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Martín Alhaja
Martín Alhaja was a Spanish shepherd who aided the Castile (historical region), Castilian King Alfonso VIII during the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 A.D. Alhaja, who knew the area, to herd his sheep had placed a cow skull on the path that led to the field behind the Moors and onto the battlefield. The Spanish Christian King surprised the Moorish army and defeated them. This was the first significant victory for the Christian Spanish during their reconquest of Spain. For his assistance, King Alfonso VIII gave Alhaja the title "Cabeza de Vaca", which means "head of a cow". He was awarded a coat-of-arms that included cow skulls in its design. He is the maternal ancestor of explorer Cabeza de Vaca.Beerman, Dr. Eric, “The Ancestors of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza be Vaca” in The Louisiana Genealogical Register, June, 1988: Vol. XXXV, No. 2, 101-110 See also Ephialtes of Trachis, who had a similar role in the Battle of Thermopylae References {{DEFAULTSORT:Alhaja, Martin Shep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castile (historical Region)
Castile or Castille (; ) is a territory of imprecise limits located in Spain. The invention of the concept of Castile relies on the assimilation (via a metonymy) of a 19th-century determinist geographical notion, that of Castile as Spain's ("tableland core", connected to the Meseta Central) with a long-gone historical entity of diachronically variable territorial extension (the Kingdom of Castile). The proposals advocating for a particular semantic codification/closure of the concept (a '' dialogical'' construct) are connected to essentialist arguments relying on the reification of something that does not exist beyond the social action of those building Castile not only by identifiying with it as a homeland of any kind, but also ''in opposition'' to it. A hot topic concerning the concept of Castile is its relation with Spain, insofar intellectuals, politicians, writers, or historians have either endorsed, nuanced or rejected the idea of the ''maternity'' of Spain by Castile, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfonso VIII
Alfonso VIII (11 November 11555 October 1214), called the Noble (''El Noble'') or the one of Las Navas (''el de las Navas''), was King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. After having suffered a great defeat with his own army at Alarcos against the Almohads in 1195, he led the coalition of Christian princes and foreign crusaders who broke the power of the Almohads in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, an event which marked the arrival of a tide of Christian supremacy on the Iberian peninsula. His reign saw the domination of Castile over León and, by his alliance with Aragon, he drew those two spheres of Christian Iberia into close connection. Regency and civil war Alfonso was born to Sancho III of Castile and Blanche, in Soria on 11 November 1155. He was named after his grandfather Alfonso VII of León and Castile, who divided his kingdoms between his sons. This division set the stage for conflict in the family until the kingdoms were re-united by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Las Navas De Tolosa
The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Islamic history as the Battle of Al-Uqab ( ar, معركة العقاب), took place on 16 July 1212 and was an important turning point in the ''Reconquista'' and the medieval history of Spain. The Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile were joined by the armies of his rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre and Peter II of Aragon, in battle against the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. The caliph al-Nasir ('' Miramamolín'' in the Spanish chronicles) led the Almohad army, made up of people from all over the Almohad Caliphate. Background In 1195, the Almohads defeated Alfonso VIII of Castile in the Battle of Alarcos. After this victory, they took several important cities: Trujillo, Plasencia, Talavera, Cuenca, and Uclés. Then, in 1211, Muhammad al-Nasir crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with a powerful army, invaded Christian territory, and captured Salvatierra Castle, the stronghold of the knights of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cabeza De Vaca
In Mexican cuisine, ''cabeza'' (''lit.'' 'head') is the meat from a roasted head of an animal, served as taco or burrito fillings. Typically, the whole head is placed on a steamer or grill, and customers may ask for particular parts of the body meats they favor, such as ''ojo'' (eye), ''oreja'' (ear), ''cachete'' (cheek), ''lengua'' (tongue), or ''labios'' (lips). See also * Brain (as food) * Eggs and brains * Fried-brain sandwich * Maghaz * Phospho-Energon Phospho-Energon, often just called Energon, was a "miracle medicine" produced and distributed in Sweden. Through the sales of Phospho-Energon, the emerging Swedish pharmaceutical company Pharmacia (founded in 1911 out of the ''Elgen'' pharmacy in ... References Beef Brain dishes Mexican cuisine Offal {{meat-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coat-of-arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its whole consists of a shield, supporters, a crest, and a motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to an individual person, family, state, organization, school or corporation. The term itself of 'coat of arms' describing in modern times just the heraldic design, originates from the description of the entire medieval chainmail 'surcoat' garment used in combat or preparation for the latter. Rolls of arms are collections of many coats of arms, and since the early Modern Age centuries, they have been a source of information for public showing and tracing the membership of a noble family, and therefore its genealogy across time. History Heraldic designs came into general use among European nobility in the 12th century. Systematic, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ephialtes Of Trachis
Ephialtes (; el, Ἐφιάλτης, ''Ephialtēs''; although Herodotus spelled it as , ''Epialtes'') was the son of Eurydemus ( el, Εὐρύδημος) of Malis. He betrayed his homeland, in hope of receiving some kind of reward from the Persians, by showing the army of Xerxes a path around the allied Greek position at the pass of Thermopylae, which helped them win the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. Betrayal The allied Greek land forces, which Herodotus states numbered no more than 4,200 men, had chosen Thermopylae to block the advance of the much larger Persian army. Although this gap between the Trachinian Cliffs and the Malian Gulf was only "wide enough for a single carriage", it could be bypassed by a trail that led over the mountains south of Thermopylae and joined the main road behind the Greek position. Herodotus notes that this trail was well known to the locals, who had used it in the past for raiding the neighboring Phocians. The Persians used the trail to outflank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Thermopylae
The Battle of Thermopylae ( ; grc, Μάχη τῶν Θερμοπυλῶν, label=Greek, ) was fought in 480 BC between the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Xerxes I and an alliance of Greek city-states led by Sparta under Leonidas I. Lasting over the course of three days, it was one of the most prominent battles of both the second Persian invasion of Greece and the wider Greco-Persian Wars. The engagement at Thermopylae occurred simultaneously with the Battle of Artemisium: between July and September 480 BC. The second Persian invasion under Xerxes I was a delayed response to the failure of the first Persian invasion, which had been initiated by Darius I and ended in 490 BC by an Athenian-led Greek victory at the Battle of Marathon. By 480 BC, a decade after the Persian defeat at Marathon, Xerxes had amassed a massive land and naval force, and subsequently set out to conquer all of Greece. In response, the Athenian politician and general Themistocles proposed that the allie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shepherds
A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, it exists in all parts of the globe, and it is an important part of pastoralist animal husbandry. Because of the ubiquity of the profession, many religions and cultures have symbolic or metaphorical references to the shepherd profession. For example, Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, and ancient Greek mythologies highlighted shepherds such as Endymion and Daphnis. This symbolism and shepherds as characters are at the center of pastoral literature and art. Origins Shepherding is among the oldest occupations, beginning some 5,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool. Over the next thousand years, sheep and shepherding spread throughout Eurasia. Henri Fleisch tentatively suggested ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
