Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

[thalassa]

Because I find the repetitive nature of history interesting...

Today's topic, The Bonus Army:

Screen-shot-2011-10-25-at-11.27.00-AM-e1319556508157.jpg

[anunitu]

Re: Ransom and mostly forgotten moments in history

Thank you Thal,I really like this..

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

*The probable history of the Free State of Jones (and soon to be a movie)

*The deplorable history of exhibiting humans in zoos

*The largest maritime disaster in US history is something you've probably never heard of...1800 Union survivors of Confederate prison camps headed home died in a tragic boating accident aboard the SS Sultana (more died here than on the Titanic) (and soon to be a documentary, awesomely funded by Kickstarter):

*The global pandemic caused by the Spanish Flu:

And as a bonus: An entire blog of forgotten history

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

The Radium Girls: Today workers are entitled to know what chemicals they are working with and what their health hazards are...and you can thank these women for their contribution to that struggle.

the short of it--

(this video sounds like a high school project, but its spot on, info-wise)

the long version--

(1987 documentary)

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

Before there was Rosa Parks, there was 15 year old Claudette Colvin...

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

The First Modern Genocide:

I suppose I should add a trigger warning to this? Its explicit and about genocide and the horrible things people do to one another. So, its real. And it probably worse than anything you can imagine, so get over yourself and deal with it.*

Before there was Hitler's Germany, there was the ethnic and religious cleansing of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks from Ottoman Turkey.

This year marks the 100th anniversary, so you may have heard of it in the news. Or maybe (in the only socially conscious and interesting thing they have ever done) because of the Kardashians. Or maybe you are just historically knowledgeable. Many people forget though that it wasn't just the Armenians that Turkey eradicated.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my high school history teacher brought in a survivor of the Armenian genocide. She was in her 80's when she came to speak to us, and was 5 or 6 when her father was beaten and made to watch his sons get nailed to the rafters and killed by being split open from neck to genitals with bayonets, his oldest daughters raped and beaten, his pregnant wife raped and then cut open so the soldiers could see who won the "bet" of the baby's gender, and they youngest shot because there wasn't enough fun there to be had. Somehow she survived being shot in the head and was left for dead. Someone that had come for the bodies found her (so a Turkish family could have their rather nice house and land) took pity on her and made her hide in the bottom of the cart of her family's corpses, to smuggle them out. She was smuggled out of the country...so she lucked out**, other children that weren't killed were enslaved as laborers for families or in illegal brothels.

The complicated history of Armenia and Turkey:

*Sorry, not sorry, Thalassa thinks real life doesn't have a trigger warning. Pretty sure teachers here couldn't even have someone like this tell their story in a classroom anymore. Sad.

**sarcasm

[anunitu]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

I read where the Pope mentioned this,and the Turks got VERY upset...Sorry Turks,you did it,so you don't get to act all upset when someone brings it up.

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

I read where the Pope mentioned this,and the Turks got VERY upset...Sorry Turks,you did it,so you don't get to act all upset when someone brings it up.

Not that anything excuses genocide, but (in a way that isn't quite so defensible for the Nazi's), their was bad blood on both sides for decades before these events (in actuality, for centuries)--news clippings from the late 1800's are quite interesting (my modern history class a couple years ago discussed "the problem of the late Ottoman Empire" extensively as part of the overall "colonialism can be blamed for most modern ills" theme my very excellent professor was both a fan and a detractor of*)


*the problem of course being that colonialism didn't cause many tensions or problems that didn't already exist between different ethnic groups, they just short of smothered them for a while (until the fire could burn freely once Western powers left), or interfered in a way that allowed a less powerful group to gain power or a more powerful group gain more power (depending on what Western interests were). Colonialism in these areas of conflict mostly just built on the existing conflict.

[anunitu]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

You know ethnic tensions or not,this kind of open killing shows a throwback to human barbarism,like the roman conquests,or the Huns sacking a city and raping and killing even children.
In my mind there is NO excuse that can be used as a defense for this kind of brutality to other humans,and I wonder sometimes we call some things "Humanitarian",when the word human could provoke an image of these actions.
When a human does the right thing,we call them a hero,but if doing the right thing is heroic,then I think we are all pretty much doomed in the long run because we seem to be running short on Heroes..Remembering history about these things,how far have we come to become civilized enough for them never again to happen.

