Vlad the impaler biography video for students today

A look at the events that took place in southeastern Europe during the fifteenth century and the role that Vlad III, Voivode of Wallachia, would play in its many conflicts.

Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler, and even more infamously known as Dracula defended Romania against the Ottoman Empire in some of.

When the Ottoman state first formed at the end of the thirteenth century, few would have predicted that it would become a multi-ethnic empire that extended into parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. By the end of the fourteenth century they had expanded into the Balkans and had decisively defeated a major crusader invasion at the Battle of Nicopolis in However, in the Ottomans were defeated by the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, causing them to lose much of their strength and territory.

It would take decades for them to recover, allowing even the much-diminished Byzantine Empire a reprieve. As the fifteenth century progressed, the Ottomans would start again to make steady gains into southeastern Europe. However, they would also find themselves fighting another rising power, the Kingdom of Hungary. During this Ottoman-Hungarian struggle, a number of smaller states also existed in southeastern Europe, including Albania, Moldavia, Transylvania and Wallachia, Much of the time they existed as client states to the Ottomans or Hungarians, but they also often tried to play these powerful states against each other.

Wallachia often found itself going back and forth between supporting the Ottomans and Hungarians, which was caused in part by its own internal power struggles.

This is the incredible story of Vlad the Impaler from his youth in Wallachia and childhood as a hostage to his wars against the Ottoman.

During the fourteenth century the ruler Voivode was usually a member of the House of Basarab. From to , Wallachia would see fourteen different rulers, several of which had multiple reigns. Vlad III would in some ways be a very typical ruler of Wallachia — he would have three separate reigns, two of which lasted only for a few weeks.

His loyalty and fealty wavered between the Ottomans and Hungarians and he certainly had little reason to trust either of them. His career, as this timeline will show, reveals that his fortunes could rise and fall very dramatically. The Ottomans under Murad have a decisive victory, with both sides sustaining heavy losses.