The 1648 Codex

Modern Middle East

The Hijra to the Arab Spring · 60 cards in 8 blocks · the complete clue file from Video 6

Swipe (or use the arrows) — one card per screen, in video order. Each card is complete on its own; the ✦ story button adds the layer that makes it stick. Leave a mark on any card: ✓ stuck with me or ↻ review me. The ▶ button jumps to the moment the video tells this term.

Block I of VIII

The Rise of Islam

6 cards

Block I · Card 1 of 6

Muhammad

What: Prophet and founder of Islam  ·  When: ~570–632  ·  Where: Mecca → Medina

The merchant of Mecca whose revelations became Islam — and whose flight to Medina is year one of the Muslim calendar.

Overview
  • Revelation: First revelation ~610 in the Cave of Hira; the messages were collected as the Quran.
  • Night Journey: Rode the steed Buraq to Jerusalem, then up through the seven heavens (the Isra and Mi'raj).
  • Hijra: 622 — left Mecca for Yathrib (renamed Medina) after the pledges of al-Aqabah; year one of the Islamic calendar.
  • Return: Battles of Badr, Uhud, and the Trench; the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah; took Mecca almost bloodlessly in 629/630.
  • End: Died in Medina in 632, leaving no named successor — the problem the rest of this block is about.
Key terms
  • Khadijah: his first wife and first believer; her death (and his uncle Abu Talib's) made 619 the "Year of Sorrow."
  • Buraq: the winged steed of the Night Journey — an instant buzz.
  • Yathrib: the oasis town that became Medina, "the city of the Prophet."
  • Pledges of al-Aqabah: Yathrib's guarantee of protection that made the Hijra possible.
  • Sidrat al-Muntaha: the "Lote-tree beyond which none may pass," at the far edge of the seventh heaven.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This event culminated in a conversation at the Sidrat al-Muntaha, a "Lote-tree beyond which none may pass." The steed Buraq aided in this event, which involves visits to all seven samaawat.

MID

This event marks the first year of the Islamic calendar, and its participants remained at its destination until the 629 conquest of Mecca.

GIVEAWAY

This event occurred after a guarantee of protection at al-Aqabah, and resulted in the renaming of Yathrib.

More clues the game has asked

Every clue on this card is a "this event" clue from Muhammad's life, not a "this man" clue. Buraq, the seven heavens, the Lote-tree, the 17th surah → the Night Journey (Isra and Mi'raj). Year one of the calendar, al-Aqabah, Yathrib → the Hijra.

GIVEAWAY

The 17th surah of the Quran, al-Isra, opens by briefly describing this event, which began at the Masjid al-Haram.

MID

During this event, the command for Muslims to pray 50 times per day was reduced to five on Moses' advice during a conversation with Allah.

Trap

The Islamic calendar's year one is 622 — the Hijra — not Muhammad's birth (~570) and not the first revelation (610). Then check which event the clue wants: Buraq and seven heavens → the Night Journey; calendar, al-Aqabah, Yathrib → the Hijra.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 0:59 ♫ audio
The Story

bargaining at the top of the sky

As Muslim tradition tells the Night Journey: in a single night Muhammad rides the winged steed Buraq from the Masjid al-Haram to Jerusalem, then climbs through the seven heavens — samaawat — greeting a different prophet at each level, all the way to the Lote-tree beyond which not even angels may pass. There, God gives his community its assignment: fifty prayers a day.

On the way down, Muhammad passes Moses — who has, after all, actually managed a difficult congregation before. Fifty? Moses sends him straight back up: your people will never do it, go ask for less. Muhammad climbs, negotiates, descends; Moses sends him back again. And again. Fifty becomes forty becomes ten becomes five. Even then Moses says it's too many — but Muhammad is too embarrassed to ask another time. That is why, per the tradition, Muslims pray five times a day: the number was haggled down like a market price, with Moses as the coach.

Back in Mecca the next morning, the story got him laughed at — a round trip to Jerusalem and heaven in one night? But Abu Bakr answered that if Muhammad said it, it was true, earning the title as-Siddiq, "the truthful." Quiz writers adore every prop in this story; know the tree, the steed, and the fifty-to-five.

Block I · Card 2 of 6

Mecca

What: Holiest city of Islam  ·  When: Muhammad born here ~570; hajj ever since  ·  Where: the Hejaz, western Saudi Arabia

Birthplace of Muhammad and home of the Kaaba — the single point on Earth that two billion people face to pray.

Overview
  • Sacred core: The Kaaba sits at the center of the Masjid al-Haram and fixes the qibla, the direction of prayer.
  • Pilgrimage: Destination of the hajj — a Pillar of Islam, once in a lifetime — and the lesser umrah; pilgrims circle the Kaaba seven times.
  • Muhammad's city: Run by the merchant Quraysh tribe; Muhammad fled it in 622 and took it back in 629/630.
  • Modern rulers: Sharifs under the Ottomans → briefly capital of the Kingdom of Hejaz → the Saudis, who built the giant clock tower.
  • 1979: Militants under Juhayman al-Otaybi seized the Grand Mosque for two weeks — a favorite hard-clue event.
Key terms
  • Kaaba: the black-draped cube; a pre-Islamic shrine (once full of idols like Hubal) rededicated to Allah alone.
  • Well of Zamzam: sprang up for the infant Ishmael and his mother Hagar; pilgrims still drink from it.
  • Quraysh: the merchant tribe that ruled Mecca and fought Muhammad — Abu Sufyan was their chief.
  • Cave of Hira: on Jabal an-Nur, the city's highest point — site of the first revelation.
  • Juhayman al-Otaybi: led the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure; his brother-in-arms al-Qahtani was declared the Mahdi.
  • Sharif Hussein: Hashemite ruler of Mecca who launched the Arab Revolt and proclaimed himself caliph.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah allowed a son of Aminah and his tribe to enter this city, leading to the establishment of a ten-year peace.

MID

This city hosts the part of the Five Pillars that must be undertaken at least once by its religion's adherents.

GIVEAWAY

Holiest city of Islam, the destination of the hajj.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Among the most important sites in this city is the Masjid al-Haram, which contains the Kaaba at its center, around which Muslims circle seven times during hajj.

MID

A structure in this city's great mosque is the focus of the qibla, the direction in which Muslims are instructed to pray.

MID

Adherents of a certain religion travel to this city and circle the Kaaba during a pilgrimage known as hajj.

GIVEAWAY

This city is the site of a pilgrimage called the hajj, which Muslims should attempt to make at least once in their lifetimes.

GIVEAWAY

Pilgrims often come to this city for the umrah.

HARD

During an event in this city, participants run back and forth between a pair of hills seven times and drink water from the Well of Zamzam.

MID

The infant Ishmael drank from this city's Well of Zamzam after crying out in thirst to his mother Hagar.

GIVEAWAY

This city's highest point is the Jabal an-Nur, which contains the sacred Cave of Hira.

HARD

In this city, tossing arrows at a statue of a divination god named Hubal was a religious rite practiced by its ruling Quraysh tribe in the 5th century.

MID

An Aksumite invasion of this city supposedly failed when the lead war elephant refused to enter it.

GIVEAWAY

Abu Sufyan ruled a tribe of merchants based in this city called the Quraysh.

GIVEAWAY

The Prophet Muhammad is from this city in Saudi Arabia.

MID

This city was home to the "Year of Sorrow" after a certain figure's wife and uncle both died.

GIVEAWAY

This city was the starting point of the Night Journey.

GIVEAWAY

In the Hijrah, Muhammad left this city to go to Medina.

MID

Abu Bakr and a close companion departed this city in the Hijra to flee to neighboring Medina.

HARD

An army from this city executed a decisive cavalry charge after enemy archers left their posts to gather loot in the Battle of Uhud.

GIVEAWAY

The Quraysh tribe of this city was defeated in the Battle of the Trench.

HARD

The Italian adventurer Ludovico di Varthema wrote one of the first Western accounts of travel in this city, whose metro system only operates for seven days per year.

MID

This city was briefly the capital of the Kingdom of Hejaz after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

HARD

A Hashemite Sharif who controlled this city, Hussein, led the Arab Revolt and, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, proclaimed himself caliph.

HARD

This city's Ajyad Fortress was destroyed by Wahhabist rulers, who replaced it with the enormous al-Bait Clock Tower that overlooks its Masjid al-Haram.

Grand Mosque alert — this cluster is the 1979 seizure of the Masjid al-Haram by Juhayman al-Otaybi's militants. The "this event" clues want that seizure, not Mecca itself:

MID

This city was the site of an attack by Juhayman al-Otaybi which temporarily seized control of the Al-Haram Mosque.

MID

This event was carried out by Abdullah al-Qahtani and his al-Ikhwan militia, who declared al-Qahtani to be the Mahdi.

GIVEAWAY

One side in this event first had to gain a fatwa from the ulama Abdul Aziz bin Baz.

MID

In this city, French GIGN commandos assisted in the liberation of a mosque in 1979 after a two-week siege.

HARD

According to Lawrence Wright, Christian Prouteau's GIGN forces converted to Islam before they were allowed into action alongside Pakistani commandos in this event.

HARD

When news of this event broke, Stephen Crowley and Bryan Ellis were killed by angry students who burned the American embassy in Islamabad to the ground.

GIVEAWAY

Following that attack in this city, King Khaled increased enforcement of Sharia law.

Trap

Three answers hide in Mecca clues. A "part of the Five Pillars" or pilgrimage-rite clue may want the hajj itself, not the city. A "this event" clue with Otaybi, a Mahdi, GIGN, or a fatwa wants the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure. And Muhammad is buried in Medina — tomb clues never mean Mecca.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 2:54 ♫ audio
The Story

the elephant that said no

Around the year 570, the story goes, Abraha — an Aksumite viceroy ruling Yemen — marched an army north to demolish the Kaaba, led by a great war elephant. At the edge of Mecca the elephant knelt and simply refused to walk toward the shrine. Pointed anywhere else, it marched happily; pointed at the Kaaba, it sat down. Then, says the Quran's Surah al-Fil — "The Elephant" — flocks of birds pelted the army with stones of baked clay until it broke. Arabs remembered it as the Year of the Elephant, and tradition puts Muhammad's birth in that same year.

That is Mecca's whole character: a city whose defense is its holiness. It has been raided, besieged, seized by militants, and fought over by empires, and it remains, above everything, the place you face. Five times a day, a quarter of humanity turns toward one small cube in its great mosque.

Which makes modern Mecca gloriously strange. It has a metro system that operates seven days a year — hajj week — because the city's rush hour is an annual event of two million people. And looming over the Kaaba now is one of the tallest buildings on Earth, a clock tower built where an Ottoman fortress once stood. The elephant knew something: this city is not like other cities.

Block I · Card 3 of 6

The Rashidun Caliphate

What: First Islamic caliphate  ·  When: 632–661  ·  Where: Arabia → Persia, the Levant, Egypt

Four "Rightly Guided" companions of Muhammad who, in under thirty years, took an Arabian movement to victory over two ancient empires.

Overview
  • The four: Abu Bakr → Umar → Uthman → Ali — chosen companions of Muhammad, not a hereditary dynasty.
  • Conquests: Under Umar: Yarmouk (636, vs. the Byzantines) and Qadisiyyah (vs. Sasanian Persia) within a single decade; Egypt fell from 639.
  • Crisis: Uthman standardized the Quran's text — then was murdered by mutineers in 656, igniting the First Fitna under Ali.
  • End: Ali's assassination in 661 handed the caliphate to Mu'awiya and the Umayyads.
Key terms
  • Abu Bakr: first caliph; held Arabia together through the Ridda ("apostasy") wars.
  • Umar: second caliph and the great conqueror; took Jerusalem in 637.
  • Yarmouk & Qadisiyyah: the paired 636 victories that broke Byzantine Syria and doomed Sasanian Persia.
  • Uthman: third caliph; one standard Quran; killed by his own rebellious subjects.
  • First Fitna: the civil war that ended the era and opened the Sunni–Shia wound.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Under its second leader, this state's armies won Yarmouk and Qadisiyyah within a single decade.

MID

Caliphate that conquered Egypt in 639; its name reflects the "rightly guided" nature of its four leaders.

GIVEAWAY

The first four successors of Muhammad led this state, which conquered Persia and the Levant.

More clues the game has asked
GIVEAWAY

Arabic term, meaning "Rightly Guided," that names the caliphate that was succeeded by the Umayyads.

Name trap — this clue means Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS leader who borrowed the first caliph's name (and the title "caliph") 1,400 years later:

MID

Leader of ISIS until his 2019 death by suicide during the Barisha raid.

Trap

"Rightly Guided" means the first four caliphs only — the Umayyads who follow don't count. And an "Abu Bakr" clue with ISIS, Barisha, or 2019 wants Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, not the first caliph who lent him the name.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 7:45 ♫ audio
The Story

the emperor who shared a camel

In 637 Jerusalem was ready to surrender — but its patriarch, Sophronius, insisted on handing the city only to the caliph in person. So Umar came up from Medina. As the story is told, he brought one servant and one camel between them, taking turns: one rode while the other walked. The most powerful man in western Asia — whose armies had just shattered both the Byzantine and Persian field armies — arrived at the holy city on foot, in a patched robe, because it was his turn to walk.

Sophronius then invited him to pray inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Umar refused — politely, and shrewdly: if the caliph prayed there, he said, Muslims after him would claim the church and turn it into a mosque. He prayed outside instead, and the church stayed a church. A conqueror thinking two centuries ahead about what his fans would ruin is a very rare kind of conqueror.

That is the Rashidun paradox worth remembering: an empire assembled at almost impossible speed — Yarmouk and Qadisiyyah in the same year, Egypt three years later — run from a mud-brick town by men who audited themselves like accountants. It couldn't last, and it didn't: of the four Rightly Guided caliphs, three were assassinated. The era ends not with a defeat but with a murder in a mosque.

Block I · Card 4 of 6

Ali ibn Abi Talib

What: Fourth caliph, first Shia Imam  ·  When: ~600–661  ·  Where: Mecca, Medina, Kufa

Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law — the last Rightly Guided caliph, whose contested reign split Islam permanently.

Overview
  • Family: Cousin of Muhammad, raised in his household; married his daughter Fatimah; father of Hasan and Husayn.
  • Warrior: Wielded the split-bladed sword Zulfiqar; legendary feats at Badr, Uhud, and Khaybar (the lifted door).
  • Caliph: Became fourth caliph after Uthman's murder in 656; his whole reign was the First Fitna — the Battle of the Camel, then Siffin against Mu'awiya.
  • Death: Assassinated in 661 by the Kharijite Ibn Muljam while praying at the Great Mosque of Kufa.
  • Words: His sermons and sayings are collected in the Nahj al-Balagha — the "Peak of Eloquence."
Key terms
  • Zulfiqar: the famous double-bladed sword — "there is no sword but Zulfiqar."
  • Ghadir Khumm: where Muhammad publicly called him mawla (guardian) — the speech Shias read as naming a successor.
  • Battle of Siffin: 657, vs. Mu'awiya — halted when enemy soldiers raised pages of the Quran on spears.
  • Kharijites: the "seceders" who quit his army over the arbitration; one of them killed him.
  • Malik al-Ashtar: his fiercest loyal general, reluctantly recalled at Siffin.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

A book of sayings attributed to this man has a name that translates as Peak of Eloquence.

MID

This man reluctantly ordered Malik al-Ashtar to pull back his forces, most of whom refused to fight when enemy soldiers placed the Quran on a spear.

GIVEAWAY

Uthman was succeeded by this fourth and last of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.

More clues the game has asked
GIVEAWAY

This man was pronounced a Mawla, or guardian, in a speech delivered near the pond of Khumm.

GIVEAWAY

After the death of Uthman in 656, this man became the fourth caliph.

MID

According to legend, this man lifted up a door as a bridge to allow his men to cross a moat in the Battle of Khaybar.

MID

The First Fitna was faced by this man, who was traditionally cursed by his successors, the Umayyads.

HARD

This man, who wielded a legendary double-bladed sword named Zulfiqar, was assassinated by a Kharijite while praying in a mosque in Kufa.

HARD

This man, who led forces against Mu'awiyah at the Battle of Siffin, was killed by Ibn Muljam, a Kharijite, at the Great Mosque of Kufa.

Trap

The man vs. the branch: Karbala, Husayn, and ten days of mourning want Shia Islam (or Husayn himself) — Ali died at Kufa in 661, nineteen years before Karbala. Zulfiqar + Kufa + Kharijite → Ali, every time.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 9:03 ♫ audio
The Story

beaten by pages, not swords

At Siffin in 657, Ali was winning. His army — with Malik al-Ashtar leading the push — had Mu'awiya's Syrians on the edge of collapse. Then Mu'awiya's side produced the era's most brilliant dirty trick: soldiers tied pages of the Quran to their spears and raised them high. Stop fighting; let God's book decide. Ali saw through it instantly and said so. His own troops didn't. Most refused to keep fighting, and Ali — one order from victory — had to recall al-Ashtar and accept arbitration.

The arbitration settled nothing, but it created something worse: the Kharijites, hardliners from Ali's own ranks who declared that by accepting human judges he had betrayed God's judgment, and seceded. Ali had to fight his own former soldiers. And in 661, while he prayed at dawn in the Great Mosque of Kufa, one of them — Ibn Muljam — struck him down with a poisoned blade.

So the warrior of Badr and Khaybar, the man legend says used a door as a bridge, was never beaten sword-to-sword. He was beaten by paper — by an enemy who understood that Ali's army revered the book more than it trusted its general. His words outlived the wound: the Nahj al-Balagha, the "Peak of Eloquence," is still read aloud today.

Block I · Card 5 of 6

Shia Islam

What: The "party of Ali" branch of Islam  ·  When: split opens 632; sealed at Karbala, 680  ·  Where: majorities in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan

The branch holding that leadership belonged to Ali and his bloodline — a succession dispute that hardened into a 1,400-year identity.

Overview
  • The split: Shi'at Ali, "the party of Ali": the community's leader should come from Muhammad's family — Ali, then his sons, the Imams.
  • Karbala, 680: Husayn — Ali's son, Muhammad's grandson — was killed by the forces of the Umayyad caliph Yazid; the martyrdom at the heart of the faith.
  • Mourning: The first ten days of Muharram, climaxing on Ashura: processions, passion plays, and for some, self-flagellation.
  • Branches: Twelvers (Iran, Iraq), Isma'ilis (the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt), Zaydis (Yemen).
Key terms
  • Husayn: the third Imam, martyred at Karbala — the single most-clued figure in Shia history.
  • Ashura: the tenth of Muharram, the day Husayn died and the peak of the mourning period.
  • Imams: the divinely guided line of leaders descended from Ali.
  • Fatimids: Isma'ili Shia dynasty ruling from Cairo — ended when Saladin took over Egypt (1171).
  • Camp Speicher: 2014 ISIS massacre of well over a thousand Shia recruits in Iraq.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Saladin's invasion and incorporation of Egypt led to the collapse of this sect's dynasty, the Fatimids.

MID

Self-flagellation is commonly practiced on the last day of a ten-day period of mourning in which this branch commemorates a battle of 680 CE.

GIVEAWAY

That 680 battle, at Karbala, pitted an Umayyad caliph against a grandson of Ali named Husayn — the martyr this branch mourns.

More clues the game has asked
GIVEAWAY

Branch of Islam most common in Iran and Iraq, where its practitioners have fought with Sunnis.

HARD

An epic written by someone of this faith, known as The Ocean of Sorrow, chronicles a religious leader's martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala.

MID

ISIS forces committed the Camp Speicher Massacre in 2014, killing nearly 2,000 recruits of this faith in Iraq.

Trap

Three answers share these clues: "this battle" → Karbala; "this man" or "this Imam" → Husayn; "this branch/sect" → Shia Islam. Listen for what the question actually asks — and remember Ali's own death (Kufa, 661) is not Karbala.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 11:05 ♫ audio
The Story

the ten days that never end

In 680, Husayn — grandson of Muhammad, son of Ali — refused to swear allegiance to the new Umayyad caliph, Yazid. He set out across the desert toward Kufa with his family and a band of perhaps seventy-two fighters, answering supporters who had begged him to come. An Umayyad army thousands strong intercepted them at a place called Karbala and cut them off from the Euphrates. After days without water, on the tenth of Muharram — Ashura — Husayn and nearly all his men were killed.

Militarily it was nothing: one small band destroyed. But the losers' memory outlived the winners' empire. Every year since, Shia communities have spent Muharram's first ten days re-living it — processions, elegies, staged passion plays of the battle, and in some places mourners striking their own bodies in grief. A famous Shia saying makes the point of the whole faith: "Every day is Ashura, and every land is Karbala."

The grief travels astonishingly far. In nineteenth-century Bengal, a Muslim writer retold Karbala as an epic novel called Bishad Sindhu — "The Ocean of Sorrow" — and it became one of the most-read books in the language. A seventh-century desert battle, wept over annually from Lebanon to Bangladesh: that is why writers clue Karbala more than almost anything else in Islamic history.

Block I · Card 6 of 6

Damascus

What: Ancient capital city of Syria  ·  When: attested by ~1350 BC; Umayyad capital 661–750  ·  Where: southwestern Syria

One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth — capital of the first Islamic dynasty, prize the Crusaders never took, and the name on history's most famous steel.

Overview
  • Deep past: Already had a king (Biryawaza) in the Amarna Letters, fourteen centuries before Islam.
  • Umayyad capital: After the First Fitna, Mu'awiya ruled the caliphate from here — until the Abbasids moved the capital to Baghdad.
  • Crusades era: Toghtekin's Burid dynasty defended it (Marj al-Saffar, 1126); the Second Crusade collapsed besieging it in 1148; Nur ad-Din took it in 1154.
  • Namesake steel: Wootz ingots imported from India were forged here into mottled, flexible-yet-hard "Damascus steel" — the method lost in the 18th century.
  • Today: Capital of Syria; its Yarmouk Camp district saw intense fighting in the civil war from 2012.
Key terms
  • Umayyad Mosque: the dynasty's great mosque, which claims the head of John the Baptist.
  • Toghtekin: founder of the Burid dynasty; victor at Marj al-Saffar.
  • Nur ad-Din: Zengid ruler whose reinforcements broke the 1148 Crusader siege — and who took the city itself in 1154.
  • Wootz: the Indian crucible steel behind Damascus blades — the word that flags a steel clue.
  • Biryawaza: its Bronze Age king in the Amarna Letters — a true deep cut.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

A Wali from this city named Husayn Pasha ibn Makki failed to prevent a Bedouin raid of hajj pilgrims.

MID

Verhoeven's study of the steel named for this city questions whether vanadium impurities led to its characteristic appearance.

GIVEAWAY

This city was defended in the Battle of Marj al-Saffar, which was won by Toghtekin.

More clues the game has asked
GIVEAWAY

The Amarna Letters mention this city's king, Biryawaza.

HARD

The assassination of Uthman during the First Fitna and the rise of the Umayyads led to this city becoming the Caliphate's capital, until the Abbasids moved it to Baghdad.

GIVEAWAY

Mawdud ibn Altuntash was assassinated in this city as a guest of its Burid dynasty.

MID

Nur ad-Din's key reinforcements ended an 1148 siege of this city, marking the end of the Second Crusade.

GIVEAWAY

In 1154, this city's governor, Mujir ad-Din, was overthrown by the Zengid dynasty.

HARD

This city imported wootz ingots from India, allowing it to forge its namesake superplastic-yet-strong steel.

GIVEAWAY

A type of high-quality steel named for this city had its method of production lost to modern smiths.

MID

This city's Yarmouk Camp was the site of intense fighting in 2012 as part of an ongoing civil war.

Blade alert — these two clues mean Damascus steel, the metal, not the city:

HARD

This shatter-resistant metal with a mottled finish was used in sword manufacturing until its production method was lost in the 18th century.

MID

This ultra-high-carbon material was produced from wootz in a way that naturally formed carbon nanotubes.

Trap

City or steel? Verhoeven, vanadium, wootz, carbon nanotubes, mottled blades → Damascus steel. Umayyad capital, Burids, Crusader sieges → the city. When the clue hedges with "named for this city," the city is the safe answer.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 13:18 ♫ audio
The Story

the sword recipe the world lost

For a thousand years, Damascus blades were the best on Earth — steel with a rippling, watered pattern, hard enough to hold a murderous edge yet springy enough not to shatter. The trick started far away: smiths imported ingots of Indian crucible steel called wootz, then forged them with methods they never wrote down. Then, in the 18th century, the blades simply stopped. The ore sources shifted, the chain of master-to-apprentice broke, and the recipe vanished from the world.

Nobody has fully brought it back. The metallurgist John Verhoeven spent years on the mystery and argued the secret may have been an accident of chemistry — trace vanadium impurities in certain Indian ores that seeded the famous pattern. Smiths using other ore could follow every visible step and still fail, never knowing why. Then in 2006, researchers put a genuine old blade under an electron microscope and found carbon nanotubes in the steel. Medieval craftsmen were doing nanotechnology, blind, by feel.

So "Damascus" now means two answers, and quiz writers love the ambiguity. The city has its own résumé — kings in the Amarna Letters, capital of the Umayyad caliphs, the wall the Second Crusade broke itself against. But if the clue says wootz, vanadium, or a mottled finish, they're asking about the swords that carry the city's name like a trademark for a product no one can make anymore.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block I

The Rise of Islam

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — One man, two cities. A merchant in Mecca starts hearing revelations; his own tribe, the Quraysh, turns on him; in 622 he slips out to Yathrib — the Hijra — and Yathrib becomes Medina. Eight years later he returns at the head of the community that outgrew the city that expelled it. (Ask her: why would a calendar start from a retreat instead of a victory? Because the founding event isn't a battle — it's the moment the community exists.)

Beat 2 — Succession by resume, then by murder. Muhammad dies with no named heir, so four companions rule in turn — the Rightly Guided. Under Umar they shatter Byzantium at Yarmouk and Persia at Qadisiyyah in the same year, then take Egypt. But the third caliph is murdered by his own subjects, the fourth — Ali — inherits a civil war he never escapes, and at Siffin he's beaten not by swords but by Qurans raised on spears.

Beat 3 — The split that never closed. Ali is assassinated in a Kufa mosque; Mu'awiya's Umayyads move the capital to Damascus. In 680 at Karbala, Ali's son Husayn refuses allegiance and is killed with his little band — and Sunni vs. Shia stops being a political argument and becomes an identity, mourned for ten days every single year since.

The board — write these while talking

  • Hijra 622 = calendar year 1
  • Yathrib → Medina
  • Night Journey = Buraq + seven heavens
  • Kaaba, inside the Masjid al-Haram
  • Abu Bakr → Umar → Uthman → Ali
  • 636: Yarmouk + Qadisiyyah
  • Siffin — Qurans on spears
  • Karbala 680 — Husayn
  • Damascus = Umayyad capital
  • Damascus steel ≠ Damascus city

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah allowed a son of Aminah and his tribe to enter this city, leading to the establishment of a ten-year peace.”
Mecca — "son of Aminah" is Muhammad in disguise; pause and let her decode it
“Under its second leader, this state's armies won Yarmouk and Qadisiyyah within a single decade.”
the Rashidun Caliphate — second leader = Umar, the conqueror
“This man reluctantly ordered Malik al-Ashtar to pull back his forces, most of whom refused to fight when enemy soldiers placed the Quran on a spear.”
Ali — the Quran-on-spears trick at Siffin is his signature clue

The callbacks — end on these

Year one of the Islamic calendar — what event, and what year?

The Hijra, 622 — not Muhammad's birth (~570), not the first revelation (610).

Karbala, Husayn, ten days of mourning — Ali the man, or the branch?

The branch: Shia Islam. Ali died at Kufa in 661; Karbala killed his son Husayn in 680.

Wootz, vanadium, a mottled blade — what exactly is the answer?

Damascus steel, the metal. Umayyad capital or Crusader sieges → Damascus the city.

An "Abu Bakr" dies in the 2019 Barisha raid. Which Abu Bakr?

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS — the first caliph only lent him the name.

Where is the Kaaba, and where is Muhammad buried?

The Kaaba is in Mecca; Muhammad's tomb is in Medina. One letter of prayer direction, two different cities.

Block II of VIII

The Caliphates & the Golden Age

8 cards

Block II · Card 1 of 8

The Umayyad Caliphate

What: First hereditary Islamic caliphate  ·  When: 661–750; Córdoba line to 1031  ·  Where: Damascus, then Córdoba

The first dynasty of Islam — Damascus to Spain in ninety years, then reborn at Córdoba after the Abbasids slaughtered the family.

Overview
  • Founding: Muawiyah I took power in 661 after the assassination of Ali, the last Rashidun caliph; capital at Damascus.
  • Peak: Conquered Hispania in 711; stopped at Tours by Charles Martel in 732; the "Day of Thirst" near the Syr Darya marked the eastern limit.
  • State-building: Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock, minted the dinar (modeled on the Roman denarius), and ran the Barid postal service.
  • Fall: Crushed at the Battle of the Zab in 750 and Marwan II killed — but Abd al-Rahman I escaped to Spain and refounded the dynasty at Córdoba.
Key terms
  • Muawiyah I: founder; took power after Ali's assassination — and a brother-in-law of Muhammad.
  • Abd al-Malik: the great builder — Dome of the Rock, the dinar.
  • Yazid I & Karbala: his forces killed Husayn ibn Ali in 680, sparking the Second Fitna — the wound at the heart of Shia Islam.
  • Battle of Tours (732): Charles Martel stops the advance into Francia.
  • Battle of the Zab (750): the defeat that ended the dynasty; Marwan II was the last Damascus caliph.
  • Abd al-Rahman I: the escapee who rebuilt Umayyad power at Córdoba.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

A ruler of this empire introduced the dinar as a currency, based on the Roman denarius.

MID

The base of the Dome of the Rock, built under this caliphate, may have been influenced by the Church of the Kathisma, a Byzantine structure on the road to Bethlehem.

GIVEAWAY

This caliphate was defeated at Tours by Charles Martel, who had been called to aid Odo the Great after his heavy losses at Toulouse and Bordeaux.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Caliphs like Yazid and Marwan ruled this caliphate after it was founded by Muawiyah I, a brother-in-law of Muhammad.

HARD

Near the Syr Darya, this caliphate's forces burned their entire baggage train during the "Day of Thirst" while being harassed by the Turgesh Khanate.

HARD

This caliphate fell from power after a defeat at the Battle of the Zab and the subsequent death of Marwan II.

HARD

Forces of this caliphate's Yazid I killed Husayn ibn Ali to win the Battle of Karbala, sparking the Second Fitna.

HARD

This caliphate won the Battle of al-Harra and the Battle of Marj Rahit, causing centuries of war between the Qays and Yaman tribes.

MID

Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr opposed this caliphate, as did the general Abu Muslim.

MID

The Barid was a postal service established during this caliphate, which suffered a Berber revolt under Hisham.

MID

Arab caliphate that succeeded the Rashidun and conquered the Berbers in the 8th century.

MID

This caliphate was founded by Muawiyah after the assassination of the last Rashidun caliph, Ali.

MID

This caliphate fled to Iberia after being overthrown by the Abbasid dynasty.

GIVEAWAY

Charles Martel defeated this caliphate at Tours.

GIVEAWAY

Caliphate that seized control of Hispania in 711.

GIVEAWAY

Abd al-Malik led this caliphate, founding the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

GIVEAWAY

Islamic dynasty the Abbasids defeated and usurped in 750 CE.

Spain after 750 — these clues mean the Umayyads of Córdoba, the branch Abd al-Rahman I founded after escaping the Abbasids. The answer is still "Umayyad":

HARD

Muhammad al-Mahdi ordered the assassination of a leader of this caliphate after that leader decided to attack Alfonso V.

HARD

This caliphate was briefly ruled by the Hammudid dynasty, and after the assassination of Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo it saw the Fitna of al-Andalus.

MID

Islamic dynasty of Abd al-Rahman that built the Great Mosque in Córdoba.

MID

This dynasty's technological advances included the importation of toothpaste and deodorant from Baghdad.

GIVEAWAY

"The Shining City" was a palace built for a leader of this dynasty.

GIVEAWAY

After 1031, this caliphate split into many taifas, including one at Zaragoza.

GIVEAWAY

Hisham II led this caliphate, and his chamberlain Almanzor later took power.

Trap

The three-caliphate sort: Damascus, Tours, or a flight to Spain → Umayyad. Black banners, Baghdad, 1258 → Abbasid. Shia, Cairo, al-Azhar → Fatimid. And any Spanish clue after 750 — Córdoba, taifas, Almanzor — still answers "Umayyad."

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 15:17 ♫ audio
The Story

the prince who swam the river

In 750 the Abbasids didn't just defeat the Umayyads — they invited the surviving family to a reconciliation banquet and massacred them at the table. One prince got away: Abd al-Rahman, a grandson of a caliph, about twenty years old. By the account he later told, Abbasid horsemen caught up with him at the Euphrates. He dove in and swam; his younger brother, trusting shouted promises of mercy, turned back — and was killed on the bank.

Abd al-Rahman spent five years on the run across North Africa, sheltered by his mother's Berber kin, until in 756 he crossed to Spain, took Córdoba, and refounded the dynasty that was supposed to be extinct. Even the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur supposedly called him "the Falcon of the Quraysh" — the highest praise on record from the family that tried to kill him.

In his Córdoba garden he planted a palm tree brought from Syria and wrote it a homesick poem — you, like me, are a stranger in the West. That palm is why the Umayyad card doesn't end in 750: for almost three more centuries, "Umayyad" clues can be about Spain.

Block II · Card 2 of 8

The Abbasid Caliphate

What: Golden-age Islamic caliphate  ·  When: 750–1258  ·  Where: Baghdad

The black-banner dynasty of Baghdad and the Golden Age — five centuries of caliphs, ended by a Mongol carpet in 1258.

Overview
  • Rise: Abu Muslim's black-banner revolution; as-Saffah beat Marwan II at the Battle of the Zab in 750.
  • Golden Age: al-Mansur founded Baghdad in 762; papermaking arrived after beating Tang China at Talas (751); Harun al-Rashid and the House of Wisdom.
  • Slow fade: Mamluk slave-soldiers under al-Mu'tasim; the Zanj slave revolt; then the Buyids and Seljuks reduced the caliph to a figurehead.
  • End: Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad in 1258; a shadow caliphate lingered under the Mamluks in Cairo.
Key terms
  • as-Saffah: "the blood-shedder" — the founder, victor at the Zab.
  • al-Mansur: built Baghdad; sent mercenaries to help crush the An Lushan Rebellion in China.
  • Battle of Talas (751): victory over Tang China that brought papermaking west.
  • Barmakids: the Persian vizier family that ran the golden-age state.
  • al-Mu'tasim: created the Mamluk slave army — the soldiers who later got their own sultanate.
  • al-Musta'sim: the last caliph — rolled in a carpet and trampled, 1258.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This dynasty began a system of tax farming called the iqta that was reformed into hereditary grants by the Buyids, one of many groups to succeed it.

