Crusaders reach Antioch

October 21, 1097

The Crusader armies arrived before the walls of the great Syrian city of Antioch and began a long siege that would nearly destroy them. The garrison of Yaghi-Siyan held out through a winter of starvation. Men ate their horses, then roots, then the leather of their own shields. The eight-month ordeal killed more Crusaders through hunger and disease than any battle they had yet fought.