Category Kids Queries

Hosted in special arenas, called lists, within castle walls or in nearby fields, the joust was one of the most thrilling forms of entertainment in the Middle Ages. Two mounted knights in gleaming armor spurred their warhorses at each other in a ferocious charge. Just before the moment of impact, they leveled their 12-foot (3.6-m) lances and – crash! – the weapons splintered against shield and helm. (A knight scored points in a joust by shattering his lance against his opponent’s shield or helm – or knocking him off his horse.)

The joust was part of a larger event called the tournament, which evolved from military training into a spectacle for lords, ladies, and peasants alike. Despite strict rules, tournaments were dangerous games; many knights were permanently injured or killed in jousts. King Henry II of France died in a joust when a lance pierced his visor. But success in the tournament outweighed the risks for knights, who played for keeps. A victor won the loser’s armor and horse, which could be ransomed for a small fortune. The tournament champion might win the favor of a lady in the stands.

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As far back as 1400 B.C., people in Mexico and Central America suited up in painted deerskins and elaborate head-dresses and sprinted across ball courts covered with stone to volley a primitive rubber ball with their hips, knees, shins, elbows, and heads. Many of the ball courts remain today, some with stone rings that may have acted as goals, but the rules to these games have been lost to history. Weighing as much as nine pounds (4 kg), the solid-rubber balls left players bruised and bloody. Games sometimes resulted in broken bones and even death as players dove to the stone court to keep the ball from touching the ground. The ancient athletes played for religious reasons. The games were thought to represent the battle of good against evil. Some games may have ended in sacrificial rituals to appease the gods. A modern version of the ball games –called ulama – is still played today.

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As many as 50,000 spectators gathered in Rome’s Coliseum in the second century A.D. to witness gory spectacles: reenactments of famous battles, live hunts for exotic animals (released from cages kept in an elaborate basement under the sandy floor), and bloody battles between trained warriors. These gladiators were the professional athletes of their day. But although they were celebrities, most gladiators were slaves or prisoners-of-war forced into fighting for the bloodthirsty crowd’s amusement. Rome’s emperors hosted these expensive events – which were often free to the public – to make the citizens happy and thus easier to govern.

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Governments employ spies – also known as spooks, secret agents, case officers, operatives, and intelligence assets – to gather information on foreign governments on their own people in secret, a practice known as espionage. And it’s not just governments that hire these professional snoops. Agents try to sniff out secret information for military organizations and private companies (a special sort of spying called corporate espionage). It’s not a new job (ancient Egypt hired spies to keep an eye on its enemies), and it’s keep busy in times of war and peace, working under a “cover identity” 24 hours a day when they’re in the field. They might do it for the money, love of their country, or hatred of a rival nation, but they all have one thing in common: A spy’s life is full of lies.

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These black-clad warriors emerged from the shadows in the 16th century, when hundreds of power-hungry warlords squabbled over control of Japan. During this violent “feudal” era, warlords relied on their armies of samurai – noble warriors whose code of battle forbade sneaky tactics – to defend their lands and attack rivals. But when they needed to spy on, assassinate, or create confusion among rivals, the warlords hired ninjas.

With no code of honor to put a damper on their business, ninjas hired themselves out to the highest bidder. A ninja might work for a warlord one year, and then spy on that same warlord the next. A ninja on a mission needed to blend in anywhere, from a bustling village to a castle rooftop at midnight. That meant he or she was a master of disguise. When they weren’t wearing their traditional full-body suit to blend in with the shadows, ninjas would dress as farmers, merchants, or musicians to slip unnoticed through the countryside. In one famous siege, a team of ninjas dressed as the castle’s guards and marched right through the front gate, set fire to the fortress, and escaped as the inhabitants bickered over who had started the flames.

The roots of the ninja stretch back to the eighth century – to secretive mountain clans trained in survival, self-defense, stealth, and the art of assassination. These warriors were feared and despised for their sneaky tactics and supposed supernatural powers. According to legend, a ninja could fly, walk on water, and vanish. Two of these powers were real, sort of. (Ninjas wore special wooden shoes to tread on water and explosive powders to disappear in a cloud of smoke.)

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Blackbeard: The notorious Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, let his reputation speak for itself when he ran up his Jolly Roger: “Resist and you will bleed.”

Bartholomew Roberts: Above the flagship of his pirate fleet, the dreaded “Black Bart” flew a flag depicting him standing on the heads of his enemies.

Samuel Bellamy: Flying the skull and crossbones – a universal symbol of poison, disease, and death – “Black Sam” plundered more than 50 ships to become the wealthiest pirate of the 18th century.

John “Calico Jack” Rackham: Cutlasses replaced the traditional crossed bones on the flag of this sharp-dressing real-life version of Captain Jack Sparrow.

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