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The Mongols Dined Atop their Live Enemies and Other Fascinating Historic Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 2, 2020 36 min

Battle of the Kalka River - Mongol Empire — Mongols feasting atop captives. Pintrest

Andrew Jackson dueling with Charles Dickinson. Mr. D’s Neighborhood

15. The Jackson-Dickinson Duel

Andrew Jackson’s most famous duel occurred in 1806, when he got into a quarrel with a man named Charles Dickinson. Dickinson was deemed the best pistol shot in the country, but that did not thwart Jackson from calling him out. At the duel, Jackson stood stock still, and allowed Dickinson to take the first shot. Dickinson took aim, and put a bullet in Jackson’s chest, wounding but not killing him.

Jackson ignored the pain of his injury, recovered, took aim, and pulled the trigger. However, the pistol stopped at half cock. According to the rules, that did not count as a shot. So as a horrified Dickinson waited, Jackson cleared the pistol, then took deliberate aim once more, and fired a shot that mortally wounded his adversary. Jackson recovered and went on to greater things, but Dickinson’s bullet remained in his chest for another 19 years.

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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.