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America Wanted to Nuke the Moon and Other Weird History

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 32 min

United States - List of nuclear weapons tests of China — Nuking the Moon. Stillness in the Storm

14. Few Owns are Greater Than Feasting Atop Your Foes’ Living Bodies

Mongols dining atop the living bodies of captive enemy commanders after the Battle of Kalka River, by Richard Hook. Quora

Genghis Khan’s and his Mongols’ reputation for cruelty and bloodthirstiness was well deserved. While those who chose to surrender immediately often found the Mongols to be decent rulers, woe betide those who resisted. It is estimated that the wars of the Mongol conquest might have killed up to 60 million people.

The Mongols relished making examples out of their defeated foes, and came up with creative ways – some of them quite weird – to drive their point home. After their victory at the Battle of Kalka River, captured enemy commanders were laid on the ground, then a huge board was then laid over their bodies. Atop that, the victorious Mongols sat down to eat, drink, and celebrate their triumph, while slowly crushing and suffocating the captives beneath to death.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.