MID

Under al-Mansur, this empire sent four thousand mercenaries to help put down the An Lushan Rebellion.

GIVEAWAY

Harun al-Rashid, a ruler of this empire, established the House of Wisdom in its capital of Baghdad.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

The Barmakids were influential during the rule of this caliphate, which suppressed a series of African slave revolts called the Zanj.

HARD

This caliphate faced the Alid revolt of Mohammed the Pure Soul, and a century later the slaves of Basra rose up against it in the Zanj rebellion.

HARD

This caliphate's greatest ruler rose to power on the "Night of the Three Caliphs," so named because his son Mamun was born while the caliph Hadi died.

HARD

This caliphate, which was later centered in Mamluk Egypt, had its capital sacked in the 13th century by Hulagu Khan.

HARD

This caliphate came into power after winning the Battle of the Zab, and its last ruler was rolled up in a carpet and trampled after the 1258 Mongol siege of Baghdad.

MID

This caliphate gained the knowledge of papermaking after defeating the Tang Dynasty at the Talas River.

MID

Avicenna and al-Khwarizmi worked during this third Islamic caliphate, the successors of the Umayyads.

MID

This caliphate included a ruler who was rolled into a rug and trampled by horses so as not to spill royal blood.

MID

This caliphate temporarily checked the territorial ambitions of Nikephoros I by winning the Battle of Krasos.

MID

Caliphate which founded Baghdad, from which Turkic slave-soldiers called Ghilman were deployed.

MID

Arab caliphate that governed large parts of the Silk Road under rulers like Harun al-Rashid.

GIVEAWAY

This caliphate won an early victory at the Battle of the Zab.

GIVEAWAY

This caliphate established an army of military slaves known as Mamluks under al-Mu'tasim.

GIVEAWAY

Caliphate that the Seljuks forced into a vassal state during the 11th century.

GIVEAWAY

This caliphate was established in a revolution led by the Persian general Abu Muslim.

GIVEAWAY

Harun al-Rashid led this caliphate to its golden age, which ended with a 1258 Mongol invasion.

GIVEAWAY

This caliphate was founded by as-Saffah shortly after a military victory at the Zab River.

Trap

The Battle of the Zab sits in both Umayyad and Abbasid clues — the Abbasids won it, the Umayyads died by it. Black banners, Baghdad, House of Wisdom, 1258 → Abbasid; Damascus → Umayyad; Shia Cairo → Fatimid.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 18:51 ♫ audio
The Story

how to kill a caliph politely

In 1258 Hulagu Khan's army surrounded Baghdad and asked the caliph al-Musta'sim to surrender. He dithered, bluffed, and finally opened the gates — the last of thirty-seven Abbasid caliphs, heir to five hundred years of black banners.

The Mongols had a rule: royal blood must not touch the ground. So, by most accounts, they rolled al-Musta'sim in a carpet and rode horses over him — an execution designed as a courtesy. Marco Polo heard a different version on his travels: that Hulagu locked the caliph in his own treasure tower with no food and an invitation to eat his gold, since he'd hoarded it rather than spend it on defenders.

Either way, the dynasty that built the Golden Age ended under hooves or atop bullion, and the quiz clue writes itself: a ruler "rolled into a rug and trampled so as not to spill royal blood" is the Abbasid signature. A cousin escaped to Cairo, where the Mamluks kept a tame "shadow caliph" on hand for ceremonies — the empire was gone, but the title took another 250 years to fade.

Block II · Card 3 of 8

Baghdad

What: Purpose-built Abbasid capital  ·  When: founded 762; sacked 1258  ·  Where: on the Tigris, Iraq

al-Mansur's round "City of Peace" — for five hundred years the capital of the Islamic world, until Hulagu burned it.

Overview
  • Founding: Built from scratch by al-Mansur in 762 as the Round City, near the ruins of Sassanid Ctesiphon, with the Golden Gate Palace at its center.
  • Golden Age: Home of the House of Wisdom and the Translation Movement; al-Khwarizmi worked here.
  • 1258: Hulagu Khan's Mongols sacked it, killed the caliph al-Musta'sim, and — the story goes — turned the Tigris black with ink.
  • Afterlives: Taken from Safavid hands by the Ottomans in 1534; in 2003 it fell to coalition forces in under three weeks — the Green Zone era.
Key terms
  • al-Mansur: the founder — the Round City, officially "the City of Peace."
  • Ctesiphon: the older Sassanid capital just downstream — a hard-clue landmark.
  • al-Amin vs. al-Ma'mun: Harun's sons, whose civil war ended in a siege of this city.
  • Hulagu Khan / al-Musta'sim: the 1258 sack — carpet, burned library, black river.
  • Green Zone: the fortified international district after the 2003 war.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This city was the center of Islamic learning and culture.

MID

Iraqi capital which fell to coalition forces less than three weeks after the war started.

GIVEAWAY

City in modern Iraq built to be the Abbasids' capital.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

A river near this city, which stands near the ruins of the ancient Sassanid city of Ctesiphon, allegedly turned black after it was sacked by Hulagu Khan.

HARD

Tahir ibn Husayn laid siege to this city after his victory at the Battle of Rayy, fought during a civil war for its control between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma'mun.

HARD

According to Marco Polo, a ruler of this city was locked in his treasure room without food or water for neglecting to spend his gold on the city's defense.

HARD

al-Musta'sim failed to defend this city from invaders in 1258, after which he was trampled in a carpet on the orders of Hulagu Khan, who led the Mongol sack of this city.

HARD

This city, built northwest of the ruins of Ctesiphon, the Sassanid capital, had its Golden Gate Palace sponsored by its ruler al-Mansur.

HARD

A refusal to pay tribute led to Hulagu Khan sacking this city, burning its House of Wisdom, and leaving the Abbasid Caliphate in disarray.

MID

In this city, Rashid Ali's Golden Square installed a pro-Nazi government after ousting the regent Abdullah.

MID

This city, the site of the Translation Movement, was founded by al-Mansur after his brother's victory at the Battle of the Zab.

MID

This city became a center for science and mathematics after the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate.

MID

A "green zone" was established in this city while it was occupied by the United States following a 2003 war.

MID

The conquests of this city and of Yerevan were the subjects of two kiosks built in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul by Sultan Murad IV.

MID

Harun al-Rashid built a library in this city, which was destroyed in a 1258 siege by Hulagu Khan.

GIVEAWAY

A heavily secured international zone in this city is called the Green Zone.

GIVEAWAY

This city was the site of a Mongol attack which resulted in the death of al-Musta'sim.

GIVEAWAY

This city was sacked two years after the surrender of the Alamut fortress by the Assassins.

GIVEAWAY

The mathematician al-Khwarizmi worked in this city's House of Wisdom.

GIVEAWAY

City along the Tigris River, then held by Safavid Persia, captured by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534.

GIVEAWAY

This city replaced Damascus as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Trap

Baghdad vs. the House of Wisdom — city vs. building. Hulagu's 1258 sack clues both: "this city" → Baghdad, "this institution/structure" → House of Wisdom. The pronoun is the whole answer.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 22:33 ♫ audio
The Story

a city drawn in fire

Baghdad wasn't a village that grew — it was designed, like a machine. In 762 the caliph al-Mansur picked a spot on the Tigris near the ruins of Ctesiphon, and the story goes that his surveyors traced the city's plan on the bare ground in ash and naphtha-soaked cotton seeds, then set it alight at night so the caliph could walk the streets of his capital while it was still made of flame.

He hired astrologers to cast a horoscope for the founding day — one a Zoroastrian, one a Jew, which tells you something about the empire — and built the city as a perfect circle: four gates facing the four corners of the realm, the Golden Gate Palace under a green dome at the exact center. Its official name was Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace. He even eyed the great arch of Ctesiphon as a brick quarry, started demolishing it, and quit when tearing down the old world proved more expensive than building the new one.

Within a century the circle had overflowed into possibly the largest city on Earth — the place where, as the giveaway clue puts it, a city in modern Iraq was built to be a capital. Very few cities are born knowing exactly what they're for. This one was.

Block II · Card 4 of 8

The House of Wisdom

What: Abbasid library and translation academy  ·  When: 8th century–1258  ·  Where: Baghdad

The library-academy where the Golden Age translated the world — and the reason "algebra" and "algorithm" are Arabic words.

Overview
  • What it was: The Abbasid library in Baghdad, grown from Harun al-Rashid's personal collection of great works.
  • The work: The Translation Movement — Greek, Persian, and Indian learning into Arabic; Hunayn, the "Sheikh of the Translators," led the way.
  • The stars: The "Sons of Moses" (the Banu Musa brothers) produced the Book of Ingenious Devices; al-Khwarizmi worked here.
  • The end: Destroyed in Hulagu Khan's 1258 siege — the Tigris was said to run black with the ink of its books.
Key terms
  • Hunayn: the "Sheikh of the Translators" — the name hard clues reach for.
  • Sons of Moses (Banu Musa): three brothers; their Book of Ingenious Devices described a hundred machines.
  • the Aristotle dream: a caliph dreamed of discussing philosophy with Aristotle — the founding legend of the translation drive.
  • Translation Movement: the project itself; a favorite mid-clue phrase.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Structure in the Abbasid capital which kept great works of literature from the personal collection of Harun al-Rashid.

MID

One movement of this institution was supported by Hunayn, the "Sheikh of the Translators," and this institution flourished from the eighth to the thirteenth century until its destruction in a siege by Hulagu Khan.

GIVEAWAY

This institution was established after its founder dreamed of having a discussion with Aristotle.

More clues the game has asked
MID

This institution was supported by the "Sons of Moses," who produced the Book of Ingenious Devices.

The 1258 burning appears in clues for both this building and its city — "this institution" → House of Wisdom; "this city" → Baghdad.

Trap

It's the building, not the city: "structure/institution in the Abbasid capital" → House of Wisdom; "this city" → Baghdad. Both burn in 1258, so buzz on the pronoun, not the fact.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 25:53 ♫ audio
The Story

the dream of Aristotle

The founding legend, recorded by the Baghdad bookseller Ibn al-Nadim, goes like this: the caliph al-Ma'mun dreamed that a pale, broad-browed man was sitting on his bed — Aristotle. The caliph asked him, "What is the good?" "Whatever is good according to reason," said the philosopher. Al-Ma'mun woke up and essentially declared war on ignorance: agents were sent hunting Greek manuscripts, and when he beat the Byzantines in battle, he reportedly demanded books as part of the peace terms. Tribute, payable in Euclid.

Translation became a glamour profession. Hunayn, the "Sheikh of the Translators," was said to be paid the weight of his finished books in gold — which, the joke went, explains the suspiciously thick paper he wrote on. The Banu Musa brothers, the "Sons of Moses," spent their fortune on manuscripts and wrote the Book of Ingenious Devices: a hundred machines, including trick fountains and a mechanical flute player — arguably the first programmable machine.

It all ended in a week in 1258. Hulagu's soldiers heaved the library into the Tigris, and the story goes that the river ran black with ink — some say the books were piled thick enough to ride across. A dream of Aristotle on one end, a bridge of drowned books on the other: that's the whole card.

Block II · Card 5 of 8

Harun al-Rashid

What: Golden-age Abbasid caliph  ·  When: reigned 786–809  ·  Where: Baghdad

The caliph at the Abbasid high noon — real ruler of Baghdad, pen pal of Charlemagne, and a fairy-tale character in the Nights.

Overview
  • Reign: 786–809, the Abbasid golden age at its peak; his epithet means "Rightly Guided."
  • Works: Established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad; built a qanat to bring water to Mecca.
  • War & diplomacy: As a prince he raided Byzantium as far as Chrysopolis against Empress Irene; as caliph he sent Charlemagne an elephant and a mechanical water clock.
  • Aftermath: Dividing the empire between his sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun set up a civil war.
Key terms
  • al-Amin & al-Ma'mun: the sons; their split tore the empire into civil war.
  • Jafar: his Barmakid vizier — and his sidekick in the Nights.
  • Charlemagne: gift-exchange partner — the elephant, the twelve-knight water clock.
  • "Night of the Three Caliphs": the night he took power: Hadi died, al-Ma'mun was born.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The division of this man's empire between his sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun caused a civil war.

MID

Historical Abbasid caliph who gives his vizier, Jafar, three days to find the murderer of a young woman.

GIVEAWAY

Abbasid caliph who built a qanat for water in Mecca, as well as the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This ruler, whose epithet means "Rightly Guided," created the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, which became a center of learning during the Islamic Golden Age.

MID

Before becoming a ruler, this man led an assault against Empress Irene, reaching as far as Chrysopolis before turning around.

GIVEAWAY

Twelve mechanical knights were part of a water clock that this ruler sent to Charlemagne with an elephant and other gifts.

Trap

Inside Nights material, "this caliph/ruler" → Harun al-Rashid; "this collection/work" → the Nights. And don't let "al-Rashid" ("Rightly Guided") pull you to the Rashidun — those are the four caliphs 150 years before him.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 28:16 ♫ audio
The Story

the caliph who mailed an elephant

In 802 the strangest diplomatic cargo in Europe came up the roads to Aachen: Abul-Abbas, an elephant, a personal gift from Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne. The Frankish court chroniclers — who logged wars in a sentence — tracked the elephant like a celebrity for years. A later embassy topped it: a brass water clock that dropped balls onto cymbals to chime the hour while twelve mechanical knights popped out of twelve doors. To the Franks it looked like sorcery; to Baghdad it was a desk toy.

The dark half of the story is Jafar. In the Nights, Harun and his vizier Jafar slip out of the palace in disguise to wander nighttime Baghdad — in "The Three Apples," the caliph hands Jafar three days to solve a murder, history's first detective-story deadline. The real Jafar was Harun's closest friend, right up until 803, when Harun abruptly had him executed and destroyed his whole family, the powerful Barmakids. No one has ever settled why.

So the quiz reality is a double image: a real emperor who founded the House of Wisdom and watered Mecca, and a storybook king still walking the streets of a Baghdad that never burned, beside a friend he never killed. Fiction gave the friendship the ending history didn't.

Block II · Card 6 of 8

One Thousand and One Nights

What: Frame-tale story collection  ·  When: compiled ~9th–14th c.; Galland's French, 1704  ·  Where: Islamic world; many tales set in Baghdad

Scheherazade's 1,001 cliffhangers — the collection that turned the Abbasid world into legend.

Overview
  • Frame: King Shahryar kills each new wife at dawn; Scheherazade, cued by her sister Dunyazad, survives on unfinished stories for 1,001 nights.
  • Greatest hits: Sinbad's seven voyages (rocs, the Old Man of the Sea), Ali Baba (Morgiana, greedy Cassim), Aladdin, the djinn in the lamp.
  • Real people inside: Harun al-Rashid, his vizier Jafar, and Khosrow II appear as characters.
  • The French twist: Antoine Galland's 1704 translation added Aladdin and Ali Baba — "orphan tales" with no known Arabic manuscript.
Key terms
  • Scheherazade: the narrator; wife of Shahryar — but if the clue asks for HER, she's the answer, not the book.
  • Sinbad: the sailor — roc eggs, seven voyages, the Old Man of the Sea on his back.
  • Morgiana: the slave-girl who saves Ali Baba by pouring boiling oil on thieves hidden in jars.
  • Antoine Galland: the French translator who added the most famous tales.
  • "The Three Apples": the murder-in-a-chest tale where Harun al-Rashid sets Jafar a three-day deadline.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

A caliph finds a dead body in a chest in a section of this collection titled "The Three Apples." In this collection, the slave-girl Morgiana saves her master by pouring boiling oil on thieves hidden in jars.

MID

In this collection, a sailor is captured by the Old Man of the Sea after stealing the enormous egg of a roc and trying to bring it home to Baghdad.

GIVEAWAY

In the frame story to this collection, Shahryar listens to the stories told by Scheherazade.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This collection includes a series of stories in which the egg of a roc is stolen by the sailor Sinbad, and one in which a djinn rises from a magic lamp.

HARD

This collection's most famous sailor encounters rocs on his seven voyages.

MID

A parable from this collection titled "The Eldest Lady's Tale" is likely an early Cinderella story.

MID

A folktale added to this collection by Antoine Galland describes a man who escapes a cave using a magic ring.

MID

Stories in this collection feature historical figures like Khosrow II and Harun al-Rashid.

GIVEAWAY

In this collection, Dunyazad tells her sister a plan to avoid execution.

GIVEAWAY

Cassim's greed is ultimately his downfall when he enters a magic cave in this collection.

Pronoun check — the same stories feed three different answers: "this collection/work" → the Nights; "this sailor/character" → Sinbad; "this caliph/ruler" → Harun al-Rashid.

Trap

Writers love asking for the character instead of the book. Rocs and voyages with "this sailor" → Sinbad; "wife of Shahryar" → Scheherazade; "this Abbasid caliph" in a story → Harun al-Rashid. Only "this collection" wants the Nights.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 29:49 ♫ audio
The Story

the man who told Aladdin to Paris

Here's the secret of the two most famous "Arabian Nights" stories: Aladdin and Ali Baba appear in no Arabic manuscript of the Nights at all. In 1709, the French translator Antoine Galland had run out of manuscript and a hungry public was demanding more. Then he met Hanna Diyab, a young traveler from Aleppo passing through Paris, who over a string of evenings told him more than a dozen tales from memory — including a boy with a lamp and a poor man who overhears the words "Open, Sesame."

Galland wrote them into French, folded them into the collection, and never put Diyab's name on anything. The stories the whole world thinks of as the heart of the Nights are Paris transcriptions of an Aleppo storyteller's repertoire — scholars call them the "orphan tales," because they have no manuscript parents.

Diyab went home, became a cloth merchant, and late in life wrote a memoir of his travels that nobody read — until researchers identified it in the Vatican Library in 1993. Nearly three centuries on, the storyteller finally got his name back. Scheherazade would understand: tell a good enough story and it will, eventually, save you.

Block II · Card 7 of 8

The Fatimid Caliphate

What: Ismaili Shia caliphate  ·  When: 909–1171  ·  Where: North Africa, then Cairo

The great Shia caliphate — Fatima's claimed bloodline, founders of Cairo and al-Azhar, ended by Saladin.

Overview
  • Identity: Ismaili Shia dynasty claiming descent from Fatima, the Prophet's daughter — the one major Shia caliphate among the three.
  • Capital: The general Jawhar the Sicilian conquered Egypt and founded Cairo (969) near al-Fustat; al-Azhar rose there.
  • al-Hakim: the "Mad Caliph" — revered by the Druze, builder of a "House of Knowledge," burner of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
  • End: Retook Jerusalem from the Seljuks just before the First Crusade arrived; Saladin ended the dynasty in 1171 — the Ayyubids followed.
Key terms
  • Fatima: the Prophet's daughter — the bloodline claim in the dynasty's very name.
  • Jawhar the Sicilian: the general who took Egypt and laid out Cairo.
  • al-Azhar: their mosque-university — still teaching a millennium later.
  • al-Hakim: the Mad Caliph; the Druze hold him divine and await his return.
  • Saladin: abolished the caliphate in 1171 and founded the Ayyubid dynasty.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Egyptian sultanate, named for a daughter of Muhammad, that conquered Jerusalem back from the Seljuks.

MID

One of its rulers is revered by the Druze and was known as the "Mad Caliph." The Ayyubids under Saladin followed this dynasty, which established al-Azhar University in its capital, built near the previous site of al-Fustat.

GIVEAWAY

This Ismaili Shia dynasty, claiming descent from the Prophet's daughter, founded Cairo.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Jawhar the Sicilian founded the capital of this caliphate, where a non-Abbasid "House of Knowledge" was built by a ruler who forced Jews to wear bells and burned the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

MID

One ruler of this caliphate was crowned by his wasita Barjawan after being told to climb down from a sycamore tree.

GIVEAWAY

Egypt-based caliphate that controlled the Levant at the outset of the First Crusade.

Trap

"Founded Cairo" splits on the pronoun: "this dynasty/caliphate" → Fatimid, "this city" → Cairo. Shia + Fatima's bloodline + al-Azhar → Fatimid, never the Sunni caliphates of Damascus or Baghdad.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 32:30 ♫ audio
The Story

the caliph who rode into the hills

Al-Hakim came to the throne at eleven — courtiers had to coax the boy down from a sycamore tree to crown him — and grew into the strangest ruler of the age. He banned chess. He banned mulukhiyya, Egypt's favorite green stew. He ordered Cairo to work by night and sleep by day, so the whole capital ran on his personal insomnia. He also endowed a "House of Knowledge" that made Cairo a rival to Baghdad's — and, in 1009, ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, an outrage Europe was still avenging when the Crusades began decades later.

Then, one February night in 1021, he rode his donkey into the Muqattam hills outside Cairo, as he often did alone — and never came back. Searchers found the donkey and his slashed garments. No body, ever.

For most people that's a murder mystery. For the Druze — a faith born in his reign that reveres him to this day — it's the whole point: he didn't die, he withdrew, and he will return. Which is why a single clue phrase, "revered by the Druze," buzzes straight to the Fatimids: no other dynasty's missing caliph became a living religion's awaited one.

Block II · Card 8 of 8

Cairo

What: Fatimid-founded capital of Egypt  ·  When: founded 969  ·  Where: on the Nile, Egypt

"The Victorious" — the Fatimids' purpose-built capital that outlived them to become the Arab world's great metropolis.

Overview
  • Founding: Laid out by Jawhar for the Fatimids in 969 as al-Qahira, "the Victorious," beside the older settlement of al-Fustat.
  • Islamic capital: Home of al-Azhar (now a leading center of Sunni Islam) and the Ibn Tulun Mosque; capital of the Mamluk sultanate until Selim I took it in 1517 after Marj Dabiq.
  • Modern city: Muhammad Ali Pasha's westernization; the 1943 Cairo Conference ("Sextant"); Tahrir Square protests toppled Mubarak in 2011.
  • Landmarks: Giza's pyramids on the outskirts; seat of Coptic Pope Tawadros II; the Ben Ezra Synagogue and its famous geniza.
Key terms
  • al-Fustat: the older town next door — burned in 1168 to keep it from the Crusaders.
  • al-Azhar: the Fatimid mosque-university — al-Azhar clues mean Cairo, never Baghdad.
  • Battle of Marj Dabiq (1516): the Mamluk defeat that handed the city to Selim I.
  • Tahrir Square: heart of the 2011 revolution against Mubarak.
  • Ben Ezra Synagogue: source of 300,000+ geniza manuscript fragments.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

A conference codenamed Sextant in this city included the Allied offer to Chiang Kai-Shek of full control of French Indochina at war's end, which he declined.

MID

Soldiers under Saladin made soles for their shoes out of books confiscated from the library of this city's still-existing university at al-Azhar.

GIVEAWAY

This city is the official home of Tawadros II, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

A Sicilian ghulam named Jawhar was tasked with founding this city, which is home to a mosque dedicated to Ahmad ibn Tulun.

HARD

Port Said lies north, and the Suez Canal east, of this capital of Egypt, whose outskirts are home to the Great Pyramid of Giza.

HARD

This city's al-Azhar Mosque is a leading world center of Sunni Islam, and its Ben Ezra Synagogue was found to hold over 300,000 Jewish manuscript fragments in the 19th century.

MID

This city was the capital of a sultanate that, after losing the Battle of Marj Dabiq, was conquered in 1517 by Selim I.

MID

Muhammad Ali Pasha westernized this city, the capital of the Mamluk sultanate and current capital of the Arab League.

MID

This city's House of the Cretan Woman is located in a place of worship dedicated to a Turkic slave-soldier.

GIVEAWAY

The Abdeen Palace incident of 1942 in this city led to the forced resignation of King Farouk I.

GIVEAWAY

In 2011, Muslims and Christians protested together in this city's Tahrir Square on "Martyr's Sunday" against the government of Hosni Mubarak.

GIVEAWAY

Fustat was burned to prevent this city's capture by Crusaders.

Trap

Jawhar-founded-it clues can want the city or the dynasty — "this city" → Cairo, "this caliphate" → Fatimid. And keep the libraries straight: al-Azhar → Cairo; House of Wisdom → Baghdad.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 34:21 ♫ audio
The Story

the attic that remembered everything

Jewish law forbids destroying any paper that might carry the name of God — so for roughly nine hundred years, the congregation of Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue pushed their worn-out papers through a hole in a wall into a sealed attic chamber called a geniza. Not just prayer books: letters, contracts, shopping lists, school exercises, prescriptions. Everything went in. Nothing came out.

In 1896 the Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter climbed into that chamber and found himself shoulder-deep in the largest cache of medieval documents ever discovered — the count runs past 300,000 fragments. Among them: drafts in the handwriting of Maimonides, who lived right there in Fustat, and the paper trail of merchants trading from Spain to India. Egypt's dry air had preserved the entire inbox of the medieval Mediterranean.

There's a nice irony in the address. The Fatimids named their capital al-Qahira, "the Victorious" — by tradition, for the planet Mars rising at its founding. But the city's greatest gift to history isn't a conquest; it's an attic of ordinary people's paperwork, saved by the humblest rule imaginable: never throw anything away.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block II

The Caliphates & the Golden Age

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — One faith, three capitals. After the four Rashidun caliphs, the caliphate becomes a family business — three times over. The Umayyads rule from Damascus and push to Spain and France until Tours; the Abbasids overthrow them under black banners and build Baghdad; the Fatimids — Shia, claiming Fatima's own bloodline — build Cairo. Have her say the three pairs back: Umayyad-Damascus, Abbasid-Baghdad, Fatimid-Cairo. That's eighty percent of the block.

Beat 2 — The Golden Age runs on paper. In 751 the Abbasids beat Tang China at Talas and papermaking spills west. Eleven years later al-Mansur draws Baghdad in fire on the ground and builds it round; the House of Wisdom starts translating Greece, Persia, and India; al-Khwarizmi's own name becomes the word "algorithm." Meanwhile Harun al-Rashid mails Charlemagne an elephant, just to show he can.

Beat 3 — The stories outlive the empire. 1258: Hulagu, the carpet, the ink-black Tigris — the Golden Age dies in a week. Except it doesn't, because Scheherazade already smuggled it into fiction: in the Nights, Harun and Jafar still wander a Baghdad that never burned. Then teach the pronoun game — "this collection" vs. "this sailor" vs. "this caliph" — because the writers will play it on her.

The board — write these while talking

  • Umayyad = Damascus · Tours · flees to Spain
  • Abbasid = black banners · Baghdad · 1258
  • Fatimid = Shia · Cairo · al-Azhar
  • Zab 750: Umayyads lose, Abbasids win
  • Talas 751 → papermaking
  • House of Wisdom = building; Baghdad = city
  • Harun al-Rashid ↔ Charlemagne (elephant + clock)
  • Scheherazade — 1,001 cliffhangers
  • 1258: Hulagu, carpet, ink-black Tigris

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“This caliphate was founded by Muawiyah after the assassination of the last Rashidun caliph, Ali.”
the Umayyad Caliphate — founder clue; Damascus dynasty, first of the three
“This dynasty began a system of tax farming called the iqta that was reformed into hereditary grants by the Buyids.”
the Abbasid Caliphate — the Buyids only ever bossed around Abbasids
“Historical Abbasid caliph who gives his vizier, Jafar, three days to find the murderer of a young woman.”
Harun al-Rashid — it asks for the caliph, so don't say the Nights

The callbacks — end on these

Three caliphates, three seconds each — capital and calling card?

Umayyad → Damascus, Tours, escape to Spain. Abbasid → Baghdad, black banners, 1258. Fatimid → Cairo, Shia, al-Azhar.

The Battle of the Zab shows up on two cards. Who won, who lost?

Abbasids won — as-Saffah's founding victory. Umayyads lost — Marwan II died and the dynasty fell.

"Hulagu burned it in 1258." City or building — how do you pick?

The pronoun: "this city" → Baghdad; "this institution/structure" → the House of Wisdom.

A clue about rocs and seven voyages — when is the answer the Nights, and when Sinbad?

"This collection/work" → One Thousand and One Nights; "this sailor/character" → Sinbad. Same story, two answers.

Who escaped the Abbasid massacre of 750, and where did he end up?

Abd al-Rahman I — swam the Euphrates, crossed North Africa, and refounded the Umayyads at Córdoba.

Block III of VIII

Turks, Crusaders & Mongols

10 cards

Block III · Card 1 of 10

The Seljuk Empire

What: Turkic empire that opened Anatolia  ·  When: 1037–1194 (Rum to 1308)  ·  Where: Persia, Iraq, Anatolia

Steppe horsemen who took the caliph under 'protection,' captured a Roman emperor at Manzikert — and accidentally triggered the Crusades.

Overview
  • Rise: Oghuz Turks under Tughril beat the Ghaznavids at Dandanaqan (1040), then entered Baghdad (1055) as the Abbasid caliph's Sunni 'protectors' — taking the title sultan.
  • Manzikert: Alp Arslan crushed Byzantium and captured Emperor Romanos IV in 1071 — Anatolia opened to the Turks, and Byzantium's call for help became the First Crusade.
  • Government: The great vizier Nizam al-Mulk ran the empire, wrote the "Book of Government," and founded the nizamiyyah schools; Omar Khayyam reformed the calendar under Malik-Shah I.
  • Afterlife: The Anatolian offshoot, the Sultanate of Rum, fought the Danishmends, won Myriokephalon (1176), lost to the Mongols at Kose Dag (1243) — and one of its successor emirates grew into the Ottomans.
Key terms
  • Tughril: founder; won Dandanaqan, 'freed' the caliph in Baghdad, first Seljuk sultan.
  • Alp Arslan: the Manzikert victor — captured, then famously freed, Romanos IV.
  • Malik-Shah I: the empire's peak; his death began the breakup.
  • Nizam al-Mulk: the vizier who really ran things — nizamiyyah schools, "Book of Government," murdered by the Assassins in 1092.
  • Battle of Manzikert (1071): the clue-magnet: Romanos IV Diogenes captured, Anatolia lost.
  • Sultanate of Rum: the Anatolian Seljuk state — Danishmend rivals, Kose Dag defeat.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The Fatimids reconquered Jerusalem from this empire just prior to the First Crusade.

MID

This people migrated to Persia after their leader had a falling out with Yabghu and subsequently separated from the Oghuz.

GIVEAWAY

This empire's sultan Alp Arslan defeated and captured the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Schools called nizamiyyah were established in this empire, whose rulers sought guidance from a vizier's manual, the "Book of Government"; its founder, Tughril, won the Battle of Dandanaqan over the Ghaznavids.

HARD

During a march to Khorasan, the Ghaznavid army was constantly attacked by forces of this empire, which won the Battle of Dandanaqan.

HARD

In Persia, this group of people defeated the Ghaznavid army at both the Battle of Nasa plains and the Battle of Dandanaqan.

MID

Malik-Shah I and Alp Arslan once ruled this empire, which was founded in 1037 and later stretched into Anatolia.

MID

Despite its opponent being assisted by Ampud and Leustach Rátót, this empire still won the Battle of Myriokephalon.

MID

An entity administered by this empire was rivaled by the Danishmends and lost to the Mongols at the Battle of Kose Dag.

MID

A powerful minister of this empire founded a series of schools for higher education called nizamiyyah.

GIVEAWAY

That minister, Nizam al-Mulk, was killed by the Assassins during the reign of Malik-Shah I.

GIVEAWAY

One of the emirates into which this empire was broken served as the basis for the Ottomans.

GIVEAWAY

Omar Khayyam served this empire, which oversaw the capture of Romanos IV Diogenes.

GIVEAWAY

The Sultanate of Rum was an offshoot of this empire, which practiced Sunni Islam.

Trap

Turks in Anatolia twice: Manzikert, Alp Arslan, Rum, Nizam al-Mulk → Seljuks. Constantinople, janissaries, sultans named Mehmed → Ottomans, who grew out of a Seljuk emirate — centuries later.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 36:55 ♫ audio
The Story

the emperor who was forgiven

August 1071, near a town called Manzikert: for the first time anyone could remember, a Roman emperor was dragged before an enemy as a prisoner. Alp Arslan performed the ritual — a symbolic foot on the neck of Romanos IV — and then did something stranger: he sat him down as a guest. The sources record the exchange. Alp Arslan asked, "What would you do if I were brought before you as a prisoner?" Romanos, honestly: "Perhaps I'd kill you, or parade you through Constantinople." Alp Arslan: "My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free."

The mercy was the deadliest move of all. Romanos went home to a capital that had already replaced him; his own people deposed and blinded him so brutally that he died of the wounds. Byzantium tore itself apart, Turkish clans poured into an undefended Anatolia, and a desperate emperor's letters west asking for soldiers ended up, one pope later, as the First Crusade.

The punchline: the Seljuks hadn't especially wanted Anatolia that day — Alp Arslan had been marching on Fatimid Egypt and treated the Byzantine campaign as a distraction. The battle that redrew the map of the world, made Turkey Turkish, and summoned the Crusades was, from the winner's point of view, a detour.

Block III · Card 2 of 10

Saladin

What: Kurdish sultan, the Crusaders' great rival  ·  When: c. 1137–1193  ·  Where: Egypt & Syria; died in Damascus

Overthrew the Fatimids, united Egypt and Syria, retook Jerusalem after Hattin — and out-chivalried the knights sent to fight him.

Overview
  • Rise: A Kurdish officer who ended the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt (1171) and founded a dynasty named for his father, Ayyub.
  • Hattin & Jerusalem: Annihilated the Crusader army at the Horns of Hattin (1187), executed Raynald of Chatillon, and took Jerusalem — triggering the Third Crusade.
  • Third Crusade: Lost battles to Richard the Lionheart at Acre and Arsuf, but kept Jerusalem; the 1192 Treaty of Jaffa let Christian pilgrims visit freely.
  • Legend: His generosity and mercy so impressed Europe that its poets adopted an enemy sultan as a model of chivalry.
Key terms
  • Battle of Hattin (1187): the horns-shaped hill where the Crusader kingdom's army died of thirst and defeat.
  • Raynald of Chatillon: the caravan-raider Saladin swore to kill — and did, personally.
  • Richard the Lionheart: his Third Crusade opponent; Acre, Arsuf, and the Treaty of Jaffa.
  • Baldwin IV: the 'leper king' who ambushed Saladin at Montgisard (1177).
  • Ayyub: his father — the dynasty is named for him, not for Saladin.
  • Maimonides: the great Jewish philosopher who served as his physician.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man sacked the castle of Jacob's Ford after a bribe of 100,000 gold pieces to stop the castle's construction was turned down.

