10 Video Games That Taught Us Forgotten History
7. Assassin's Creed (Third Crusade)
While many could tell you what a crusade was and that their had been at least 3 of them, it wasn't until we strapped into the Animus and donned the famous white robes of Altaïr that many but historians knew the details of the campaign to reconquer The Holy Land.
While Assassin's Creed would have us believe the true motivations of Grand Master Robert de Sablé and the crusaders was to retrieve the Apple of Eden – they were in fact fighting the forces of Sultan Saladin, who had assumed control over the region now known as Israel and Palestine, including the game's featured cities of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus.
Pope Gregory VIII declared the capture a punishment for the sins of Christians throughout Europe and called a crusade to retake the Holy Land. Despite much of its recapture by Christian forces, Jerusalem remained under Muslim control, and an uneasy treaty was formed.
The Apple of Eden and it's powers of world domination may be the work of fiction, but without Altaïr's adventures far fewer of us would have heard of the Christian Grand Masters that besieged the cities of the 12th Century Holy Land.