The true story of Richard the Lionheart’s most daring — and desperate — charge at Jaffa, which occurred today in history:

Ambroise, a Norman eyewitness: “The king, shining in his hauberk, rushed upon the Turks with sword in hand. None dared stand before him, for he struck them down like the reaper cuts wheat.” 

Roger of Howden, chronicler of the age: “A deed of arms so daring that men will scarcely believe it, unless they had seen it with their own eyes.” 

The Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, chronicling the Crusade: “The king, though with very few, charged into the midst of the enemy… He himself fought like a lion, striking down Turks and Saracens to the right and left.” 

Bahaʾ al-Din, Saladin’s own secretary and eyewitness: “The King of England took his lance that day and galloped from the far right wing to the far left, and nobody challenged him. The Sultan was enraged, turned his back on the fighting, and went to Yazūr in high dudgeon.”