MID

This Kurdish leader overthrew the Fatimid dynasty and survived several assassination attempts.

GIVEAWAY

This founder of the Ayyubid Dynasty captured Jerusalem after the Battle of Hattin, which prompted the Third Crusade.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This man once had Guy of Lusignan offer a cup of rose water to the doomed Raynald of Chatillon so that he could avoid the shame of executing his guest.

HARD

This man led forces against an Ismaili sect with nine strongholds in the an-Nusayriyah Mountains.

HARD

This man sent his personal physician, Maimonides, to care for a rival English general during a siege of Acre.

HARD

This man ended a conflict by promising that Christian pilgrims would be allowed to freely enter Jerusalem.

HARD

Many centuries later, Hafez Assad commissioned a statue of this man for the Citadel of Damascus.

HARD

One campaign against this man was called after his victory at Hattin, though he ended that conflict by granting Christians safe pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

MID

This man signed the Treaty of Jaffa with the crusaders led by Richard the Lionhearted.

MID

After his defeat at Arsuf, a proposal to wed Joan, Queen of Sicily, to this man's brother al-Adil came to nothing.

MID

This man was also defeated in the Battle of Arsuf after the winning side had besieged Acre.

MID

Ayyubid sultan who conquered the Holy Land in 1187 with unified Egyptian and Syrian forces.

MID

This man executed Raynald of Chatillon after his victory at the Battle of the Horns of Hattin.

GIVEAWAY

This sultan established his own dynasty, which was named for his father, Ayyub.

GIVEAWAY

This man overthrew the Fatimid dynasty and founded the Ayyubid dynasty.

GIVEAWAY

This man was ambushed at Montgisard by Baldwin IV.

GIVEAWAY

In 1187, this man's forces captured Jerusalem and placed it under Muslim rule.

GIVEAWAY

This man ordered the execution of Raynald de Chatillon.

GIVEAWAY

Kurdish sultan whose conquests prompted the late 12th-century Crusade.

Stray clue — this one actually asks for the Kurds, Saladin's people (see the Kurds card):

MID

In December 2016, a militant Kurdish group called the Freedom Hawks orchestrated a car bombing and suicide bombing in Besiktas, killing dozens of police officers.

Trap

'This man' vs. 'this dynasty' — Hattin and Jerusalem clues can want Saladin or the Ayyubids. And the dynasty is named for his father Ayyub, not for Saladin himself.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 39:59 ♫ audio
The Story

two men, one cup of iced water

After Hattin, two prisoners were brought to Saladin's tent: King Guy of Lusignan and Raynald of Chatillon — the lord who had raided pilgrim caravans in peacetime and even talked of attacking Mecca itself. Saladin handed Guy a cup of rose water chilled with mountain snow: in desert custom, once you've given a guest a drink, his life is under your protection. Guy drank — then passed the cup to Raynald. Saladin stopped everything: "It was you who gave him the drink, not I." Then he offered Raynald Islam, was refused, and killed him where he sat. To the shaking Guy he said: don't worry — a king does not kill a king.

That mix of iron and courtesy became his signature. During the Third Crusade, when Richard the Lionheart lay sick outside Jaffa, Saladin sent him fresh fruit and snow for his fever — and when Richard's horse was killed under him, Saladin sent him two replacements, mid-battle, because an emperor of knights should not fight on foot. They never met face to face; they made peace anyway, and pilgrims walked into Jerusalem unarmed.

When Saladin died in Damascus in 1193, the ruler of Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land left a treasury famously too small to pay for his own funeral. He had given nearly all of it away. Eight centuries later, statues of him still ride outside Damascus — the enemy even his enemies wrote poems about.

Block III · Card 3 of 10

The Ayyubid Dynasty

What: Saladin's family dynasty  ·  When: 1171–1250 (Egypt)  ·  Where: Egypt & Syria, from Cairo

The house Saladin built — named for his father — that fought two Crusades and was finally devoured by its own slave soldiers.

Overview
  • Founding: Saladin took power in Egypt after the deaths of the Fatimid caliph and his overlord Nur al-Din of the Zengids — and named the dynasty for his father, Ayyub.
  • Crusades: Fought the Third Crusade (Hattin, Arsuf, Treaty of Jaffa) and the Fifth, where sultan al-Kamil's peace offers were torpedoed by the papal legate Pelagius.
  • Odd interlude: Francis of Assisi walked into al-Kamil's camp during the siege of Damietta and tried, politely and unsuccessfully, to convert him.
  • Fall: In 1250 the Mamluk guard murdered sultan Turanshah; the dynasty limped on as a puppet of the Mamluk strongman Aybak, then vanished.
Key terms
  • Ayyub: Saladin's father — the name on the dynasty.
  • Nur al-Din: the Zengid ruler whose death opened Saladin's path.
  • al-Kamil: the fifth ruler — faced the Fifth Crusade, met Francis of Assisi.
  • Turanshah: the last real sultan, murdered by his own Mamluks in 1250.
  • Aybak: the Mamluk who kept a puppet Ayyubid, then took the throne.
  • Shajar al-Durr: the slave-born sultana who bridged Ayyubid and Mamluk rule.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The killing of Turanshah is often seen as the de facto end of this dynasty's reign, after which it was nominally headed by a puppet of Aybak.

MID

Egypt-based dynasty founded by Saladin after the fall of the Fatimid caliphate.

GIVEAWAY

The Third Crusade was fought by this Islamic dynasty led by Saladin.

More clues the game has asked
MID

This dynasty came to power following the death of Nur al-Din of the Zengids, and its founder signed the Treaty of Jaffa to end a campaign that included fighting at Arsuf and the Horns of Hattin.

GIVEAWAY

Francis of Assisi unsuccessfully tried to convert the fifth leader of this dynasty, whose pleas for peace were undermined by Pelagius.

Trap

The man vs. the state: 'this sultan' → Saladin; 'this dynasty' → Ayyubid. It's named for his father Ayyub — and it was ended not by Crusaders but by its own Mamluk bodyguard.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 43:14 ♫ audio
The Story

murdered in the river, avenged with a bath clog

The dynasty died the way few do: killed by its own bodyguards, then briefly replaced by a woman. In 1250, the young sultan Turanshah — fresh from beating Louis IX's crusade — insulted the elite slave soldiers who had actually won the fighting. The Mamluks, Baibars among them, cut him down as he fled into the Nile. With a French king literally sitting in captivity nearby, Egypt suddenly had no sultan at all.

The solution was Shajar al-Durr, 'Tree of Pearls' — a former slave, widow of the previous sultan, who had already secretly run the state (even hiding her husband's death mid-crusade to keep the army steady). She was proclaimed sultana of Egypt: coins in her name, Friday prayers in her name — one of the only women ever to rule a Muslim state outright. When the caliph objected, she married the Mamluk commander Aybak, who kept a child Ayyubid on the throne as a figleaf — the 'puppet' in the hard clue.

It ended like a crime novel: years later Shajar al-Durr had Aybak murdered in his bath; days after that, servants loyal to his first wife beat her to death with wooden bath clogs and threw her from the Cairo citadel. On that grim note the age of Saladin's family closed — and the age of the Mamluks, the slaves who owned an empire, began.

Block III · Card 4 of 10

The Assassins

What: Feared Nizari Ismaili sect  ·  When: 1090–1256  ·  Where: Alamut (Persia) & the Syrian mountains

From cliff-top castles like Alamut, a small Shia sect turned the targeted dagger into a weapon so famous it became a word.

Overview
  • Who: Nizari Ismailis — a branch of Shia Islam — founded as a movement by Hasan-i Sabbah, who seized the mountain fortress of Alamut in 1090.
  • Method: No armies: trained fedayeen killed sultans and viziers at close range, often in public — the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk was the most famous victim.
  • The legend: Enemies and Marco Polo spread the tale of an 'Old Man of the Mountain' drugging disciples with hashish in a fake garden of paradise — the 'hashishin' story behind the word 'assassin.'
  • End: Hulagu's Mongols destroyed the Persian castles and sacked Alamut in 1256, after an attempt on Mongke Khan's life.
Key terms
  • Hasan-i Sabbah: founder; took Alamut and rarely left it again.
  • Alamut: the 'Eagle's Nest' — headquarters castle in the Elburz mountains.
  • Rashid Sinan: the Syrian 'Old Man of the Mountain' who dueled with Saladin.
  • Nizari Ismailis: their actual identity — a Shia sect, not a mere gang.
  • hashishin: the slur-turned-etymology that gave Europe the word 'assassin.'
  • Nizam al-Mulk: the Seljuk vizier they killed in 1092 — their most famous strike.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

According to one story, these people stunned Henry of Champagne by jumping off a cliff to prove their loyalty to Rashid Sinan.

MID

An attack orchestrated by this group nearly ended the life of King Edward I of England after he came into contact with a poison dagger.

GIVEAWAY

From mountain castles like Alamut, this sect's daggers made its name a byword for political killers.

More clues the game has asked
MID

These people, who belonged to the Nizari Ismaili sect of Islam, were trained by an "Old Man of the Mountain" who supposedly drugged them with cannabis into thinking they were in paradise.

GIVEAWAY

These people's fortresses were destroyed by Kitbuqa, who sacked Alamut shortly after they attempted to kill Mongke Khan.

Trap

The drugged-garden 'hashishin' tale is legend, told by their enemies and Marco Polo — but it's the real etymology of 'assassin.' And they were Nizari Ismaili Shia, which is why Sunni Seljuk viziers topped their list.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 44:48 ♫ audio
The Story

the castle bought without a battle

Hasan-i Sabbah captured his fortress the way he did everything: quietly. Instead of besieging Alamut, he spent months converting its garrison and villagers to his cause, then simply walked in — the story goes that he politely handed the ousted owner a draft for 3,000 gold dinars in payment for his own castle. From that eagle's nest, reachable by a single narrow track, a preacher with no army made kings check under their pillows for thirty years.

Literally under their pillows: legend says Saladin, who twice survived Assassin attempts and marched against Rashid Sinan's Syrian strongholds, woke one night in his guarded tent to find fresh warm cakes and a poisoned dagger pinning a note to his pillow — a message that they could reach him anywhere, any night. Saladin made terms with the sect soon after. And when Henry of Champagne visited, the Old Man of the Mountain allegedly had two disciples leap off the ramparts to their deaths, just to demonstrate what obedience meant.

How much of that is true? The garden-of-paradise, hashish-trance version comes from enemies and from Marco Polo, decades late — the sect's own libraries can't answer, because Hulagu's Mongols burned them with Alamut in 1256. But the fear was real enough that seven centuries of languages still call a political killer by their name.

Block III · Card 5 of 10

Hulagu Khan

What: Mongol destroyer of Baghdad  ·  When: c. 1217–1265  ·  Where: Persia & Iraq

Genghis's grandson who ended the Abbasid Caliphate in a week of fire in 1258 — then founded the Ilkhanate to rule what he'd conquered.

Overview
  • Family: Grandson of Genghis Khan; brother of Great Khans Mongke and Kublai — sent west to finish off Persia and the caliphate.
  • Baghdad, 1258: Sacked the city, killed perhaps hundreds of thousands, destroyed the House of Wisdom — and had the last Abbasid caliph, al-Musta'sim, rolled in a carpet and trampled.
  • The state: Founded the Ilkhanate, the Mongol khanate of Persia, bordering the rival Golden Horde to its north.
  • The limit: When Mongke died, Hulagu withdrew east with most of his army — and the small force he left under Kitbuqa was destroyed by the Mamluks at Ain Jalut (1260).
Key terms
  • al-Musta'sim: the last Abbasid caliph — the man in the carpet.
  • Genghis / Mongke / Kublai: grandfather and brothers: 'grandson of Genghis' is the giveaway phrase.
  • House of Wisdom: Baghdad's great library, destroyed in the sack — ink in the Tigris.
  • Kitbuqa: his general, left behind and beaten at Ain Jalut.
  • Berke: his Muslim cousin of the Golden Horde, who went to war over Baghdad.
  • Ilkhanate: the state he founded — that's the other card.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man founded the Mongol state whose territories bordered the Golden Horde to the south.

MID

This Mongol prince had the last Abbasid ruler trampled to death inside a rolled carpet.

GIVEAWAY

This grandson of Genghis destroyed Baghdad in 1258.

Trap

Three cards share one event: the man (Hulagu), his state (the Ilkhanate), and the defeat (Ain Jalut — where Kitbuqa, not Hulagu, commanded). Carpet + Baghdad + 'grandson of Genghis' → Hulagu.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 46:18 ♫ audio
The Story

the carpet, the ink, and the gold

When Baghdad fell in February 1258, Hulagu had a problem of etiquette: Mongol custom held that royal blood must never be spilled on the ground, lest it offend the earth. So the last Abbasid caliph, al-Musta'sim — heir to five centuries of Islamic rule — was rolled up in a carpet and trampled to death by horses. By steppe logic it was almost a courtesy: he died like a king, bloodlessly.

The city fared worse. Chroniclers wrote that the Tigris ran black with the ink of the House of Wisdom's books hurled into the river, then red. And a story spread — Marco Polo loved it — that before the end, Hulagu locked the caliph in his treasure vault without food: you loved your gold so much, eat it. Legend or not, it captured what everyone understood: al-Musta'sim had hoarded wealth that could have paid for an army.

The sack horrified one Mongol above all: Hulagu's own cousin Berke of the Golden Horde, a convert to Islam, who declared war on him. That first Mongol-on-Mongol war pinned Hulagu's forces in the Caucasus — one big reason he never returned in strength to avenge Ain Jalut. The man who destroyed the caliphate spent his last years fighting his own family, and Islam's western lands survived.

Block III · Card 6 of 10

The Battle of Ain Jalut

What: Where the Mamluks stopped the Mongols  ·  When: September 3, 1260  ·  Where: Spring of Harod, Jezreel Valley, Galilee

The first great Mongol defeat — slave soldiers from Cairo broke the myth of Mongol invincibility at 'Goliath's Spring.'

Overview
  • Setup: After sacking Baghdad (1258) and Aleppo, Hulagu demanded Egypt's surrender; sultan Qutuz beheaded the envoys and displayed their heads on Cairo's Bab Zuweila gate.
  • The break: Great Khan Mongke's death pulled Hulagu east with most of the army — leaving only Kitbuqa's corps to face the Mamluks.
  • The battle: Baibars's feigned retreat lured the Mongols into an ambush; Qutuz rallied the line crying "Oh, my Islam!" and a flanking counterattack killed Kitbuqa.
  • Aftermath: The Mongols retreated toward Bisan and lost Syria; Qutuz was assassinated on the way home, and Baibars took the throne. Marj al-Saffar (1303) repeated the result.
Key terms
  • Qutuz: the Mamluk sultan — envoys' heads, the "Oh, my Islam!" rally, murdered within weeks of winning.
  • Baibars: led the feigned retreat, then took power over Qutuz's body — the great Mamluk sultan.
  • Kitbuqa: the Mongol commander, captured and killed — Hulagu wasn't there.
  • Bab Zuweila: the Cairo gate where the envoys' heads went up — the no-turning-back move.
  • Spring of Harod / Jezreel Valley: the site — 'Ain Jalut' means Spring of Goliath.
  • Marj al-Saffar: the 1303 rematch in Syria, same result.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Mongol expansion westward was hampered by this 1260 Mamluk victory, fought in Galilee.

MID

This battle was prompted by the decapitation of envoys whose heads were displayed on Bab Zuweila Gate.

GIVEAWAY

Qutuz was assassinated after winning this battle against Kitbuqa.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

The Mamluk leader Baibars took power after this battle, which took place in the Jezreel Valley against Hulagu Khan's invading force.

HARD

The forces of Qutuz were inspired by the rallying cry "Oh, my Islam" at this battle, during which a sultan of the Bahri dynasty led a feigned retreat.

MID

A feigned retreat drew the losing side of this battle into an ambush where they were attacked by men hidden behind trees.

MID

Fought near the Spring of Harod, this battle ended with a counterattack that brought about the death of Kitbuqa.

MID

Qutuz delivered a decisive flanking maneuver at this battle, which was fought two years after the sack of Baghdad.

GIVEAWAY

43 years after this battle, a similar result occurred at Marj al-Saffar in Syria.

GIVEAWAY

At this battle, a flanking attack forced one side to retreat to Bisan.

GIVEAWAY

Just prior to this battle, the death of one commander's grandson prompted an attack on Sidon.

Trap

Hulagu wasn't there — he'd gone east after Mongke's death; Kitbuqa commanded and died. 'This battle' + 1260/Galilee → Ain Jalut; 'these people' + the same facts → Mamluks.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 48:32 ♫ audio
The Story

beating the Mongols with their own trick

Hulagu's letter to Cairo was pure Mongol theater: you have heard what we did to Baghdad — submit, or be destroyed. Every ruler for forty years had picked one of those two options. Qutuz invented a third: he cut the envoys in half at the waist and nailed their heads above the Bab Zuweila gate. In the Mongol world, killing ambassadors was the one unforgivable crime. There was now no possible outcome except total victory or annihilation — which was exactly the point. Cairo could stop looking for an exit.

Then came astonishing luck: the Great Khan Mongke died, and Hulagu marched east with most of the army, leaving Kitbuqa perhaps ten to twenty thousand men. At the Spring of Goliath — where David's judge Gideon had camped in scripture — Baibars pretended to flee, the Mongols charged after him, and hidden Mamluk divisions closed in from the hills. It was the feigned retreat, the steppe's own signature move, played on the steppe's masters. When his line wavered, Qutuz threw down his helmet, cried "Wa Islamah! — Oh, my Islam!" and led the countercharge himself. Kitbuqa was taken and executed; the survivors were chased to Bisan.

The victor of the most important battle in Mamluk history had less than two months to enjoy it. On the road home, during a hunt, Baibars and his conspirators cut Qutuz down — one account says the kiss of Baibars's hand was the signal. The man who saved Cairo never saw it again; the man who killed him ruled for seventeen brilliant, ruthless years. Very Mamluk: the state was saved, and the throne went to the best knife.

Block III · Card 7 of 10

The Ilkhanate

What: Mongol successor state in Persia  ·  When: 1256–1335  ·  Where: Persia & Iraq, capital Tabriz

Hulagu's quarter of the Mongol world — the conquerors of Baghdad who, within forty years, converted to the faith of the conquered.

Overview
  • Founding: Carved out by Hulagu after 1256; 'il-khan' means subordinate khan — nominally under the Great Khan in the east.
  • Geography: Ruled Persia and Iraq from Tabriz; its northern rival, the Golden Horde, lay just across the Caucasus — the Ilkhanate bordered it to the south.
  • Conversion: Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) converted himself and the state to Islam — mosques rose where the dynasty's founder had burned them.
  • End: Vizier-historian Rashid al-Din chronicled it; when Abu Said died without an heir in 1335, the khanate dissolved — into the vacuum Timur would later fill.
Key terms
  • Hulagu Khan: founder — the man is his own card.
  • Tabriz: the capital; 'ruled Persia from Tabriz' is the giveaway.
  • Ghazan: the khan who made the state Muslim in 1295.
  • Golden Horde: the hostile Mongol khanate to its north — first Mongol civil war.
  • Rashid al-Din: vizier who wrote the Jami' al-Tawarikh, a first world history.
  • Abu Said: last effective ilkhan; his heirless death (1335) ended the state.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

These Mongol territories bordered the Golden Horde to the south.

MID

Ghazan converted this Persian Mongol state to Islam.

GIVEAWAY

This Mongol successor state ruled Persia from Tabriz.

Trap

The state, not the man: Tabriz, Ghazan, and border clues → Ilkhanate; the carpet and 1258 → Hulagu. 'Il-khan' means subordinate khan — deferring to the Great Khan in China.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 47:12 ♫ audio
The Story

the conquerors convert

Il-khan means 'lesser khan' — Hulagu's dynasty technically ruled Persia as deputies of the Great Khan far away in China. In practice they answered to no one, which was the problem: to their north sat the Golden Horde, whose khan Berke had become a Muslim and never forgave Hulagu for Baghdad. Cousins went to war over the Caucasus — the first time Mongol ever fought Mongol — and the world's largest empire quietly stopped being one empire at all.

Then came the twist nobody in 1258 would have believed. In 1295, Hulagu's great-grandson Ghazan converted to Islam and took the state with him. Two generations after the carpet and the burning of the House of Wisdom, the destroyer's own house was building mosques, endowing schools, and praying in the language of the people it had crushed. The steppe had conquered Persia; Persia, as it always does, conquered back.

Ghazan's vizier Rashid al-Din then attempted something genuinely new: the Jami' al-Tawarikh, a history of everyone — Mongols, Persians, Chinese, Indians, Jews, popes, and Franks — written and illustrated in Tabriz, because for the first time one court had connections stretching that far. The Ilkhanate ended with an empty throne in 1335, but that book survives: the Mongol state whose greatest monument is a world history, not a pyramid of skulls. For skulls, see the next card.

Block III · Card 8 of 10

The Mamluks

What: Slave-soldier sultanate of Egypt  ·  When: 1250–1517  ·  Where: Cairo

Slave soldiers who overthrew their masters, stopped the Mongols at Ain Jalut, expelled the Crusaders — and ruled from Cairo for 267 years.

Overview
  • Who: Boys bought from the steppe (Kipchak Turks, later Circassians), trained as elite cavalry — 'mamluk' comes from the Arabic for 'owned.'
  • Takeover: Murdered the Ayyubid sultan Turanshah in 1250 and made their own commanders — Aybak, Qutuz, Baibars — sultans of a Cairo-based state.
  • Glory: Beat the Mongols at Ain Jalut (1260) and again at Marj al-Saffar (1303); drove the Crusaders from Acre in 1291; even fought the Portuguese at sea off Chaul, allied with Gujarat.
  • Fall: Ottoman guns broke them at Marj Dabiq (1516); Selim I took Cairo, and the last sultan, Tumambay II, was hanged.
Key terms
  • Qutuz & Baibars: the Ain Jalut pair — victor and successor-by-assassination.
  • Bahri (then Burji): the two Mamluk regimes — the Bahri barracks stood on the Nile.
  • Battle of Ain Jalut (1260): their defining win over Kitbuqa's Mongols.
  • Marj Dabiq (1516): where Ottoman cannon ended Mamluk power in Syria.
  • Selim I: the Ottoman conqueror who finished them in 1517.
  • Tumambay II: the last Mamluk sultan, hanged at Cairo's gate.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The power of these people was broken when they were defeated at Marj Dabiq in 1516, forcing Tumambay II to flee his capital before Selim I.

MID

Earlier, this group was able to defeat Kitbuqa at the Battle of Ain Jalut, benefiting from Hulagu's absence and thus ending a Mongol invasion.

GIVEAWAY

These people allied with the sultanate of Gujarat, joining navies to defeat the Portuguese at the Battle of Chaul.

More clues the game has asked
MID

These people won a battle by using hit-and-run tactics, then feigning retreat to lure Kitbuqa's army into a trap; in that battle they were led by Baibars and Saif ad-Din Qutuz.

MID

Shortly after Hulagu sacked Aleppo, these people won the aforementioned Battle of Ain Jalut and retook Syria from the Mongols.

GIVEAWAY

Qutuz and Baibars were members of this group of Muslim slave soldiers that founded a sultanate based in Cairo.

GIVEAWAY

These people created a sultanate centered in Cairo after ending the Ayyubid Dynasty.

Trap

Muslim slave soldiers twice: Cairo sultanate, Ain Jalut, Baibars → Mamluks; the Ottoman corps of levied boys → Janissaries. And it was Selim I's Ottomans who ended the Mamluks in 1517.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 50:53 ♫ audio
The Story

the army that bought itself

The Mamluk system sounds impossible on purpose: buy boys from the steppe, raise them in Cairo barracks as the world's best cavalry, free them at graduation — and let only these former slaves hold real power. Stranger still, the rank couldn't be inherited. A Mamluk's sons were born free, which disqualified them from the elite; the state had to buy a fresh generation of boys every generation, forever. It was a nobility with no bloodlines — an aristocracy of the purchased, renewed like a subscription.

It worked terrifyingly well. Within ten years of seizing power, these ex-slaves did what no army on Earth had done: broke a Mongol invasion at Ain Jalut. Then they methodically pushed the Crusaders into the sea, taking Acre in 1291, and even sent fleets — allied with Gujarat — against the Portuguese off India at Chaul. For two and a half centuries, the road to the throne of Egypt started at a slave market.

What the Mongols and Crusaders couldn't do, gunpowder did. Mamluk knights thought firearms dishonorable; Ottoman cannon and muskets shredded them at Marj Dabiq in 1516. The next year Selim I took Cairo and hanged the last sultan, Tumambay II, at the Bab Zuweila — the same gate where, 257 years earlier, the Mamluks had nailed up the Mongol envoys' heads. The gate that announced their defiance announced their end.

Block III · Card 9 of 10

Timur

What: Last great steppe conqueror  ·  When: 1336–1405  ·  Where: Transoxiana; capital Samarkand

'Tamerlane' — the lame amir who styled himself Genghis's successor without a drop of his blood, stacked skulls from Delhi to Ankara, and built paradise at Samarkand.

Overview
  • Not a khan: Born to the Barlas tribe in Transoxiana — no descent from Genghis, so he ruled as amir and married a Genghisid princess to borrow the title's shine.
  • Conquests: Kartid Herat, Isfahan (skull towers), Delhi (1398), Damascus, the Golden Horde's Sarai — beating his ex-protégé Tokhtamysh at the Terek River.
  • Ankara, 1402: Captured the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I 'the Thunderbolt,' who died in captivity — accidentally giving Constantinople a fifty-year reprieve.
  • End & afterlife: Died at Otrar in 1405 marching on Ming China; buried in the Gur-e Amir; Marlowe made him a play, and his 1941 exhumation spawned a famous 'curse.'
Key terms
  • Bayezid I / Battle of Ankara: the captured Ottoman sultan — footstool legend included.
  • Tokhtamysh: Golden Horde khan he made, then destroyed (Terek River, sack of Sarai).
  • Samarkand: his showcase capital — spoils of Delhi and Damascus went there.
  • Ulugh Beg: his grandson, the astronomer-king of Samarkand.
  • Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo: Castile's envoy, whose account describes Timur's court.
  • Otrar: where he died, mid-invasion of Ming China, allegedly after too much iced water.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man took advantage of the death of Abu Said to begin his conquest of the Kartid Empire.

MID

After battles, this man would infamously stack the skulls of his foes into large pyramids.

GIVEAWAY

This man was victorious against Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde at the Battle of the Terek River.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This man, who styled himself as the successor of Genghis Khan, created an empire centered around Samarkand.

HARD

This rival of Tokhtamysh legendarily built a pyramid of skulls after the Siege of Isfahan and sacked Delhi.

HARD

This man designated Pir Muhammad ibn Jahangir as his successor before allegedly dying of a fever brought on by drinking too much ice water.

HARD

This man's rise to power began in Transoxiana, and his descendant Ulugh Beg built an observatory in his capital city.

HARD

This man constantly came into conflict with the Chagatai Khanate and won the Battle of Ankara, where he captured Bayezid I, who died in his captivity.

HARD

Samarkand was the capital of this founder of a 15th-century Central Asian empire who suffered from two injured limbs.

HARD

This man may have used Bayezid the Thunderbolt as a footstool after winning the Battle of Ankara, and he supposedly created pyramids out of thousands of skulls of his enemies.

MID

Mikhail Gerasimov exhumed this man's body in 1941, supposedly triggering Hitler's invasion of Russia.

MID

This man's remains were reburied before the Battle of Stalingrad over fears of starting a curse.

MID

This man, who died en route to invading the Ming Dynasty, established his empire's capital at Samarkand.

MID

This enemy of Tokhtamysh and the Golden Horde died while attempting to attack the Ming Dynasty.

MID

This man, whose capital was Samarkand, supposedly got his nickname due to an arrow wound on his leg.

MID

This man brought back the spoils from his sacks of Damascus and Delhi to his capital of Samarkand.

GIVEAWAY

"Lame" Central Asian conqueror who titles a Marlowe play.

GIVEAWAY

At Ankara, this man successfully took Bayezid I prisoner.

GIVEAWAY

This commander defeated the Knights of Rhodes at the Siege of Smyrna.

GIVEAWAY

This man may have died at Otrar after drinking too much iced water.

GIVEAWAY

This man died at Otrar while planning an invasion of Ming China.

GIVEAWAY

This man once used camels equipped with flaming haystacks to scare off elephants at Delhi.

GIVEAWAY

Henry III of Castile sent Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo as an emissary to this man, who destroyed the Golden Horde's capital at Sarai.

Stray clue — this one asks for the city of Ankara (Roman Ancyra), where Timur crushed Bayezid I in 1402:

MID

In this modern city, the most complete copy of The Deeds of Divine Augustus was found in a temple in the center of this former capital of Roman Galatia.

Trap

Not a khan and not Genghis's blood — he ruled as amir and married into the line to borrow its prestige. Skull pyramids, Ankara 1402, Samarkand → Timur; carpet, Baghdad 1258 → Hulagu's Genghis-line Mongols.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 52:47 ♫ audio
The Story

the tomb opened on the wrong day

In June 1941, Soviet anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov opened the Gur-e Amir in Samarkand to study Timur's skeleton. Locals begged the team to stop, citing the warnings associated with the grave — tradition attached to it words to the effect of 'when I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble,' and an inscription promising that whoever disturbed the tomb would loose an invader more terrible than Timur himself. The team opened it on June 19–20. On June 22, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

The science, at least, paid off: the skeleton confirmed the nickname was no slander. Fused right kneecap, withered right arm — old arrow wounds. 'Timur the Lame,' Timur-i-Leng, the name Europe slurred into Tamerlane and Marlowe put on a playbill, described a real body that had limped and still out-marched every army on Earth, from the skull towers of Isfahan and Delhi to the field at Ankara where an Ottoman sultan became a prisoner (and, the legend insists, a footstool).

The story goes that the coincidence kept escalating: Timur was reburied with full Islamic rites in late 1942 — on the eve of the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad, the war's turning point. Coincidence is exactly what it was. But note the shape of the man's luck: he died at Otrar in 1405, supposedly from a fever after too much iced water, while marching to conquer Ming China — spared, by a drink, from the one campaign that might finally have beaten him.

Block III · Card 10 of 10

Samarkand

What: Silk Road jewel, Timur's capital  ·  When: ancient Maracanda; Timur's capital 1370–1405  ·  Where: Transoxiana (modern Uzbekistan)

Alexander conquered it, the Silk Road enriched it, Timur gilded it — one city with two thousand years of buzzable clues.

Overview
  • Ancient: As Maracanda, capital of the Sogdians — taken by Alexander the Great, who killed his friend Cleitus the Black here in a drunken rage.
  • Islamic: Conquered by Qutayba ibn Muslim (712); after the Battle of Talas (751), captured Chinese papermakers made it home to the Islamic world's first paper mill.
  • Timurid: Timur made it his showcase capital, filling it with the spoils of Delhi and Damascus; Clavijo's embassy described the wonders.
  • Monuments: The Registan square, the Shah-i-Zinda tomb avenue, Timur's Gur-e Amir mausoleum, and Ulugh Beg's great observatory.
Key terms
  • Registan: the ensemble of madrasas at the city's heart — Timurid showpiece.
  • Ulugh Beg's observatory: the grandson-astronomer's giant sextant sunk into rock.
  • Gur-e Amir: Timur's mausoleum — built by the sacker of Delhi.
  • Shah-i-Zinda: the avenue of blue-tiled royal tombs.
  • Battle of Talas (751): the fight that brought papermaking — first Islamic paper mill here.
  • Maracanda / Cleitus the Black: the Alexander-era clues: same city, ancient name.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

A ruler who had just conquered this location got drunk in one of its palaces and killed his friend, Cleitus the Black.

MID

The Shah-i-Zinda royal tombs are located in this city, which served as a stop along the Silk Road.

GIVEAWAY

After Alexander the Great conquered this city, he installed Orepius as its ruler.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Ulugh Beg built an observatory in this city in the Transoxiana region, which was once a prominent capital of the Sogdians and a link on the Silk Road.

MID

Following the Battle of Talas, this city became home to the first paper mill in the Islamic world.

MID

The wonders of this city were chronicled by Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who was stationed there in the 15th century.

GIVEAWAY

Tarkhun was the ruler of this city before being defeated by Qutayba ibn Muslim.

GIVEAWAY

The Gur-e Amir mausoleum was built by a ruler of this city who was famed for his Sack of Delhi.

Trap

One city, two clue eras: Maracanda, Cleitus, Alexander (ancient) and Registan, Ulugh Beg, Gur-e Amir (Timurid) all → Samarkand. Sogdians or Transoxiana in the clue → this city, not Baghdad.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 56:32 ♫ audio
The Story

the prince who counted the stars

Timur filled Samarkand with loot and architects; his grandson Ulugh Beg filled it with mathematicians. While ruling the city, this Timurid prince built an observatory whose main instrument was a stone sextant with a forty-meter radius, sunk into a rock hillside — essentially a building-sized protractor aimed at the sky. With it, and no telescope, his team measured the length of the year to within about a minute of the modern value and catalogued nearly a thousand stars with an accuracy the world wouldn't beat until Tycho Brahe, more than a century later.

Samarkand had a habit of hosting history's extremes. In one of its palaces, a drunken Alexander the Great had speared his own friend Cleitus the Black, the officer who once saved his life. After the Battle of Talas, captured Chinese craftsmen made it the first city in the Islamic world to manufacture paper — the technology that would feed Baghdad's libraries. And Clavijo, the Castilian ambassador, came home describing a capital being rebuilt with the plunder of Delhi and Damascus, its skyline going turquoise with tiled domes like the Shah-i-Zinda and, soon, the Registan's madrasas.

Ulugh Beg's own ending was darker: more scholar than politician, he was deposed and, in 1449, beheaded on the orders of a court that answered to his own son. Zealots leveled the observatory so thoroughly that it was lost until 1908, when a Russian schoolteacher dug the great sextant's trench out of the hill. The grandfather built pyramids of skulls that vanished; the grandson's star catalog is still cited. Samarkand keeps score in centuries.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block III

Turks, Crusaders & Mongols

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — The Turks ride in. Oghuz horsemen out of the steppe take the caliph of Baghdad under their 'protection,' and at Manzikert in 1071 Alp Arslan captures a Roman emperor — then forgives him, which destroys Byzantium more surely than any execution. Anatolia opens to the Turks, and Byzantium's cry for help becomes the First Crusade. (Ask her: how can losing ONE battle cost an empire its heartland? Answer: when the loser's own capital finishes the job.)