[Norse_Angel]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

Well, it's not like the Turks ever had thousands of their people killed off as well. Pre modern genocides include the masses of non converting Germanic pagans, as well as the Turkish people by the Christian state.
For example, some 4000 Heathens, men, women, and children, slaughtered by a conquering Christian army, just because they didn't believe in Jesus Christ. That same army displaced a mass number of 80,000 Turks, into wilderness and mountains, where they either got captured by the army, or starved to death.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

The Influenza epidemic of 1918 gets a lot of attention yet most people never realize there have been many influenza epidemic's in the US alone. Some rather small in area of effect, others also acting on a global scale. The 1918 epidemic itself consisting of many "Blossoms" that erupted here and there even reappearing in area's where it had already occurred and passed.

My Great-grandfather and Great-grandmother were both bed ridden with influenza in 1921 as part of that epidemic in Virginia. They both had survived the 1918 episode but my great-grandfather would not survive the 1921 bout. My great-grandmother would not only lay there next to her husband as he died but would deliver a daughter a few weeks later. Years later she would tell us about it though mostly as second hand knowledge that became part of family lore and was passed down.

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

A brief history of rioting in America:

(this is nowhere NEAR all of them...maybe 1/3 of the biggies (if I'd noted every Know Nothing or 1960 riot, I'd have written a book))


Cincinnati Riots of 1792, 1829, 1836, 1841, 1853, 1861, 1862, 1884, 1941, 1955, 1967, and 1968

NYC Anti-abolition Riots 1834

1835 Baltimore Bank Riot

1837 NYC Flour Riot

Philly Prayer Riots of 1844 (Nativist/ Know Nothing Riot)

Astor Place Riots of 1845

1850 Squatters Riot of Sacramento (wasn't sure if this one counted, since CA wasn't a state yet)

1851 Christia

Bloody Monday Riots of Louisville (one of many Nativist and Know-Nothing Party Riots)

1855 Portland Rum Riot

1855 Lager Beer Riot of Chicago (Know Nothing Riot)

1857, NYC's Great Police Riot (Nativist/Know Nothing Riots)

The Draft Riots of 1863

1864 Southern Bread Riots

1866 Memphis Race "Riots" (IMO, Massacre)

New Orleans Race Riots

1867 Pulaski Riot (TN)

1870-71 Orange Riots ("Irish Troubles" in New York)

Meridian, Mississippi 1871

1871 Chinese Massacre LA

1885 Tacoma Anti-Chinese Riots (Washington not a state yet)

1886 Haymarket Affair

Robert Charles Riot 1900

Houston Mutiny of 1917

E. St L riots of 1917

1919 "Red Summer" Race Riots:

1932 Ford Hunger March

1923 Rosewood Massacre

1934 Minneapolis General Strike Riots

1938 Hilo Massacre

1943 Zoot Suit Riots:

1944 Fort Lawton Riot

1944 Agana Race Riots (in Guam, but between US servicemen)

1945 Nylon Riots

1949 Peekskill Riots

1951 Cicero Race Riot

1965 Watts Riot

1967-69, Riots everywhere (nearly 150 in 1967 alone):

1971 Attica Prison Riots

1977 Houston Moody Park Riots

1979 White Night Riots

1980 Miami Riots

1987 Atlanta Prison Riots

1991 Mt Pleasant Riot

1992 LA Riots

2001 Seattle Mardi Gras Riot

2005 Toledo Riot


Something to maybe cheer you up? A Bonus Mini-Riot--Disco Demolition Night 1971 (maybe not really a riot, but a crowd lit stuff on fire, and it was interesting, so I'm including it here). Sports Riots are a thing.


If you bother to read all this (and I don't blame you if you don't), or watch the videos, you will see a theme...

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/ungern-sternberg-buddhist-isis/459327/

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...t-isis/459327/

9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

[thalassa]

Re: Random and mostly forgotten moments in history

For in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.