The historical Dracula, Vladislavs Walachia Weywoden, upon whom Bram Stoker based his master creature, was born in 1451 in Servashwara, Transylvania. His father, king of Walachia, belonged to the Order of the Dragon and was sworn to protect the church from the Ottoman Turks. In the Romanian tongue, dracule means "the dragon" or also "the devil." Vlad Dracula was named after his father Vlad Dracule. Therfore "Dracula" translates as "Son of the Dragon" or "Son of the Devil." Vlad Dracula was not a vampire, but rather a ruler who would boil people, skin them alive, or cut off their ears. Occasionally he would nail their hats to their heads, but his favorite method of dispatching humans was by impaling them on a stake. Hence his nickname, Vlad the Impaler.
Wallachia was racked by civil war in the fifteenth century. Throughout his childhood, Vlad Dracula was periodically held hostage by the sultan of neighboring Turkey to keep Vlad's father from invading. At age 17, Vlad was released from prison and gained the throne of Walachia after his father and brother had been killed by the Turks. In a well documented event, the young Vlad built a banquet hall, invited the nobles who betrayed and killed his father to a large banquet. After a dumptuous feast and entertainment, Vlad locked everyone in the hall and set it ablaze from the outside. I guess you might say he had "roast Turkey."
From that time forward, Vlad really lived up to his name as the Son of the Devil. Monks spread the news of his horrors. He decapitated people and cut off noses, ears, and genitals. He supposedly ate human flesh, drank human blood, and insisted his guests join him when he dined in a field of writhing, moaning, impaled prisoners. One time as the Turks were advancing, they came upon twenty thousand Turkish prisoners impaled on stakes. At this sight the Turkish troops dismounted, bowed down on the ground at the carnage, and proclaimed Vlad - "Lord Impaler." Eventually Vlad's debauchery caught up with him and he was assasinated in 1476. HIs head was brought to the sultan as proof that he was dead. He was buried in a monastery on Snagoff Lake. Even after his death, Vlad was still full of surprises. Archeologists opened the grave i front of the alter in the 1930s and reported it empty. The Romanian view of Vlad the Impaler is that of a man who loved his country, a protector of the church and its ideals. He justly impaled those who betrayed church and country.