Beat 2 — Saladin's answer. A Kurdish officer ends the Fatimids, unites Egypt and Syria under a dynasty named for his dad, and at Hattin in 1187 destroys the Crusader army and takes Jerusalem back. The Third Crusade sails against him — Richard the Lionheart wins the battles, Saladin keeps the city, and the war ends in a treaty that lets pilgrims walk in free. Meanwhile, from Alamut, the Assassins are reminding every side that no tent is safe.

Beat 3 — The Mongol hammer, and the encore. Hulagu rolls the last caliph in a carpet (Baghdad, 1258) and founds the Ilkhanate — but two years later, slave soldiers from Cairo stop the Mongols cold at Ain Jalut. Within forty years the Ilkhanate converts to Islam; within a century a lame non-khan named Timur gives the steppe one last terrifying encore, stacks skulls from Delhi to Ankara, and pours the loot into Samarkand — where his grandson counts the stars. Who finally beat the Mongols? Former slaves. Drill that.

The board — write these while talking

  • Manzikert 1071 — Alp Arslan captures an emperor
  • Seljuks first, Ottomans later
  • Hattin 1187 → Jerusalem → Third Crusade
  • Ayyubid = named for dad Ayyub
  • Alamut — Hasan-i Sabbah's Assassins
  • 1258 Baghdad: Hulagu + the carpet
  • 1260 Ain Jalut: Qutuz & Baibars stop the Mongols
  • Ilkhanate = the state, capital Tabriz
  • Timur: skulls, Ankara 1402, NOT a khan
  • Samarkand: Registan + Ulugh Beg's stars

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“This Mongol prince had the last Abbasid ruler trampled to death inside a rolled carpet.”
pause… let her buzz → Hulagu Khan — carpet + caliph is the instant tell
“This man sacked the castle of Jacob's Ford after a bribe of 100,000 gold pieces to stop the castle's construction was turned down.”
Saladin — castles-and-Crusaders plus a refused bribe → the sultan himself
“Ulugh Beg built an observatory in this city in the Transoxiana region, which was once a prominent capital of the Sogdians and a link on the Silk Road.”
Samarkand — Ulugh Beg works at grandpa Timur's capital

The callbacks — end on these

Manzikert — which Turks, and which sultan?

The Seljuks; Alp Arslan, 1071, capturing Romanos IV. Ottomans come centuries later.

Saladin founded a dynasty — named after whom?

His father, Ayyub → the Ayyubid Dynasty. 'This man' → Saladin; 'this dynasty' → Ayyubid.

Baghdad 1258 and Ain Jalut 1260 — who's the Mongol in each?

Hulagu sacked Baghdad; his general Kitbuqa lost Ain Jalut to Qutuz and Baibars while Hulagu was away.

Was Timur a khan?

No — no Genghis blood. He ruled as amir, married a Genghisid princess, and styled himself Genghis's successor.

The man, the state, the battle — sort Hulagu, Ilkhanate, Ain Jalut.

Carpet / grandson of Genghis → Hulagu. Tabriz / Ghazan / borders → Ilkhanate. Qutuz / Kitbuqa / Galilee 1260 → Ain Jalut.

Block IV of VIII

The Ottomans

6 cards

Block IV · Card 1 of 6

Mehmed II

What: Ottoman conqueror of Constantinople  ·  When: r. 1451–1481  ·  Where: Ottoman Empire

The 21-year-old sultan who took Constantinople in 1453 — drill that date — ended the last of Rome, and named himself Caesar.

Overview
  • The conquest: Built Rumeli Hisarı to choke the Bosporus; Orban's giant cannon smashed the Theodosian Walls; hauled his galleys overland into the Golden Horn (1453).
  • After the fall: Proclaimed himself "Caesar" of Rome and appointed Gennadius Scholarius to head the Orthodox Christians of his empire.
  • Further conquests: Bosnia, Albania (after Skanderbeg died), the Crimean Khanate (1475), and a beachhead at Otranto in Italy (1480).
  • Setbacks: Stopped at Belgrade by John Hunyadi (1456); hit by Vlad the Impaler's night attack at Targoviste.
Key terms
  • Orban: Hungarian engineer whose monster cannon toppled the Theodosian Walls.
  • Rumeli Hisarı: the "throat-cutter" fortress that closed the Bosporus before the siege.
  • Constantine XI: the last Byzantine emperor, killed in the final assault.
  • Gennadius Scholarius: the monk Mehmed installed over his Orthodox subjects — instant hard-clue buzz.
  • Skanderbeg: the Albanian hero who defied him for decades.
  • Otranto: his 1480 toehold in Italy — 800 martyrs executed on the Hill of Minerva.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man appointed Gennadius Scholarius as head for Orthodox Christians in his empire.

MID

Another monarch of this name employed the Hungarian engineer Orban to build a siege cannon that inspired the later Dardanelles Gun, toppling the Theodosian Walls.

GIVEAWAY

Sultan that, in 1453, successfully captured Constantinople.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

In his early education at Amasya under the tutoring of Akshamsaddin, this sultan was influenced to fulfill his Islamic duty.

HARD

Portugal sent an expedition to fight this sultan at the request of Sixtus IV, in which 800 men led by Antonio Primaldi were taken to the Hill of Minerva to be executed as martyrs at Otranto.

HARD

800 people were supposedly martyred in Otranto after an invasion by this sultan's forces, who also captured Albania after Skanderbeg died.

HARD

His most famous military conquest required transporting galleys overland to avoid a boom chain across the Golden Horn and led to the death of Constantine XI Palaiologos.

MID

This sultan ordered Stephen Tomasevic executed at the Emperor's Field during his conquest of Bosnia.

MID

Besides Italy, this sultan defeated Skanderbeg in Albania and defeated John Hunyadi after the Peace of Szeged was broken.

MID

His greatest success began with construction of the Rumeli Hisari, forcing Constantine XI to call for help.

MID

His advance on Hungary was delayed after John Hunyadi's successful resistance at Belgrade.

GIVEAWAY

This sultan gained control of the Dalmatian coastline after launching repeated sieges of Shkodra.

GIVEAWAY

This sultan was targeted by Vlad the Impaler's night attack at Targoviste.

GIVEAWAY

Ottoman sultan who annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1475.

GIVEAWAY

Upon capturing a capital, this sultan proclaimed himself "Caesar" of Rome.

GIVEAWAY

Son of Murad II, an Ottoman sultan who conquered the city in 1453.

Same name, different sultans — these mean Mehmed I and Mehmed III:

MID

The first ruler of this name, nicknamed "The Restorer," suppressed a revolt by Sufi theologian Sheikh Bedreddin.

HARD

The third monarch of this name had all nineteen of his brothers murdered and buried alongside their father, Murad III, to remove potential claimants.

Trap

1453 clues split three ways: "this sultan" → Mehmed II, "this empire" → Ottoman Empire, "this city" → Istanbul. And "a ruler of this name" may mean Mehmed I (the Restorer, Sheikh Bedreddin) or Mehmed III (murdered his nineteen brothers).

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 58:25 ♫ audio
The Story

the fleet that sailed over a hill

Before the siege, a Hungarian engineer named Orban went to the Byzantine emperor and offered to build him the biggest cannon on Earth. Constantine XI couldn't pay. So Orban walked across the lines and made the same offer to Mehmed — who paid him four times his asking price. The gun that came out of his foundry was so huge it took sixty oxen to move, and it began methodically hammering down walls that had protected Constantinople for a thousand years.

The defenders still had one trick: a great chain across the Golden Horn kept the Ottoman fleet out of the city's soft northern harbor. Mehmed's answer was pure audacity — he had his ships hauled out of the water and dragged overland on greased logs, up and over the hills behind Galata, in a single night. The defenders woke to find an enemy fleet floating in the harbor the chain was supposed to protect.

On May 29, 1453, the walls broke, Constantine XI died fighting, and a 21-year-old rode into the city Rome had held for eleven centuries — then declared himself Caesar. Burn the date in: 1453. It ends the Byzantine Empire, the Middle Ages get one of their exit signs, and every clue in this block orbits around it.

Block IV · Card 2 of 6

Istanbul (Constantinople)

What: Imperial city on the Bosporus  ·  When: founded 330 AD; taken 1453  ·  Where: the straits between Europe and Asia

Capital of two empires for sixteen centuries — Byzantium's Constantinople, then, after 1453, the Ottoman capital.

Overview
  • Names: Byzantium → Constantinople (Constantine, 330 AD) → Istanbul; the Slavs called it Tsargrad, "Caesar's city."
  • Defenses: the triple Theodosian Walls, Greek fire, and a great chain floated across the Golden Horn.
  • Landmarks: Hagia Sophia (Justinian I), Topkapi Palace, and the Hippodrome with its Serpent Column from Delphi.
  • Two falls: sacked by the Fourth Crusade under Enrico Dandolo (1204); conquered by Mehmed II (1453).
Key terms
  • Hagia Sophia: Justinian's colossal cathedral, later a mosque — built by Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles.
  • Theodosian Walls: the land walls that held every attacker for a thousand years — until Orban's cannon.
  • Golden Horn: the city's harbor, closed off by a floating chain.
  • Enrico Dandolo: the blind Venetian doge who steered the Fourth Crusade into the city, 1204.
  • Nika riots: chariot-racing riot that nearly burned the city down under Justinian.
  • Galata: the foreign merchants' quarter across the Golden Horn.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The Latin Empire ruled from this city made peace with Theodore I Laskaris with the Treaty of Nymphaion.

MID

The Hagia Sophia in this city was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles.

GIVEAWAY

This city was known to the Slavs as Tsargrad.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This city was the site of a controversial election recount after the opposing Republican People's Party defeated the AK Party.

HARD

A defender of this city refused to surrender to rule in Mistra before noting that "The city is fallen and I am still alive." Baldwin IX was coronated in this city one year before Kaloyan captured him.

HARD

A sack of this city prompted the creations of the despotates of Morea and Epirus, as well as the Empire of Trebizond.

HARD

In this city, the characters Duman, Psikopat, and Bengü are among the seven cats depicted in the 2016 documentary Kedi.

HARD

In another film, a man travels to this city to accept the defection of Tatiana Romanova, who plans to steal a Soviet Lektor machine.

HARD

The rulers of this city in antiquity moved from the Great Palace to the Palace of Blachernae in the 11th century.

HARD

A famed column moved to this city from Delphi is made up of three intertwined snakes and stands next to an obelisk built by Thutmose III.

HARD

The Milion, a monument inscribed with the distances to other cities, marked the beginning of this city's main street, the Mese.

MID

The Sipahi cavalry assisted in putting down a revolt in this city during the Auspicious Incident.

MID

Ulubatli Hasan died at this city after raising his army's flag despite being wounded by 27 arrows.

MID

During an attack on this city, one leader was supposedly turned into marble for his protection.

MID

In one battle, this city was defended by a floating chain placed on logs to impede ship movement.

MID

A Hungarian engineer named Orban cast the Basilica cannon to destroy the Theodosian Walls of this city.

MID

Despite establishing defenses at the Golden Horn, this city fell to Mehmed the Conqueror in 1453.

MID

Pius II responded to an attack on this city by convening the Council of Mantua and calling for a crusade.

MID

In 2016, a leader gave a speech in this city blaming "those in Pennsylvania" for threatening his power.

MID

This city is home to the Hagia Sophia, originally a massive cathedral commissioned by Justinian I.

GIVEAWAY

A forest near this city is named for Bulgarians deported from Belgrade after a 1521 siege.

GIVEAWAY

Also known as the Seraglio, this city's Topkapi Palace was constructed six years after its fall to Mehmed.

GIVEAWAY

This city was nearly burned down by chariot-racing fans during the Nika riots.

GIVEAWAY

Some foreign merchants in this city lived in the Galata quarter.

GIVEAWAY

This non-Russian city is the setting of the first half of From Russia with Love.

GIVEAWAY

Constantine XII died in this city where Mehmed II led an Ottoman siege.

GIVEAWAY

This city was renamed after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire.

GIVEAWAY

This city was sacked in 1453 by Mehmet II, who stormed into the Hagia Sophia.

GIVEAWAY

This city was protected by the walls of the Golden Horn and defenders utilizing Greek Fire.

GIVEAWAY

This city lost control of the Bosphorus prior to its fall to Mehmed II in 1453.

"One of these events" — these clues mean sieges/sacks OF this city (the event, not the city):

MID

One of the most well known of these events was ordered by Enrico Dandolo during the Fourth Crusade.

HARD

The Sicilian Vespers helped prevent one of these events from occurring by burning the ships of Charles of Anjou in Messina harbor.

HARD

A successful one of these events saw Orban design the massive Dardanelles cannon at the behest of Mehmed II.

Trap

Ruler/state/city: 1453 with "this city" → Istanbul; "this sultan" → Mehmed II; "this empire" → Ottoman. Also two different falls — 1204 (Fourth Crusade, Dandolo) vs. 1453 (Mehmed II).

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 62:13 ♫ audio
The Story

the emperor who turned to marble

On the last morning of Byzantium — May 29, 1453 — the emperor Constantine XI reportedly tore off his imperial regalia so no one could ransom his body, and charged into the breach as an ordinary soldier. He was never certainly found. An empire that had lasted eleven hundred years ended with its last Caesar disappearing into the crowd of the dying.

The Greeks refused to let him stay dead. The legend grew that an angel had snatched the emperor away and turned him to marble, hiding him in a cave beneath the Golden Gate — the Marble Emperor, asleep, waiting for the day he wakes and takes the city back. That's the legend behind the "turned into marble" clue, and it's why the Slavs' name Tsargrad and the dream of reclaiming it haunted Russian politics for centuries.

The city, meanwhile, just kept being the capital of everything: sultans in Topkapi, spies in From Russia with Love, election recounts, and street cats with names like Psikopat starring in documentaries. Six ways to ask for it — Byzantium, Constantinople, Tsargrad, Istanbul, "the city on the Bosporus," "this non-Russian city" — one answer.

Block IV · Card 3 of 6

The Ottoman Empire

What: Six-century Turkish empire  ·  When: ~1299–1922  ·  Where: Anatolia, Balkans, Middle East, North Africa

From frontier warband to three-continent superpower to "sick man of Europe" — the state behind every other card in this block.

Overview
  • Rise: Murad I won the Battle of Kosovo (1389) and moved the capital to Edirne (Adrianople); Mehmed II took Constantinople in 1453.
  • Peak: Selim I took Egypt and the caliphate; Suleiman reached the gates of Vienna (1529).
  • Machinery: sultan + grand vizier ruling from the Sublime Porte, with Janissary infantry raised by the devshirme.
  • Decline: Lepanto (1571), failed Vienna siege (1683), Tanzimat reforms, "sick man of Europe."
  • End: World War I under Enver and Talaat Pasha, the Armenian Genocide, the Arab Revolt, and the Treaty of Sevres.
Key terms
  • Sublime Porte: the "High Gate" where rulings were read aloud — shorthand for the Ottoman government.
  • Grand vizier: the sultan's prime minister.
  • Battle of Lepanto (1571): Don Juan of Austria destroyed the Ottoman fleet.
  • Sieges of Vienna: 1529 (Suleiman) and 1683 — both failed; the empire's high-water marks.
  • Tanzimat: the 19th-century reform program that couldn't save it.
  • Hayreddin Barbarossa: "Red Beard," the corsair-admiral who ruled the Mediterranean.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This empire, which experienced the Tulip Period, suffered the Auspicious Incident, which led to the abolishment of its Janissary Corps.

MID

In a 2017 article for The Guardian, David Blanchflower argued that Brexit was turning the UK into the "sick man of Europe" — a term coined for this empire.

GIVEAWAY

Murad I led this empire at the Battle of Kosovo.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This empire organized a 1453 sacking of a city on the Golden Horn, using a force of kidnapped Christian slaves known as Janissaries.

HARD

Decision-making in this empire was carried out by the grand vizier, who served as prime minister to the sultan.

HARD

Two answers required: One of these two countries was granted access to the Danube by the other following the Treaty of Edirne.

HARD

This empire was invaded by Russia during the Bergmann Offensive after fears that it would attack Russia for the city of Kars, which Russia had taken in 1877.

HARD

This empire captured the city of Karansebes after the Austrian army attacked itself and killed over 1,000 soldiers.

HARD

Late 18th-century pianos often had a pedal named for either this place or a group from this place which simulated the sound of a bell or a bass drum.

HARD

Various fireworks displays and celebrations during this empire are chronicled in a set of Imperial Festival Works.

HARD

A novel set in this empire features characters like Stork and Butterfly and features the murder of a miniaturist named Elegant Effendi.

HARD

Alexander III and Sultan Abdul Hamid II led what two empires that often fought over territory in the Black Sea?

MID

Mehmed II led this empire's capture of Constantinople, which was later renamed Istanbul.

MID

This empire was defeated at a 1529 siege of Vienna, halting its plans of European domination.

MID

That admiral, called "Red Beard," sent ships to aid in the removal of the Knights of St. John.

MID

Empire known as the Sick Man of Europe whose treatment of Christians was the immediate spark for the war.

MID

This nation, which lost control of Jerusalem to Edmund Allenby, was led by the Pashas Enver and Talaat.

MID

A primary source about life in this empire is provided by the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

MID

This empire offered support to the Crimean Khanate, leading to the burning of Moscow in 1571.

MID

The Tanzimat reforms tried to save this empire, but it was dismantled in the Treaty of Sevres anyway.

MID

A leader of this empire earned the name "The Conqueror" after successfully capturing Constantinople.

MID

This empire's tradition of reading rulings out at the High Gate led it to be known as the Sublime Porte.

GIVEAWAY

This empire fought the Small War with Venice, gaining back an area known as Morea.

GIVEAWAY

This empire faced a revolt in the Hejaz led by T.E. Lawrence, and it perpetrated the Armenian Genocide.

GIVEAWAY

A rebellion against this empire was led by one of its former generals, Skanderbeg.

GIVEAWAY

This empire built the Tower of Skulls at Borj-er-Rous.

GIVEAWAY

At another battle, Occhiali led this empire with a fleet of galleys.

GIVEAWAY

Under Murad I, this empire moved its capital to Edirne, once known as Adrianople.

GIVEAWAY

This empire's navy was defeated by Don Juan of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto.

GIVEAWAY

The empire that unsuccessfully besieged Vienna in 1683.

GIVEAWAY

The ships Goeben and Breslau were able to find haven in this nation's waters.

Trap

Ruler/state/city: 1453 with "this empire" → Ottoman Empire; "this sultan" → Mehmed II; "this city" → Istanbul. Kettles, soup, and pilav → the Janissaries, not the empire.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 66:52 ♫ audio
The Story

the army that attacked itself

In 1788 an Austrian army camped near the town of Karansebes while marching to fight the Ottomans. Some cavalry scouts crossed a river, found no Turks — but did find a camp of merchants selling schnapps. Infantry arrived and demanded a share. The hussars refused. Shots were fired, somebody screamed "Turci! Turci!" — the Turks! — and in the dark, an entire army convinced itself it was under attack.

By morning the Austrians had shot, trampled, and routed themselves — by later tellings, over a thousand casualties — without a single Ottoman soldier present. When the actual Ottoman army wandered up two days later, it found the battlefield pre-lost and took Karansebes without breaking stride.

That's the trick to remembering this empire's six centuries: it won as much by its enemies' chaos as by its own cannon — and then spent its last two hundred years as the "sick man of Europe," the empire everyone else was waiting to carve up. When a modern economist calls Brexit Britain the new "sick man of Europe," he's quoting a nickname invented for the Ottomans.

Block IV · Card 4 of 6

The Janissaries

What: Elite Ottoman slave-soldier corps  ·  When: 14th century–1826  ·  Where: Ottoman Empire

Christian boys taken as a blood tax and made the sultan's finest infantry — until a sultan wiped them out in 1826.

Overview
  • Recruitment: the devshirme — Christian boys levied from the Balkans, converted to Islam, trained to fight.
  • Culture: tied to the Bektashi Sufi order; regiments organized around the kitchen — kettles, soup ranks, the Kazan pot.
  • Politics: grew powerful enough to topple sultans who crossed them — one revolt ended with a ruler dead in Yedikule Fortress.
  • End: the Auspicious Incident, 1826 — Mahmud II destroyed the entire corps.
Key terms
  • devshirme: the "blood tax" levy of Christian boys — the signature hard-clue word.
  • Auspicious Incident (1826): Mahmud II's annihilation of the corps.
  • Nizam-i Cedid: the "New Order" army they rebelled to block.
  • Sipahi: the rival cavalry who helped put them down.
  • Kazan pot: the corps' sacred kettle — overturning it meant mutiny.
  • Bektashi order: the Sufi brotherhood bound to the corps, banned along with it.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

These men were known for carrying a large vessel known as the Kazan pot during the communal pilav meal.

MID

This group's members were executed in the Tower of Blood after launching a rebellion to prevent the Nizam-i Cedid from replacing it.

GIVEAWAY

It was composed of kidnapped Christian boys who were trained to fight.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

These people initiated the Slaughter of the Knezes against Serbian noblemen so that they could keep power within the Sanjak of Smederevo.

HARD

When a law forced this group to close their coffee shops, they revolted and placed their ruler in the Yedikule Fortress, where he died.

MID

These men were rivals of the Sipahi, who helped Mahmud II disband this group in the Auspicious Incident in 1826.

MID

Members of this group were conscripted as young boys and converted from Christianity to Islam.

MID

These men were recruited via the devshirme system, in which Christian boys would be kidnapped from their homes as a blood tax.

GIVEAWAY

Elite Christian military unit that was forcibly disbanded in 1826.

GIVEAWAY

Infantry unit established in the 14th century whose members were kidnapped young Christians.

GIVEAWAY

Elite Ottoman soldiers often kidnapped from Christians as children.

Trap

Kettle, soup, and pilav clues → Janissaries, never the empire. And keep 1826 straight: the Janissaries are the ones destroyed in the Auspicious Incident; Mahmud II and the Sipahis are the ones doing the destroying.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 71:30 ♫ audio
The Story

the soup pot that could end a sultan

The Janissaries organized their entire army around food. Officers held ranks like corbaci — "soup-man" — and each regiment's holiest object was its giant kettle, the kazan. Losing your kettle in battle was the ultimate disgrace. And when the corps was angry, it didn't issue a manifesto: it flipped the kettles over and beat on them with spoons. Every sultan in Istanbul knew that sound. Overturned soup pots had ended reigns — one revolt stuffed a ruler into Yedikule Fortress, where he died.

By the 1800s the boy-levy was long gone, the corps had swollen into a hereditary guild of shopkeepers with muskets, and they had killed or toppled every sultan who tried to modernize the army — the Nizam-i Cedid reformers were slaughtered for trying. Mahmud II spent seventeen patient years pretending to accept this. Quietly, he built loyal artillery units and waited.

In June 1826 he announced a new European-style army. Right on schedule, the Janissaries overturned their kettles one last time — and marched straight into a trap. The sultan's gunners shelled their barracks at the Et Meydani; thousands died in the fires, the survivors were executed or banished, and the Bektashi order that blessed them was banned. The empire named the massacre with a straight face: the Auspicious Incident.

Block IV · Card 5 of 6

Selim I

What: Conqueror of the Mamluks  ·  When: r. 1512–1520  ·  Where: Ottoman Empire

In eight years "the Grim" doubled the empire — broke the Safavids at Chaldiran, annexed Mamluk Egypt, and brought the caliphate to the Ottoman house.

Overview
  • Chaldiran (1514): Ottoman cannon and muskets shattered Shah Ismail's Safavid cavalry.
  • Egypt (1516–17): annexed the Mamluk Sultanate — Syria, Egypt, and guardianship of Mecca and Medina.
  • Caliphate: after Cairo fell, the Ottoman sultans claimed the title of caliph of Islam.
  • Succession: father of Suleiman the Magnificent, grandfather (and namesake) of Selim II.
Key terms
  • Shah Ismail: the Safavid founder he defeated — and traded insults with by letter.
  • Battle of Chaldiran: 1514 — gunpowder beats cavalry; the Safavid check.
  • Mamluk Sultanate: the Egypt-based regime he annexed in 1517.
  • "the Grim" (Yavuz): his epithet — grim to enemies, and famously fatal to his own viziers.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This sultan, the namesake grandfather of Selim II, defeated the Safavids and Mamlukes to conquer most of the Middle East.

MID

Another ruler of this name nicknamed "the Blond" rose to the throne despite competition from his brother Şehzade Bayezid, a son of Roxelana.

GIVEAWAY

In response to his message focused on those "who by perjuries seize scepters", a ruler of this name was insultingly sent a box of opium indicating that his writing was written while under the influence.

More clues the game has asked
GIVEAWAY

Father of Suleiman known as "the Grim" who annexed the Mamluk sultanate.

Trap

Selim vs. Suleiman: Egypt, the Mamluks, Chaldiran, and the caliphate → Selim I. Rhodes, Mohacs, Vienna, Roxelana, "Lawgiver" → his son Suleiman. And name clues split by nickname: "the Grim" → Selim I; "the Blond" → Selim II.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 73:31 ♫ audio
The Story

the insult answered with a box of opium

Before he fought Shah Ismail, Selim wrote to him — long, lawyerly, gloriously insulting letters denouncing rulers "who by perjuries seize scepters." Ismail's reply was shorter: he sent back a box of opium, suggesting that whoever wrote Selim's prose must have been high at the time. It is one of history's great diplomatic burns, and it guaranteed war.

Selim got the last word at Chaldiran in 1514, where his cannons and Janissary muskets tore apart the Safavid cavalry — the shah who had seemed half-divine to his followers barely escaped, and never risked a pitched battle with the Ottomans again. Then Selim wheeled south: two more campaigns and the entire Mamluk Sultanate — Syria, Egypt, Mecca, Medina — folded into the empire, and the caliphate itself came to the House of Osman.

At home, his nickname was earned daily. He executed so many of his own grand viziers that "May you be a vizier of Selim's" became a standing curse in Ottoman — roughly, "drop dead, but with a promotion first." Eight years on the throne, an empire doubled, and a body count that included most of his cabinet: that's the Grim.

Block IV · Card 6 of 6

Suleiman the Magnificent

What: Ottoman golden-age sultan  ·  When: r. 1520–1566  ·  Where: Ottoman Empire

Europe called him the Magnificent; his own empire called him the Lawgiver — the longest reign and the greatest reach the Ottomans ever had.

Overview
  • Conquests: Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522), Mohacs (1526 — Louis II of Hungary killed), stopped at the Siege of Vienna (1529).
  • Law: worked with the jurist Ebussuud Effendi to reconcile the kanun code with Sharia — hence "Kanuni," the Lawgiver.
  • Sea power: Barbarossa won Preveza (1538); Piri Reis took Muscat and Aden; Malta held out against him (1565).
  • Diplomacy: the "Unholy Alliance" with Francis I of France against the Habsburgs; the Peace of Amasya with Safavid Shah Tahmasp.
  • Household: freed and married Roxelana (Hurrem) — the start of the "Sultanate of Women."
Key terms
  • Roxelana / Hurrem: Ruthenian slave who became his legal wife and chief advisor.
  • Battle of Mohacs (1526): crushed Hungary; King Louis II died fleeing the field.
  • Siege of Vienna (1529): the failed siege that marked the empire's European high-water mark.
  • Ebussuud Effendi: the jurist behind the "Lawgiver" title — the hard-clue name.
  • Hayreddin Barbarossa: his corsair-admiral; victory at Preveza gave him the Mediterranean.
  • Szigetvar (1566): the siege where he died — a death kept secret by Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man worked with Ebussuud Effendi in order to reconcile the Kanun code with Sha'ria, earning the title Lawgiver.

MID

His most important domestic success was the clarification of the legal code, after numerous contradictory rulings from prior sultans.

GIVEAWAY

This lawgiver was the father of Selim II.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

After forming the "Unholy Alliance" with Francis I, this sultan sent the corsair Hayreddin Barbarossa to patrol European waters.

HARD

The killing of a loyal Baghdad governor by Shah Tahmasp led to this sultan's prolonged war with the Safavids, which was followed by his annexation of Mesopotamia.

HARD

The Mediterranean fell under this sultan's control after his corsair Barbarossa won the Battle of Preveza.

HARD

Despite an overwhelming troop disparity, this sultan's forces failed to capture the island of Malta in 1565.

HARD

This sultan's death was kept secret by Sokollu Mehmed Pasha to maintain troop morale during the siege of Szigetvar.

HARD

This sultan made peace with Shah Tahmasp of the Safavid Empire in the Peace of Amasya and signed another treaty with Francis I to form an "Unholy Alliance" to check the power of the Habsburgs.

MID

When this sultan conquered Rhodes, he forced the Knights Hospitaller to flee to Malta.

MID

One of this sultan's wives, Hurrem, was originally a Ruthenian slave who later became his chief advisor.

MID

This sultan issued the Code of the Rayas to improve the plight of Christians working on Sipahi farms.

MID

This sultan was opposed by Philippe Villiers' Knights Hospitallers in the Siege of Rhodes.

MID

This sultan launched a military intervention to support John Zapolya against his rival Ferdinand I.

MID

The historical "Sultanate of Women" period began due to the influence of this sultan's wife, Roxelana.

GIVEAWAY

Shortly after, this husband of Roxelana supported John Zapolya to lead Hungary after he defeated Louis II at the Battle of Mohacs.

GIVEAWAY

Sultan, called the Magnificent, that ruled over an Ottoman golden age.

GIVEAWAY

This sultan's admiral Piri Reis captured the Portuguese outposts of Muscat and Aden.

GIVEAWAY

Sultan called "the Magnificent" who led the empire to its greatest extent.

GIVEAWAY

This sultan succeeded Selim the Grim and warred with the Safavids under Tahmasp I.

GIVEAWAY

This sultan conquered Belgrade in 1521 and dominated Louis II's army at the Battle of Mohacs, leading to the partition of Hungary, but his advance into Europe was ended in 1529.

Trap

Egypt, the Mamluks, or the caliphate → that's his father Selim I. Rhodes, Mohacs, Vienna 1529, Roxelana, and "Lawgiver" → Suleiman. Two nicknames, one man: "Magnificent" is Europe's name for him, "Lawgiver" (Kanuni) is his empire's.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 75:03 ♫ audio
The Story

the poet-sultan and the hidden corpse

The most powerful man on Earth wrote love poetry under a pen name. As "Muhibbi" — "the lover" — Suleiman filled verses for Hurrem, the Ruthenian slave girl the West called Roxelana: "my springtime, my laughing rose... my Istanbul, my Baghdad." Then he did something sultans simply did not do: he freed her and legally married her. Ottoman sultans had concubines, not empresses; Suleiman rewrote the rule for her, and her influence launched what historians call the Sultanate of Women.

He died the way he had lived — on campaign. In 1566, seventy-one years old and too sick to ride, he was carried to the siege of Szigetvar in Hungary and died in his tent two days before the fortress fell. His grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha understood that an army learning its sultan was dead might dissolve on the spot — so he simply didn't tell them. Orders kept flowing from the imperial tent in the sultan's name while a courier galloped for Selim II.

The secret held for weeks, long enough for the army to march home in good order behind a ruler who was no longer there. It was the perfect Ottoman ending: even dead, the Lawgiver's signature still ran the empire.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block IV

The Ottomans

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — 1453, the date that ends an empire. One date runs this whole block: 1453. Mehmed II, twenty-one years old, drags his ships over a hill, breaks the Theodosian Walls with Orban's monster cannon, and ends eleven centuries of Byzantium. Then drill the split: the same facts can ask for the sultan (Mehmed II), the state (Ottoman Empire), or the city (Istanbul/Constantinople). Make her say which word in the clue decides it.

Beat 2 — Grim father, Magnificent son. Selim the Grim gets eight years and doubles the empire: Chaldiran, Mamluk Egypt, the caliphate. His son Suleiman gets forty-six years and the highlight reel: Rhodes, Mohacs, the gates of Vienna in 1529, Roxelana, and the title Lawgiver. Quiz the split until it's automatic — Egypt is the father, Europe is the son.

Beat 3 — the slave army that owned the empire. Christian boys taken by the devshirme become the Janissaries — the best infantry on Earth, organized around soup kettles, and eventually so powerful they topple sultans by flipping their pots. It ends in 1826 when Mahmud II shells their barracks: the Auspicious Incident. An empire destroying its own elite army is a story she will not forget — let her tell it back.

The board — write these while talking

  • 1453 — Mehmed II takes Constantinople
  • ruler / empire / city — which does the clue want?
  • Orban's cannon vs. the Theodosian Walls
  • 1204 Dandolo vs. 1453 Mehmed — two falls
  • Selim I → Chaldiran, Egypt, caliphate
  • Suleiman → Rhodes, Mohacs, Vienna 1529
  • Roxelana = Hurrem
  • devshirme → Janissaries → Bektashi
  • 1826 — Auspicious Incident
  • "sick man of Europe"

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“These men were known for carrying a large vessel known as the Kazan pot during the communal pilav meal.”
pause… let her buzz → the Janissaries. Food clues mean the corps, never the empire.
“Upon capturing a capital, this sultan proclaimed himself "Caesar" of Rome.”
Mehmed II — "this sultan" plus a captured capital wants the man, not the city or the empire.
“This man worked with Ebussuud Effendi in order to reconcile the Kanun code with Sha'ria, earning the title Lawgiver.”
Suleiman the Magnificent — "Lawgiver" is the home-team nickname; "Magnificent" is Europe's.

The callbacks — end on these

1453: who, what city, and which empire ends?

Mehmed II takes Constantinople; the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire ends.

Egypt, the Mamluks, and the caliphate — Selim or Suleiman?

Selim I the Grim. Suleiman gets Rhodes, Mohacs, Vienna 1529, and Roxelana.

What happened in 1826?

The Auspicious Incident — Mahmud II destroyed the Janissaries, with the Sipahis helping.

Two sacks of Constantinople — years and attackers?

1204, the Fourth Crusade under blind doge Enrico Dandolo; 1453, Mehmed II.

What is the devshirme?

The "blood tax" — the levy of Christian boys who were converted, trained, and made Janissaries.

Block V of VIII

Safavids & Persia

3 cards

Block V · Card 1 of 3

The Safavid Empire

What: Shia gunpowder empire of Iran  ·  When: 1501–1736  ·  Where: Iran (Tabriz → Qazvin → Isfahan)

The dynasty that made Iran Twelver Shia — a conversion still shaping the world five centuries later.

