Today in History

[Looger]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

Jan 2 1995
Marion Barry inaugurated as mayor of Washington, D.C., four years after leaving the office in disgrace to serve a six-month sentence for smoking crack.

i watched the FBI video (or a reasonable facsimile!) on smoking gun or something years and years ago, i remember barry saying to the crackwhore, 'this is some good crack'.

that slays me to this day!

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

Jan 2 1611
Elizabeth Bathory is charged with the murder of 610 people, which she apparently committed as Countess of Csejthe Castle. Bathory had the theory that the blood of youth would give her everlasting youth. An eviscerated victim would have blood drained into a vat for her bathing.

I read a book on her once, that was far from her most horrible use of torture, just the most goulish.

She and her husband used to pose serving girls in the courtyard before parties on sub zero days, then they would pour freezing water on them from above hoping that the girls would become frozen statues.

She enjoyed burning servants to death.

She also loved to whip girls with a metal clawed whip, but unlike traditionalist who would apply the lash to the back, Liz liked to apply the lash to the front so that she could see the suffering on thier face.

Flogging girls to near death for not completing tasks to her satisfaction

At the end she got careless as she was basically tossing bodies over her castle wall.

Her aids were all burned as witches, but the Countess due to her social standings was sentenced to living death and walled into a small closet where she died without regret 4 years later.

Apparently she was quite lovely

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I read a book on her once, that was far from her most horrible use of torture, just the most goulish.

She and her husband used to pose serving girls in the courtyard before parties on sub zero days, then they would pour freezing water on them from above hoping that the girls would become frozen statues.

She enjoyed burning servants to death.

She also loved to whip girls with a metal clawed whip, but unlike traditionalist who would apply the lash to the back, Liz liked to apply the lash to the front so that she could see the suffering on thier face.

Flogging girls to near death for not completing tasks to her satisfaction

At the end she got careless as she was basically tossing bodies over her castle wall.

Her aids were all burned as witches, but the Countess due to her social standings was sentenced to living death and walled into a small closet where she died without regret 4 years later.

Apparently she was quite lovely

How does somebody get that crazy? Wow.

[Looger]

history is rife with examples of monarchs run amok, combination i think of some existing psychopathic nature, an upbringing in which everything was taken for granted, a total disconnect with the plights of the commoners, and boredom.

interesting as well that it's the middle management of the monarchy in general, the top kings / queens being this nuts is rare.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

How does somebody get that crazy? Wow.

I don't know if you could possibly define it as crazy per say. She was a member of royalty, they didn't really see thier servents as people, more like cattle to be used. Her husband was always away at one war or the other, and he was a bit of a sadist as well, who probably imprinted that on his wife, who was only 15 at the time.

There was a certain sanity from that point of view. She wasn't overly religous, however she was sucked into the occult, and surrounded herself with self proclaimed soothsayers, witches and others, who also enjoyed thier positions, so when she told her about blood making her skin look younger, they made up stories of how it worked in the past. They played to her vanity.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if you could possibly define it as crazy per say. She was a member of royalty, they didn't really see thier servents as people, more like cattle to be used. Her husband was always away at one war or the other, and he was a bit of a sadist as well, who probably imprinted that on his wife, who was only 15 at the time.

There was a certain sanity from that point of view. She wasn't overly religous, however she was sucked into the occult, and surrounded herself with self proclaimed soothsayers, witches and others, who also enjoyed thier positions, so when she told her about blood making her skin look younger, they made up stories of how it worked in the past. They played to her vanity.

Thats wild. I have to read more about this woman.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

Thats wild. I have to read more about this woman.

As sick as it sounds, I always find these people to be fairly interesting reads. Bathory was an extremist, Jack the Ripper was an enigma, you have to look at people like Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot and even the dearly departed Saddam. Adrei Chikaliko (sp?) was certifable. Ted Bundy was hyper intelligent. Jim Jones is always an interesting story.

These people were able to put thier humanity aside just like you and me throw our jacket on a chair after a tough day at the office.

[Looger]

i'm no expert on vlad dracule but on a learning channel / discovery documentary it was claimed that when he was imprisoned by the turks early in his life as a hostage for a peace treaty, he was repeatedly shown executions, including impalements, probably as a ploy to muck him up as a future leader of a potential enemy.

i guess it backfired, as after he rose to power he was pretty effective against said turks, who afterwards referred to him as the prince of darkness, impaling his path to victory...

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Looger

i'm no expert on vlad dracule but on a learning channel / discovery documentary it was claimed that when he was imprisoned by the turks early in his life as a hostage for a peace treaty, he was repeatedly shown executions, including impalements, probably as a ploy to muck him up as a future leader of a potential enemy.

i guess it backfired, as after he rose to power he was pretty effective against said turks, who afterwards referred to him as the prince of darkness, impaling his path to victory...

There is a point to that, but you have to remember that he was vastly outnumbered by his enemies, and the reason for the hideous impalements was very similar to what the English used to do by putting the heads of thier enemies on a pike on the castle wall. It was intimidation against a superior foe.

