Did you know choosing the train can take up to 500 cars off the road? Just one train at a time.

One gig at a time, one last minute plan, one festival, one going then, why not at a time.

One train journey at a time can help create a greener future.

So when will you take your next trip? Find out more at nationalrail.co.uk for what's last greener.

The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States, Canada and Mexico

from their deep origins to our present epoch. Join me, Mark Vinet, on this exciting, fascinating epic journey through time,

focusing on the compelling, wonderful and tragic stories of North America's inhabitants, heroes, villains, leaders, environment, and geography.

I invite you to come along for the ride.

Around 1500, Dieter Vyn Michaelstad, a night in the holy order of St. John, who was residing on the Isle of Rhodes in the Mediterranean, not too far from what's modern day Turkey,

wrote a letter to his cousin Wolfgang Capito.

Capito was a German Protestant reformer. The letter had to do with something that shocked Michaelstad about what the growing autumn and empire was doing to recruit manpower into its ranks.

It wasn't just recruiting soldiers, it was doing as far as he understood it, capturing boys from local Christians, turning them to slaves, and being funneled into a system where they became elite soldiers for the sultan himself.

Here's what he says in the letter. Our welcome letter arrived today in good time since our supply ships had favorable winds and nearly flute across the seas.

You say you have heard many horrible stories about the Turks, but wonder if they are true. You say you have heard of an elite army composed of stolen Christian children. Sadly, this is indeed true.

The practice is called the Devshurme, which means gathering, and it is a human taxation, sometimes called the boy harvest of the non-Muslim populations of Anatoia and the Balkans, primarily Greeks and Albanians and a few Armenians.

Every few years, the sultan conscripts a certain percentage, perhaps 10% of Christian male children. The boys are usually between 8 and 12 years old. The sultan's officer arrives in a village. The Christian fathers are ordered to appear with their sons and the strongest, most promising boys are taken.

We hear many stories about this. Some say the Christian parents will disfigure their sons to prevent their being chosen, others that the Christians are starving and some children wish to go.

We hear that Muslim parents desire us of the fine education and elite opportunities in the sultan's service, sometimes bribe Christians to claim their children.

The Janissary schooling, which may take 14 years, converts the children to the faith of Islam and teaches them the Ottoman view of the world. They learn Turkish, Persian and Arabic.

There is physical training, study of literature, the Quran, and the law called the Shariat or Sharia. The boys are separated forever from their families, and once in the palace school, they cannot leave for any reason or have any contact with the outside world.

They know they cannot marry until they retire. They emerge passionate Muslims eager to fight, ready to die for their faith in the sultan.

The Janissary's live and train and tightly discipline barracks communities to give them a cohesive strength unusual in any other army.

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