Overview
  • Founding: Ismail I defeated the White Sheep (Aq Qoyunlu), entered Tabriz in 1501, and proclaimed himself shah at about fourteen.
  • Religion: Forced Iran's conversion from Sunni to Twelver Shia Islam — the state religion, enforced empire-wide.
  • Rivalry: Fought the Ottomans for two centuries: crushed at Chaldiran (1514), borders settled at the Peace of Amasya (1555).
  • Peak: Abbas the Great rebuilt the army, took back the lost lands, and moved the capital to Isfahan.
  • Fall: Afghan Hotaki rebels won at Gulnabad and took Isfahan in 1722; Nader Shah formally ended the dynasty in 1736.
Key terms
  • Qizilbash: "red-head" Turkoman warriors who fought for Ismail with messianic devotion.
  • Battle of Chaldiran (1514): Selim the Grim's cannon and muskets shattered the Qizilbash cavalry — gunpowder's loudest lesson.
  • Twelver Shia: the branch of Islam they made Iran's state religion — the empire's deepest legacy.
  • Peace of Amasya (1555): first Ottoman–Safavid border treaty; the Safavids kept Tabriz.
  • Hotaki dynasty: Afghan rebels whose revolt — sparked by the assassination of governor Gurgin Khan — brought the empire down.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Petrus de Monte Libano acted as a courier between this empire and the Habsburgs in an attempt to weaken Suleiman the Magnificent through coordinated warfare.

MID

This dynasty lost territory after the Treaty of Amasya, but regained much of it due to the military efforts of Abbas the Great.

GIVEAWAY

The first ruler of this country became an alcoholic after losing the Battle of Chaldiran.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This empire used the lion and sun to represent the state and religion as the pillars of society, symbols whose use continued under future dynasties such as the Afsharids and the Qajars.

HARD

This empire began after the defeat of the White Sheep by a man who commanded the Qizilbash warriors; that leader proclaimed his rule when he entered Tabriz.

HARD

A ruler of this empire forced his Armenian citizens to march from Jugha to Isfahan, resulting in the creation of New Julfa.

HARD

Although the Shirley brothers helped modernize this empire's army, its troops suffered a defeat against the Hotaki Empire at the Battle of Gulnabad.

HARD

This empire, which mass-converted from Sunni to Shia, was first led by Ismail I, who temporarily lost its capital of Tabriz.

HARD

They're not Bulgars, but after this empire won the Battle of Merv, its first ruler had his enemy's skull fashioned into a drinking goblet.

HARD

This empire held its centers of government at Qazvin and Tabriz, and its rulers included Ismail the First and Abbas the Great.

MID

Shamakhi was sacked by Sunni rebels angered by this empire's conversion to Shia Islam, late in Sultan Husayn's reign.

MID

This empire faced a rebellion by the Hotak dynasty after its governor, Gurgin Khan, was assassinated.

MID

Another ruler of this empire moved its capital to Esfahan and recovered parts of Mesopotamia from the Ottoman Empire.

MID

A ruler of this empire ordered Ketevan the Martyr's execution after she refused to renounce Christianity.

MID

The Kakheti kingdom, led by its ruler Teimuraz I, revolted against this empire during the Bakhtrioni uprising.

MID

Persian dynasty against which Suleiman the Magnificent conducted a prolonged campaign and later negotiated the Peace of Amasya.

MID

The penultimate ruler of this empire abdicated the throne to his infant son after a disastrous campaign in the Caucasus.

GIVEAWAY

This empire retained control of Tabriz in the Peace of Amasya.

GIVEAWAY

Iranian dynasty that Peter the Great fought in 1722–23; it collapsed a decade later.

GIVEAWAY

One ruler of this empire had King Luarsab II executed after he refused to convert to Islam.

GIVEAWAY

Selim the Grim greatly outnumbered the Qizilbash forces of this empire at the Battle of Chaldiran.

GIVEAWAY

This empire lost the Battle of Chaldiran, starting a long series of wars with its western neighbor.

GIVEAWAY

Ismail I founded this early rival to the Ottoman Empire, an Iranian dynasty that collapsed in 1736.

GIVEAWAY

This empire established the Twelver school of Shia Islam as the state religion.

Trap

Chaldiran clues name two empires: the Safavids LOST it — Selim the Grim's Ottomans won. And "made Iran Shia" → the Safavids under Ismail I, not the Iranian Revolution; 1979 is the modern echo, 1501 is the answer here.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 79:17 ♫ audio
The Story

the boy-king and the skull goblet

Ismail spent his childhood in hiding — his family hunted, his brothers killed — and came out of it at twelve leading an army. His Qizilbash warriors believed he was more than a king: some charged into battle without armor, certain his blessing made them invulnerable. By fourteen he had taken Tabriz and crowned himself shah; soon after, he decreed that his empire would be Twelver Shia. Iran still is.

He could be terrifying in victory. After crushing the Uzbek khan Muhammad Shaybani at Merv in 1510, Ismail had the man's skull set in gold and used it as a drinking goblet — a message every rival understood without translation.

Then came Chaldiran, 1514. Selim the Grim brought cannon and musket-armed Janissaries; Ismail brought faith and cavalry. Faith lost. Ismail escaped, but the aura of invincibility died on that field — he never led an army again, sank into drink, and was dead by thirty-six. The empire survived him, though, and so did the lesson: this is why historians file the Safavids with the Ottomans and Mughals as a "gunpowder empire."

Block V · Card 2 of 3

Shah Abbas I

What: Greatest Safavid shah  ·  When: r. 1588–1629  ·  Where: Iran; capital Isfahan

Inherited a collapsing empire as a teenager and rebuilt it into its golden age — with a capital so grand Persians called it half the world.

Overview
  • New capital: Moved the court from Qazvin to Isfahan — Naqsh-e Jahan Square, blue-tiled mosques, and the proverb "Isfahan is half the world."
  • New army: Broke Qizilbash power with ghulams — converted Georgian, Armenian, and Circassian slave-soldiers loyal to him alone; the English Shirley brothers added modern artillery.
  • Reconquest: In a 1603 war he took back from the Ottomans the land Tahmasp I had conceded, and fought Jahangir's Mughals over Kandahar.
  • Trade: Resettled Armenian silk merchants at New Julfa outside Isfahan; with English ships, drove the Portuguese from Hormuz in 1622.
Key terms
  • Isfahan: his showpiece capital — "nesf-e jahan," half the world.
  • ghulams: the slave-soldier corps that replaced the unruly Qizilbash.
  • Shirley brothers: English adventurers Anthony and Robert, army reformers at his court.
  • New Julfa: the Armenian quarter he built to run the silk trade.
  • Kandahar: the frontier city he and the Mughal emperor Jahangir fought over.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

William Baffin died on an expedition this ruler ordered, which led to a threat by the Duke of Buckingham to sue the English East India Company.

MID

In 1620, war between this ruler and Jahangir occurred over the city of Kandahar.

GIVEAWAY

This ruler moved his capital from Qazvin to Isfahan.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

In a 1603 war against the Ottoman Empire, this Persian ruler regained land lost by Tahmasp I in the Treaty of Amasya.

MID

The Shirley brothers helped reform the army of this shah, who reduced the power of the Qizilbash.

GIVEAWAY

This shah built a new capital and resettled Armenian people there to stimulate the silk trade.

Trap

Founder clues — Chaldiran, the skull goblet, Qizilbash devotion — want Ismail I. Rebuilder clues — Isfahan, ghulams, Shirley brothers — want Abbas. And Jahangir or Kandahar in the clue still means Abbas, not a Mughal answer.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 83:35 ♫ audio
The Story

half the world, at a price

Abbas took the throne at sixteen with the empire in pieces — Ottomans holding the west, Uzbeks the east, and the Qizilbash chiefs who had made the dynasty now acting like they owned it. He signed a humiliating peace to buy time, then quietly built an army that answered to nobody but him: the ghulams, enslaved Georgian and Armenian converts, drilled with modern cannon the English Shirley brothers helped supply. Then he took everything back.

His masterpiece was a city. He moved the capital to Isfahan and built it almost from scratch — the vast Naqsh-e Jahan Square, mosques sheathed in blue tile, an Armenian merchant quarter at New Julfa running the silk trade to Europe. Persians coined a rhyme for it: Isfahan nesf-e jahan — "Isfahan is half the world."

But Abbas had taken power by deposing his own father, and he never forgot how thrones change hands. He grew so afraid of his heirs that he had his eldest son killed and two others blinded, leaving the empire to a grandson. The man who rebuilt half the world destroyed the half that was his own family — and the dynasty never produced another ruler like him.

Block V · Card 3 of 3

Nader Shah

What: Last great Persian conqueror  ·  When: r. 1736–1747  ·  Where: Iran; founded the Afsharid dynasty

The "Napoleon of Persia" — drove out the Afghans, dethroned the Safavids, and came home from Delhi with the Peacock Throne.

Overview
  • Rise: A Turkoman soldier of the Afshar tribe who became the general who expelled the Hotaki Afghans and restored Persia.
  • Crown: Pushed aside the last Safavids and took the throne himself in 1736, founding the short-lived Afsharid dynasty.
  • India: Crushed the Mughals at Karnal (1739) and sacked Delhi — hauling home the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond; the loot let him cancel Persia's taxes for three years.
  • End: Grew violently paranoid — he had his own son blinded — and was assassinated by his own officers in 1747; his empire broke apart at once.
Key terms
  • Afsharid dynasty: his short-lived house — the name in nearly every hard clue.
  • Battle of Karnal (1739): where he shattered Muhammad Shah's much larger Mughal army in a few hours.
  • Peacock Throne: the jeweled Mughal throne he carried off — later the very symbol of Iran's monarchy.
  • Koh-i-Noor: "Mountain of Light," the great diamond taken at Delhi — today among the British crown jewels.
  • Hotaki Afghans: the occupiers he drove out of Persia to make his name.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Afsharid leader who caused the collapse of the Safavid Empire and sacked Delhi.

MID

This ruler founded the short-lived Afsharid dynasty after driving the Afghans from Persia.

GIVEAWAY

This Persian conqueror carried the Peacock Throne home from his sack of Delhi.

Trap

Two conquerors sacked Delhi out of the west: Timur in 1398, Nader Shah in 1739. Peacock Throne or Koh-i-Noor → Nader. Tamerlane, towers of skulls, or Samarkand → Timur.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 85:03 ♫ audio
The Story

the most expensive rumor in Delhi

In 1739 Nader met the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah's enormous army at Karnal and broke it in a few hours. He entered Delhi less as a destroyer than as a collector — until a rumor raced through the city that Nader had been killed, and crowds began attacking Persian soldiers. The next morning Nader ordered his troops loose. By nightfall tens of thousands of Delhi's people were dead. It is one of the darkest single days in the city's long history, and it happened over a rumor that wasn't true.

Then came the bill. Nader left with the Peacock Throne itself, the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-ye Noor diamonds, and a treasure caravan so vast that he canceled all taxes in Persia for three years. One legend claims he got the Koh-i-Noor by inviting the defeated emperor to swap turbans — an honor no host could refuse — having heard the diamond was hidden in the folds.

The loot bought him no peace. Nader grew crueler and more suspicious each year, had his own son Reza Qoli blinded after an assassination attempt, and in 1747 was killed in his tent by officers of his own guard. The "Napoleon of Persia" is often called the last of the great Asian conquerors — and his dynasty, the Afsharids, barely outlived him.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block V

Safavids & Persia

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — A teenage messiah makes Iran Shia. A boy who grew up in hiding takes Tabriz at fourteen, and his Qizilbash warriors think he can't be killed. Ismail I converts all Iran to Twelver Shia Islam — the single most consequential fact on these cards, because Iran is still Shia today. Then Chaldiran, 1514: Selim the Grim's cannon versus faith and cavalry. (Ask her which side she'd bet on — then tell her Ismail never commanded a battle again.)

Beat 2 — Abbas rebuilds with slaves, silk, and a city. A century later Abbas the Great inherits the wreckage at sixteen. He replaces the unruly Qizilbash with ghulam slave-soldiers loyal only to him, lets the English Shirley brothers modernize his cannon, wins back everything — and builds Isfahan so magnificently that Persians rhyme it into "half the world."

Beat 3 — Collapse, and the last conqueror. Afghan rebels win at Gulnabad and take Isfahan in 1722; even Peter the Great grabs a piece. Out of the chaos rises Nader Shah, who evicts the Afghans, crowns himself in 1736, and sacks Delhi in 1739 — the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor go home with him, and Persia skips taxes for three years. Then his own guards kill him. Empire: 1501–1736. Conqueror: gone by 1747.

The board — write these while talking

  • Ismail I — Qizilbash, Tabriz 1501
  • Twelver Shia = state religion (why Iran is Shia)
  • Chaldiran 1514 — Ottoman cannon win
  • Selim the Grim beat them
  • Peace of Amasya 1555 — kept Tabriz
  • Abbas: Qazvin → Isfahan
  • "Isfahan is half the world"
  • Shirley brothers + ghulams
  • 1722 Gulnabad — Afghans take Isfahan
  • Nader Shah — Delhi 1739, Peacock Throne

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“They're not Bulgars, but after this empire won the Battle of Merv, its first ruler had his enemy's skull fashioned into a drinking goblet.”
the Safavid Empire — the skull cup is Ismail I beating Shaybani Khan
“The Shirley brothers helped reform the army of this shah, who reduced the power of the Qizilbash.”
Shah Abbas I — Shirleys + clipping the Qizilbash is his signature
“This ruler founded the short-lived Afsharid dynasty after driving the Afghans from Persia.”
Nader Shah — Afsharid is practically his last name in clues

The callbacks — end on these

Who won Chaldiran, and why?

The Ottomans under Selim the Grim — cannon and Janissary muskets beat Qizilbash cavalry.

Why is Iran Shia today?

Ismail I made Twelver Shia the Safavid state religion after taking Tabriz in 1501.

Ismail or Abbas — how do you split the clues?

Founding, Chaldiran, skull goblet → Ismail I. Isfahan, ghulams, Shirley brothers → Abbas.

Two sackers of Delhi — how do you tell them apart?

Timur, 1398, towers of skulls. Nader Shah, 1739, Peacock Throne + Koh-i-Noor.

What actually ended the Safavids?

The Afghan Hotaki revolt — Gulnabad and the fall of Isfahan in 1722 — then Nader Shah took the crown himself in 1736.

Block VI of VIII

The Long Nineteenth Century

4 cards

Block VI · Card 1 of 4

Muhammad Ali Pasha

What: Founder of modern Egypt  ·  When: r. 1805–1848  ·  Where: Egypt, under nominal Ottoman rule

An Albanian soldier who seized Egypt after Napoleon left, wiped out the Mamluks in one morning, and founded a dynasty that lasted until Nasser.

Overview
  • Rise: Arrived with an Ottoman force after the French withdrawal; by 1805 he was governor of Egypt in name — and its master in fact.
  • Massacre: March 1811: invited the Mamluk leadership to the Cairo Citadel and had them slaughtered, ending six centuries of Mamluk power.
  • Modernization: Built a European-drilled army (Napoleonic veteran Joseph Seve trained officers at Aswan), a state cotton industry, and new schools — including hakima female medics under French doctor Antoine Clot.
  • Wars: Fought FOR the sultan in Greece — losing the fleet at Navarino (1827) with his son Ibrahim — then AGAINST the sultan when denied Syria; only the European powers stopped him.
  • Dynasty: Won hereditary rule; his line's khedives and kings governed Egypt until Nasser's 1952 revolution.
Key terms
  • Cairo Citadel: site of the 1811 massacre — the buzz-word for his seizure of power.
  • Mamluks: the old military caste he destroyed.
  • Ibrahim Pasha: his son and best general — Greece, Syria, Navarino.
  • Joseph Seve (Suleiman Pasha): French veteran who converted to Islam and drilled the new army.
  • Antoine Clot ("Clot Bey"): French physician who founded his medical school and the hakima program.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Napoleonic veteran Joseph Seve converted to Islam and joined this ruler's retinue to develop a new soldiers' school in Aswan.

MID

Following a French withdrawal from one region, this Albanian and his European mercenaries decimated the Mamluks in a massacre at Cairo Citadel.

GIVEAWAY

This man, who lost the Battle of Navarino with his son Ibrahim, later went to war with his former overlord after they refused to cede Syria to him.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This ruler, who murdered the Mamluks in the Cairo Citadel to consolidate power, founded a dynasty that was ended by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

MID

This ruler planned to train female doctors called hakimas by hiring French physician Antoine Clot.

GIVEAWAY

Khedive who founded modern Egypt out of the Ottoman Empire.

Trap

He switched sides: at Navarino (1827) he lost fighting FOR the Ottomans; in the Syrian wars he fought AGAINST them. "Albanian" + Egypt is the instant tell — and if the clue turns on his dynasty's END, the answer being fished for may be Nasser.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 86:06 ♫ audio
The Story

one invitation, one exit

On March 1, 1811, Muhammad Ali threw a celebration at the Cairo Citadel for his son's departure on campaign, and invited the Mamluk beys — the warrior caste that had really run Egypt for some six hundred years. Around 470 of them came in their finest dress. When the ceremonies ended, they rode in procession down the Citadel's narrow, high-walled passage toward the gate. The gate was locked. Soldiers appeared along the tops of the walls and fired down into the corridor until it was over.

The legend goes that a single bey escaped by spurring his horse off the ramparts and riding away into the desert. Everyone else who mattered in Mamluk Egypt died in that lane. Napoleon himself had beaten the Mamluks in battle but couldn't uproot them; Muhammad Ali finished them with one invitation.

On the cleared ground he built a new Egypt: a conscript army drilled by ex-Napoleonic officers, cotton mills, students sent to Paris, hospitals, printing presses — and a family business. His heirs, the khedives and kings of Egypt, held power until 1952, when an army officer named Gamal Abdel Nasser ended the dynasty. Modern Egypt begins, uncomfortably, at that locked gate.

Block VI · Card 2 of 4

The Suez Canal

What: Mediterranean–Red Sea ship canal  ·  When: built 1859–1869  ·  Where: Isthmus of Suez, Egypt

De Lesseps's sea-level shortcut between Europe and Asia — so strategically precious it kept starting crises for a century.

Overview
  • Construction: Ferdinand de Lesseps's Suez Canal Company dug it in ten years, at first with forced Egyptian labor; opened November 1869.
  • Geography: Runs from Port Said on the Mediterranean to Port Tewfik at Suez on the Red Sea — sea-level, no locks, passing through the Great Bitter Lake.
  • Britain buys in: 1875: Prime Minister Disraeli bought the bankrupt khedive's shares with a Rothschild loan — the "lifeline of empire" to India; Britain occupied Egypt itself in 1882.
  • Crises: Nasser nationalized it in 1956 (the Suez Crisis — a separate card); it closed 1967–75 after the Six-Day War, trapping the "Yellow Fleet"; the container ship Ever Given jammed it in 2021.
Key terms
  • Ferdinand de Lesseps: the French diplomat-promoter who built it — and later failed spectacularly at Panama.
  • Port Said / Port Tewfik: the two ends — a pure-geography giveaway pair.
  • Disraeli's share purchase (1875): four million pounds, borrowed overnight from the Rothschilds.
  • Yellow Fleet: fourteen ships trapped in the Great Bitter Lake for eight years, named for the desert dust that coated them.
  • Ever Given: the 2021 blockage that snarled world trade for six days.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Because of the dust they accumulated, a fleet of ships trapped by the closure of this waterway became known as the "Yellow Fleet." Anthony Eden was forced to resign after authorizing a paratrooper attack on this waterway.

MID

The Newport controversially slipped past the Aigle, taking the record of being the first vessel to pass through this waterway.

GIVEAWAY

Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized this Egyptian waterway that links the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

More clues the game has asked
MID

At this canal's opening ceremony, George Nares's Newport controversially surged past the imperial Eagle.

MID

Egyptian waterway targeted by France, Israel, and Great Britain in a 1956 crisis.

GIVEAWAY

The building of this canal created the Great Bitter Lake, where the Yellow Fleet was trapped after the Six-Day War.

GIVEAWAY

Canal obstructed in March 2021 by the barge Ever Given.

GIVEAWAY

This canal runs from Port Tewfik to Port Said.

GIVEAWAY

Plans for this waterway to change hands were made during the Protocol of Sevres.

These say "this event" / "this crisis" — they want the Suez Crisis of 1956 (its own card), not the canal:

HARD

This event was planned by Maurice Challe and Albert Gazier, who met with a Prime Minister at Chequers.

HARD

The Protocol of Sevres was a response to this crisis, which was caused in part by a withdrawal of funding by John Foster Dulles.

MID

During this event, Charles Keightley commanded an invasion in Operation Musketeer.

MID

The failure of the Franco-British intervention in this crisis led to the resignation of Anthony Eden.

Trap

Listen for the noun. "This waterway / canal" → Suez Canal. "This event / crisis" — Operation Musketeer, Chequers, Eden's resignation as the point of the clue → Suez Crisis. Same story, two different answers.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 87:48 ♫ audio
The Story

four million pounds before breakfast

In November 1875, Britain's prime minister Benjamin Disraeli got word that the Khedive of Egypt was broke and quietly selling his shares in the Suez Canal — nearly half the company. France might snap them up. Parliament was not in session, so there was no legal way to raise the money fast. Disraeli sent his secretary to Lionel de Rothschild. The story goes that Rothschild, mid-snack, asked "What is your security?" — "The British Government." — "You shall have it." Four million pounds, overnight, on a handshake.

Disraeli's note to Queen Victoria the next day is one of history's great victory laps: "It is settled; you have it, Madam." With those shares, the route to India ran through a canal Britain part-owned — which is much of why Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, and why, when Nasser nationalized the canal in 1956, London reacted as if a limb had been amputated.

The canal has never stopped generating stories. When the Six-Day War closed it in 1967, fourteen cargo ships were trapped inside for eight years — the dust-caked "Yellow Fleet," whose stranded crews formed their own little society, complete with hand-made postage stamps and, in 1968, their own Olympic games. And in 2021 one wedged container ship, the Ever Given, held up billions in world trade. When this ditch hiccups, the planet notices.

Block VI · Card 3 of 4

The Armenian Genocide

What: Ottoman destruction of the Armenians  ·  When: 1915–1923  ·  Where: Ottoman Empire; deportations into the Syrian desert

The systematic killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government — the crime for which the word "genocide" was coined.

Overview
  • Perpetrators: The Young Turk government — the Committee of Union and Progress, led by the "Three Pashas": Talaat, Enver, and Cemal.
  • How it happened: Began with the arrest of Armenian leaders in Constantinople on April 24, 1915; the Tehcir Law authorized mass deportations — death marches toward Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian desert.
  • The word: Lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined "genocide" in 1944 with the Armenian case and the Holocaust foremost in his mind.
  • Aftermath: Operation Nemesis assassinated Talaat (Berlin, 1921) and Cemal; Turkey officially denies the genocide to this day, and its Article 301 has been used to prosecute those who name it.
Key terms
  • Talaat Pasha: interior minister and chief organizer; assassinated in Berlin, 1921.
  • Tehcir Law (1915): the deportation law that set the death marches in motion.
  • Deir ez-Zor: the desert terminus of the marches — for Armenians, a name of mourning.
  • Soghomon Tehlirian: Talaat's assassin; a Berlin jury acquitted him after survivors testified.
  • Raphael Lemkin: the jurist who coined the word "genocide," partly from this crime.
  • Musa Dagh: the mountain where villagers resisted deportation and were rescued by sea.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

After a leader of this genocide was shot, his assassin declared that "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer"; the courts eventually found Soghomon Tehlirian not guilty of that killing in Berlin.

MID

Operation Nemesis was a retaliatory mission for this event, targeting the Three Pashas and successfully assassinating both Mehmed Talaat Pasha and Cemal Pasha.

GIVEAWAY

Many victims were killed near Lake Van during this event, which was organized by Enver Pasha.

More clues the game has asked
MID

Uruguayan artist Nerses Ounanian designed a memorial for this genocide.

MID

This genocide, which led Raphael Lemkin to coin a new term, started after the passage of the Tehcir Law.

MID

Operation Nemesis sought to assassinate Djemal and Talaat for this genocide, after the two pashas marched their victims to Deir ez-Zor.

GIVEAWAY

The Ottomans perpetrated this genocide against a Christian Caucasian ethnic group.

GIVEAWAY

A certain country's Article 301 forbids any mention of this genocide.

GIVEAWAY

Ethnic cleansing carried out by Turkey in the early 20th century.

These two ask for the Armenian people themselves — "this ethnic group" — not the event:

HARD

After a 1915 incident in the Anatolian city of Van, some leaders of this ethnic group were killed, leading to a genocide that may have murdered one and a half million people.

HARD

People of this ethnic group in Western Asia adopted Christianity in the year 301 and claim to be the world's oldest kingdom to become Christian.

And this one means the Young Turks / Committee of Union and Progress — the movement that later carried out the genocide:

HARD

This movement forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to revive the parliamentary period in 1908, shortly after this entity organized the Committee of Union and Progress.

Trap

Three different answers hide in these clues: the event ("this genocide"), the people ("this ethnic group" — the Armenians, Christian since 301 AD), and the perpetrator organization (the Young Turks / Committee of Union and Progress). Match the pronoun before you buzz.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 90:38 ♫ audio
The Story

the mountain that faced the sea

In the summer of 1915, the deportation order reached six Armenian villages at the foot of Musa Dagh — the "Mountain of Moses" — near the Mediterranean coast. The villagers understood what deportation meant. About four thousand of them climbed the mountain instead, carrying whatever rifles and farm tools they had, and dug in.

They held the mountain for over seven weeks against repeated Ottoman assaults. Facing the water, they raised two enormous banners sewn from sheets — one a red cross, the other reading "CHRISTIANS IN DISTRESS: RESCUE." A French cruiser, the Guichen, spotted them, and in September French and Allied warships took more than four thousand people off the beaches and carried them to safety in Port Said.

In 1933, Franz Werfel told their story in the novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Nazi Germany banned it almost at once — and during the Holocaust, copies were passed hand to hand in the ghettos, read as proof that resistance was possible and that rescue could come. The survivors of one genocide became teachers to the victims of the next. That is why this history is kept: so the watching, and the rescuing, come sooner.

Block VI · Card 4 of 4

Ataturk

What: Founder of the Turkish Republic  ·  When: 1881–1938; president 1923–38  ·  Where: Turkey; capital Ankara

The hero of Gallipoli who tore up the Treaty of Sevres, ended the Ottoman Empire, and rebuilt Turkey as a secular republic — down to its alphabet.

Overview
  • Soldier: Held Gallipoli in 1915 ("I do not order you to fight, I order you to die"); later stopped the Greeks at Sakarya and retook Smyrna in 1922.
  • Diplomat: Rejected the harsh Treaty of Sevres; his Armistice of Mudanya helped topple Lloyd George, and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) won Turkey its borders.
  • Republic: First president from 1923, governing from the new capital Ankara; abolished the sultanate, then the caliphate and sharia courts in 1924.
  • Reformer: The "Six Arrows" of Kemalism: banned the fez, gave women the vote, and replaced Arabic script with a Latin alphabet — with education advice from John Dewey.
  • Name: The 1934 surname law gave him "Ataturk" — "Father of the Turks" — a name reserved for him alone.
Key terms
  • Gallipoli (1915): the defense that made him a national hero.
  • Sevres vs. Lausanne: the partition treaty he rejected vs. the peace he won — the classic clue pair.
  • Six Arrows: the six principles of Kemalism — secularism, nationalism, republicanism among them.
  • Ankara: his new inland capital, replacing Istanbul.
  • Nutuk: his 36-hour speech, delivered over six days, narrating 1919–1923.
  • Chanak Crisis (1922): the standoff with Britain that helped bring down Lloyd George.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man motivated his soldiers by telling them, "I do not order you to fight, I order you to die" during a defense of his homeland.

MID

This man forced the Armistice of Mudanya upon his enemies, triggering the downfall of David Lloyd George's government.

GIVEAWAY

As part of "Six Arrows" ideology, this leader banned the fez.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Although partnered with Erich von Falkenhayn, this man failed to stop Edmund Allenby from capturing Jerusalem.

HARD

This man led a national movement that rejected the Treaty of Sevres' harsh borders and negotiated the Treaty of Lausanne.

HARD

This man, who invited John Dewey to reform his nation's education system, extended voting rights to women and forced Greeks and Armenians to take on new last names.

HARD

This man introduced the phrase "Peace at Home, Peace in the World," which became part of his country's foreign policy.

HARD

This reformer developed the Six Arrows and changed his language's script to Latin from the previously used Perso-Arabic amalgam used by the Ottoman Empire.

HARD

John Dewey assisted this man's educational reforms, including the introduction of a modified Latin alphabet to replace Arabic script.

HARD

After his country's borders were confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne, his political reforms, including the abolishment of sharia courts and the caliphate in 1924, created a democratic and secular republic with a new capital, Ankara.

HARD

Anger over the Treaty of Sevres prompted this man to lead a war of independence, leading his country to be recognized in the Treaty of Lausanne.

HARD

This man's policy ran on the ideas of "peace at home, peace in the world," though his troops almost prompted war with Great Britain in the Chanak Crisis.

MID

This man's demand for control of Asia Minor triggered the Chanak Crisis, which followed the conquest of Smyrna.

MID

This developer of Sun Language Theory gave the Kastamonu Speech while wearing a Panama hat.

MID

This man at the Battle of Sakarya halted Greek plans to recover the Ionian coast.

MID

This man took 36 hours over six days to give the Nutuk speech, explaining events in his country from 1919 to 1923.

MID

While president, this reformer published articles anonymously in the Ileri newspaper to promote nationalism.

MID

He founded the Republic of Turkey after World War I and gave himself a name meaning "father of the Turks."

MID

This man developed the Sun Language Theory, which stated that all languages came from Central Asia.

MID

The Ottoman Empire was formally ended by this reformer, the first president of the Republic of Turkey.

MID

This man hired John Dewey to increase literacy rates by latinizing his country's alphabet.

MID

The Sheikh Said rebellion, the first major Kurdish revolt, occurred during this man's administration.

GIVEAWAY

This man resisted a post-World War I partition of his country while based out of Ankara.

GIVEAWAY

Founding father of Turkey, who became its first president in 1923.

GIVEAWAY

The banning of the fez was a reform instituted by this founder of modern Turkey.

GIVEAWAY

Leader of Turkish modernization, who served as its first president.

GIVEAWAY

This man's reforms included abolishing the caliphate and banning the fez.

GIVEAWAY

Years after he won at Gallipoli, this man established a new capital at Ankara.

GIVEAWAY

In 1925, this man put down Sheikh Said's Islamist Kurdish revolt.

GIVEAWAY

First president of the modern republic, who championed a secularist ideology.

GIVEAWAY

This man devised the Six Arrows to distinguish his people from the Ottomans.

GIVEAWAY

Establishing a national capital at Ankara, this man was the "Father of the Turks."

Trap

Sevres vs. Lausanne: Sevres is the treaty he REJECTED, Lausanne the one he WON — reversing them is the classic miss. And a Gallipoli clue can want the battle or the man; "I order you to die" → the man.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 93:07 ♫ audio
The Story

the president with a blackboard

At Gallipoli, the story goes, a piece of shrapnel struck Mustafa Kemal square in the chest — and was stopped by the pocket watch he carried there. True or polished in the retelling, the legend stuck because it fit: history seemed unable to get rid of him. He survived the empire's collapse too, refused the Treaty of Sevres that carved Turkey up, won a war of independence, and by 1923 was president of a republic that had not existed five years earlier.

His strangest battlefield was the alphabet. Ottoman Turkish was written in a Perso-Arabic script that fit the language badly, and only about one person in ten could read. When experts said switching to Latin letters would take years, he gave the country months — then toured Anatolia with a blackboard and chalk, standing in town squares personally teaching farmers and shopkeepers their new letters, like a traveling schoolmaster. The state formally named him Head Teacher of the Nation. Literacy climbed steeply from there.

In 1934 came the surname law: every Turk had to adopt a family name. Parliament chose his for him — Ataturk, "Father of the Turks" — and barred anyone else from ever bearing it. He had abolished an empire, a caliphate, an alphabet, and a hat; in exchange he got a name no one else is allowed to wear.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block VI

The Long Nineteenth Century

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — An Albanian invents modern Egypt. After Napoleon's army leaves Egypt, an Albanian officer named Muhammad Ali takes over — and in 1811 removes the old Mamluk ruling caste with one locked gate at the Cairo Citadel. He builds a European-style army, cotton mills, and schools, fights for the sultan and then against him, and founds a dynasty that rules until Nasser in 1952. (Ask her: who finally beat the Mamluks — Napoleon, or an invitation?)

Beat 2 — A ditch becomes the hinge of empire. De Lesseps opens the Suez Canal in 1869 — Port Said to Port Tewfik, no locks — and in 1875 Disraeli buys the khedive's shares overnight with Rothschild money: "You have it, Madam." The route to India now runs through Egypt, which is why Britain moves in by 1882 and why 1956 will explode. Plant the flag now: the canal is the WATERWAY; the 1956 CRISIS is a different card and a different answer.

Beat 3 — The empire dies; a republic is born. World War I kills the Ottoman Empire, and in its dying years its Young Turk rulers commit the Armenian Genocide — up to 1.5 million people; deliver this plainly and with weight, no lightness: it is the crime the word 'genocide' was invented for. Out of the same war comes Gallipoli's hero, Mustafa Kemal, who rejects Sevres, wins Lausanne, abolishes the caliphate, changes the alphabet, and becomes Ataturk — Father of the Turks.

The board — write these while talking

  • Muhammad Ali — Albanian, Citadel 1811
  • his dynasty ends with Nasser, 1952
  • Suez Canal: Port Said ↔ Port Tewfik, 1869
  • Disraeli buys the shares, 1875
  • canal ("waterway") ≠ Suez Crisis (1956 "event")
  • Armenian Genocide — 1915, Tehcir Law, Deir ez-Zor
  • "genocide" coined by Lemkin for it
  • Ataturk: Gallipoli → Republic, 1923
  • Sevres rejected → Lausanne won
  • caliphate abolished 1924; Latin alphabet 1928

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“Following a French withdrawal from one region, this Albanian and his European mercenaries decimated the Mamluks in a massacre at Cairo Citadel.”
Muhammad Ali Pasha — "Albanian" + Egypt is the reflex buzz
“Because of the dust they accumulated, a fleet of ships trapped by the closure of this waterway became known as the "Yellow Fleet."”
the Suez Canal — "this waterway" means the canal, even inside crisis stories
“This man motivated his soldiers by telling them, "I do not order you to fight, I order you to die" during a defense of his homeland.”
Ataturk — the Gallipoli order is his signature quote

The callbacks — end on these

"This waterway" vs. "this crisis" — what's the difference?

