• GigglyBobble
      link
      fedilink
      1710 months ago

      You can hardly make a TL;DR here - the second paragraph is 100% interesting:

      Orban managed to build this giant cannon within three months at Adrianople. Due to its size, it was dragged by 60 oxen and 400 men to Constantinople.[6] The cannonball, which could be shot at a distance of one mile, weighed 1,200 pounds.[4] It was horribly powerful, and when it hit, it caused massive damage to Constantinople’s walls. The cannon also killed some of its operators.[1] Additionally, due to the material the cannon was constructed of, and the intense heat created by the charge after each shot, the barrel had to be soaked in warm oil to prevent cold air from penetrating and enlarging the fissures.[3] The heat also prevented the cannon from being fired more than three times per day. Ultimately, it lasted all of six weeks before becoming non-functional.

      • @idegenszavak
        link
        610 months ago

        Orbán is a somewhat common surname in Hungary and surrounding countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban_(surname)

        If you speak about our Mighty Beloved King and Savior of Hungary Orbán, Eternal Consumer of EU Funds he is usually compared 2 Hungarian folk entities: Kisgömböc and Döbrögi.

        Kösgömböc is the stomach of a pig, “Pork puding” in English. There is a widely known folk tale about a bottomless Kisgömböc, which eats everything and grows huge. There is a very nice cartoon about this story from 1977, you can enable English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnAbMhMeHs

        Döbrögi, written sometimes as Döbröghy is the antagonist of the folk tale based poem Lúdas Matyi, in English: Mattie the Goose-boy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattie_the_Goose-boy_(poem) Döbrögi is a fat local lord, and his favorite daily activity is messing with the poor peasants.

    • Track_Shovel
      link
      fedilink
      English
      310 months ago

      TBF, the Byzantines were fucking broken by that point, and their coins has decreased substantially in size (according to the documentary I watched)