Imagine your riding into battle against this guy, and all you see is miles of corpses impaled on sharpened sticks. It would certainly reduce my moral.

Was he evil, sure by todays standards, he was a murderer and a butcher, but at the time, he did what was neccessary in the face of some pretty terrible odds. Also according to his biography he was a man with a deeply seated and absolute sense of justice. He didn't send what he perceived to be innocent people to the sticks, but only people that he felt were either enemy soldiers, or people who committed criminal acts against god.

An interesting character, but a large stretch to the fictional Dracula.

[Looger]

exactly Cowperson, history is very coloured by perspective.

i remember seeing that very famous Vlad Dracule picture (illustration...) of people impaled and there he is with a goblet, obviously assumed to be drinking their blood in a book mentioning historical propoganda - this picture was in the movie 'bram stoker's dracula' but it was originally produced by a german prince, one of dracule's enemies.

so this picture affects to this day our perception of dracule when it was at the time probably exxagerated propoganda.

see also our perception of vikings, who were at odds with the cultural ancestor britain, as savages without culture when nothing could be further from the truth. they didn't have an established writing tradition and they didn't build big things, like 'we' did (we culturally anglocentric-wise, i am aware that many of us have scandinavian blood).

well, that may be a bit harsh on my part, as beowulf was i believe written down by early english scholars when in fact it was a norse legend. but i remember my grade seven history book (the cover was Agamemnon's avatar) painting the vikings as savage killers and not just settlers fighting over the same land, as there had been norse AND celtic tribes fighting over many terrirtories for centuries, not just the british isles.

seeing the movie 'the 13th warrior' was pretty neat to me, as i've always admired norse culture and was aware that the vikings weren't just mindless killers.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Looger

exactly Cowperson, history is very coloured by perspective.

i remember seeing that very famous Vlad Dracule picture (illustration...) of people impaled and there he is with a goblet, obviously assumed to be drinking their blood in a book mentioning historical propoganda - this picture was in the movie 'bram stoker's dracula' but it was originally produced by a german prince, one of dracule's enemies.

so this picture affects to this day our perception of dracule when it was at the time probably exxagerated propoganda.

see also our perception of vikings, who were at odds with the cultural ancestor britain, as savages without culture when nothing could be further from the truth. they didn't have an established writing tradition and they didn't build big things, like 'we' did (we culturally anglocentric-wise, i am aware that many of us have scandinavian blood).

well, that may be a bit harsh on my part, as beowulf was i believe written down by early english scholars when in fact it was a norse legend. but i remember my grade seven history book (the cover was Agamemnon's avatar) painting the vikings as savage killers and not just settlers fighting over the same land, as there had been norse AND celtic tribes fighting over many terrirtories for centuries, not just the british isles.

seeing the movie 'the 13th warrior' was pretty neat to me, as i've always admired norse culture and was aware that the vikings weren't just mindless killers.

Boy, I think you either elevated me, or insulted Cowperson, by calling me him (At least that the feeling that I got)

Your statement goes back to earlier statements that the victors write history. However the losers of any surviving culture, often demonize thier vanquishers and we tend to take that sensationalist viewpoint over the victors viewpoint. Look at the demonization of Ghengis Khan, and Atilla the Hun, they gained larger the life reputations through the deeds and words of the losers.

The Vikings are especially interesting since we can say that didn't have an established culture, however you look at the fact that they were probably the best navigators that the world had ever seen at that time, and were true nomads. Even thier culture of Berzerkers pointed to at least a deep understanding of thier place in the world. Again this goes back to the cultural norm that the losers influence history as much or more then the winners, as word spread about the acts of the blood thirsty Vikings, it got inbedded into our historic interpretation of them, especially considering that the Vikings didn't really care about thier own place in history.

The Vikings as it stood were no more bloody or violent then other civilizations at the time, they just did it better.

Just some ramblings.

[Frank the Tank]

I've been reading a bit about Genghis Khan and man is he ever misrepresented in history. So far anyhow, I just started reading about him over the holidays.

[Looger]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Boy, I think you either elevated me, or insulted Cowperson, by calling me him (At least that the feeling that I got)

sorry to you both!

i think i had just read a Cowperson post on the Fire On Ice section, no mistake indended.

i echo your statements on the vikings, and i admit i hadn't really thought of the loser side of history except as misinterpretations of serbian culture as a loser culture put out by our media while they were the Demons Of The Day, when milosevic had a ceremony on a kosavar battleground that signalled the start of serbia's domination by the ottoman empire.

what many papers were claiming was a desire to be the victim, i saw as a show of defiance to empires - the statue of prince what's-his-name.

and Frank the Tank, agreed aboot genghis khan, didn't he actually invent paper money?

[CaptainCrunch]

He was also one of the earlier proponents of woman's rights. And he did invent paper money from what I understand. He was actually a early day liberal with his views on the equalization of all people in his empire including the vanquished.

When your done with Khan, you might want to read up on Atilla the Hun, who had a amazingly interesting life.