Waterway → the Suez Canal. The 1956 event (Musketeer, Chequers, Eden resigning) → the Suez Crisis, a separate answer.

Who massacred the Mamluks, and who ended his dynasty?

Muhammad Ali, at the Cairo Citadel in 1811; Nasser's 1952 revolution ended his line.

Sevres or Lausanne?

Sevres is the harsh partition Ataturk rejected; Lausanne (1923) is the treaty that recognized his Turkey.

Where does the word "genocide" come from?

Raphael Lemkin coined it in 1944, with the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust foremost in mind.

What happened to Talaat Pasha?

Assassinated in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehlirian, during Operation Nemesis — and a Berlin jury acquitted Tehlirian.

Block VII of VIII

Israel & Its Wars

10 cards

Block VII · Card 1 of 10

The Balfour Declaration

What: Britain's Jewish-homeland promise  ·  When: November 2, 1917  ·  Where: London, about Palestine

Sixty-seven words from Britain's Foreign Office that set the whole century of this block in motion.

Overview
  • Form: a short public letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, for Britain's Zionist Federation.
  • Promise: British support for "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine — with a caveat protecting the rights of existing non-Jewish communities.
  • Context: issued mid-World War I, while Britain was fighting the Ottoman Empire, which still ruled Palestine.
  • Reversal: the 1939 MacDonald White Paper walked the promise back, capping Jewish immigration on the eve of WWII.
Key terms
  • Chaim Weizmann: chemist and Zionist leader who lobbied for it; later Israel's first president.
  • Lord Rothschild: the addressee — "letter to Rothschild" is the giveaway phrasing.
  • MacDonald White Paper: the 1939 repudiation; instant hard-clue link.
  • Leo Amery / Lord Milner: War Cabinet figures sometimes credited as the real drafters.
  • Uganda Scheme: the earlier, rejected offer of East African land — comes up in the Weizmann meeting clue.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

1917 statement from the UK Foreign Secretary that announced British support for the creation of Israel.

MID

This document's creation was influenced by a meeting between its namesake and Chaim Weizmann, in which Uganda was offered as a solution to the "Jewish Question."

GIVEAWAY

A 1917 letter from Britain's foreign secretary promised a Jewish national home in Palestine — this document.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Leo Amery and Lord Milner are sometimes proposed as authors of this document instead of its namesake, whose prime ministership saw the signing of the Entente Cordiale.

MID

This declaration, issued in 1917 on behalf of the British Foreign Office, called for the establishment of a Jewish state.

GIVEAWAY

The MacDonald White Paper repudiated the goal set forth in this document.

Trap

Two WWI British commitments about the same land: Sykes-Picot (1916) is the secret carve-up with France; Balfour (1917) is the public letter to Rothschild promising a "national home." Also note it promised a home, not yet a state — and Balfour was Foreign Secretary in 1917; his premiership (Entente Cordiale) was a decade earlier.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 97:47 ♫ audio
The Story

when London was a marsh

In 1906, Arthur Balfour asked the chemist Chaim Weizmann why Jews wouldn't just accept Britain's offer of territory in East Africa — the "Uganda Scheme." Weizmann answered with a question: "Mr. Balfour, supposing I were to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?" Balfour, puzzled: "But Dr. Weizmann, we have London." Weizmann: "That is true. But we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh." Balfour remembered that conversation for the rest of his life.

A decade later, Weizmann had made himself indispensable another way: his fermentation process produced acetone, which Britain desperately needed for artillery propellant. The legend — polished up in Lloyd George's memoirs — says the Declaration was Britain's thank-you gift to its wartime chemist. The truth is messier (strategy, wartime politics, and real conviction all played a part), but the chemist and the letter are permanently linked: Weizmann lobbied for it, and thirty years later he became the new state's first president.

The document itself is astonishingly small: one paragraph, sixty-seven words, signed "Yours sincerely, Arthur James Balfour." Rarely has so short a letter carried so much history — every card that follows in this block is, one way or another, downstream of it.

Block VII · Card 2 of 10

The State of Israel

What: Jewish state born amid war  ·  When: declared May 14, 1948  ·  Where: eastern Mediterranean coast

Declared one day before five Arab armies attacked — clues jump between the country and that founding war, so listen for the pronoun.

Overview
  • Birth: UN Partition Plan (1947) → Ben-Gurion declares independence, May 14, 1948 → an Arab coalition invades the next day.
  • First war: the 1949 armistice lines left Israel larger than the Partition map; Egypt held Gaza, Jordan the West Bank.
  • The diplomat: Ralph Bunche brokered the armistices — first Black Nobel Peace laureate — after UN mediator Folke Bernadotte was assassinated by Lehi.
  • Modern clues: Iron Dome missile defense, NSO's Pegasus spyware, and the 2021 coalition that made Naftali Bennett prime minister.
Key terms
  • Ralph Bunche: UN mediator who negotiated the 1949 armistices; Nobel Peace Prize 1950.
  • Folke Bernadotte: Swedish count and UN mediator, assassinated by Lehi in 1948.
  • Mickey Marcus: American colonel who built the "Burma Road" supply route to besieged Jerusalem.
  • Ink Flag: the handmade flag raised at Eilat after the war's last operation.
  • Iron Dome: the missile-defense system — a modern giveaway clue.
  • UN Partition Plan: the 1947 map the first war erased.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

El Al, this country's national airline whose name means "Skywards," was founded in 1948.

MID

An armistice ending the 1948 war that followed this country's independence was negotiated by Ralph Bunche, who took the position of UN mediator after Folke Bernadotte was assassinated by the terrorist group Lehi.

GIVEAWAY

In 2021, this country pursued a missile defense system called the Iron Dome.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This country's right-wing political alliance, Yamina, supported Naftali Bennett in an election against Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

MID

This country's military destroyed the Jala Tower, a high-rise that housed offices for the Associated Press.

MID

A diverse coalition in this country elected nationalist Naftali Bennett to oust a longtime prime minister.

MID

State near Syria whose IDF-led Operation Good Neighbor attempted to bring medical and humanitarian aid across the border during Syria's civil war.

GIVEAWAY

This country was criticized for evicting residents from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

GIVEAWAY

This country is the home of the cyberweaponry group NSO, known for developing the spyware Pegasus.

GIVEAWAY

Country established in 1948 as a Jewish homeland.

If the clue says "this war" or "this conflict," the wanted answer is the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (Israel's War of Independence), not the country:

HARD

During this war, Mickey Marcus built a supply route out of Hulda whose name was inspired by an earlier supply route out of Burma.

MID

As a result of this war, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and its opponent expanded beyond the Partition Plan's boundaries.

GIVEAWAY

After the last battle in this conflict, a handmade flag called the Ink Flag was raised.

Trap

Country or war? Bunche, Bernadotte, the Burma Road, the Ink Flag → the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (War of Independence). Iron Dome, Pegasus, Bennett, El Al → the country. Same card, two answers — the pronoun decides.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 99:24 ♫ audio
The Story

the colonel with two names

In 1948 a West Point graduate named David "Mickey" Marcus — a US Army colonel who had jumped into Normandy on D-Day with no parachute training — arrived in Israel under the fake name "Michael Stone" to help organize its brand-new army. Jerusalem was under siege, its only supply road cut. Marcus oversaw the carving of a rough bypass through the hills out of Hulda, and named it after the Burma Road he had known in World War II.

The road worked; the siege eased. Then, hours before the ceasefire in June 1948, Marcus stepped outside his post at night wrapped in a bedsheet. A sentry challenged him in Hebrew; Marcus answered in English; the sentry fired. The first general Israel had appointed in two millennia was killed by his own side, by a language gap. He is buried at West Point, under a stone that reads "A Soldier for All Humanity."

The war's very last operation ended on a different note: soldiers reached the Red Sea at what is now Eilat and realized nobody had brought a flag. So they made one — a white sheet with a Star of David drawn in ink — and ran it up a pole. The "Ink Flag" is the war's closing image: a state so new its flags hadn't caught up with its borders.

Block VII · Card 3 of 10

David Ben-Gurion

What: Israel's founding prime minister  ·  When: 1886-1973; PM 1948-54, 1955-63  ·  Where: born Plonsk, Poland; died in the Negev

Declared Israel's independence, forced its rival militias into one army, and ran the state's first fifteen years nearly end to end.

Overview
  • Rise: Histadrut labor-union chief → head of the Jewish Agency → read the Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948.
  • One army: merged Haganah, Irgun, and Palmach into a single IDF — even ordering fire on the Irgun arms ship Altalena to enforce it.
  • In power: Operation Magic Carpet airlifted Yemenite Jews; negotiated Holocaust reparations with West Germany's Konrad Adenauer; his second term launched the 1956 Sinai invasion.
  • Late career: returned to Defense after the Lavon Affair; quit to found the breakaway Rafi party, which lost to Levi Eshkol's Alignment; retired to a desert kibbutz.
Key terms
  • Altalena: the Irgun arms ship he ordered shelled in June 1948 — one state, one army.
  • Operation Magic Carpet: the 1949-50 airlift of Yemenite Jews to Israel.
  • Konrad Adenauer: West German chancellor in the reparations agreement.
  • Unit 101: commando unit he ordered created; carried out the Qibya massacre reprisal.
  • Pinhas Lavon: defense minister whose false-flag bombing scheme (the Lavon Affair) brought Ben-Gurion back to Defense.
  • Levi Eshkol: the successor whose Alignment beat Ben-Gurion's Rafi party.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

West Germany compensated this man's nation after he worked with Konrad Adenauer over reparations from the Holocaust.

MID

This leader formed the Rafi party, which lost to the Alignment faction of his successor Levi Eshkol.

GIVEAWAY

First Prime Minister of Israel, who led it through its 1948 war of independence.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This man consolidated the Haganah and Irgun militias to form the IDF in a 1948 war with the Arab coalition following independence from Britain.

HARD

Moshe Sharett succeeded this man, though he came back as acting prime minister to launch an attack on Syrian positions in Operation Olive Leaves.

HARD

Ahdut HaAvoda was founded by this man, who ordered the formation of Unit 101 and organized a massive airlift in Operation Magic Carpet as Prime Minister.

MID

Racial unrest in Yemen prompted this man to launch Operation Magic Carpet, in which refugees were airlifted into his country.

MID

During his second term, this man launched an invasion of Egypt, precipitating the Suez Crisis.

MID

This man ordered the creation of Unit 101, which committed the Qibya massacre as a reprisal attack.

MID

This man authorized the use of deadly force over an internal dispute about the cargo ship Altalena.

MID

This man's attempts to reform the Palmach special forces led to the Generals' Revolt.

MID

Lord Gort and this man led the Haganah against the Irgun during the Saison.

GIVEAWAY

This man organized the Irgun and Haganah into a single fighting unit.

GIVEAWAY

This man succeeded David Zakai as head of the Histadrut trade union.

GIVEAWAY

This man became Defense Minister after his predecessor, Pinhas Lavon, was implicated in a scheme to blow up Egyptian buildings.

GIVEAWAY

Prime minister who recommended Mossad's founding in 1949.

GIVEAWAY

After receiving independence from Britain, this man's country was attacked by an Arab coalition in 1948, forcing him to form the Israel Defense Forces.

GIVEAWAY

This man authorized Operation Magic Carpet to relocate thousands of Yemenite Jews.

Trap

Ben-Gurion vs. Golda Meir: he is 1948 independence and 1956 Suez — founding, IDF, Altalena, Magic Carpet, Adenauer. She is 1973 — Agranat, Bar-Lev, resignation. A "first Prime Minister" clue is always him; "fourth" is always her.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 101:47 ♫ audio
The Story

the prime minister doing headstands

One of Israel's most famous photographs shows its founding father — a stocky man in his seventies with wild white hair — upside down, doing a headstand on a Tel Aviv beach in a bathing suit. Ben-Gurion had taken up exercises with the movement scientist Moshe Feldenkrais for his back, practiced obsessively, and didn't care in the slightest how it looked. The photo ran everywhere. He kept doing headstands.

The other famous image is quieter. In 1953, at the height of his power, he resigned as prime minister and moved to Sde Boker, a tiny, brand-new kibbutz in the middle of the Negev desert, where he asked to be accepted as an ordinary member and took his work assignments like everyone else. He believed the desert was Israel's real test — "it is in the Negev that the people of Israel will be tested" — and thought the best way to argue it was to move there himself.

He came back to power, of course (twice is never enough for founders), but when he finally retired for good he returned to his little green hut at Sde Boker, and that is where he is buried — not in Jerusalem with the state ceremonies, but on a desert ridge, overlooking the wilderness he spent his last decades telling everyone to go build in.

Block VII · Card 4 of 10

The Suez Crisis

What: 1956 tripartite invasion of Egypt  ·  When: October-November 1956  ·  Where: Suez Canal, Sinai, Port Said

Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt over a nationalized canal — and superpower pressure made all three back down.

Overview
  • Cause: Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal after John Foster Dulles pulled US funding for the Aswan Dam.
  • The plot: the secret Protocol of Sevres: Israel attacks Sinai (Operation Kadesh); Britain and France "intervene" (Operation Musketeer, amphibious landing at Port Said).
  • Collapse: American and Soviet pressure forced withdrawal; British PM Anthony Eden resigned.
  • Aftermath: Lester Pearson's UN peacekeeping force won him the Nobel; the Straits of Tiran reopened to shipping bound for Aqaba and Eilat.
Key terms
  • Gamal Abdel Nasser: Egypt's leader; nationalized the canal with "de Lesseps" as his codeword.
  • Protocol of Sevres: the secret three-power invasion plan — the hard-clue giveaway.
  • Operation Musketeer / Kadesh: the Anglo-French and Israeli operations, respectively.
  • Anthony Eden: British PM destroyed by the crisis; "forced X to resign" → him.
  • Lester Pearson: Canadian PM-to-be whose UN force idea won the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • John Foster Dulles: US Secretary of State whose funding withdrawal helped light the fuse.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This event's negotiations led to the reopening of the Straits of Tiran, providing maritime trade access to Aqaba.

MID

Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in resolving this conflict, which forced Anthony Eden to resign.

GIVEAWAY

During this event, Charles Keightley commanded an invasion in Operation Musketeer.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

One leader during this crisis pronounced the name of Ferdinand de Lesseps as a codeword for his forces to seize its namesake location.

HARD

The name of an operation during this crisis was changed due to the different ways two countries spelled "Hamilcar"; that Operation Musketeer featured a successful amphibious landing at Port Said.

MID

Prior to this crisis, three allies planned to topple the leader of the Free Officers movement in the Protocol of Sevres.

MID

The Protocol of Sevres was a response to this crisis, which was caused in part by a withdrawal of funding by John Foster Dulles.

MID

This crisis included a combined Anglo-French naval assault and an Israeli attack on the Sinai Peninsula.

MID

This crisis was planned by Maurice Challe and Albert Gazier, who met with a Prime Minister at Chequers.

GIVEAWAY

This 1956 crisis saw France, Israel, and Great Britain target Egypt's namesake waterway.

GIVEAWAY

Military operations launched during this crisis included Operations Musketeer and Kadesh.

GIVEAWAY

The failure of the Franco-British intervention in this crisis led to the resignation of Anthony Eden.

GIVEAWAY

This crisis, which led to the resignation of Anthony Eden, began when Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to nationalize a waterway.

Trap

The Straits of Tiran close before BOTH this war and 1967 — never buzz on Tiran alone. Britain, France, Eden, Musketeer, Port Said → 1956 Suez. Operation Focus, USS Liberty, six days → 1967. Also: the crisis is 1956; the canal itself (de Lesseps, 1869) is a separate card.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 105:24 ♫ audio
The Story

say the magic word

On July 26, 1956, Nasser gave a long speech in Alexandria — and buried inside it was a trigger. The codeword for Egyptian teams to seize the Suez Canal Company's offices was the name of the Frenchman who built the canal: Ferdinand de Lesseps. To make absolutely sure nobody missed it, Nasser worked "de Lesseps" into the speech again and again — by most counts more than a dozen times — while the seizure teams moved on cue. He mocked the canal's colonial history in the very sentence that took it back.

The counter-invasion had its own naming comedy. The Anglo-French operation was originally "Hamilcar," until someone noticed the French spell it "Amilcar" — so British and French forces were painting different identification letters on their vehicles. Rather than repaint half an armada's markings, they renamed the whole thing Operation Musketeer.

The operation succeeded on the beaches at Port Said and failed everywhere else: Washington and Moscow both said stop, and the empires blinked. Out of the wreckage, Canada's Lester Pearson proposed something new — a standing UN emergency force to stand between armies. It won him the Nobel Peace Prize and invented modern peacekeeping. The crisis that ended Britain's imperial era began the blue helmets'.

Block VII · Card 5 of 10

The Six-Day War

What: Israel's lightning 1967 war  ·  When: June 5-10, 1967  ·  Where: Sinai, West Bank, Golan Heights

Six days that redrew the map: after destroying Egypt's air force on the ground, Israel took Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan.

Overview
  • Trigger: Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran (blockading Eilat) and massed troops in Sinai.
  • Opening: Operation Focus — a pre-emptive strike that destroyed most of Egypt's air force in the first hours.
  • Result: Israel took Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria.
  • Aftermath: the Khartoum Resolution's "no peace, no recognition, no negotiation"; UN Resolution 242; the three-year War of Attrition.
Key terms
  • Operation Focus: the opening air strike — the single strongest 1967 fingerprint.
  • USS Liberty: US research ship attacked in error; Captain William McGonagle wounded, 34 sailors killed.
  • Moshe Dayan: eye-patched defense minister, appointed on the eve of war.
  • Khartoum Resolution: the Arab League's "three no's" afterward.
  • Resolution 242: the UN's land-for-peace resolution that closed 1967 diplomacy.
  • Abu Ageila / Arish: the Sinai battle sites in the western theater.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This war featured the bombing of UN observers at Government House.

MID

During this war, William McGonagle was wounded by aircraft fire and more than two dozen sailors were killed in a torpedo attack against a research ship, the USS Liberty.

GIVEAWAY

This conflict included the occupation of the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and Sinai Peninsula.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

After this war, the Dikla and Yamit outposts were established in a territory that was occupied for fifteen years by this war's winner.

HARD

The winning side in this war launched Operation Focus, a pre-emptive strike to destroy enemy aircraft, and captured the Sinai and Gaza Strip.

HARD

The three-year-long War of Attrition followed this war's swift conclusion, with Gamal Abdel Nasser supporting low-intensity warfare in the occupied Sinai Peninsula.

HARD

The long-lasting occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip began after this short war between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the 1960s.

HARD

This war erupted a few weeks after the closure of the Straits of Tiran to shipping, and it included the confused attack on the USS Liberty.

MID

In this war's western theater, one side conquered the sites of Arish and Abu Ageila.

MID

One side in this war benefited from trees planted as target markers years prior by a spy in the Ministry of Defense.

MID

This war was preceded by Operation Shredder, a cross-border attack on the town of Samu.

MID

During this war, one side attacked the USS Liberty under mistaken friendly fire.

MID

The USS Liberty was attacked during this war, whose end led to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 242.

MID

This war was preceded by the closing of the Straits of Tiran in an attempted blockade of Eilat.

GIVEAWAY

Newly appointed Defense Minister Moshe Dayan rose to prominence during this war.

GIVEAWAY

One side in this war managed to take the vital Ali Muntar ridge.

GIVEAWAY

During this war, one side accidentally attacked a U.S. vessel.

GIVEAWAY

The losing side in this war renewed its commitment to "no peace" and "no negotiation" in the Khartoum Resolution.

GIVEAWAY

One cause of this war was the closure of the Straits of Tiran by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

GIVEAWAY

The Allon Plan was a proposal to partition territory involved in this war.

Trap

Straits of Tiran closed → could be 1956 OR 1967; wait for the discriminator. Operation Focus, USS Liberty, Dayan, six days → this war. Musketeer, Eden, Port Said → Suez 1956. And "crossing the canal" or "Bar-Lev Line" is never this war — that's 1973.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 107:55 ♫ audio
The Story

the spy who planted trees

In the early 1960s, Damascus high society adored a charming Argentine-Syrian businessman named Kamel Amin Thabet. He hosted parties for generals and politicians, toured military installations as an honored guest, and was talked about for a senior defense post. He was actually Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy — radioing everything home until Syrian counterintelligence, with Soviet direction-finding gear, caught him mid-transmission in 1965 and hanged him in a public square in Damascus.

The story goes that on a tour of the Golan Heights fortifications, Cohen suggested the Syrians plant eucalyptus trees at their positions — shade for the soldiers, he said. Two years after his death, in the 1967 fighting for the Golan, those neat stands of eucalyptus reportedly served as ready-made target markers for Israeli gunners. Historians still argue over how much the trees actually mattered; quiz writers, as your clue shows, love the tale too much to let it go.

The war itself was decided even faster than six days suggests: most of Egypt's air force was destroyed on the ground in the first three hours, in Operation Focus. Everything afterward — three fronts, three territories, a map tripled in size — flowed from a morning in which one side's planes never got off the runway.

Block VII · Card 6 of 10

Golda Meir

What: Israel's fourth prime minister  ·  When: 1898-1978; PM 1969-74  ·  Where: Kyiv-born, Milwaukee-raised, Israel

The Milwaukee schoolteacher who became Israel's "Iron Lady" — and resigned after the surprise of the Yom Kippur War.

Overview
  • Path: born in Kyiv, raised in Milwaukee, worked as a schoolteacher; a signer of Israel's Declaration of Independence.
  • Firsts: carried her country's first-issued passport, as its 1948 minister to Moscow.
  • In office: ended the War of Attrition (the Gahal party quit her coalition over it); faced the Schoenau ultimatum days before the 1973 war.
  • Fall: the Agranat Commission cleared her personally over 1973's unpreparedness, but she resigned anyway in 1974 — bowing to "the will of the people."
Key terms
  • Agranat Commission: the post-1973 inquiry; it cleared her, saying she acted with "common sense and speedily."
  • Bar-Lev Line: the canal defense line whose collapse started her fall.
  • Bruno Kreisky / Schoenau: the Austrian chancellor she failed to persuade to keep a Jewish transit station open, 1973.
  • Abba Eban: her foreign minister, source of the 200-of-500-words quip.
  • War of Attrition: the 1967-70 canal-zone grind she brought to a ceasefire.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This politician failed to convince Bruno Kreisky to keep a transit station open in the face of the Schoenau ultimatum.

MID

This person resigned to match the "will of the people" in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.

GIVEAWAY

"Iron Lady" of Israel, its fourth Prime Minister.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This politician lost power after being cleared by the Agranat Commission, though her reputation was still tarnished by the weak response to a troop buildup on the Golan Heights.

MID

This politician's foreign minister, Abba Eban, once quipped that she spoke using only 200 words out of a vocabulary of 500.

MID

According to the Agranat Commission, this politician acted with "common sense and speedily" in response to an attack on the Bar Lev Line.

GIVEAWAY

This politician's home country gave out its first passport to send her to Moscow as minister to Russia in 1948.

GIVEAWAY

The Gahal Party left a "national unity" coalition after this politician ended the War of Attrition.

Trap

Two "Iron Ladies": in an Israel clue it's Meir, not Thatcher. And Meir vs. Ben-Gurion: fourth PM, Yom Kippur War, Agranat, resignation → Meir; first PM, 1948, Suez 1956 → Ben-Gurion.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 114:17 ♫ audio
The Story

the fourth-grade fundraiser

In 1909 Milwaukee, an eleven-year-old named Goldie Mabowehz noticed that some of her classmates couldn't afford schoolbooks. So she founded an organization — the American Young Sisters Society — rented a hall, put on a public program, and gave her first political speech (she'd decided memorizing it was too stiff, and spoke off the cuff). The textbook money came in. Three years later, when her parents tried to pull her from school toward marriage, she ran away to Denver to live with her sister. The future prime minister's whole style — direct, stubborn, unscripted — was fully formed before high school.

In 1948, the new State of Israel issued its very first passport to send her to Moscow as its minister. That Rosh Hashanah, she walked to the Moscow Choral Synagogue and found tens of thousands of Soviet Jews — who risked a great deal just by showing up — packing the streets to see her. Nearly overwhelmed, she told the crowd in Yiddish: "Thank you for having remained Jews." Israel later engraved that Moscow crowd scene on the banknote bearing her face.

The end was harder. The 1973 war caught her government by surprise; the Agranat Commission formally cleared her, but the country's grief needed somewhere to go. "Five years are enough," she said, and resigned — the schoolteacher's exit, matching herself to "the will of the people" she had always claimed to speak plainly to.

Block VII · Card 7 of 10

The Yom Kippur War

What: 1973 surprise Arab-Israeli war  ·  When: October 6-25, 1973  ·  Where: Suez Canal front and Golan Heights

Egypt and Syria's surprise attack on Judaism's holiest day — Israel reeled, then recovered, and the shock on both sides opened the road to Camp David.

Overview
  • Opening: Operation Badr — Egyptian forces cross the Suez Canal and storm the Bar-Lev Line while Syria attacks the Golan Heights.
  • The turn: Ariel Sharon's counter-crossing of the canal in Operation Gazelle; the brutal Battle of the Chinese Farm secured the corridor.
  • Superpowers: the US resupply airlift Operation Nickel Grass; Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy; UN Security Council Resolution 338 called the ceasefire.
  • Aftermath: the Agranat Commission investigated the surprise; Golda Meir resigned; Sadat's "crossing" prestige made peace politically possible.
Key terms
  • Operation Badr: Egypt's opening canal crossing — the signature giveaway.
  • Bar-Lev Line: Israel's canal fortifications, overrun on day one.
  • Operation Gazelle / Chinese Farm: Israel's counter-crossing and the misnamed battle that protected it.
  • Operation Nickel Grass: the American arms airlift.
  • Resolution 338: the ceasefire resolution — 338 ends 1973, as 242 closed 1967.
  • Agranat Commission: the inquiry into why Israel was surprised.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

UN Security Council Resolution 338 called for an end to this war.

MID

1973 conflict in which Israel was attacked on the Day of Atonement.

GIVEAWAY

This conflict commenced with a surprise attack in Operation Badr on the Bar Lev Line.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This war turned with a bridgehead crossing in Operation Gazelle, during which Japanese characters discovered on machinery inspired the incorrect name of the ensuing Battle of the Chinese Farm.

HARD

The Agranat Commission noted that Golda Meir was not responsible for being caught off guard in this war, which began with a surprise Syrian attack on the Golan Heights.

HARD

During this war, one side's declaration that it was preparing the "Samson Option" prompted the United States to provide aid in Operation Nickel Grass.

MID

This war included the Battle of the Chinese Farm, where Ariel Sharon's troops attempted to defend a bridge crossing.

MID

Shuttle diplomacy initiated by Henry Kissinger helped negotiate an end to this war, leading its winner to withdraw to the Purple Line.

MID

The Battle of the Chinese Farm was fought in order for one side to establish a canal bridgehead in this war.

MID

At the end of this war, the Agranat Commission investigated one side's lack of preparations to defend against Operation Badr.

MID

This war prompted the resignation of Golda Meir, who had been advised by Henry Kissinger not to launch a pre-emptive strike.

GIVEAWAY

The government's unpreparedness for this war prompted Golda Meir to resign.

GIVEAWAY

The decisive Operation Gazelle altered the course of this war.

GIVEAWAY

Five years after this war, the Camp David Accords made peace between two of its combatants, Egypt and Israel.

GIVEAWAY

This war is named for the Jewish day of atonement, on which an Arab coalition launched its surprise attack in 1973.

GIVEAWAY

Fort Budapest was attacked early on in this war, which began with Operation Badr.

Trap

Crossing the canal, Bar-Lev Line, Operation Badr → 1973, always. Don't hear "surprise strike destroying aircraft" and land here — the pre-emptive airfield strike (Operation Focus) is 1967. Number check: Resolution 242 closes 1967; Resolution 338 ends 1973.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 111:29 ♫ audio
The Story

the farm that wasn't Chinese

The war's fiercest battle is named for a mistake. West of the canal crossings stood an Egyptian agricultural research station, equipped years earlier with Japanese farm machinery. Israeli soldiers who first passed through saw Japanese characters stenciled on the equipment, decided it must be Chinese, and the name stuck: the Battle of the Chinese Farm — a misreading now permanently attached to some of the most desperate fighting of 1973, the struggle that kept Sharon's bridgehead corridor open during Operation Gazelle.

The attack's timing held its own irony. Striking on Yom Kippur was meant to catch Israel at its most paralyzed — and it did find the army at low readiness. But on the Day of Atonement the roads were utterly empty and most reservists were at home or in synagogue, exactly where the call-up messengers could find them. Mobilization actually ran faster than on an ordinary workday. The surprise was real; the paralysis, less so.

Nineteen days of war consumed tanks, jets, and shells at a rate that stunned both superpowers — American transports ran the Nickel Grass airlift while Soviet ships resupplied the other side — and when Resolution 338 stopped the shooting, every government involved had been shaken: Meir's toward resignation, Sadat's toward Jerusalem. The next card on this ladder is a peace treaty.

Block VII · Card 8 of 10

Anwar Sadat

What: Egypt's peacemaking president  ·  When: 1918-1981; president 1970-81  ·  Where: Egypt

Planned the 1973 surprise crossing, then flew to Jerusalem to make peace — won the Nobel Prize, and was assassinated for it.

Overview
  • Rise: Free Officers plotter alongside Nasser against King Farouk; succeeded Nasser in 1970 and purged his rivals in the Corrective Revolution.
  • War: planned Operation Badr with Syria's Hafez al-Assad; early success made him the "Hero of the Crossing."
  • Peace: 1977 Jerusalem visit → Camp David Accords with Menachem Begin → shared Nobel Peace Prize → Sinai returned to Egypt.
  • Death: assassinated October 6, 1981 by Khalid Islambouli's Islamic Jihad cell, at a parade marking the canal crossing's eighth anniversary.
Key terms
  • Corrective Revolution: his 1971 purge of Sharawy Gomaa and other Nasser-era rivals — and of Soviet influence.
  • Infitah: his post-1973 "openness" economic policy.
  • Hafez al-Assad: Syrian partner in the 1973 attack; later called Camp David "a stab in the back."
  • Khalid Islambouli: led the assassination at the parade.
  • Menachem Begin: Israeli PM on the other side of the handshake and the Nobel.
  • Free Officers / King Farouk: the 1952 coup that started his career.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Early victories in one war earned this man the nickname "Hero of the Crossing," and following that 1973 war he pursued an economic policy of "openness" called Infitah.

MID

This man sacked Sharawy Gomaa and others linked to his predecessor's regime in the Corrective Revolution.

GIVEAWAY

This leader, who had planned the surprise attack Operation Badr, was assassinated by Islamic Jihad because of his diplomatic efforts with Menachem Begin.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

This president occupied the Sinai Peninsula after the Israeli withdrawal, and he was a close ally of Gamal Abdel Nasser during the Free Officers Movement that overthrew King Farouk.

MID

This politician was assassinated in 1981 by radical forces inside his country, largely because he had signed the Camp David Accords three years earlier.

GIVEAWAY

This man coordinated with Hafez al-Assad on an invasion of Israel that occurred on Yom Kippur.

GIVEAWAY

This man's assassination coincided with the climax of the Naguib Mahfouz novel The Day the Leader Was Killed.

GIVEAWAY

This man launched the Corrective Revolution to purge his government of Soviet influences.

These clues frame his assassination as the event itself — "this event / this attack" answers "the assassination of Anwar Sadat":

MID

During this event, Irish Defense Minister James Tully was injured by one of three grenades a soldier had hidden beneath a helmet.

MID

This event occurred during a parade to celebrate the eighth anniversary of a country's crossing of the Suez Canal.

MID

Khalid Islambouli carried out this attack, which resulted in the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser's successor, the third president of Egypt.

GIVEAWAY

The target of this event lost a massive amount of popularity due to his signing of the Camp David Accords.

Trap

Sadat vs. Nasser: Nasser owns Suez 1956 and the Six-Day War; Sadat owns 1973 and Camp David. And an "assassinated for making peace" clue can want Sadat (Egypt, 1981, Islambouli) or Yitzhak Rabin (Israel, 1995, after Oslo) — the country decides it.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 116:09 ♫ audio
The Story

to the ends of the earth — even the Knesset

In November 1977, Sadat told Egypt's parliament he would go anywhere to spare his soldiers another war — "to the ends of the earth," even, he added, "to the Knesset itself." Listeners took it for rhetoric; no Arab head of state had ever set foot in Israel. Ten days later his plane touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport, and the man who had planned Operation Badr walked down the stairs to shake hands with the Israeli generals and politicians he had fought — including Golda Meir, who told him she'd been waiting for him a long time.

The gamble carried him to Camp David, to a treaty that returned the Sinai to Egypt, and to a shared Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin — the 1973 attacker and the old Irgun commander, side by side in Oslo's ledger. It also cost him the Arab world's favor: Egypt was suspended from the Arab League, and Assad called the accords a stab in the back.

It ended where his legend began. On October 6, 1981 — eight years to the day after the crossing — Sadat stood reviewing the anniversary parade when soldiers from the procession turned their fire on the stands. The novelist Naguib Mahfouz timed a book's climax to that broadcast moment. Egypt's "Hero of the Crossing" died celebrating the crossing, killed for the peace he built out of it.

Block VII · Card 9 of 10

The Camp David Accords

What: Egypt-Israel peace framework  ·  When: September 1978; treaty March 1979  ·  Where: Camp David, Maryland

Thirteen days at a presidential retreat — Carter, Sadat, and Begin produced the first peace between Israel and an Arab state.

Overview
  • The deal: two frameworks: an Egypt-Israel peace returning the Sinai, and a Palestinian-autonomy framework the UN rejected for lacking PLO participation.
  • Brokers: President Jimmy Carter, with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance mediating.
  • Anchor: reaffirmed UN Security Council Resolution 242 — land for peace.
  • The cost: Nobel Prizes for Begin and Sadat; Egypt suspended from the Arab League; Hafez Assad called it "a stab in the back"; Sadat assassinated three years later.
Key terms
  • Jimmy Carter: host and relentless go-between of the thirteen days.
  • Menachem Begin: Israeli PM and co-signatory; shared the Nobel with Sadat.
  • Cyrus Vance: the mediating Secretary of State — a favorite hard clue.
  • Resolution 242: the 1967 land-for-peace resolution the accords reaffirmed.
  • King Hussein: Jordan's king, wrongly assumed to be ready to sign on.
  • 1979 treaty: the formal Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty the frameworks produced.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

American location where a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt was signed in 1978.

