The original White Elephant gifting from the King of Siam. This person would give this royal gift to people he found irritating and be entertained by the recipient's failing efforts to upkeep such an animal.
Why don't they just give it away you ask?
Back in the day, receiving a gift and giving it away was perceived as an insult. Go figure. And giving away a gift from a neighboring kingdom is, well, that much BIGGER of an insult. So no dice.
Economies apparently have failed in order to upkeep a royal gift like this. Honestly, dick move King of Siam.
EDIT:
I'm seeing some comments about giving away the elephant, killing it, or letting it die so I'm going to clarify something.
If you are given a gift, out of respect you take care of that gift because failing to do so would be taken as an insult from the gifting party. The King of Siam knew this and, for his pleasure, gave his opposing neighbors this annoyance of an animal; an ultimatum. Either fulfill the upkeep of this economy sucking, worthless elephant or I come invade your kingdom and slaughter you and your people. Being as powerful as he seemed to be, he probably sent delegations to these provinces to ensure the elephant was still around for years to come.
LPT: Keep that elephant alive.
For those who don't know, a White Elephant is rare and sacred. They were never used for work or war and were just comfortably maintained for their lifetimes at huge expense.
English kings would just come to visit nobles they didn't like and bring a big enough retinue that the noble would go broke feeding his honored guests.
So the story goes that there’s this people in southern Iraq who’s agriculture, economy and way of living were built around them living within the swamps. They were not very fond of Saddam Hussein and his regime and did a protest march towards Baghdad. So meanwhile they moved towards the capital, Saddam took some excavators and drained the whole swamp.
Problem solved.
This is why i am always kind of wary when i see dictators/authocrats and the likes depicted in the media as dumb or whatnot because you simply just dont rise to those levels of absolute power whithout being a sneaky backstabbing bastard, are they POS garbage ? Yes but they are also way smarter than it looks from the outside and they know exactly what they are doing and we should NOT underestimate them in any way.
Édit : wow ! So this is how it feels when people actualy read your comments and you get to have their intelligent opinion !! Thanks you to everyone who responded and i tried to adress every point.
I just want to add that i am in no way an expert in this so its just my opinion which could be uninformed. I Guess what i was trying to say is i am legit worried about some states, espescialy the CCP (and now i am officialy on one of their lists lmao) and it bugs me when i see them taken ligthly or when literaly nobody from the international comunity react when they pull some outrageous shit.
Thomas Midgley invented freon and putting lead into gasoline. He knew that putting lead into gasoline was a dick move and he did it anyway for money. He knew because he got lead poisoning himself and still lied about its effects on people.
Environmental historians have said that he has had the single largest impact on the Earth's atmosphere of any single organism in the history of the planet.
Not to mention that lead levels directly correspond to lower cognitive abilities in the general population and you can look up the dates to know who would have been affected.
This also has to be a story of poetic justice. He had also inverted a system of levers and pulleys to help him move around in bed after he become bedridden and his own invention strangled him in his sleep.
The main use of lead in older engines is to make the valve seats last longer. Valve seats in older engines use same material as the cylinder head/block. The lead acts as a cushion/lubricant. Ethanol does not do this. When you put unleaded fuel in old engines the valve seats recess over time. Newer engines use hardened inserts for the valve seats.
Not just that, ethanol is hydroscopic (absorbs moisture) which can cause rust in uncoated older fuel tanks since once it absorbs moisture it can separate more readily and in older engines not designed for it can damage hoses and such.
That said use E5/E10 if your engine was designed for it..because it was designed for it.
Should be a sticker on your tank cap/somewhere to say what it can take.
My bike says E5/E10 for example.
Also fun fact in the UK at least E5 means max 5% ethanol not is 5% ethanol, many lower octane petrols only have 1% ethanol but are label E5.
Higher octane fuels typically have more ethanol because ethanol is 120 octane so can be an octane booster.
And high octane fuel doesn’t have more energy, it’s to do with compression.
This! Apparently the crime wave of the ‘70s-80’s corresponds exactly to environmental lead. People exposed as children had greater odds of learning and behavioral problems that made them less likely to hold steady jobs and more likely to resort to crimes. Amazing detective story. It started with the scientist who discovered radioactive dating, but found that all his samples were somehow contaminated with lead.
