June 10, 1190: Frederick Barbarossa drowns

On this day in 1190, Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, drowned en route to the Holy Land to fight in the Third Crusade.

He was elected as King of Germany in 1152, but it wasn’t until he became King of Italy (and Holy Roman Emperor) in 1155 that he received his nickname. For his facial hair, the Italians called him Barbarossa – red beard.

Frederick tussled with Pope Urban III in the 1180s, and to start things off on the right foot with Gregory VIII, he pledged in 1188 to commit troops to the Third Crusade. He would join his fellow kings Philip Augustus of France and Richard I of England in taking on Saladin, who had recently recaptured Jerusalem after nearly a century of Christian rule.

But Frederick wouldn’t make it – he tried to ford the Saleph River, in modern-day Turkey, on his horse, rather than wait for a boat. Both were weighed down by the armor. The German army fell into disarray, and many of his soldiers were killed or captured by Turks.

Frederick’s soldiers tried to preserve his body in vinegar, but when that didn’t work, they buried his body at Antioch.

“Operation Barbarossa” was the code name for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which began June 22, 1941.

For more on Frederick, visit About.com’s Military History page.

Image: Saxon Chronicle (13th century) via Internet Archive