This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories and the story of Captain John Smith.

Let's return to Juliana Rogers with more of the story.

John finally reaches the Crusades, and he is about 21 years old now. It's the summer of 1601.

It doesn't take long before he makes a name for himself. So in this battle, they're outside a walled city. And at that time, their guns were called matchlock muskets.

And the matchlock musket always had a small fuse that stayed lit.

So at dark, you could see a little glowing ember.

So John went to the leader of the regiment and said,

I have this idea. How about after dark we light a bunch of tiny matches?

And that way when our enemy looks over the wall, they will see thousands of tiny glowing

embers and think that each one represents a gun and that they are completely outnumbered.

So it worked perfectly just like John said.

Their enemy looked out, thought they were completely outnumbered and panicked and they

were easily overtaken.

And John was giving credit for that victory.

And he was promoted to captain.

And he was very proud of that title and he went by Captain John Smith for the rest of his life.

Later, it's the spring of 1602 and John's 22 years old and they again are outside of

a Wild City preparing to attack when the leader inside the Walt City issues a challenge to any English officer.

Well, all of the English officers want to be chosen, so they draw lots, and John was chosen.

And he's very excited because it's a jousting match.

And he, of course, has trained well with theater or paleolog.

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