Monday, June 02, 2008

Today In History: What's in a name?

On this date in 455AD, a mob of freebooters from Germanic tribes living on the North African coast entered Rome and engaged in an orgy of looting and rapine, carting off everything shiny that wasn't nailed down, as well as the Empress and her daughters.

The looters were apparently persuaded not to burn the place to the ground by Pope Leo, but the name of their tribe would be forever after associated with biker gangs, juvenile delinquents, rioters, and the crowd at Motley Crue concerts: They were the original Vandals.

6 comments:

  1. The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handle.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wonder how the original Goths are diggin' their modern namesake?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I imagine that Alaric would be happy to give some "Pale, Dark, And Tragic" teenager something to be emo about.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As we're talking about Wome, shouldn't it be Motwey Cwue?

    ReplyDelete
  5. And who wouldn't love a band that features an M-16 in their logo?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Vandals also gave their name to Spain... Al Andalus in Arabic. Arabic doesn't do well with leading 'V'.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.