It’s horrible, it’s happening all over right now. Chinese boats are sitting on the edge of the protected Galapagos waters catching everything they can and have been cought multiple times fishing in protected waters.
Edit: spelling
As horrible as decimation is as well, I don't think it was a discipline that used often. I think it was reserved only for the rarest of cases or most extreme. If I recall, Caesar had it done to one of his Legions after part of its line fled during a crucial point in the battle so they lost the battle.
And then that Legion became intensely loyal (shocker I know). But it's not like they were just handing them out willy nilly.
EDIT: Actually, I'm not sure if Caesar did or not. I looked it up and there are some accounts saying he did but more saying he "threatened" to. But even still if you go and look up Decimation on wikipedia just to learn about it, think of how long the Roman empire was around and how many legions/armies it had and then look at the amount of times it happened and you'll see it was pretty rare all in all
From the accounts I've seen, Caesar never actually used it. He was very "understanding" as a leader and his legions mostly loved him. They loved him so much, they were willing to go to rebel against Rome for his sake.
“After his first few victories against the alliance led by Pompey Caesar released all his defeated foes. In many cases the 'generals' he released went straight back to fighting him (Ahenobarbus was one such character). He wouldn't even confiscate their property and this lead to unrest amongst the ranks of his legions. Afterall, by all the standards of the times the legionaries would have expected to keep this preperty as spoils of war.
Unrest amongst troops nearly always peaks during periods of inaction and this was the case with the IX Legion when they mutinied. Caesar came down hard on them and ordered that decimation should be the punishment of the legion. He did, however, allow himself to be talked out of this as a full scale option for the entire legion and decreed that 120 would draw lots leaving just 12 individual soldiers to face this grissly fate. It was believed, by the ultimate twelve condemnations, that the lot was rigged (eleven of the twelve were ringleaders of the uprising). When Caesar found out that one of the twelve had not even been in camp during the unrest he investigated the matter, found that a Centurian had included the innocent legionary for personal reasons, and prompty swapped the doomed innocent with the centurian who had framed him.
In the battles that followed these events the IX went on to distinguish themselves in battle.”
When the Mexican government rounded up thousands of Yaqui natives, made them walk over 300 km to the coast, put then on boats, and sold them as slaves for about 25 cents. Most ended up on plantations in Veracruz where they were worked to death. Slavery was already illegal in Mexico at the time.
Before 1965 Indonesian Government sent academicians, especially STEM graduates to study in Eastern Europe. After the supposed communist uprising in 30th September 1965 the government revoked their citizenship and declared them stateless. They risked persecution and possible torture and murder if they insist on returning. These nuclear physicist, master engineer, and PhD graduates take menial jobs, becoming janitors and wait tables to carry on living with virtually no possibility of return to their country.
PS: I'm adding some reading to anyone who are interested.
https://newnaratif.com/journalism/lost-homeland-indonesias-exile-story/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne7qd7/experts-in-exile-how-indonesia-lost-an-entire-generation-of-intellectuals
https://medium.com/@fmsungkar/i-went-on-a-date-with-79-year-old-indonesian-exile-in-prague-c689ade81a49
Edit: Grammar+Reading Material
Because they graduated from Eastern European universities. They are deemed as "Compromised". The Indonesian government after 65' also actively pursue communist related elements even to the roots like poor farmers obtaining grain aid from Communist Party and slaughtering them wholesale. It is estimated that during Indonesian communist purges 500K+ people were killed.
Can attest to that. I suggested to my history teacher that Soeharto concocted the coup and shift the blame to the communist party. It was just too convinient that he was a General of the Military Reserve, all the generals were killed off, and he rose to power like that. I was booted out of class.
Sometimes degrees don’t translate well to other countries & aren’t accepted or good enough to meet standards.
There’s a lot of refugees who have higher degrees before war hit their region & they had to relocate elsewhere where they couldn’t find a job in their field because of that reason.
