a little Vlad news
Jun. 17th, 2009 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ankh_hplToday in history, with fangs: June 17th is the anniversary of The Night Attack, a skirmish fought between forces of Vlad III the Impaler (Ţepeş) of Wallachia and Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in 1462.
The causes of this battle were complex and nasty, the results of it were even nastier. (Vlad 1, Sultan 0 -- though Mehmed was not assassinated, which had been the original point of the skirmish.) Why should 21st century horror fans care? Because this particular exercise in 15th century bloodshed is featured in the prologue of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which continues to be one of my favorite vampire flicks.
Until today, however, I had no idea which battle inspired this scene, or whether there was anything historical about it at all.
