Wednesday, March 18, 2015

History: The Year is 1538

I've uploaded year 1538 to the TSP Wiki...

http://tspwiki.com/index.php?title=1538

Here are some one liners...


Spaniard vs. Spaniard ... the Fight for Peru -- Don Diego takes Cuzco. The Pizarro brothers take it back. It's a matter of experience.

The Holy League is Wholly Ineffective -- Christians can't seems to keep it together even when faced by the threat of the Ottoman Turks. I also talk about the Treaty of Nice between two guys who are not so nice to each other.

John Calvin Expelled from Geneva... Google Guy Expelled from the Revolution -- I talk about the problem of what to do with the revolutionaries when the revolution is over.



Spaniard vs. Spaniard ... the Fight for Peru

Local Inca rebellions have been growing as the Pizarro brothers consolidate their control over the lands granted to them by the Emperor. Don Diego de Almagro has returned from surveying the lesser lands to the south that the Emperor granted him, including present day Chile. Don Diego is quite rich but the Pizarro brothers are getting filthy rich. That grates on him. There is a question of who owns the city of Cuzco so Don Diego takes the city. The stage is set for a battle of Spaniard verses Spaniard at Las Salinas, a short distance from Cuzco. Many of the Incas join the side of Don Diego hoping to free themselves from the Pizarros but the Pizarro Brothers win decisively. They enter Cuzco unopposed. Don Diego is executed by garroting despite his pleas to spare his life. This will be the last major opposition to the brothers as Inca opposition collapses. [1] [2] [3]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
Keep in mind that reports on what really happened are somewhat questionable in detail but correct in general. You can't hide the fact that the Don died and Cuzco was a captured city. Don Diego was really quite comfortably rich, so one wonders why he fought over Cuzco. It must have been a matter of jealousy. Even when you've won the lottery, you might feel a little jealous when someone wins twice as much. It is human nature. What really stuck in his craw was that it seemed so easy for the Pizarros. Don Diego's lands to the south had great promise but could not be easily exploited. The Pizarro Brothers made it all look simple... but the simple things are not always easy. They had failed twice before. It's like the celebrity that takes ten years to become an overnight success. People don't realize how long it takes to develop one's skills before one can take advantage of an opportunity when it finally presents itself.

The Holy League is Wholly Ineffective

The Christians have been fighting the Ottoman Turks on several fronts and this has forced complex alliances that would never form naturally. In Italy, the Venetians have joined forces with Spain, Genoa, the Knights Hospitaller in Malta and the Papal States under Pope Paul the 3rd to form the Holy League. They will join in battle against Barbarossa in the Ionian Sea near Preveza. In their first encounter the Ottoman Turks take heavy casualties but lose no ships while the Holy League loses 10 ships. A second strike is in order, but the Genoans are the historic enemies of the Venetians. The Genoans sail away, figuring they have done enough and frankly the commander personally owns several of the ships and will not risk them further. The Holy League is no more. Barbarossa will return next year to mop up the remaining Christian outposts along the Ionian and Aegean seas. [4] [5] [6]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
The Christians know that they all have to hang together or they will all hang separately but they just can't bring themselves to do it for more than a few encounters. There is too much distrust amongst themselves. In this same year the Holy Roman Emperor will sign a peace treaty with the King of France, but they hate each other so much that they refuse to sit in the same room with each other. Pope Paul the 3rd skips back and forth between rooms to broker the deal called the Treaty of Nice. I think there is a pun in there somewhere. [7]

John Calvin Expelled from Geneva... Google Guy Expelled from the Revolution

John Calvin had never meant to go to Geneva. He was originally going to Strasbourg but because of the war between the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France, he took a side trip and ended up in Geneva. It was just for a night, but he was convinced by a friend to stay and preach there. He is called a pastor but there is no record of his taking vows at this time. His training is as a lawyer, so this preacher/lawyer has been backing "articles" or laws to suppress Catholic practice. Altars are smashed and chaos reigns so that even though the Geneva council is Protestant, they give the boot to several leaders of the movement including John Calvin. He will continue his trip to Strasbourg but he will return to Geneva one day and stay for the rest of his life. [8] [9] [10]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
In every revolution you have people who stir things up and you have people who organize what happens after the revolution. In this case Geneva became Protestant through a lot of rabble rousing but in the end they wanted stability so those who had brought about change had to leave. The same thing happened to Thomas Paine after the America Revolution. He wrote Common Sense that fired the imagination of the revolutionaries, but afterward he lived in exile in France because he couldn't stop stirring things up. The modern example of this is when Egypt fell and Mubarak was overthrown by some guy from Google. (I believe it was Abdel Karim Mardini but I'm willing to be corrected.) It looked like it would be a revolution of the modern moderates, but soon, the old revolutionaries with long-time organization and religious backing out-flanked the Google guy. I remember his face as he stood on that stage nervously looking out at the crowd while the mullahs surrounded him. He looked lost and he was.[11]

This Year on Wikipedia

Year 1538, Wikipedia.

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