The Vietnamese twice destroyed an enemy with the same trick on the same river.
In 938 and again in 1288 stakes were driven into the bed of the Bạch Đằng, and at low tide enemy ships were impaled on them.
The event
More amazing facts
- 916 The Russian word for China, Kitai, comes from a people who were not Chinese: the nomadic Khitans, who founded the Liao empire in northern China in 916.
- 918 The name Korea comes from Goryeo, the kingdom founded in 918 that united the peninsula for almost five centuries and under whose name the country became known abroad.
- 922 The Arab envoy Ibn Fadlan described the Rus as 'tall as date palms'. On the Volga in 922 he admired their build, fair hair and ruddy skin — then called them the filthiest of God's creatures for not even washing their hands after eating.
- 935 · 1853 'Good King Wenceslas' of the English carol was never a king.
- 949 Foreign envoys in Constantinople were met by roaring mechanical lions: the 'Throne of Solomon' in the Magnaura hall was said to be ringed by automaton trees with singing birds.
- 964 · 965 The Andromeda Galaxy was first described in 964, a year before Sviatoslav crushed the Khazars.