MID

It led to a framework for the eventual return of the Sinai Peninsula.

GIVEAWAY

Begin and Sadat shook hands at a Maryland retreat to produce this 1978 peace framework.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Three years after receiving a Nobel Prize for this agreement, one of its signatories was assassinated by a group led by Khalid Islambouli.

HARD

This agreement was called a "stab in the back" by Hafez Assad who, with King Hussein, called for it to be re-examined.

MID

Tensions rose after its signing due to the assumption that King Hussein would be willing to agree to its terms.

MID

The United Nations rejected this agreement's second framework due to the lack of PLO participation.

GIVEAWAY

Mediation in this agreement was performed by Cyrus Vance.

GIVEAWAY

This agreement affirmed the importance of UN Security Council Resolution 242.

Trap

Camp David 1978 (Carter, Begin, Sadat — Egypt, the Sinai) vs. Oslo 1993 (Rabin, Arafat — the PLO, Norway). Sinai, Vance, Begin → Camp David; PLO recognition, Norwegian capital, Wye River → Oslo. Fine print: Camp David produced the framework in 1978; the treaty itself was signed in Washington in 1979.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 119:18 ♫ audio
The Story

eight grandchildren save a treaty

Camp David was less a summit than a thirteen-day siege. After the early sessions blew up, Begin and Sadat could barely stand to be in the same room, so Carter simply kept them apart — for about ten straight days he shuttled between their cabins in the Maryland woods, carrying drafts back and forth, a superpower president working as a courier.

On the final day it nearly collapsed anyway. Begin was preparing to leave over the wording on Jerusalem. Carter had promised him signed photographs of the three leaders for his grandchildren — and instead of a generic autograph, Carter had gotten each grandchild's name and personalized every photo. He walked them over to Begin's cabin. Begin read the names aloud, one by one, his voice failing as he reached them — and the talk turned from walking out to what each man's grandchildren would inherit. The negotiations resumed.

The frameworks signed that September won Begin and Sadat the Nobel Peace Prize and, in 1979, produced the actual treaty: the Sinai went back to Egypt, and the peace — cold, contested, expensive — has held ever since. It remains diplomacy's best argument for keeping family photos on hand.

Block VII · Card 10 of 10

Yasser Arafat

What: PLO chairman, Palestinian president  ·  When: 1929-2004; led the PLO 1969-2004  ·  Where: born Cairo; compound in Ramallah

The keffiyeh-wearing face of the Palestinian movement for 35 years — guerrilla leader turned Nobel-sharing negotiator at Oslo.

Overview
  • Rise: Cairo-born founder of Fatah; chairman of the PLO from 1969; expelled from Jordan by King Hussein after Black September.
  • Peace track: Madrid Conference (1991) → Oslo Accords with Yitzhak Rabin (mutual recognition; 1994 Nobel with Rabin and Peres) → Wye River Memorandum on implementation.
  • Rule: president of the Palestinian Authority from 1996, headquartered at the Mukataa compound in Ramallah.
  • Shadow: Mossad attempted to poison him in 1976; adviser Fuad Shubaki alleged he steered aid money to weapons purchases.
Key terms
  • Fatah / PLO: the movement he founded and the umbrella he chaired.
  • King Hussein: the Jordanian king who expelled him.
  • Yitzhak Rabin: Oslo counterpart; shared his Nobel; assassinated in 1995.
  • Wye River Memorandum: the 1998 deal on implementing Oslo — Area C withdrawals.
  • Mukataa: his Ramallah compound, and his final headquarters.
  • Madrid Conference: the 1991 opening of direct peace talks.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

An economic advisor to this man named Fuad Shubaki alleged that this man allocated aid money for buying weaponry.

MID

Recognition of this man's PLO was the first step in the set of agreements between Palestinians and Israelis that was negotiated in, and named for, the Norwegian capital city.

GIVEAWAY

The Wye River Memorandum aimed to continue implementing the Oslo agreement signed by this leader.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Despite this man's condemnation of terrorist activities by groups similar to the one he led, he was eventually expelled from Jordan by King Hussein.

MID

A Mukataa in Ramallah served as the central compound of this man after he signed a 1995 agreement with Yitzhak Rabin known as the Oslo Accord.

MID

As part of an agreement with this Cairo-born leader, 13 percent of troops were to be withdrawn from Area C after the Wye River Conference.

GIVEAWAY

Palestinian president whom Mossad tried to poison in 1976.

GIVEAWAY

The Madrid Conference of 1991 attempted to broker a peace between this man's organization and a national government.

Trap

Two Cairo-born figures who shook Israeli hands and shared Nobels: Sadat is Egypt's president — Camp David, assassinated 1981. Arafat is the PLO — Oslo, died 2004. Also listen for "this agreement" vs. "this man": Oslo clues can want the accords themselves, not Arafat.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 121:13 ♫ audio
The Story

thirteen seconds on the South Lawn

September 13, 1993, the White House South Lawn: Bill Clinton stood between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat as the Oslo Accords were signed. Then came the moment the whole world was watching for. Clinton spread his arms behind both men, gently herding them together. Arafat extended his hand first. Rabin hesitated — long enough that you can see it in every recording — then took it. The handshake lasted about thirteen seconds; the enmity it interrupted was older than either man's career.

Rabin explained his hesitation with a line that became famous: "You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies." A year later the two of them, with Shimon Peres, shared the Nobel Peace Prize — and a year after that Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist opposed to the very accords the handshake sealed.

Arafat spent his final years back at the Mukataa, his walled compound in Ramallah, negotiating, feuding, and holding court until his death in 2004. The Wye River Memorandum, Area C percentages, and the rest of your hard clues are the paper trail of Oslo's long, unfinished aftermath — the thirteen seconds were the easy part.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block VII

Israel & Its Wars

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — A letter, a state, a war. Start with sixty-seven words: Balfour's 1917 letter promising a "national home." Thirty-one years later Ben-Gurion reads a declaration of independence, and five armies attack the next morning — the state and its first war are born on back-to-back days. (Ask her: why would clue writers love a country whose founding is also a war? Because every clue can go two ways — and the cards show her how to split them.)

Beat 2 — Learn the ladder. Then drill the date ladder that carries this whole block: 1956, 1967, 1973. Each war has a fingerprint — 1956 is Europe's last imperial adventure (Musketeer, Port Said, Eden resigns); 1967 is six days and Operation Focus; 1973 is the surprise crossing of the canal into the Bar-Lev Line. Then set the trap yourself: "the Straits of Tiran are closed — which war?" Trick question. It happens before both '56 and '67, and knowing that is the whole game.

Beat 3 — From crossing to handshake. End with the strange symmetry of the peacemakers: the man who planned the 1973 surprise attack is the same man who flies to Jerusalem four years later, and the crossing that shocked Israel is what made his peace possible. Camp David, a Nobel, an assassination at a parade — and then a second handshake, at Oslo, between Rabin and Arafat. The wars are the ladder; the handshakes are how the ladder ends.

The board — write these while talking

  • 1917 Balfour — 67-word letter, "national home"
  • 1948 — independence + first war (Bunche, Ink Flag)
  • 1956 Suez — Britain/France/Israel vs. Nasser; Eden falls
  • 1967 Six-Day — Operation Focus; Sinai/West Bank/Golan
  • 1973 Yom Kippur — Badr crosses the canal, Bar-Lev Line
  • Straits of Tiran → closed before BOTH '56 and '67
  • 242 ends '67 / 338 ends '73
  • Camp David 1978 — Carter + Begin + Sadat
  • Oslo 1993 — Rabin + Arafat handshake
  • Ben-Gurion = 1st PM, 1948 · Golda = 4th PM, 1973

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“The winning side in this war launched Operation Focus, a pre-emptive strike to destroy enemy aircraft, and captured the Sinai and Gaza Strip.”
pause… let her buzz → the Six-Day War. Operation Focus IS 1967 — the war was decided in its first three hours.
“This conflict commenced with a surprise attack in Operation Badr on the Bar Lev Line.”
the Yom Kippur War — crossing the canal + Bar-Lev = 1973, every single time.
“Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in resolving this conflict, which forced Anthony Eden to resign.”
the Suez Crisis — Eden's resignation and Pearson's peacekeepers both stamp 1956.

The callbacks — end on these

The Straits of Tiran are closed. Which war?

Trick question — it happens before both 1956 and 1967. Wait for the company: Eden/Musketeer/Port Said → Suez; Operation Focus/USS Liberty → Six-Day.

"Crossing the canal" or "Bar-Lev Line" — which war?

Yom Kippur, 1973. The pre-emptive airfield strike is the other one (Focus, 1967).

Resolution 242 vs. Resolution 338?

242 follows 1967; 338 ends 1973. The numbers go up with the years.

Two Cairo-born Nobel Peace laureates who dealt with Israel — split them.

Sadat: Egypt's president, Camp David, assassinated 1981. Arafat: PLO chairman, Oslo, died 2004.

Which PM resigned after the 1973 surprise — and who was the founding PM?

Golda Meir resigned (fourth PM, "Iron Lady"). Ben-Gurion founded the state — 1948 and the 1956 Suez invasion are his.

Block VIII of VIII

Oil, Revolutions & the Modern Region

13 cards

Block VIII · Card 1 of 13

Gamal Abdel Nasser

What: Pan-Arabist president of Egypt  ·  When: led Egypt 1954–1970  ·  Where: Egypt

Nationalized the Suez Canal, stared down three invading nations, and made himself the voice of the whole Arab world.

Overview
  • Rise: Free Officers Movement deposed King Farouk I in 1952; Nasser shoved aside Mohamed Naguib in 1954 and took the presidency.
  • Suez, 1956: Nationalized the Suez Canal (to fund the Aswan High Dam after Western financing fell through) — Britain, France, and Israel invaded, then world pressure forced them out. Military defeat, political triumph.
  • Pan-Arabism: His Philosophy of the Revolution laid out the dream; the United Arab Republic with Syria (1958–61) briefly lived it.
  • Late wars: Ordered the UN Emergency Force out before the 1967 Six-Day War; fought the War of Attrition; died in 1970, succeeded by Anwar Sadat.
Key terms
  • Free Officers Movement: the young colonels' clique that ended Egypt's monarchy in 1952.
  • Operation Musketeer / Operation Kadesh: the Anglo-French and Israeli code names for the 1956 Suez invasion.
  • United Arab Republic: the Egypt–Syria merger, 1958–61; died in a Damascus coup.
  • Sayyid Qutb: Muslim Brotherhood thinker executed in 1966 for plotting against him.
  • War of Attrition: the slow-burn canal-zone fight with Israel, 1967–70.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Abd al-Karim al-Nahlawi led a coup against this President which resulted in the collapse of the United Arab Republic.

MID

This man undertook a secret flight to Moscow to acquire surface-to-air missiles during his country's War of Attrition with an eastern neighbor.

GIVEAWAY

Egyptian President who nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

Nearly assassinated by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood while giving a speech in Alexandria.

HARD

A Prime Minister of Britain was told to "hit hard, hit him soon, and hit him by yourself" regarding this man — advice that led to Operation Kadesh.

HARD

His government arrested the spy Wolfgang Lotz, then set him free in a prisoner exchange in 1968.

MID

Started a diplomatic crisis after he nationalized the Suez Canal.

MID

His anti-aircraft battery on Green Island was destroyed during the War of Attrition.

MID

Ordered the United Nations Emergency Force to withdraw as a precursor to one conflict.

MID

His country was invaded by Charles Keightley's forces in Operation Musketeer.

MID

Faced an invasion by Britain, France, and Israel after his nationalization of the Suez Canal.

MID

His pan-Arab stance led to the United Arab Republic with Syria.

GIVEAWAY

Worked with Syria to form an Arab Republic that lasted for only three years.

GIVEAWAY

Sayyid Qutb was arrested and executed for plotting to kill him.

GIVEAWAY

Anwar Sadat succeeded this second president of Egypt.

GIVEAWAY

Egyptian President whom the 1956 invasion was meant to oust.

GIVEAWAY

Outlined his ambitions in Philosophy of the Revolution and rose to power after deposing Farouk I as head of the Free Officers Movement.

GIVEAWAY

In 1954, despite having earlier aided him in the Free Officers movement, he put Mohamed Naguib under house arrest in order to assume the presidency.

Trap

Nasser vs. Sadat. Nationalized the canal (1956), UAR, pan-Arabism → Nasser. Crossed the canal (1973), Camp David, assassinated at a parade → Sadat. The year is your tell: 1956 vs. 1973.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 123:13 ♫ audio
The Story

the codeword was a Frenchman's name

October 1954, Alexandria: Nasser is giving a speech, live on radio, when a Muslim Brotherhood gunman fires eight shots at him from twenty-five feet. Every one misses. Nasser doesn't duck. Into the microphone, over the panic, he shouts that if he dies, every Egyptian is Nasser. By the time he finished, an assassination attempt had made him the most beloved man in the Arab world.

Two years later he pulled off the greatest verbal trick in modern Middle East history. Announcing a speech in that same city, he told the engineers standing by at the Suez Canal offices: the signal is a name. Then, on live radio, he began telling the story of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman who built the canal — and said the name again, and again, over a dozen times, grinning, while at each mention armed teams moved in and seized the canal offices. The crowd heard a history lecture; the British Empire heard the ground move.

The invasion that followed took the canal zone by force — and then lost it at the negotiating table, because the world (including, crucially, Eisenhower's America) refused to back the old empires. Nasser lost the battle, won the age. That is why his face was on posters from Morocco to Iraq.

Block VIII · Card 2 of 13

The House of Saud

What: Arabia's ruling dynasty  ·  When: kingdom proclaimed 1932  ·  Where: Saudi Arabia, ruled from Riyadh

A desert family's pact with a preacher grew into the custodianship of Mecca and the world's biggest oil company.

Overview
  • Origins: An 18th-century alliance with the preacher Abd al-Wahhab gave the family its creed (Wahhabism) and its warriors (the Ikhwan militia).
  • Conquest: Ibn Saud retook Riyadh in 1902, won British backing (Treaty of Darin, then Jeddah), crushed the Ikhwan at Sabila — the last major camel battle — and seized the Hejaz with Mecca and Medina.
  • Oil: ARAMCO and the giant Ghawar field pump over ten million barrels a day; Truman's "Golden Gimmick" tax break sweetened the U.S. partnership; the 2019 IPO valued Aramco near $1.88 trillion.
  • Shocks: King Saud forced out by fatwa (1964); King Faisal assassinated in Riyadh (1975); militants seized the Grand Mosque (1979).
Key terms
  • Ibn Saud (Abdulaziz): the founder — retook Riyadh in 1902, proclaimed the kingdom in 1932.
  • Wahhabism: the austere reform movement wedded to the dynasty since the 1700s.
  • Ikhwan: the "brothers," fanatical camel-borne militia — useful, then crushed at Sabila (1930).
  • ARAMCO: the oil company the kingdom's whole economy rides on.
  • Gertrude Bell: British explorer-diplomat whose advocacy shaped London's Arabia policy.
  • Juhayman al-Otaybi: led the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure — the kingdom's nightmare year.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Explorer Gertrude Bell persuaded the British government to support this dynasty during and after World War I after being captured by their rivals, the Rashids.

MID

Since 1989, this state and Thailand have recalled each other's ambassadors due to the Blue Diamond Affair.

GIVEAWAY

Country where King Faisal was killed in Riyadh.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

The House of Saud employed religious militia called the Ikhwan, or brothers, and were early converts to the teachings of Abd al-Wahhab.

HARD

The family's "Red Prince" was convinced by Gamal Abdel Nasser to defect to Egypt, where he founded the liberal Free Princes movement.

HARD

A monarch of this house known as "Thulaim," or the Host, began a war with a southern neighbor in an effort to bring the Emirate of Asir into its sphere of influence.

HARD

A member of this family founded an organization that gains much of its revenue from the Ghawar Field, the ARAMCO corporation.

HARD

One city here is completely off-limits to non-practitioners of its state religion, the most influential sect of which in this country is Wahhabism.

HARD

The only presidential veto override of the Obama presidency was the 2016 JASTA, which effectively allowed Americans to sue this country.

HARD

Donald Trump wrote that "the world is a very dangerous place" in a 2018 statement claiming this country agreed to invest 450 billion dollars in the U.S.

HARD

An attack on this country's Abqaiq oil field, once thought to be the work of Houthi rebels, was instead proven to be an Iranian attack in September 2019.

MID

A king from this nation took control over the regions of Hejaz and Nejd in the Treaty of Jeddah signed with the UK.

MID

The House of Saud was made a British protectorate in the Treaty of Darin in exchange for declaring war on the Ottoman Empire.

MID

The holy cities of Medina and Mecca are in this kingdom, whose politics are dominated by the royal Al Saud family.

MID

The first of these Saudi states defaced the tomb of Imam Husayn, forcing the Ottomans to execute its leader, Abdullah.

MID

This country threatened to build the Salwa Canal, which would turn its neighbor's territory from a peninsula into an island.

MID

In 2004 in this country, TV host Rania al-Baz was severely beaten by her husband for answering the phone without permission.

MID

Concerns have recently arisen over the spread of the MERS virus among pilgrims in this country during the annual Hajj.

MID

Unofficial leader of OPEC — an Arabian kingdom led from Riyadh that produces over ten million barrels of oil a day.

GIVEAWAY

President Truman devised the "Golden Gimmick" with this nation as a tax break for the oil company ARAMCO.

GIVEAWAY

A leader of this country was forced to abdicate in 1964 in part due to a fatwa issued by the Grand Mufti.

GIVEAWAY

In this modern nation, the last major battle where camels were used occurred at the Battle of Sabila.

GIVEAWAY

The economic well-being of this house is highly linked to the success of ARAMCO.

GIVEAWAY

The House of Saud conquered the Hejaz to gain custody of Islam's two holiest places.

GIVEAWAY

Over 700 people died in the Mina Stampede in this nation in 2015 while approaching Jamarat Bridge.

GIVEAWAY

A group of militants led by Juhayman al-Otaybi laid siege to the Grand Mosque of Mecca in this kingdom in 1979.

This cluster means the state oil company, Saudi Aramco — writers love it as its own answer ("this company"):

HARD

Hackers targeted this Saud-owned company in 2012 with the Shamoon virus, possibly in retaliation for the U.S.'s involvement in Stuxnet.

HARD

This company, which exploits the Safaniya and Ghawar fields in Eastern Province, began to be nationalized after the Yom Kippur War.

MID

Months after the 2019 attacks, this company held an IPO on the Tadawul stock exchange with an estimated market cap of $1.88 trillion.

MID

This company, headquartered in the city of Dhahran, had production facilities attacked by missiles in 2019.

And this cluster means the holy city of Mecca itself — pre-Saudi history; see Mecca's card in the Rise of Islam block:

GIVEAWAY

An Aksumite invasion of this city supposedly failed when the lead war elephant refused to enter it.

GIVEAWAY

This city was briefly the capital of the Kingdom of Hejaz after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

GIVEAWAY

The Quraysh tribe of this city was defeated in the Battle of the Trench.

Trap

Listen for the noun. "This city" + elephants or Quraysh → Mecca. "This company" + Ghawar, Dhahran, or an IPO → Saudi Aramco. "This house/dynasty/kingdom" + Faisal, fatwa, or Ikhwan → the House of Saud.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 126:19 ♫ audio
The Story

forty men over the wall

In January 1902, a 26-year-old exile named Abdulaziz — Ibn Saud — rode out of Kuwait with a few dozen men to take back the city his family had lost: Riyadh. They slipped over the walls at night, waited in a house across from the Masmak fortress, and at dawn rushed the governor as he stepped out of the gate. In the scuffle a spear was hurled so hard its head lodged in the fortress doorway — visitors to Masmak are still shown it today.

From that single dawn raid came everything else: thirty years of conquest, the capture of Mecca and Medina, a kingdom named for the family itself — and then, in 1938, oil, more of it in one field (Ghawar) than almost anywhere on Earth. The poorest corner of the old Ottoman world became the indispensable gas station of the twentieth century.

The kingdom's scariest moment came from inside its own creed: in 1979, zealots led by Juhayman al-Otaybi seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca itself, declaring the royal family corrupt. Retaking Islam's holiest site took two bloody weeks. The dynasty that had ridden puritan fervor to power spent the decades after 1979 looking over its shoulder at it.

Block VIII · Card 3 of 13

OPEC

What: Oil producers' cartel  ·  When: founded 1960  ·  Where: founded in Baghdad; headquartered in Vienna

The club of oil countries that turned crude into a geopolitical weapon with the 1973 embargo.

Overview
  • Founding: Born at a 1960 Baghdad conference; five founders — Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela.
  • How it works: Members agree on production quotas; pump less, prices rise — the world's most consequential group project.
  • 1973: Its Arab members embargoed the U.S. and allies of Israel during the Yom Kippur War; oil prices roughly quadrupled and Western economies reeled.
  • Membership: Countries come and go — Ecuador left in 2020; Saudi Arabia is the perennial swing producer.
Key terms
  • Baghdad conference (1960): the founding meeting — the "founded in Baghdad" clue is a gift.
  • 1973 oil embargo: the shock that made OPEC a household name.
  • Vienna: the headquarters — an oil cartel run from a city with no oil.
  • quota: the magic word: OPEC coordinates production, not just prices.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

"Organization" named for a natural resource and primarily comprised of Middle Eastern nations, which Ecuador left in 2020.

MID

Founded in Baghdad in 1960, this organization coordinates petroleum production quotas.

GIVEAWAY

This cartel of petroleum exporters shocked the world with its 1973 embargo.

Trap

Strictly, the 1973 embargo was run by OPEC's Arab members (OAPEC) — but quiz answers say OPEC. And OPEC is a cartel of countries; the old cartel of oil companies is the "Seven Sisters."

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 131:42 ♫ audio
The Story

the year America slowed down

In October 1973, a committee meeting in the Gulf did what no army could: it made America change how it lived. The Arab oil producers cut exports to punish support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and within weeks U.S. gas stations had lines around the block, rationing by license-plate number — odd numbers Monday, evens Tuesday — and signs reading simply SORRY, NO GAS.

Congress responded by rewiring daily life: a national 55-mile-per-hour speed limit to save fuel, year-round daylight saving time so people drove home in daylight. For the first time, ordinary Americans could name a Middle Eastern acronym — and understood that a handful of oil ministers could reach into their garages.

The cartel's fame made it a target: in December 1975 the terrorist Carlos the Jackal stormed OPEC headquarters in Vienna and took the assembled oil ministers hostage, flying them to Algiers before releasing them. When someone attacks your board meeting, you have officially become a world power.

Block VIII · Card 4 of 13

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

What: Last Shah of Iran  ·  When: reigned 1941–1979  ·  Where: Iran

The CIA-restored, oil-rich modernizer whose secret police and gilded parties cost him the Peacock Throne.

Overview
  • Rise: Crowned at 21 when a joint UK–USSR invasion (Operation Countenance, 1941) forced his father Reza Shah to abdicate.
  • 1953: Operation Ajax: CIA and MI6 operatives deposed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh — who had nationalized the oil industry — and restored the Shah to full power.
  • White Revolution: His top-down 1963 reform program: land redistribution, votes for women, a Literacy Corps sent into villages.
  • Fall: SAVAK's brutality, the Cinema Rex fire, and the gap between palace and street fed the 1979 revolution; he fled in January 1979 and died in exile.
Key terms
  • Mohammad Mosaddegh: the elected PM he lost the throne's dignity to — and got it back from, via coup.
  • Operation Ajax: the 1953 CIA/MI6 coup — the origin story of Iranian anti-Americanism.
  • SAVAK: his feared secret police; "dissolved after the revolution" clues hang on it.
  • White Revolution: his reform program — the name Khomeini clues also orbit.
  • Farah Diba: his third wife and empress, patron of the arts.
  • Cinema Rex fire: the 1978 Abadan theater fire blamed on SAVAK — a spark of the revolution.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man returned to full power during Operation Ajax, in which CIA operatives deposed Mohammad Mosaddegh to prevent the nationalization of the oil industry.

MID

This man's country started a cultural exchange with France after André Malraux befriended this man's third wife, Farah Diba.

GIVEAWAY

Dynasty that was overthrown during the 1979 revolution.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

A ruler of this family formally surrendered and abdicated to a joint UK–USSR invasion of his nation in Operation Countenance.

MID

He lost popularity after a fire at the Cinema Rex theatre was blamed on his SAVAK police.

MID

A Literacy Corps was established as part of his reformist White Revolution.

GIVEAWAY

His pro-Western ideology led Ayatollah Khomeini to depose him in 1979.

GIVEAWAY

The last Shah of Iran, overthrown in the 1979 revolution.

Trap

Three answers share one story. Ajax, Mosaddegh, SAVAK, White Revolution → the Shah (or the Pahlavi dynasty). "This event/revolution" + Jaleh Square → the Iranian Revolution. Exile in Najaf, fatwas, Supreme Leader → Khomeini.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 133:18 ♫ audio
The Story

the party at Persepolis

In 1971 the Shah threw what may be the most expensive party in history: a celebration of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy, staged in a luxury tent city beside the ruins of Persepolis. Food and chefs were flown in from Maxim's of Paris; kings, presidents, and emperors dined for hours amid air-conditioned silk tents in the desert where Darius once held court.

The bill ran to hundreds of millions of dollars — in a country where many villages lacked schools and clean water. From exile in Iraq, an elderly cleric named Khomeini thundered that it was a festival of the Devil, paid for by the people's bread. The Shah was toasting an unbroken line back to Cyrus the Great; his subjects were watching a king celebrate himself in French.

Eight years later the man who hosted the world at Persepolis couldn't find a country to take him in — shuttling, gravely ill, from Egypt to Morocco to the Bahamas to a New York hospital bed, while revolutionaries in Tehran demanded him back for trial. Anwar Sadat, nearly alone, gave him refuge at the end. The 2,500-year monarchy he had toasted outlived the party by less than a decade.

Block VIII · Card 5 of 13

The Iranian Revolution

What: 1979 overthrow of the Shah  ·  When: 1978–1979 (hostage crisis to 1981)  ·  Where: Iran

Street crowds toppled a 2,500-year monarchy and built the modern world's first theocracy — then its students seized an embassy.

Overview
  • Causes: Backlash against the White Revolution's forced modernization, SAVAK's repression, and royal excess like the 2,500-year Persepolis celebration.
  • Boiling point: Martial law declared; protesters killed at Jaleh Square ("Black Friday," September 1978); strikes paralyzed the country.
  • Collapse: The Shah fled in January 1979; Khomeini returned February 1; ex-PM Amir Abbas Hoveyda was arrested and executed; SAVAK dissolved; an Islamic Republic declared.
  • The sequel: November 4, 1979 — students stormed the U.S. embassy, holding 52 Americans for 444 days; the hostage crisis is its own favorite quiz answer.
Key terms
  • Jaleh Square: the "Black Friday" massacre under martial law — a signature mid clue.
  • Amir Abbas Hoveyda: the Shah's longtime PM, sacrificed to appease the crowds — then executed.
  • 444 days: the hostage crisis number; ends the day of Reagan's inauguration.
  • Operation Eagle Claw: the failed 1980 rescue — eight dead at Desert One near Tabas; Cyrus Vance resigned over it.
  • Canadian Caper: Tony Mendez and Ambassador Ken Taylor sneak six Americans out — the Argo story.
  • Algiers Accords: Warren Christopher's deal — unfroze assets, freed the hostages.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This revolution was a direct response to the White Revolution of the 1960s, which enfranchised women and introduced trickle-down economics.

MID

Prime Minister Joe Clark gave approval to the "Canadian Caper," in which Ken Taylor harbored a group including Robert Anders after they escaped this revolution's embassy seizure.

GIVEAWAY

The hostage crisis that grew out of this revolution ended on the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

The Shah was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini in this 1979 revolution that established a religious fundamentalist government in Iran.

MID

Leading up to it, protesters were killed at Jaleh Square after the declaration of martial law.

MID

A 2,500-year anniversary was controversially celebrated prior to this revolution, in which the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown.

GIVEAWAY

An attempt to appease its participants led to the arrest of Amir Abbas Hoveyda.

GIVEAWAY

The secret police organisation SAVAK was dissolved after this revolution.

GIVEAWAY

Its perpetrators demanded that the Shah be returned from American asylum for trial.

This cluster is really the Iran Hostage Crisis (1979–81) — when a clue says "this event" with 444 days, Eagle Claw, or the Caper, that's usually the wanted answer:

HARD

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned after Operation Eagle Claw, a botched attempt to end the hostage crisis, which began after the U.S. refused to return Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for trial.

HARD

American embassy staff were captured by students in Tehran after Ayatollah Khomeini seized power — the 1979-to-1981 event.

MID

In the revolution's aftermath, 52 American diplomats were held hostage by government-backed students for 444 days.

MID

One hostage, Richard Queen, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during it and released early.

MID

Warren Christopher negotiated its end by unfreezing nearly $8 billion in assets.

GIVEAWAY

Six people who escaped the embassy seizure were rescued by Tony Mendez in the Canadian Caper.

GIVEAWAY

Eight American soldiers were killed near Tabas in Operation Eagle Claw, an aborted attempt to end the crisis.

Trap

Sort the pronoun. "This revolution" + Jaleh Square, Hoveyda, White Revolution → Iranian Revolution. "This event/crisis" + 444 days, Eagle Claw, Canadian Caper → Iran Hostage Crisis. The man himself → Khomeini; his victim → the Shah.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 135:04 ♫ audio
The Story

the fake movie that fooled Tehran

When the embassy fell, six Americans slipped out a side door and vanished into Tehran — eventually hiding in the homes of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor and his colleagues. Getting them out was the problem: how do six pale strangers walk through revolutionary airport security?

The CIA's answer, courtesy of master forger Tony Mendez: make them Canadians — and not just any Canadians, a film crew. Mendez invented a science-fiction movie called Argo, set up a fake Hollywood production office that answered its phone, bought ads in the trade papers, and drew up storyboards for a Star Wars knockoff supposedly scouting "exotic desert locations." The six memorized fake showbiz identities: director, screenwriter, location scout.

In January 1980 they walked through Mehrabad Airport chatting about camera angles, boarded a Swissair flight, and were gone. Canada's parliament had passed a secret sitting to issue the fake passports — the first since World War II. The operation stayed classified for years; when Hollywood finally filmed the story, it won Best Picture. The fake movie became a real one with a better ending.

Block VIII · Card 6 of 13

Ayatollah Khomeini

What: Iran's first Supreme Leader  ·  When: 1902–1989; ruled 1979–89  ·  Where: Iran; exile in Najaf and Paris

The seminary teacher the Shah exiled — who came back fourteen years later to rule Iran as its first Supreme Leader.

Overview
  • Defiance: His opposition to the White Revolution brought troops to Qom; his 1963 arrest triggered the 15 Khordad Uprising.
  • Exile: Fourteen years away — mostly Najaf in Iraq, finally a Paris suburb — while his sermons circulated inside Iran on smuggled cassette tapes.
  • Rule: Returned February 1, 1979 to millions in the streets; declared "I appoint the government"; became Supreme Leader of the new Islamic Republic; branded the U.S. the "Great Satan."
  • Last act: His 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses reached worldwide — Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was murdered in 1991.
Key terms
  • 15 Khordad Uprising: the 1963 riots after his arrest — the revolution's dress rehearsal.
  • Najaf: the Iraqi shrine city where he spent most of his exile.
  • "Great Satan": his epithet for the United States (also "the wounded snake").
  • Rushdie fatwa: the 1989 death decree over The Satanic Verses.
  • Morteza Motahhari: his disciple, founder of the Combatant Clergy Association — assassinated in 1979.
  • Ali Khamenei: his successor as Supreme Leader — one letter away, ten years later.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Nader Naderpour often recited poetry with this man, whose disciple Morteza Motahhari founded the Combatant Clergy Association.

MID

This predecessor of Ali Khamenei overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in a revolution during which his supporters besieged the American embassy in Tehran.

GIVEAWAY

This man's opposition to the White Revolution led the Shah to send troops to Qom, and this man's house arrest led to the 15 Khordad Uprising.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

After his 1964 arrest, he was slapped by the prime minister of his country, Hasan Ali Mansur, for refusing to cease his criticism of the government while working as a seminary teacher.

MID

"I appoint the government." That followed fourteen years of exile for this man, including time in cities like Najaf and Paris.

MID

He claimed to feel "nothing" when returning from the exile that had followed his opposition to the White Revolution.

MID

This Ayatollah gained international notoriety through the Iran Hostage Crisis.

GIVEAWAY

In one speech, he referred to the United States as the "wounded snake" and the "Great Satan"; his objections to the novel The Satanic Verses led him to issue a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie.

GIVEAWAY

Orders by this man led to the murder of translator Hitoshi Igarashi.

GIVEAWAY

Ayatollah who became his country's first Supreme Leader in the 1979 revolution.

Trap

Khomeini vs. Khamenei — one letter, ten years. Khomeini led the 1979 revolution and died in 1989; Khamenei is the successor who has ruled since. "First Supreme Leader," exile, Rushdie fatwa → Khomeini.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 138:01 ♫ audio
The Story

revolution by cassette tape

The Shah had the fifth-largest army on Earth, a feared secret police, and total control of radio and television. Khomeini, in exile, had a tape recorder. His sermons were recorded in Najaf and later Paris, smuggled into Iran in suitcases, copied bazaar to bazaar, and played in mosques across the country. The state owned the airwaves; the revolution traveled at the speed of a cassette.

On February 1, 1979, he flew home on a chartered Air France 747, fourteen years of exile ending over the Alborz mountains. A reporter aboard asked what he felt, returning at last to Iran. Khomeini answered with one word: "Hichi" — nothing. Aides scrambled to explain it as mystical detachment; either way, the man millions were about to greet as a savior had just given history's coldest homecoming quote.

Below, the crowd lining his route through Tehran was estimated in the millions — among the largest gatherings in human history to that point. Within weeks the man who said he felt nothing had appointed a government, buried the monarchy, and rebuilt a 2,500-year-old state around his own office. Sometimes the quietest sentence in the archive belongs to the loudest turning point.

Block VIII · Card 7 of 13

The Iran-Iraq War

What: Eight-year Iran–Iraq bloodletting  ·  When: 1980–1988  ·  Where: Iran–Iraq border, Shatt al-Arab, Persian Gulf

Saddam's grab for a waterway became the 20th century's longest conventional war — and ended exactly where it began.

