Wow. I thought you were making a reference to something, and then I looked it up...

The past is truly bizarre.

I'm flattered! Hopefully, I continue to entertain! 🙏

Something simple would probably be better to attract users. Maybe just CuteHistory.

I'm maxed out on comms I can juggle, personally, though, so I'm just throwing out suggestions. DX

miss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

The Four Pests campaign (Chinese: 除四害; pinyin: Chú Sì Hài) was one of the first campaigns of the Great Leap Forward in Maoist China from 1958 to 1962. Authorities targeted four "pests" for elimination: rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.

The extermination of sparrows – also known as the Eliminate Sparrows campaign – resulted in severe ecological imbalance, and was one of the causes of the Great Chinese Famine which lasted from 1959 to 1961, with an estimated death toll due to starvation ranging in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million).[note 1] In 1960, the campaign against sparrows ended, and bed bugs replaced them as an official target.

Millions of sparrows were killed.[37] While the campaign was meant to increase yields, concurrent droughts and floods as well as the lacking sparrow population decreased rice yields.[38][39] The extermination of sparrows upset the ecological balance, which subsequently resulted in surging locust and insect populations that destroyed crops due to a lack of a natural predator.[40][41]

With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides.[39] Although sparrows were removed from the Four Pests in 1960, the disruption of ecological balance, combined with errors in food distribution policies and the exaggeration of crop production figures, led to the Great Chinese Famine.[42][43][44][45] According to a 2025 study, the anti-sparrow campaign accounted for a nearly 20 percent drop in crop production, leading to the deaths of two million people.[46]

By the end of the Four Pests campaign, the Eurasian tree sparrow was practically extinct from China, which afterwards imported 250,000 Eurasian tree sparrows from the Soviet Union to recover its population.[46][47]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana

The Battle of Isandlwana (alternative spelling: Isandhlwana) on 22 January 1879 was the second major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom – the Battle of Nyezane having been fought and won earlier on the same day by Colonel Pearson's Coastal Column. Eleven days after the British invaded the Zulu Kingdom in Southern Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of approximately 1,800 British, colonial and native troops with approximately 350 civilians.[12] The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields,[13] but also had a number of muskets and antiquated rifles.[14][15]

The British and colonial troops were armed with the modern[16] Martini–Henry breechloading rifle and two 7-pounder mountain guns deployed as field guns,[17][18] as well as a Hale rocket battery. The Zulus had a vast disadvantage in weapons technology,[19] but they greatly outnumbered the British and ultimately overwhelmed them,[20] killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The British were unprepared for the attack from the large Zulu contingent, which had moved quickly, and were attacked along the flanks by the Zulus using their traditional 'horns and chest of the buffalo' formation. The Zulu army suffered anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 killed.[21][22]

The battle was a victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand.[23] The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against an indigenous foe equipped with vastly inferior military technology.[19] Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo-Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion,[24] and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.[25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/...

The Battle of Rorke's Drift, also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenants John Chard of the Royal Engineers and Gonville Bromhead of the 24th Regiment of Foot, began once a large contingent of Zulu warriors broke off from the main force during the final hour of the British defeat at the day-long Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879. They travelled ten kilometres (six miles) to attack Rorke's Drift later that day and continuing into the following day.

Just over 150 British and colonial troops defended the station against attacks by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive but piecemeal attacks by the Zulu on Rorke's Drift came very close to overwhelming the much smaller garrison, but were consistently repelled.[9] Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to individual defenders, along with a number of other decorations and honours.

https://collections.lacma.org/object/5083

Both the West and Russia engage in imperialism, not 'just' hegemony.

Sherman: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."

Shermanposting during the Civil War: 😀

Sherman: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."

Shermanposting during the Indian Wars: 😬

Nah, by the 1920s snapshot cameras were ordinary.

Yep. Even with that philosophy, Sherman, unfortunately, was far from the worst American, or worst American military commander, on the Western frontier, which is more a condemnation of the Americans of the period than absolution of Sherman.

He did whatever he thought was necessary to end the wars he was tasked to end, but attempted to prevent any new wars from breaking out, and didn't exceed what he regarded as necessary (or legal) for the prosecution of the wars. Sherman considered himself (and the military in general) a tool of the civilian government, though, and whatever orders he was given, he executed to the best of his ability, even when he disagreed with them.

Also unfortunately, the strategic-level thinking of Sherman led directly to the mass slaughter of buffalo herds to restrict the movement of Native American tribes.

cheerleading on behalf of the military-industrial complex is gross in any form,

"I can't believe Ukrainians don't want to be genocided! It must be the MIC's doing!"

Fascist bootlickers aren't welcome here.

A common meme image for incidents one is "apologizing" for, because he looks like he's been caught doing something but not sorry in a mischievous sort of way.

A little of both, probably. "If we pulled him now, we'd have to admit we made a mistake, and also then we'd have to find a new executioner. What does it matter? They're going to be dead either way."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Woods

Before D-Day, U.S. military executions by hanging in the European Theater of Operations occurred in Southern England only and were performed by the civilian executioner Thomas Pierrepoint, with assistance by Albert Pierrepoint (his nephew) and other British personnel. When in autumn of 1944 military executions by hanging were scheduled in France, the Army looked for a volunteer enlisted hangman and found Woods, who falsely claimed previous experience as assistant hangman in two cases in Texas and two in Oklahoma. He later told newspaper reporters that his career as an executioner had started when he "attended a hanging as a witness, and the hangman asked me if I wouldn't mind helping."[3] There is no evidence that the U.S. Army made any attempt to verify Woods's claims—if they had checked, it would have been easy to prove that he was lying; the states of Texas and Oklahoma had both switched to electrocution during the period he claimed to be a hangman. The last hanging in Texas took place in August 1923 when Woods would have been twelve. Oklahoma did not carry out hangings during the relevant period, the last one taking place three months before Woods was born. There was a single hanging in 1936 under federal jurisdiction, while all other executions in Oklahoma between 1915 and 1966 were carried out by electric chair.

Woods also participated in the execution of about 45 war criminals at various locations which included Rheinbach, Bruchsal, Landsberg, and Nuremberg. Donald E. Wilkes Jr., a professor of law at the University of Georgia Law School, wrote that many of the Nazis executed at Nuremberg fell from the gallows with a drop insufficient to snap their necks, resulting in their death by strangulation, which in some cases lasted up to 15 minutes.[1]

Yeah. One of those occasions where it's like, sick fuck, but no tears for his victims either.

It doesn't help that he was intensely mercurial, and that his views changed radically over the course of his life.

What a prickly soul he was!

Not even. The hangman, John C. Woods, was probably a sadist who simply enjoyed killing people slowly, unfortunately.

The artist and source says it's a depiction of a Mayan city.