Looger other interesting examples of losers writing history was the use of the media in America after the attacks by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, where racial stereotypes were magnified and the brutality of the Japaneses people was used to great effectiveness while the American's were on the wrong side of the pacific war. A great many of those stereotypes still sneak into people's perceptions til this day.

The Germans positively terrified thier own civillians with propoganda about the Russian hordes and thier raping and throwing of children onto fires when the Russian's began thier long march to Moscow. You still saw a lot of that viewpoint in 20th century history when it comes to the portrayal of Russians in contemporary literature.

[604flames]

Jan. 2, 1996: Despite being outshot 32-28, the Flames go 3/5 on the power play in a 10-0 shelling of the Tampa Bay Lightning at the 'Dome. Theoren Fleury leads the way with a hat trick, Phil Housley adds two more, and Corey Millen, Paul Kruse, Zarley Zalapski, Sandy McCarthy, and Cory Stillman each score as well. Trevor Kidd picks up the shutout to move to 6-14-5 on the season.

[Looger]

Originally Posted by 604flames

Jan. 2, 1996: Despite being outshot 32-28, the Flames go 3/5 on the power play in a 10-0 shelling of the Tampa Bay Lightning at the 'Dome. Theoren Fleury leads the way with a hat trick, Phil Housley adds two more, and Corey Millen, Paul Kruse, Zarley Zalapski, Sandy McCarthy, and Cory Stillman each score as well. Trevor Kidd picks up the shutout to move to 6-14-5 on the season.

i was driving back to the city when i heard that game on the radio, probably would have been there.

had just bought my chevette, 1979, for $175 - i miss that car.

was back when i didn't know anyone in the city outside of school and went to games because it was cheap entertainment!

$9 tickets from section 305 at the super drug mart, and back then the dome was the only place to get pocket dawgs.

those were the days...

interesting trip down memory lane, thanks!

[TimSJ]

Jan 3 1946
William Joyce, the "Lord Haw-Haw" who broadcasted Nazi propaganda to Britain during World War II, is hanged for treason in London.

Jan 3 1958
The editor of the scandal magazine Confidential, Howard Rushmore, murders his wife and then suicides in the back of a taxicab in NYC.

Jan 3 1961
Three technicians -- John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg -- are killed when the SL-1 experimental nuclear reactor explodes in Idaho Falls, Idaho. McKinley's corpse is found stuck to the containment dome ceiling, impaled on a control rod. The crewmen's radioactive bodies are so hot they have to be buried in lead-lined caskets.

Jan 3 1962
Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro.

Jan 3 1967
Jack Ruby dead of natural causes.

Jan 3 1987
Four non-cancerous polyps are removed from President Ronald Reagan's colon.

Jan 3 1990
Manuel Noriega surrenders at the Papal Nunciature. He is brought to Miami and charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The Germans positively terrified thier own civillians with propoganda about the Russian hordes and thier raping and throwing of children onto fires when the Russian's began thier long march to Moscow. You still saw a lot of that viewpoint in 20th century history when it comes to the portrayal of Russians in contemporary literature.

I'm sure you've read the books by Antony Beevor. He's hugely criticized by Russian historians because of his description of the raping and pillaging of the Red Army on their path to Berlin. But I find it hard to deny honestly. Look at who made up the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts.. hordes of men from the Eastern reaches of the Soviet Union.. hardly civilized.

[604flames]

Originally Posted by Looger

interesting trip down memory lane, thanks!

Welcome Looger

Jan. 3, 1989: The Flames outshoot the Quebec Nordiques 42-13 en route to a 5-1 victory at the Saddledome. Despite falling behind 1-0 on a goal by Randy Moller, the Flames answer back with tallies from Joe Nieuwendyk (25), Gary Roberts 2 (12), Al MacInnis (10), and Jim Peplinski (6). Mike Vernon picks up the victory to move to 16-5-3 on the year, while Mario Gosselin is tagged with the loss for the visitors.

[Looger]

Originally Posted by kermitology

I'm sure you've read the books by Antony Beevor. He's hugely criticized by Russian historians because of his description of the raping and pillaging of the Red Army on their path to Berlin. But I find it hard to deny honestly. Look at who made up the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts.. hordes of men from the Eastern reaches of the Soviet Union.. hardly civilized.

the reality as usual i'm sure is somewhere in the gray gray middle.

it was hyped up for propoganda purposes but there were whole towns in germany raped, all the men were long since kidnapped by homeland security (oops reich security...) and they were easy prey.

it's important to remember that in the context of the times, driving an unstoppable force - the reborn and very motivated red army - against an immovable object - the remains of the wehrmacht that had standing orders to die to the last man - all the while tripping over the mass graves and massacres that the nazi social engineers had inflicted on eastern europe, would be quite a life-altering experience.

raping towns full of women would be a footnote, a denouement, on the charge to berlin, however civilized the troops were. revenge was on their minds. doesn't excuse any behaviour but judgement is sure easy from our ivory tower.

this phenomenon was reported by hans von luck in his book 'panzer commander', a source i trust more than most.