Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

 

Surprisingly, The Secret History of the Mongols is a very good one. Genghis Khan invented Mongolian writing, then had scribes write a surprisingly honest account of the Mongolian Empire. It's generally very well-thought of for being an honest accounting and not a propaganda device (Genghis might be the only emperor in history that didn't commission a work of propaganda as "history.") \

 

Jeremiah Curtin has some good descriptions of the destruction of Khwarezm, but he's a century old or more, so it's chock full of rough, turgid Victorian prose, and not the easiest read.

 

Hildinger, Warriors of the Steppe, is pretty good, but only devotes a chapter to the Mongols proper (the Mongols were Turkic, so loosely descended from the Scythians and Huns, and last all the way to the Crimean Tatars, Cossacks, and the end of the Manchu dynasty.)

 

Michel Hoang's Genghis Khan is pretty good, but it's originally in French, and I have yet to read an English translation of any French writing that I felt was truly accessible.

 

Those are the three that are on my bookshelf within eyesight right now. I know I've got others, but they're more military history oriented (the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm was the foundation of Russian - and thus by extension German - armored tactics in World War 2), and they're probably in another room somewhere where I was looking something up.

Have you watched the series "Marco Polo" on Netflix? Its very entertaining and historically accurate depiction of 13th century Mangolia under kublai Khans rule. One of my favorite shows

Posted

 

Have you watched the series "Marco Polo" on Netflix? Its very entertaining and historically accurate depiction of 13th century Mangolia under kublai Khans rule. One of my favorite shows

And plenty of naked Asian girls

Posted

Have you watched the series "Marco Polo" on Netflix? Its very entertaining and historically accurate depiction of 13th century Mangolia under kublai Khans rule. One of my favorite shows

 

I have not.

 

But it's historically inaccurate. Mongols didn't ride Arabians, and didn't have weird blocky splices on their recurves.

Posted

TIL you don't mess with a Canadian Sniper

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-record-2-mile-sniper-shot-kills-isis-militant-in-iraq/ar-BBD1Qjl?OCID=ansmsnnews11

 

A Canadian soldier in Iraq has killed an ISIS militant from more than two miles away.

 

The 3,450-meter shot, which took about 10 seconds to reach its target, was independently verified by a video camera and other data

Posted (edited)

Today I learned my dad has officially become the grumpy old man that bitches about everything....literally everything.

 

My friends growing up warned me....they were right.

that sounds like my wife

Edited by ShadyBillsFan
Posted

TIL you don't mess with a Canadian Sniper

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-record-2-mile-sniper-shot-kills-isis-militant-in-iraq/ar-BBD1Qjl?OCID=ansmsnnews11

 

A Canadian soldier in Iraq has killed an ISIS militant from more than two miles away.

 

The 3,450-meter shot, which took about 10 seconds to reach its target, was independently verified by a video camera and other data

 

Just as a measure of how insane a shot that is: He's hitting a target about the size of a pie plate at two miles, which is an accuracy about four times better than your typical match-grade rifle and ammo available (and about ten times better than your typical military rifle.) And a bullet over that distance will drop about three hundred yards. Which means he's not firing at the target, he's firing at a point a quarter-mile above the target and dropping the bullet onto it.

 

And he probably had to take between five and ten shots, just to get the range and wind deflection.

×
×
  • Create New...