Historians Claim to Have Tracked Down Remains of Vlad the Impaler, ‘Dracula’ -The Epoch Times

"A team of Estonian scholars believe they have finally discovered the long-lost location of Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century Prince upon which Bram Stoker based his 1897 gothic novel ‘Dracula’.  According to the report in Hurriyet Daily News, his remains are in the Piazza Santa Maria la Nova graveyard in Naples, and not the Romanian Transylvanian Alps as first thought.

Vlad III, the Prince of Wallachia, was born sometime between 1428 and 1431, probably in Sighişaora, Transylvania. His patronymic, ‘Dracul’, means Dragon, derived from the membership of his father, Vlad II Dracul, in the Order of the Dragon, an order of chivalry for the defence of Christianity in Eastern Europe against the Ottomans, so the young Vlad became known as Dracula, or “son of Dragon”.

Although Vlad was infamous throughout Europe for his cruelty, it was his favourite method of execution that ensured his place in history and gave him the name Vlad Tepes (‘Vlad the Impaler’).  It is said that as Vlad retreated from a battle against the Ottomans in 1462, he impaled and put on display some 20,000 people outside the city of Targoviste as a deterrent to the pursuing Ottoman forces. This psychological attack worked, as it is claimed that the sight was so repulsive that the Ottomans, after seeing the scale of Vlad’s carnage and the thousands of decaying bodies being picked apart by crows, turned back and retreated to Constantinople."

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http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/736964-historians-claim-to-have-tracked-down-remains-of-vlad-the-impaler-dracula/