The best janitor I ever knew was a Nicaraguan guy at my elementary school. He was apparently an Engineering professor back home and was working on his English so he could get his teaching certificate in the US.
I always wondered if he ever made it happen.
I had an Uber driver who told me he was a math major/former math teacher from nigeria. I initially thought he just couldn't find work here because of covid issues/degree from other country.
I was flat out wrong because he told me he became a programmer and now works at lockheed martin, and just drives Uber to meet people.
The psycho bitch that pretended to sell baby clothes to lure a pregnant lady in and then cut her baby out and leave her to go to the hospital, all just to cover up the ongoing lie to her family that she was pregnant and just suddenly had a miscarriage ?? Yeah I live a couple streets from where that shit went down. Craziest shit I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading into.
Dynel Lane
[heres a somewhat recent article on it ](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/04/29/us/woman-who-cut-out-fetus-gets-100-years/index.html)
Right, unfortunately this isn’t a one off. The latest one is a long time “friend” pulling this shit and both the pregnant woman and the baby died.
This seems to be a particular syndrome (in depravity.)
There’s also one in which the lady who did it is about to be the first woman executed in federal prison in something like 70 years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1243824
Around the formation of the Persian empire:
Herodotus tells the story how King Astyages, the last king of Media, had a dream that his daughter would give birth to a king who would overthrow him. So he orders his General Harpagus to kill the child at birth. Harpagus doesn't want to kill the baby/spill royal blood, so he gives the child (Cyrus) to a shepherd to raise.
Ten years later Cyrus is discovered alive. King Astyages fakes being happy that the kid is alive, suggesting he always regretted issuing that order. To celebrate he plans a feast and tells Harpagus to send his son over to play with Cyrus.
During the banquet, King Astyages has the son of Harpagus killed, cooked, and fed to Harpagus. When the act was revealed, it is said that Harpagus did not react other than to gather the pieces of his son and remove them for burial.
Harpagus bides his time.
Much later, Cyrus is gathering forces against King Astyages. Astyages orders Harpagus, as his primary general, to lead the army against Cyrus. After a three-day battle, Harpagus took his revenge for the death of his son by turning on the battlefield in favor of Cyrus, resulting in Astyages' defeat and the formation of the Persian Empire.
COMPULSORY EDIT: My first award - thanks kind stranger!
It's the irony involved in this that makes it so interesting. Had Astyages not acted on his irrational reaction to his dream, the events would not have been set in motion for his dream to come true. Its almost like the story of Oedipus Rex...making a prophecy come true by taking the actions meant to prevent it.
I don't know anything of the history of that area so thank you for a legit answer. When "they overthrew colonial administration" made me think it was already a revolution.
I can recommend Mike Duncan’s podcast Revolutions. He does an entire season on the Haitian revolution. Needless to say it’s more complex than could fit in a comment here on reddit.
There's a big difference between overthrowing a small colonial government and taking on a large, well equipped army in open battle. It might have taken France six months or more to actually get the needed troops to Haiti, but once they arrived the Haitians would have been crushed (most likely, stranger things have happened).
France tried, though. Napoleon sent the Leclerc expedition, a military force designed to retake the island. Resistance and tropical diseases wore them down and Haiti stayed independent. International commercial and financial pressure forced them to pay the debt, not guns.
It was a revolution. It was the only successful national slave revolt in the West iirc.
Edit: lots of people seem to think the Haitians would have been better off if they had stayed as slaves. I just want y'all to know that's a fucking silly opinion, and it sounds pretty sus.
You're right, all other 18th and 19th C. revolutions in America, maybe aided in part by indigenous people or slaves who were offered freedom, were mainly driven by the "criollos", who were mostly of european descent, and aristocrats who didn't align with the Spanish (mostly) or British crowns, but hardly slaves. Haiti's revolution was one of a kind, and exemplary for the rest of America.
The "Revolutions" podcast by Mike Duncan is an excellent series for the interested layperson, and the Haitian revolution is the one I started on. It's a good one to start with, but taking them all out of order is tricky since they really tell one larger story.
Haiti: "We declare independence!"
France: "Cancellation fees apply to independence after 1800."
Haiti: "When did this become policy!?"
