Benjamin J. Swenson, Author at THE HISTORY AVENUE

Author: Benjamin J. Swenson

Based in South Korea since 2008, Benjamin J. Swenson is a professor at Hoseo University in Asan. He holds a PhD from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, where his dissertation addressed nineteenth-century Euro-American military history. His hobbies include Viking sagas and chess.

The Ottoman Empire, Hungary, and the Protestant Reformation (I)

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 thrust the Ottoman Empire to the center of European affairs. News of the final collapse of the old (Eastern) Roman Empire spread rapidly throughout the continent and calls to fight the infidels were made by kings, nobles, and clergy alike.

News Stories

The Life of Sgt. I-See-O, Kiowa Scout and Peacemaker of the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry

Born to Kiowa parents in Indian Territory in the Oklahoma-Kansas region shortly after the 1848 conclusion of the Mexican-American War, Tahbonemah (Ta-bone-mah), later known as Sergeant I-See-O, would serve the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment as a tracker for nearly four decades until his death.

News Stories

Haakon the Good Battles the Sons of His Brother, Eric Bloodaxe, 953-961

Around the year 934, shortly after the death of the Norway’s legendary King Harald Fairhair, his youngest son Haakon – raised in Northumbria by King Athelstan (Æthelstan) – returned to usurp the throne bequeathed to Harald’s beloved but unpopular son Eric Bloodaxe.

News Stories

Zebulon Pike’s 1805 Journey to Minnesota in Search of the Mississippi’s Headwaters

Zebulon Pike would go on to explore swaths of North America – becoming a legend in a growing nation.

News Stories

History of the Conquest of Mexico: The Black Legend, Prescott’s Paradigm, Tlaxcalans, and US-Mexican War

Accompanying an increasing interest in Spain during the antebellum era was a repackaging of the “Black Legend” – a cultural and racial stereotype that became a long-held historiographical generalization.