One night in July of 1683, as the Turks closed in on the city of Vienna, a fire suddenly broke out in the city.

Someone had flung a lit torch into the stables beside the Scotch Abbey, one of Vienna's largest churches.

The dry straw quickly caught fire and soon the entire church was engulfed in flame.

What was worse, the fire started to spread to the nearby arsenal.

The building was home to the city's emergency stockpile of gunpowder and ammunition.

If the fire managed to ignite this highly combustible material, the explosion would have left a gaping hole in the city.

With the powder gone and the city wounded, the siege would have been over before it started.

Luckily, the Viennese acted fast, citizens doused the arsenal in water to keep the flames from spreading to its precious cargo.

Teams of volunteers carrying buckets eventually managed to extinguish the blaze, which at this point had gutted to the Scotch Abbey.

With the fire out and the gunpowder safe, the assembled crowd was now free to track down the would-be saboteur and deal out some mob justice.

It was not long before the person who started the fire was identified and cornered by the angry mob.

The person who had thrown the torch into the stable was a young man of only 16 years.

In a curious twist, when the crowd caught up with him, he was dressed in women's clothing.

Now, there are a million questions I wish we could have asked this person.

Was he a paid saboteur sent by the Turks?

Had he been targeting the arsenal specifically when he set that fire?

Had he even done this on purpose?

And if so, why had he betrayed his countrymen?

And what was the story with his gender non-conforming outfit?

Was this a disguise? Or was this someone who lived their life identifying as a woman?

Unfortunately for us, these questions would forever remain unanswered.

By the time the crowd caught up with this young man, they had already made up their mind about him.

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