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Jake Leigh-Howarth

Jake Leigh-Howarth is a journalist and researcher from the UK with 8 years experience in music, travel, news, and historical journalism. He grew up in rural North Yorkshire where he developed a lifelong fascination for nature, mythology, folklore and history.

He holds a masters degree in Modern History from the University of Leeds, where he specialized in the travelogues of Western visitors to Soviet Central Asia. Inspired by the very same travelers, he moved to Bolivia in April 2021 where he also teaches as an ESL teacher and maintains a personal blog about his experiences.

Some of his favorite historical periods include the Tamerlane Empire, the Mongolian Empire, and the Eleusinian Mysteries of Ancient Greece. Aside from writing, his other passion is making music with his ongoing experimental rock project Pandelume.

https://jakelhwrites.wordpress.com

pandelume.bandcamp.com

History

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Posts

Rainbow over Sophievsky Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine (panaramka / Adobe Stock)

3 August, 2022 - 18:49 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Triumph, Rebellion And The Ancient History Of Ukraine

Ukraine has always been a complicated place, with one foot in the West and the other in the East, resulting in a unique tension as a constantly contested borderland, a battleground, pitting the...

Relief of Mentuhotep II and the Goddess Hathor, circa 2010-2000 BC Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

1 August, 2022 - 22:57 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Mentuhotep II and the Emergence of the Middle Kingdom

The iconic ancient Egyptians are perhaps the best and grandest example of an ancient civilization that was both technologically advanced and spiritually rich. It was during the Archaic Period that...

Medieval Colonialism: The Danish Duchy Of Estonia

25 July, 2022 - 20:57 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Medieval Colonialism: The Danish Duchy Of Estonia

Within the pantheon of great empires, the Kingdom of Denmark has received very little attention, yet this small European civilization was one the most enterprising of its day following its...

The Nymphaeum of Illyria at the ancient city of Apollonia, Albania fed by underground water sources, built in the middle of the 3rd century BC. It is the biggest and best-preserved Apollonia monument covering an area of 1,500 square meters or 16,146 square feet. Source: Carole Raddato / CC BY 2.0

18 July, 2022 - 15:00 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Illustrious Post-Macedon Illyria and the Roman Illyrian Wars

The legendary and illustrious tribal kingdoms of Illyria were located in current-day Albania and Montenegro, just across the Adriatic from Italy. The Illyrian world was also an important strategic...

Segment of 18th-century illustration of Brian Boru. Source: Public domain

6 July, 2022 - 15:00 Jake Leigh-Howarth

The Legendary Brian Boru: Ireland’s Greatest King

Brian Boru was Ireland’s greatest conqueror and the first man to unite the Emerald Isle into one realm, rising above the divisions of the squabbling Irish elite and their 150 kings. As well as...

The 1274 and 1281 AD Mongol invasions of Japan were well equipped and favored overall but both times the samurai and their “magical” storms won the day! Two Samurai with a dead Mongol at their feet from a votive image (ema) at the Komodahama Shrine on Tsushima, approximately halfway between Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula. Source: Public domain

4 July, 2022 - 23:00 Jake Leigh-Howarth

When Mongols Met Samurai: The Two Failed Mongol Invasions of Japan

Throughout time, there are a few instances where the weather became a determining factor in the outcome of a battle. The Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 AD have often been cited as salient...

Marble busts of Didius Julianus who bought the Roman Empire at the end of the 2nd century AD in a facial reconstruction artwork created by Daniel Voshart. Source: Daniel Voshart / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

28 June, 2022 - 22:44 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Didius Julianus, the Man Who Bought the Roman Empire

In the year 193 AD an auction took place that sent shockwaves throughout the ancient world, as buyers competed for the greatest prize of a generation, the Roman Empire. Following the murder of...

Greek hoplite in armor and with weapons and shield. Source: anibal / Adobe Stock

27 June, 2022 - 18:54 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Soldiers of Bronze: The Greek Hoplite, the Phalanx, and the Battle that Defined Them

Hoplite comes from the Greek word “ ta hopla ,” which means “tool” or “equipment,” and was the name given to legions of citizen soldiers who were tasked with protecting their territories from outside...

A knight taking a serf bride off to fulfill his right of jus primae noctis, or first night intercourse. Source: diter/Adobe Stock

10 June, 2022 - 14:47 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Jus primae noctis: Did Medieval Lords Really Sleep With Serf Brides First?

The jus primae noctis , droit du seigneur , or “right of the first night,” is an alleged medieval custom which permitted lords to engage in sexual intercourse with the brides of their male subjects...

‘The selection of the infant Spartans’ (1840) by Giuseppe Diotti. The origins of eugenics are traced back to ancient Greece. Source: Public Domain

5 June, 2022 - 18:58 Jake Leigh-Howarth

The Shocking Ancient Greek Origins of the Eugenics Movement

Eugenics, the science of selectively choosing human genetics, is most synonymous with the modern world and the horrors of Hitler’s ‘final solution’, in which millions of Jews and other ‘undesirable’...

The Swiss pikemen today in a Pike Square re-enactment during the 2009 Escalade in Geneva. Source: Rama / CC BY-SA 2.0 FR

2 June, 2022 - 22:59 Jake Leigh-Howarth

The Swiss Pikemen: Europe’s Most Deadly Middle Age Military Formation!

The medieval pike, around 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in weight and just under 5 meters (16.4 feet) in length, was a weapon supposedly invented in Turin, Italy in 1327 AD. However, its history was...

The Curious And Precarious Life Of A Medieval Jester

1 June, 2022 - 21:04 Jake Leigh-Howarth

The Curious And Precarious Life Of A Medieval Jester

The medieval jester has become an iconoclastic figure in society, regularly appearing in the TV shows, films, and video-games of the modern era. The classic jester, replete with flamboyant colorful...

Wars of the Diadochi: Alexander the Great’s Generals Fight For Spoils

27 May, 2022 - 22:55 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Wars of the Diadochi: Alexander the Great’s Generals Fight For Spoils

As Alexander the Great slipped away on his deathbed on June 10-11th 323 BC, the iconoclastic emperor, whose remarkable achievements would be imitated by countless impersonators throughout history,...

Reconstruction of the Peking man skull. Source: kevinzim / CC BY 2.0

20 May, 2022 - 19:00 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Peking Man and China’s Paleontological Nationalism

At the beginning of the 20th century, a team of international paleontologists prepared to excavate a cave located in a limestone formation known as Dragon-Bone Hill, a few hours outside of Beijing...

Klaus Störtebeker was part of the Victual Brothers pirate band that terrorized the Baltic Sea until . . . Source: waewkid / Adobe Stock

17 May, 2022 - 22:37 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Klaus Störtebeker: The Bizarre Tale of a North German Pirate

Looking to the past, the annals of history have its fair share of extraordinary and unusual deaths, some more famous than others. It’s well known that Attila the Hun, the marauding Mongolian warlord...

Wife auctions were popular with the lower classes in England from about 1700 to 1850 because divorce was expensive and complicated. This work of art is by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and is called Selling a Wife. Source: Thomas Rowlandson / Public domain

11 May, 2022 - 18:56 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Why Did Victorian Women Willingly Sell Themselves at Wife Auctions?

The year was 1832 when Joseph Thompson, a local Cardiff man, led his wife by halter to the local marketplace hoping for a good price in what was, after all, just a wife auction. Before the bidding,...

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