Overview
  • Why it started: Saddam tore up the 1975 Algiers Agreement and invaded in September 1980, betting revolutionary Iran was too chaotic to fight back. It wasn't.
  • How it was fought: Trenches, human-wave assaults, missile strikes on cities — a First World War replayed with 1980s weapons, including Iraqi chemical attacks.
  • The Tanker War: Both sides attacked Gulf shipping; in 1987 an Iraqi jet's two Exocet missiles hit the USS Stark, killing 37 American sailors.
  • Halabja: March 1988 — Iraqi poison gas killed roughly 5,000 Kurdish civilians in a single town. Remember this name with care; it recurs on three different cards.
  • The end: UN Security Council Resolution 598 brought a 1988 ceasefire; the borders returned to the pre-war line of the Algiers Agreement. Perhaps a million casualties, for nothing regained.
Key terms
  • Shatt al-Arab: the disputed river-mouth waterway the war was nominally about.
  • Algiers Agreement (1975): the border deal Saddam repudiated — and accepted again eight years of blood later.
  • USS Stark: American frigate hit by Iraqi Exocets, 1987 — a giveaway-level clue.
  • Operation Scorch Sword: Iran's 1980 airstrike on Iraq's Osirak reactor (Israel's Operation Opera finished it in 1981).
  • Resolution 598: the UN ceasefire resolution that ended the war.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Operation Scorch Sword was an unsuccessful attempt by one side in this war to destroy the other side's Osirak reactor.

MID

This conflict was ended by UN Resolution 598, which restored pre-war boundaries according to the Algiers Agreement.

GIVEAWAY

The USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles launched by one side during this conflict.

More clues the game has asked
MID

Critics of American coverage of this war note that the media believed one side's soldiers held plastic keys that would grant them instant access to paradise.

GIVEAWAY

1980s war between two OPEC members to control the vital Shatt al-Arab waterway.

GIVEAWAY

This war included the smaller Tanker War and the use of chemical weapons at Halabja.

Trap

Same facts, three answers: Halabja or al-Anfal with "this leader" → Saddam; with "this conflict" → this war; with "this ethnic group" → the Kurds. And the USS Stark (1987) belongs here, not in the 1991 Gulf War.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 140:15 ♫ audio
The Story

the cup of poison

The war ended where it started. After eight years, hundreds of thousands of dead on each side, cities under missile fire, teenagers sent through minefields, and the gassing of Halabja, the ceasefire line was the same border both countries had already agreed to in 1975. No territory changed hands. It is one of history's starkest lessons in what a war can cost and still settle nothing.

For Iran's leadership, admitting this was almost impossible — Khomeini had vowed to fight until victory. When he finally accepted Resolution 598 in July 1988, he told his nation that making the decision was "more deadly than drinking poison." He had sworn never to stop; the arithmetic of grief stopped him.

The town of Halabja buried its dead and, remarkably, endured. Survivors spent decades pursuing justice — testifying in courtrooms in Baghdad and The Hague, where a Dutch court convicted the businessman who had supplied the chemicals, and Iraqi judges convicted the general who ordered the attack. The gas cloud lasted a morning; the witnesses lasted longer.

Block VIII · Card 8 of 13

Saddam Hussein

What: Ba'athist dictator of Iraq  ·  When: ruled 1979–2003  ·  Where: Iraq

Ruled Iraq by terror through three wars — against Iran, over Kuwait, and finally against the United States — and was pulled from a hole in the ground.

Overview
  • Rise: Came up as vice president under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, then took full power in 1979 with a televised party purge.
  • Wars: Launched the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88); invaded Kuwait in 1990 and lost the 1991 Persian Gulf War; invaded in 2003 by a U.S.-led coalition over claimed weapons of mass destruction.
  • Atrocities: The al-Anfal ("Spoils of War") campaign against the Kurds, including the Halabja gas attack; the Dujail reprisals — 148 death sentences after a 1982 assassination attempt.
  • End: Sons Uday and Qusay killed in Mosul; Saddam captured near Tikrit in a "spider hole" in December 2003; tried and hanged in 2006.
Key terms
  • Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr: the predecessor he served, then supplanted.
  • al-Anfal / "Chemical Ali": the anti-Kurd campaign he ran with his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid.
  • Dujail: the 1982 massacre he was actually tried and executed for.
  • Hands of Victory: the crossed-swords arch he built over Baghdad — cast partly from melted Iraqi weapons.
  • George Piro: the FBI agent who interrogated "High Value Detainee #1."
  • Osirak: his French-built reactor, hit by Iran (Scorch Sword) and destroyed by Israel (Operation Opera).
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This man commissioned the Hands of Victory arch formed by two crossing swords.

MID

Piro's interrogation of this man, described as "High Value Detainee #1," found he held no links with al-Qaeda or interest in creating an Islamic state.

GIVEAWAY

This leader launched the Al-Anfal campaign, which included the gassing of Kurds at Halabja.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

His first party conference resulted in him expelling around seventy delegates, before giving guns to the remaining members and telling them to shoot the ones outside.

HARD

Targeted by Dawa Party members in a 1982 assassination attempt; in its aftermath, he ordered hundreds of thousands of acres of date palm orchards razed and signed execution orders for 148 people.

HARD

This dictator led his country's Ba'ath regime through a 1991 defeat in the Persian Gulf War, which itself followed a stalemate in the Iran-Iraq War.

HARD

Despite his country signing the Algiers Agreement six years earlier, he launched an eight-year-long war to gain control of the Shatt al-Arab.

HARD

This head of state and his cousin oversaw the al-Anfal, or "Spoils of War" campaign, a genocide in which five thousand people were killed by a gas attack in Halabja.

MID

His country was invaded in 2003 after the United States claimed that he had weapons of mass destruction.

MID

He claimed that using body doubles as a security measure was "movie magic, not reality" in a conversation with George Piro.

MID

For supplying him with raw materials for chemical weapons, Franz van Anraat was sentenced to seventeen years in prison.

MID

President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda sent him a Boeing 747 filled with luxurious goods as a gift.

MID

He advanced his country's nuclear program by building the Osirak reactor, only to see it destroyed in Operation Opera.

MID

He was executed for ordering the Dujail Massacre, in which his Sunni-dominated government killed Shia townspeople; he was separately charged for gassing Kurds at Halabja.

GIVEAWAY

Came to power as vice president under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

GIVEAWAY

Found hiding in a "spider hole" by American troops.

GIVEAWAY

Captured near Tikrit in a "spider hole" nine months after the U.S. invasion.

GIVEAWAY

His sons were killed in a gunfight against Task Force 121 in Mosul.

GIVEAWAY

Deployed chemical weapons in the town of Halabja as part of a genocide against Kurds.

GIVEAWAY

Captured near Tikrit in 2003 and hanged for crimes against humanity in 2006.

Trap

Man vs. war vs. wars. "This leader" + Anfal/Halabja → Saddam. "This conflict" + Shatt al-Arab → the Iran-Iraq War. And keep his two American wars straight: Kuwait and 1991 → Persian Gulf War; WMD claims, 2003, spider hole → Iraq War.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 141:59 ♫ audio
The Story

the interrogator who brought cookies

After the spider hole, the United States faced a strange problem: how do you get the truth out of a man who spent thirty years being lied to by everyone around him? The FBI's answer was George Piro, a Lebanese-American agent in his thirties who spoke Arabic — and who spent months as practically the only person Saddam saw. No shouting, no threats. Piro controlled everything down to Saddam's razors, brought him coffee, listened to him talk about poetry, and once arranged birthday cookies because Saddam missed the date sweets he'd grown up with in Tikrit.

Slowly, the man who had executed subordinates for bad news started talking honestly to the one person who neither feared nor flattered him. The biggest revelation was about the weapons that had justified the war: there were none. Saddam admitted he had kept the world guessing on purpose — the bluff was aimed at Iran, the enemy he actually feared, and he had never imagined it would bring the Americans all the way to Baghdad.

There is no wry ending to this card's darkest lines — Halabja's dead, Dujail's orchards cut down for spite. But the Piro interviews left history something rare: a tyrant's own accounting, given quietly across a small table, of how fear — his weapon for three decades — was also the miscalculation that finished him.

Block VIII · Card 9 of 13

Muammar Gaddafi

What: Libya's flamboyant dictator  ·  When: ruled 1969–2011  ·  Where: Libya

Seized Libya in a coup at 27, wrote his own Green Book philosophy, sparred with America for decades — and fell to the Arab Spring.

Overview
  • Coup: The 1969 al-Fateh Revolution deposed King Idris and the Senussi monarchy without a battle.
  • Rule: His "Third International Theory" and Green Book declared Libya a Jamahiriya — "state of the masses"; in practice, his state alone. Expelled Italians and Jews on 1970's "Vengeance Day"; nationalized foreign oil holdings, including Nelson Bunker Hunt's.
  • Versus America: After a Berlin disco bombing was traced to Libya, Reagan launched the 1986 El Dorado Canyon airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi; the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing kept Libya a pariah for years.
  • Fall: In 2011's Arab Spring, the National Transitional Council's rebels — backed by NATO air power — took his capital; he was killed after the Battle of Sirte, his hometown.
Key terms
  • King Idris / Senussi: the monarchy he toppled in 1969.
  • The Green Book: his little green political manifesto — not Mao's little red one.
  • Jamahiriya: his coined word for the "state of the masses."
  • Operation El Dorado Canyon: the 1986 U.S. airstrikes against him.
  • National Transitional Council / Sirte: the rebels who overthrew him, and the city where he died.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This non-Chinese leader's Cultural Revolution created the "state of the masses," and he outlined his Third International Theory in the Green Book.

MID

This man proposed the abolition of Switzerland to the UN, likely due to the arrest of his son, Hannibal, in Geneva for the beating of a servant.

GIVEAWAY

The United States launched Operation El Dorado Canyon air strikes against this leader in 1986.

More clues the game has asked
MID

In 1970, he expelled both the Italians and the Jews in a day he dubbed "Vengeance Day," taking control of their funds and businesses.

MID

In 1969, he coordinated the al-Fateh Revolution to defeat the Senussis and King Idris.

GIVEAWAY

He was overthrown by the National Transitional Council after the Battle of Sirte.

GIVEAWAY

Nelson Bunker Hunt's shares of oil were nationalized under his orders.

Trap

Color-code your manifestos: Green Book → Gaddafi; Little Red Book → Mao. And in Arab Spring clues, "this uprising" wants the Spring while "this leader" killed at Sirte wants Gaddafi.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 147:29 ♫ audio
The Story

the man who brought his tent to New York

Gaddafi did not travel like other heads of state. He crossed the world with a bulletproof Bedouin tent, insisting on pitching it wherever he went — in a Rome park beside ancient ruins, in Moscow, in Paris. When he came to the UN in 2009, New York refused him a campsite; the tent briefly went up on a suburban estate before officials shut that down too.

That UN visit produced one of the strangest speeches in the organization's history: allotted fifteen minutes, he spoke for around an hour and a half, tossed aside a copy of the UN Charter, mused about the JFK assassination and swine flu, and demanded the abolition of Switzerland — a proposal he had actually submitted after Geneva police arrested his son Hannibal. His translator reportedly gave out before he did.

The theatrics were the point: they kept the world watching the showman instead of the police state behind him. In 2011 the audience finally walked out — his own people, rising with the Arab Spring. The man of tents and titles was found hiding in a drainage pipe outside Sirte. The costume box was empty at the end.

Block VIII · Card 10 of 13

Afghanistan

What: Graveyard-of-empires mountain nation  ·  When: clues span 1st century AD–2021  ·  Where: Central/South Asia; capital Kabul

Britain, the Soviet Union, and America each marched into these mountains sure it would be quick. It never was.

Overview
  • Deep past: The Kushan Empire ruled from Bagram in the 1st century; giant Buddhas watched over the Bamiyan Valley; Babur used Kabul as his springboard to India.
  • Founding: Ahmad Shah Durrani — risen from Nader Shah's army — made it an empire in 1747; the Barakzai dynasty ruled until 1973.
  • The British lesson: Three Anglo-Afghan wars: the 1842 retreat that annihilated Elphinstone's army, the Battle of Maiwand, and the Durand Line border with what became Pakistan.
  • The Soviet lesson: 1979–89: from the Saur Revolution and Operation Storm-333 to CIA Stinger missiles for the mujahideen and Gorbachev's withdrawal.
  • The American lesson: 2001–2021: invasion after 9/11, the Taliban ousted then returned, Karzai's government, Tora Bora, and twenty years of war.
Key terms
  • Ahmad Shah Durrani: founder of the modern Afghan state, 1747.
  • William Brydon: the legendary lone survivor of the 1842 retreat from Kabul.
  • Durand Line: the 1893 British-drawn border Afghanistan never loved.
  • Operation Storm-333: the Soviet commando strike that killed Hafizullah Amin and installed Babrak Karmal.
  • mujahideen: the CIA- and Pakistan-backed resistance that bled the Soviets.
  • Tora Bora: the White Mountains cave complex where bin Laden slipped away.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

This country was invaded as a result of the Brezhnev Doctrine, though Mikhail Gorbachev would withdraw the troops.

MID

An interview in Rolling Stone caused Stanley McChrystal's removal from command in this nation.

GIVEAWAY

The United States backed the new government of Hamid Karzai in this country.

More clues the game has asked

Ancient and early Afghanistan:

GIVEAWAY

The 1st-century Kushan Empire ruled from what is now this country's city of Bagram.

HARD

A national museum in this country is housed in the Herat Citadel, on the site of a fort built by Alexander the Great.

HARD

Ahmad Shah Durrani established his capital in this present-day country, from which Babur had conquered the Lodi Dynasty.

The Anglo-Afghan wars — Britain's turn:

HARD

An intervention in a war involving this country was the subject of the Simla Manifesto, promising to restore Shah Shuja.

MID

William Brydon legendarily survived the massacre of Elphinstone's army here by stuffing a newspaper in his hat.

MID

An invasion of this country ended with only the surgeon William Brydon returning across the Hindu Kush range.

HARD

A girl from this country named Malalai became a flag-bearer and inspired her side to victory in the Battle of Maiwand against a British/Indian force.

MID

One of these two countries imposed the Durand Line on the other as its border with modern Pakistan.

Kings, coups, and the road to 1979:

MID

Habibullah Kalakani led an uprising in this country against the reforms of Amanullah Khan.

GIVEAWAY

This country's last monarch was a member of the Barakzai dynasty.

MID

This country's People's Democratic Party was divided into the Khalq and Parcham factions.

The Soviet war, 1979–89 — "this war" clues here usually want the Soviet-Afghan War:

GIVEAWAY

The Soviet invasion of this country was prompted by the deterioration of relations with Nur Muhammad Taraki, who had seized power in the Saur Revolution.

GIVEAWAY

This war was preceded by Operation Storm-333, which replaced Hafizullah Amin with Babrak Karmal.

GIVEAWAY

The Panjshir valley was fought over from early on in this war.

HARD

An attack on this country prompted a Western boycott of the 1980 Olympics and a CIA effort to supply Stinger missiles to mujahideen fighters.

HARD

During this war, the Caravan War was initiated as part of Operation Curtain and carried out by one side's spetsnaz special forces.

MID

Country where the KGB could not control Kabul or defeat the mujahideen during a 1980s war.

HARD

The CIA supported the mujahideen in their fight during this nine-year war, which partially caused the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

MID

In 1988, Mohammad Najibullah helped negotiate a set of Geneva Accords that helped end a conflict in this country.

HARD

This setting of A Thousand Splendid Suns serves as Amir's home in one novel before he is forced to flee from a Soviet invasion.

MID

A violent Communist coup in this country inspired a novel in which Assef assaults the Hazara boy, Hassan.

The Taliban and the American war, 2001–2021:

GIVEAWAY

Two massive statues of the Buddha in this country's Bamiyan Valley were dynamited in 2001.

GIVEAWAY

This country was invaded after its government harbored Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.

GIVEAWAY

The U.S. invaded in October 2001, resulting in the ousting of the Taliban regime.

MID

This country was the site of the Battle of Tora Bora, where a fugitive was nearly captured in the White Mountains.

MID

The death of a man in this country is chronicled in Jon Krakauer's book Where Men Win Glory.

GIVEAWAY

Former NFL player turned soldier Pat Tillman died in this country.

HARD

General Gary Jones wrote a report concluding American soldiers in this country burned a high-profile colleague's uniform to cover up the fact that he had died by friendly fire.

GIVEAWAY

A 2012 video showed Americans urinating on dead bodies in this country.

Trap

Country vs. war: Storm-333, Stingers, and the 1980 Olympic boycott may want "Soviet-Afghan War," not the country. And ignore sloppy "Middle-Eastern country" framing — Afghanistan sits in Central/South Asia, but answer it anyway.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 151:56 ♫ audio
The Story

the one who rode back

In January 1842, some 16,000 British soldiers and camp followers marched out of Kabul, retreating for the Khyber Pass in the dead of winter. Snow, ambushes, and freezing nights consumed the column in the passes. A week later, sentries at the fort of Jalalabad saw a single exhausted horseman swaying toward the gate: army surgeon William Brydon, part of his skull sheared away by an Afghan blade.

The wound should have killed him — except, Brydon explained, he had stuffed a copy of Blackwood's Magazine into his hat against the cold, and the paper absorbed the blow. Asked where the army was, tradition gives him the bleakest reply in imperial history: "I am the army." A few captives and stragglers would eventually surface, but the legend of the sole survivor was already fixed — Victorian Britain hung the painting Remnants of an Army in its galleries as a warning.

Every generation seems to need the lesson fresh. The British came back twice more; a soldier's daughter named Malalai became Afghanistan's Joan of Arc rallying the line at Maiwand in 1880; the Soviets lasted nine years; the Americans, twenty. The mountains keep the receipts.

Block VIII · Card 11 of 13

Lebanon

What: Mediterranean mosaic of sects  ·  When: independent 1943; civil war 1975–1990  ·  Where: eastern Mediterranean; capital Beirut

Phoenicia's old coast became the Arab world's banker and playground — then fought the region's longest civil war over how to share one small country.

Overview
  • Deep past: Home of Phoenician Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre; the cedar on its flag is the tree Gilgamesh came for.
  • The balancing act: The 1943 National Pact splits power by religion — a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni prime minister, a Shia speaker — a truce forever one crisis from collapse (first crack: 1958, Eisenhower's Operation Blue Bat).
  • Civil war, 1975–1990: Phalangists, Palestinian factions, Syrian occupiers, and two Israeli invasions; the Sabra and Shatila massacres; Hezbollah born in the wreckage; Aoun's last stand ended it in 1990.
  • Since: Hariri's 2005 assassination sparked the Cedar Revolution that pushed Syria out; the 2006 Hezbollah–Israel war; the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Key terms
  • National Pact: the 1943 sect-sharing deal — the key to every Lebanese politics clue.
  • Gemayels / Phalange (Kataeb): the Maronite political dynasty; president-elect Bachir's 1982 assassination preceded Sabra and Shatila.
  • Hezbollah / Hassan Nasrallah: the Shia militia-party based here; its 2006 raids triggered an Israeli invasion.
  • Rafik Hariri: billionaire ex-PM killed by a 2005 truck bomb — cue the Cedar Revolution.
  • March 8 vs. March 14: the two rival coalitions that structure politics after 2005.
  • MV Rhosus: the ship whose abandoned ammonium nitrate destroyed Beirut's port in 2020.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The MV Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged cargo ship carrying 3,030 short tons of ammonium nitrate, was placed in permanent storage in this country's capital — cargo that finally exploded in 2020.

MID

Michel Aoun's forces surrendered at this country's Presidential Palace, but some were executed in the October 13 massacre.

GIVEAWAY

Country where Rafik Hariri was assassinated in 2005.

More clues the game has asked

Ancient Lebanon — these clues live on the Phoenicians card in the other codex, but writers file them here:

HARD

One king of a city in this modern country, Tabnit, was buried in an Egyptian sarcophagus, though his body decomposed once found.

HARD

An undeciphered script was used in this country's city of Byblos, while a later alphabet from this country gave rise to Greek and Latin.

MID

The ancient Phoenician cities of Sidon and Tyre were situated in this country that is today led from Beirut.

MID

According to Babylonian legend, Gilgamesh cut down this country's cedar trees after battling Humbaba.

GIVEAWAY

Its native cedar tree is depicted on the flag of Lebanon.

Independence and the balancing act:

GIVEAWAY

This country's 1943 National Pact shares power between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Maronite Christians, and Druze.

MID

In this country, the National Pact guarantees a Catholic (Maronite) president and a half-Christian parliament.

HARD

Emile Edde served as president of this country, in which Galo Plaza and Odd Bull, members of the UN Group of Three, were later dispatched.

HARD

Bashir Gemayel led the right-wing Kataeb Phalange Party in this country, where a 1958 crisis prompted Dwight Eisenhower to authorize a U.S. intervention.

GIVEAWAY

This country was the site of Operation Blue Bat, where Eisenhower sent 15,000 troops to help president Camille Chamoun end a sectarian conflict.

GIVEAWAY

Robert Daniel Murphy was sent to this country, allowing for the election of Fouad Chehab.

HARD

One leader of this country declared that "the revolution has no winners and no losers" and used the policy of Chehabism.

The civil war, 1975–1990 — fifteen years that broke the country:

GIVEAWAY

This country's Civil War led to Israeli invasions and the emergence of Hezbollah.

MID

Country Israel invaded in 1982, where Israeli forces were criticized for their role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

HARD

A massacre of a refugee camp in this country was conducted as retaliation for the assassination of president-elect Bachir Gemayel, a leader of this country's Phalangist party.

MID

In the 1980s, this country experienced a Mountain War in which Christians were displaced from its Chouf region.

After the war:

GIVEAWAY

In this country, a truck bomb killed Bassel Fleihan and this country's former prime minister.

HARD

This country, whose Christian parties include the Falangists founded by Pierre Gemayel, established its March 8 and March 14 Alliances after the Cedar Revolution ended a 30-year Syrian occupation.

GIVEAWAY

This country's parliament primarily consists of the March 8 and March 14 coalitions.

HARD

This country was invaded in 2006 after Hassan Nasrallah organized cross-border ambushes against Israeli forces.

GIVEAWAY

This country is the base of the militant group Hezbollah.

MID

Armed clashes that broke out in this country's capital city were ended by the 2008 Doha Agreement.

MID

A 29-month political deadlock in this country was ended with the October 2016 election of President Michel Aoun.

MID

In recent years, around one quarter of this country's population has been Syrians fleeing a neighboring civil war.

Trap

Ancient-coast clues (Tyre, Byblos, the alphabet) may want Phoenicia, not Lebanon — listen for "this modern country." And keep the Gemayels straight: Pierre founded the Phalange; his son Bachir was the assassinated president-elect.

Easily confused / connected
Phoenicians · its ancient coastal cities ↗
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 156:48 ♫ audio
The Story

the museum sealed in concrete

When the civil war split Beirut in 1975, the National Museum had the worst address in the country: directly on the Green Line, the no-man's-land between the militias. Its long-serving curator, Maurice Chehab, and his wife did something desperate and brilliant — they poured concrete around the treasures. Roman mosaics vanished under screed floors; monumental sarcophagi, too heavy to move, disappeared inside massive poured-concrete boxes where they stood.

For fifteen years the museum was a battlefield. Snipers nested in its galleries, shells opened its roof, and militiamen camped among the blocks with no idea that some of the Mediterranean's greatest antiquities sat inches away, entombed in grey cement. Smaller objects waited, walled up, in the basement as groundwater seeped in.

When peace finally came in the 1990s, workers cracked open the concrete like eggs — and Lebanon's history stepped out, scorched at the edges but standing: the sarcophagus of Ahiram, whose inscription carries one of the oldest alphabets on Earth, among the survivors. A country that had spent fifteen years being torn apart discovered that someone, quietly, had spent those same years making sure there would still be something to inherit.

Block VIII · Card 12 of 13

The Kurds

What: Largest stateless nation  ·  When: clues mostly 1980s–today  ·  Where: mountains of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria

Thirty-plus million people spread across four countries' mountains — "no friends but the mountains," says their proverb.

Overview
  • Who they are: A distinct people with their own language — not Arabs, Turks, or Persians; history's most famous Kurd is Saladin.
  • The struggle: The PKK has fought Turkey since the 1980s; in Iraq, Saddam's al-Anfal campaign and the Halabja gas attack targeted them; Iraqi Kurdistan has run itself since 1991.
  • Against ISIS: Kurdish peshmerga and the Syrian Kurdish YPG/YPJ — including celebrated all-women units — did much of the ground fighting that broke ISIS.
Key terms
  • PKK: the Kurdistan Workers' Party, at war with Turkey since the 1980s.
  • peshmerga: Iraqi Kurdish fighters — literally "those who face death."
  • Halabja / al-Anfal: Saddam's 1988 gas attack and wider campaign against them.
  • YPJ: the Syrian Kurdish women's units famed in the ISIS war.
  • Operation Martyr Yalcin: Turkey's 2015 airstrikes on both ISIS and Kurdish targets.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

The PKK party was founded by members of this ethnic group, some of whom aim to create a nation-state in parts of modern-day Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.

MID

ISIS and this ethnic group were the targets of the Operation Martyr Yalcin airstrikes launched by the Erdogan government.

GIVEAWAY

Often called the largest nation without a state, this mountain people spans four Middle Eastern countries.

More clues the game has asked
MID

In December 2016, a militant group of this ethnicity called the Freedom Hawks orchestrated a car bombing and suicide bombing in Besiktas, killing dozens of police officers.

GIVEAWAY

The 2016 documentary Gulistan, Land of Roses follows a guerrilla unit of women of this ethnicity fighting ISIS.

Trap

Halabja with "this ethnic group" → Kurds; with "this leader" → Saddam; with "this war" → Iran-Iraq War. And the Kurds are a people, not a country — "Kurdistan" is the goal, not the answer, unless the clue says so.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 145:58 ♫ audio
The Story

the city that would not fall

In late 2014, ISIS seemed unstoppable — until it hit Kobani, a Kurdish town on the Syrian-Turkish border. The world's cameras lined up on the Turkish side of the fence and watched, expecting a massacre. Instead they watched Kurdish fighters — the YPG and the all-women YPJ — hold the town street by street and, after months of siege and American airstrikes, throw ISIS back. It was the group's first great defeat, and it happened in public.

The women's units carried a particular weight in that fight. Young Kurdish women commanded checkpoints and sniper positions against an enemy that had enslaved women in Sinjar — and reports spread that ISIS fighters dreaded dying at a woman's hands. Whatever each fighter believed, the image travelled: the force that terrorized the region was being beaten, in part, by the daughters of a people with no state at all.

The Kurds' proverb — "no friends but the mountains" — comes from a long ledger of broken promises, Halabja darkest among them. Kobani wrote a different kind of entry: not rescue, but resilience. It is why, whenever the modern Middle East is the topic, the people without a country keep appearing in the story anyway.

Block VIII · Card 13 of 13

The Arab Spring

What: Wave of Arab uprisings  ·  When: 2010–2012  ·  Where: Tunisia outward, across the Arab world

One street vendor's protest in Tunisia toppled four dictators and rewrote the map of Middle Eastern politics.

Overview
  • The spark: December 17, 2010: officials in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia seized Mohamed Bouazizi's vegetable cart; his self-immolation lit the region.
  • The chant: "The people want to bring down the regime" — in graffiti and in the streets from Tunis to Tahrir Square.
  • Who fell: Tunisia's Ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Gaddafi (killed at Sirte), Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh; Syria's uprising became a civil war instead.
  • The aftermath: Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for saving its transition — the spark country was the rare success.
Key terms
  • Mohamed Bouazizi: the Tunisian street vendor whose protest began it all.
  • Tahrir Square: Cairo's protest epicenter — the Egypt chapter's signature clue.
  • National Transitional Council: Libya's rebel government; took Sirte, ending Gaddafi.
  • Ennahda: the Tunisian party that won post-revolution elections.
  • National Dialogue Quartet: Tunisian civil-society groups, 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.
The ladder — buzzer clues, hardest first
HARD

Muammar Gaddafi initially responded to his country's participation in this uprising by reducing food prices and restructuring the military, though he eventually ordered his army to open fire on protesters in Benghazi.

MID

Political dissidents during this uprising organized mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square.

GIVEAWAY

Street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire is commonly seen as the beginning of this widespread event.

More clues the game has asked
HARD

After his vegetable cart had been seized by government officials, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire; that incident sparked this movement, which led to the downfall of the Gaddafi and Mubarak governments.

MID

In response to it, Adel el-Mshiti's song "We Will Stay Here" spread; it also led to an election victory for the Ennahda Party, as well as fighting around the cities of Derna and Tobruk.

MID

During it, the National Transitional Council took the city of Sirte and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

MID

The National Dialogue Quartet, which emerged from it, led to the awarding of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, four years after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi.

GIVEAWAY

Yemen's "Revolution of Dignity" took place against Ali Abdullah Saleh during this wave.

GIVEAWAY

It led to the toppling of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, after which the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections that followed.

GIVEAWAY

It featured the widespread usage of the phrase "the people want to bring down the regime" in graffiti and chants.

Trap

The spark is Tunisia, not Egypt — Bouazizi and Sidi Bouzid come first, Tahrir Square second. And country-specific clues (Benghazi, Sirte, NTC) may want "Libyan Civil War"; the region-wide "this uprising/wave" wants the Arab Spring.

Easily confused / connected
▶ hear this in the video ≈ 149:16 ♫ audio
The Story

the fruit cart that moved the world

Mohamed Bouazizi was twenty-six, the main earner for his family, selling fruit and vegetables from a cart in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. On December 17, 2010, inspectors confiscated his produce and his scales — the tools of his living — and, by witness accounts, he was humiliated in the process. He went to the governor's office to complain. No one would see him. Within the hour, outside that building, he set himself on fire.

What he could not have known is that his despair spoke for millions. Protests spread from his town across Tunisia; twenty-eight days later, President Ben Ali — in power for twenty-three years — fled the country. The chant born in those weeks, "the people want to bring down the regime," jumped borders like a current: Cairo's Tahrir Square, Benghazi, Sanaa, Damascus. Four rulers who had governed for a combined century-plus were swept away.

This video began fourteen centuries ago with a single man leaving Mecca with a message no one in power wanted to hear. It ends with a single man in a market town no one had heard of, whose act of refusal redrew the region again. That is the through-line of the whole story: in the Middle East, history's biggest turns keep starting with one person deciding they will not accept things as they are.

The Telling · a lecture kit for Block VIII

Oil, Revolutions & the Modern Region

Everything needed is on this page — the words are the substance, the performance is yours.

The arc — three beats

Beat 1 — Oil changes everything. Under the poorest sand in the old Ottoman world sits the thing the whole modern world runs on. A desert family (the Sauds) rides a preacher's creed and a company called ARAMCO to custodianship of Mecca and unimaginable wealth; the producers form a club in Baghdad in 1960 (OPEC); and in 1973 that club turns off the tap and makes America wait in line for gasoline. (Ask her: what's the last thing your family did that needed oil? Everything counts.)

Beat 2 — Two revolutions, two flavors. Egypt's revolution wears a colonel's uniform: Nasser seizes the canal with a codeword speech and becomes the Arab world's hero. Iran's wears a cleric's robe: the Shah throws a party at Persepolis while Khomeini's sermons travel home on cassette tapes — and in 1979 the crowds win, the embassy falls, and a theocracy is born. Same word, 'revolution' — completely different results.

Beat 3 — The wars, and the spring. Saddam bets eight years of blood on a waterway and gains nothing — and Halabja happens; tell that part plainly and without jokes, because it deserves gravity. Superpowers sink into Afghanistan one after another. And then, in 2010, a fruit vendor in Tunisia refuses to accept one more humiliation — and four dictators fall. End where the video ends: big history keeps starting with one person.

The board — write these while talking

  • Nasser → nationalized Suez 1956; Sadat → crossed it 1973
  • Mosaddegh '53 → Shah → Khomeini '79
  • SAVAK = Shah's police; 444 days = Hostage Crisis
  • Iran-Iraq 1980–88 — Shatt al-Arab, ends at Res. 598
  • Halabja 1988 — Saddam / the war / the Kurds
  • Green Book = Gaddafi (Red Book = Mao)
  • OPEC — born Baghdad 1960, embargo 1973
  • Afghanistan: Britain → USSR → USA, same lesson
  • Lebanon — National Pact, civil war '75–'90
  • Bouazizi's cart → the Arab Spring

Read these aloud — "here's exactly how they'll ask it"

“Abd al-Karim al-Nahlawi led a coup against this President which resulted in the collapse of the United Arab Republic.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser — the UAR is his fingerprint; Syria leaving it is the hard angle.
“This revolution was a direct response to the White Revolution of the 1960s, which enfranchised women and introduced trickle-down economics.”
the Iranian Revolution — 'White Revolution' as a CAUSE means 1979; if the White Revolution is the answer they want, the clue says 'this program' or 'this Shah.'
“Operation Scorch Sword was an unsuccessful attempt by one side in this war to destroy the other side's Osirak reactor.”
the Iran-Iraq War — Osirak + 'this war' → Iran-Iraq. (Israel's later strike on the same reactor is Operation Opera — a different answer.)

The callbacks — end on these

Nasser or Sadat — who nationalized the canal, and who crossed it?

Nasser nationalized it (1956, Suez Crisis). Sadat crossed it (1973, Yom Kippur War) — then made peace at Camp David.

Ajax and SAVAK? Jaleh Square? Exile in Najaf? Three clues, three answers.

Ajax/SAVAK → the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). Jaleh Square + 'this revolution' → the Iranian Revolution. Najaf exile and fatwas → Khomeini.

Halabja shows up in three kinds of clues. Sort them.

'This leader' → Saddam Hussein. 'This conflict' → the Iran-Iraq War. 'This ethnic group' → the Kurds.

Khomeini vs. Khamenei — one letter apart. Who's who?

KhOmeini: 1979 revolution's leader, first Supreme Leader, died 1989. KhAmenei: his successor, Supreme Leader ever since.

The video opens with the Hijra and closes with the Arab Spring. What's the rhyme?

One man leaving Mecca in 622; one man refusing in a Tunisian market in 2010. Both times, a single person's act of refusal redrew the map of the Middle East — fourteen centuries apart.

End of the codex

That's all 60 cards.

Every clue Video 6 speaks is on these cards, plus the complete file for each term. Marks save on this iPad and sync to the hub.

Block I · The Rise of Islam

Block II · The Caliphates & the Golden Age

Block III · Turks, Crusaders & Mongols

Block IV · The Ottomans

Block V · Safavids & Persia

Block VI · The Long Nineteenth Century

Block VII · Israel & Its Wars

Block VIII · Oil, Revolutions & the Modern Region