Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

The Knights Templar have a greater mystique since they were suppressed, and revived only by fiction writers from Umberto Eco to Dan Brown; but to me the Knights Hospitaller are in some ways more impressive for managing to hang on to their state-without-a-country status for so long as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. They even had a substantial air force at one point as part of a scheme to circumvent treaty restrictions on Italy.

View on HN

Yes!

I highly recommend Roger Crowley's Empire of the Sea to anyone who wants to read about Malta in the 1500s when it was a key in the battle for the Mediterranean between the Ottomans and various European forces in various alliances (or not)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3418555-empires-of-the-s...

Does roger have any relation to aleister crowley?

Now I'm confused who Ozzy is singing about in the song titled "Mr Crowley" :(

Come on guys, it's not an uncommon name by any stretch of the imagination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowley_(surname)

May not be an "uncommon surname" -- but there is ONE prominent very significant in history crowley!

Who the fuck do you think we are thinking about in this context. Frank Crowley the farmer?

No, he probably meant the one from Good Omens

I’m curious why you felt it necessary to create a throwaway for delivering that piece of information. :)

Man, you really have to listen to those lyrics more carefully. "Oh Mr Crowley did you talk to the dead" ... "You fooled all the people with magic. Waiting on Satan's call"

I suspect that ain't the historian. ;)

If you like historical fiction 'The Religion' by Tim Willocks is amazing.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/918095.The_Religion

Reply on news.ycombinator.com