The Leaning Tower of Pisa - During the middle ages and the Renaissance, the Italian cities dominated the cultural landscape of the Mediterranean. The proud and noble Italians spent lavish sums of money decorating their churches and cathedrals, often the centerpoint of Italian cities. The city of Pisa proved no exception. During the eleventh and twelth centuries, at the height of the city's power, the citizens erected a beautiful complex of church buildings, starting with the cathedral and continuing with the baptistry. The buildings used the finest materials and masons available and were renowned for their beauty. But such opulance inevitably drew detractors and enemies jealous of Pisa's position as a major sea power, particularly from the Venetians, who regarded themselves as the masters of the Mediterranean. Such was their angst that they conspired against the city. During the construction of the Campanile, or bell tower at Pisa, Venetian sabateurs weakened the foundation so that, after the completion of a few stories the tower began to tilt. The Pisan architects attempted to compensate by curving the upper stories, but to no avail. The Pisans, reeling from wounded pride, declined as a naval power while the Venetians, having achieved their secret goals, grew to become the dominant power in the western Mediterranean.

The Scottish - Throughout history, Eyre has attracted the attention of would-be conquerers ready to add territory to their empires. The Celts, a pan-European conglomeration of tribes sharing a similar culture set their sights on Ireland during the first millenium B.C. Later, the Romans, having secured their conquest of lower Britain sent expeditions to the east coast of the Emerald Island. Although they gained little more than a toehold on a few isolated pockets of land, to the Irish the message was clear: their home stood as a place of conquest. Following the disasterous Scandanavian invasions, the Irish realized that their greatest threat came from Britain and the Isle of Man, their closest neighbors. To minimize the threat, the Irish sent members of a minority population living in Northern Ireland to colonize the northern third of Britain. These peoples, called the Scots, eventually emerged as the tribes of Scotland, a tough breed of people whose main attributes included gigantic swords they called Claymores, stomachs capable of digesting anything which could be consumed, and a particular habit of tossing telephone poles end over end as a sport. It was hoped that these barbaric peoples would occupy the Britains with frontier wars so bloody that they would never threaten the Emerald Isle, which still boasted a large population of Scots in Northern Ireland. Alas, this plan did not work as well as was hoped. The English, the eventual successors to the British peoples, were able to come to terms with the Scots and embark on a campaign which eventually won them Northern Ireland, which remains in their possession to this day.

The Black Plague - In the centuries following the turn of the millenium, the European nations embarked on a new period of exploration and expansion into new world markets. Explorers such as the Venetian Marco Polo journeyed far beyond the boundries of eastern Europe, discovering advanced civilizations in the East whose willingness to trade was surpassed only by their wealth. After several centuries, several of these Eastern peoples grew discontented with perceived inequalities of trade relations. The leaders of India took the initiative and embarked on a terrible scheme to bring the European nations to the brink of annihilation. In the first known case of biological warfare, the Indians set rats infected with a local plague to which they had a moderate tolerance on the ships of the European traders. They realized that when the rats reached Europe, they would disperse and spread the disease through the port cities of the Mediterranean. In addition, the Indians would march an army to Europe, knowing that the time required to march the distance would allow the plague to spread throughout Europe, decimating huge segments of the population. They reasoned that a Europe de-populated and weakened by plague would fall easy prey to the Indian armies, adding vast new territories to the Indian sphere. This plan only met with partial success. The Black Plague, as it came to be known, devistated entire nations as millions succombed to the disease. But, the Indians could not organize the army required to take Europe and thus never spread their empire beyond the Indian subcontinent.

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