this term. Military men, however, would not be called samurai for many more centuries.

In early ninth century emperor Kammu was trying to conquer the aboriginal people of Japan who lived in the northern part of the country. His armies could not defeat them, so he had to conduct a military reform and introduced a new military title - shogun, which is equivalent to English word general. Since that time emperor started relying more on powerful regional clans because he needed their help to conquer aborigines. The warriors of the clans were skilled in mounted combat and archery and they became the base of emperor’s reformed army.

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For many years Conan Doyle was friends with the famous American escape artist and magician Harry Houdini. Unlike the famous writer, Houdini was an opponent of the Spiritualist movement. His contempt for Spiritualism even doubled in the 1920s when his mother died. He was touring America and Europe making public speeches against mediums.

Houdini made his goal to publicly expose Spiritualist mediums as frauds and presented many examples as proof that they employed trickery fooling gullible people. But for some reason Houdini’s efforts had an opposite effect on his friend Conan Doyle. The famous author became utterly convinced that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers. Conan Doyle even wrote a book about it. No matter how hard Houdini tried, he could not dissuade Conan Doyle. Harry unsuccessfully tried his best convincing Conan Doyle that his feats were simply magic tricks. In the end two friends had a bitter quarrel in public. This even ended their friendship and they never spoke to each other again.

Lord Rokeby refused to have a fire in his house even in the coldest weather. He grew an immense and bizarre looking beard, that was not in fashion at any times Thick beard stuck out under his arms and could be seen from behind. A couple of years later he built a swimming pool under glass which was heated only by the sun. There he spent most of the time, preferably alone.

In the end his neighbors and other locals became scared of him because his increased isolation gave birth to all kind of rumors. One of them was that Lord Rokeby became a cannibal and ate only raw meat. But, in fact he rarely ate meat at all and refused to see any doctors. He did not go to church either because he complained that sermons were boring and that he preferred to worship God at natural altar of the earth, sea and the sky.

He never married. On the extremely rare occasions when Matthew had to accept visitors he tried to get rid of them fast by entertaining them with lengthy boring poems. All his aristocratic relatives were ashamed of him, especially during his occasional visits to court. His presence usually gathered big crowds of people on the streets who thought that Matthew was an ambassador of Turkey - because of his unusual appearance.

In the 18th English nobleman Matthew Robinson suddenly became a big supporter of baths. He was born in the aristocratic family and later inherited a title of Lord Rokeby. Matthew was acting normal for the first part of his life but later changed his ways and became quite an eccentric. We don’t know what happened, it might well be midlife crisis. We just know when his eccentricity originated. When Matthew inherited big estate new Canterbury. That is when he became an extreme enthusiast about baths.

This passion was definitely very bizarre even for our modern times, so you might imagine how it looked like in the eighteenth century. Lord Rokeby daily went to the seashore to swim in salt water regardless of the weather. He spent so much time there that sometimes he even fainted and had to be rescued. Most of the times his servants had to come to the seashore to convince Matthew to return back home. Along the route to the beach he built drinking fountains and in the end of the road, right on the seashore he built a hut. His servants would follow Lord Rokeby in the carriage with full livery while he walked all the way to the hut. And if he noticed a person drinking from his fountain, he would give him a tip.

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In the beginning of the 4th century AD Persian Sassanid Kingdom was in bad shape. There was a chain of weak rulers that were losing big parts of the kingdom to Roman emperors. Last one Hormizd II could not even control his nobles and was killed by Arab Bedouins while hunting in 309.

The the situation got completely out of control. While Arabs continued to plunder Sassanid kingdom, Persian nobles killed the eldest son of Hormizd II. They did not stop there and blinded the second son and imprisoned the third son who managed to escape to Romans after years of imprisonment. They wanted somebody that would completely control in future, so they stopped their choice on the unborn child! One of Hormizd’s wives was pregnant and she did not pose any threat to the nobles.

So they did the unthinkable, which does not have the precedent in the ancient or modern history. In 309 A.D. they crowned the unborn child who was still in uterus! The coronation of the unborn king was also the strangest one - the crown was put on mother’s belly. Therefore, the boy, who was given a name Shapur became a king even before he was born. In the end Persian nobles miscalculated.

Although, Shapur II was completely controlled by nobles and his mother, as soon as he came of age he quickly assumed the power and became the absolute and very effective ruler. He was a king for full seventy years till his death in 379. And this is considered the First Golden Era of Sassanid Empire.