Vlad the Impaler

Vlad the Impaler 

MLA Documentation

"Vlad the Impaler." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Feb. 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.

Link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler

Summary

This article includes information about Vlad III's life, family, reign, defeat, and much more. It expands on his family and what happened to his father that led to him taking over his father's throne. It also discusses how Vlad killed over twenty-three thousand which led to Sultan Mehmed II raising an arm and heading towards Wallachia.

 

Main Evidence

Vlad III was born in Sighisoars, Transylvania in the year 1431. Vlad's father, Vlad II Dracul, and eldest brother were both killed by John Hunyadi, in December 1447. Vlad III was put on the throne because the Ottomans feared the Hungarians would take over.

"Vlad III's defeat at Poenari was due in part to the fact that the Boyars, who had been alienated by Vlad's policy of undermining their authority, had joined Radu under the assurance that they would regain their privileges. They may have also believed that Ottoman protection was better than Hungarian. By 8 September, Vlad had won another three victories, but continuous war had left him without any money and he could no longer pay his mercenaries. Vlad traveled to Hungary to ask for help from his former ally, Matthias Corvinus. Instead of receiving help, he found himself arrested and thrown into the dungeon for high treason. (Defeat)

Even during his lifetime, Vlad III Țepeș became famous as a tyrant taking sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing. Estimates of the number of his victims range from 40,000 to 100,000, comparable to the cumulative number of executions over four centuries of European witchhunts. According to the German stories the number of victims he had killed was at least 80,000. In addition to the 80,000 victims mentioned he also had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground. Impalement was Vlad's preferred method of torture and execution. Several woodcuts from German pamphlets of the late 15th and early 16th centuries show Vlad feasting in a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside Brașov, while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims. (Reputation for cruelty)

Fallacies

None

Response

Vlad the Impaler was known for the numerous ways of killing people. The one most gruesome was how he would set them on a pole and their body would slowly slide down the pole.

Source Quality

This was a good source for information about him and what he did in his life. It would have been more helpful to not have had to read through so much information that was not very important for this paper. I would suggest this source to other people because it had very useful information and it was organized well.