This is.....Thermopylae!!!
Today is the traditional anniversery of the Battle of Thermopylae, which is Greek for "Gawdamn That's Manly!". For those of you who were in a cultural coma in 2007, the movie 300 (And the funnybook it preceeded) was loosely based on this lil afternoon out. As fun as the movie was (Notice how i did not say good- 300 oily bohunks in leather underwear fighting CGI ninjas only goes so far in my book) I think the actual battle was more badass.
In a nutshell: 480 BC the Persians decide to go for a stroll through the Greek city states. Numbers vary, Herodetus (Called by many The First Historian, by others The First Dupe Who Will Listen to Bullshit and Write it Down) says about 5 million Persians (Including support troops, navy, etc) came to Greece, but more recent estimates are around 200,000. ish. By the way, if you think Herodetus was off here, listen to the crap the Egyptians told him. I swear, its almost like the Egyptians had a bet between themselves to see how big a lie this crazy Greek would write down.
So The Spartan King, Leonides (Greek for Fights in Leather Underpants) has a ragtag force including 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 900 Helots, Voltron, the A-Team, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and 3 of the 5 Power Rangers. They go to a narrow pass called Thermopylae and say to the Persians "Bring it, Beeeee-yatches!" It goes poorly for the Spartans, as there are a bajillion Persians, but they do take a decent chunk out of the Persians, enough to delay them so the Athenians get their shit together to halt the Persians. Also, we need to give a shout out to the Athenian Navy, lead by Themistocles at the Battle of Salamis, kind of a Thermopylae only with sweaty navy guys instead of sweaty army guys. And the Greeks won.
In the list of Manly Things, Thermopylae has 3 things on the list:
1) As they depart, Leonides wife asks "What should I do when you leave?" Fights in Leather Underpants says "Marry a good man. Have good children."
2) The Persians, during a break in the fight, offer the Spartans to surrender. They tell the Greeks, in no uncertain terms, that they can block out the sun with arrows. The Spartans respond "Then we shall fight in the shade."
3) Near the end of the battle Leonides is killed, and the Persians capture the body and start dragging it back so they can do horrible things to it (I envision the Persian King, Xerxes, hitting the road with a smelly ventriloquism act) when the Spartans break from their cover, go all Wolverine on the Persians, and get the body back. It is at this point the Persians get all Will Smith and say "Hell NO!". They pelt them with arrows untill they are all dead, which I kind of have to wonder why they didn't just do that at the start...
So there you go. More from Professor Bartlett later. If you are unlucky.