How a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon history might have saved Steve Irwin.
The first English literature we have comes from the Anglo-Saxon period 449-1066 and much of it is about battles and religion. From sources like this we can get an idea of what concerned people and how they lived their lives. Anglo-Saxons believed strongly in the divine appointment of Kings. There was one significant disadvantage of being a king and that was if the king was wounded in battle by an object that remained in his body i.e. an arrow, spear or lance point.
Normal treatment for royalty would be to leave the object in the body, as to pull it out would hasten the death by bleeding and to hasten the death of a king was a mortal sin against God himself. Ordinary soldiers would make a pact between each other to pull out the weapon that the other was wounded by. The alternative to which would be to die a very slow death of blood poisoning. One royal personage suffered horribly with a eye impaled by a broken lance. If Steve Irwin had known this he could have left the manta ray barb in his chest and may have survived long enough for surgeons to do their work.
A knowledge of history can be vitally important.
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