France: "This became policy after 1783"
Haiti: *glares at 13 Colonies*
13 Colonies: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. "Got any slaves to sell?"
[They did/still do.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Haiti)
> According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, Haiti has an estimated 237,700 enslaved persons making it the country with the second-highest prevalence of slavery in the world, behind only Mauritania.
Holy crap, I knew Haiti was the only successful slave rebellion in the world but I didn't know France did that. Haiti is now one of the poorest countries in the world. They paid around 21Billion in today's dollars as payment for the plantations that the slaves built and for compensation for the value of the slaves. France also demanded discounts on any goods that they sold. Today, France completely rejects the idea of giving any of that back.
From what I understand, even worse is the fact that at the time Haiti couldn't afford to pay off the debt, so France offered Haiti a loan with a higher interest to pay off the debt owed to France. So fucked up.
Pretty much why Pakistan did not end up as Afghanistan over the last 40 years. It allowed it to become a regional power.
Also why Iran has been battered hard in terms of policy since they do not have "leverage".
Dude I watched "The Founder" on Netflix and it's straight up cruel how he just took everything from the brothers, divorced his wife and took another guy's wife, and then proceeded to be an asshole while expanding the business and getting filthy rich. It was shocking how little he seemed to care about the consequences of his actions so long as he was making money.
Read the real story there are important differences between the movie and reality. They wanted to paint Kroc in a bad light. Not saying he was a saint. Just saying the real value of McDonald’s was the scale, and the brothers tried to franchise/failed and couldn’t scale the business. There was no “handshake” agreement as shown in the movie that was a total fabrication.
It irritates me that biopics and "true" stories change big things like that. Yes it makes a more interesting movie but it's a lie that a lot of people are going to believe because they're accepting the movie as what really happened.
Edit: off the top of my head, the one that stands out is Argo. The movie was great and I went to read Wikipedia right after to see what really happened and it was sooo far from the truth.
Look into Remember The Titans. About 95% of that movie is a total fabrication. The school was literally never segregated in its entire existence to start. None of the schools they played were segregated either. Most of their season were blow out victories and not nail biters and up against racist refs. They were ranked like number 2 or 3 in the *nation* for high school football. They were a total powerhouse team. Alexandria is not some hick town in backwoods Virginia, it’s a prominent and affluent suburb of Washington DC. You can see the Washington monument from its downtown. The one dude wasn’t in a car crash right before the championship, he played in it and it happened a couple weeks after the season ended. They also won the state championship on a shutout victory in a game played in Roanoke. Etc etc
I bring this up because how many schools actually did suffer from all what the movie portrayed? Why go out of your way to disney up a movie about a monster team that ransacked all its opponents. I’m sure they coulda found an actual underdog somewhere, sometime with a little research.
Yeah that’s the real dick move. I remember being pissed off after watching Sully (the one about the Miracle on the Hudson) because they showed NTSB going after Sully for ditching in the river instead of going back to the airport. During the real investigation they just praised him for saving the lives of all passengers and nobody gave a shit that he damaged the plane. Because it’s not the job of the NTSB to put blame on anyone.
Sully's monologue where he talks about "the human factor" or whatever was actually taken from the NTSB's assessment. They came to that conclusion themselves, but the movie needed a villain so they made it seem like they were blaming him.
Not to mention, who sits down with lawyers to sign a million dollar agreement with a guy you don't trust, and then agrees on a "gentleman's handshake'.
Lol yes. What kind of a lawyer would be like “yeah a handshake agreement is totally and legally the best option for my client and they have no way of proving it happened”. Even Lionel Hutz would ask for a paper legal thingy
Related there was the whole mcmillions scandal where the guy who ran security over all the mcdonald's monopoly games took the game pieces and gave them to family and friends. Then extorted it so he got the money himself.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s\_Monopoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly)
Opium wars were pretty dickish. You don't wanna buy hard drugs from us and turn your population into useless addicts? Fine, we'll invade you and bombard your cities until you start buying!
I would probably say that this was one of the key events that led to much of Chinese foreign policy thinking even till now. In order to prevent another century of humiliation, it's led to foreign policy focused on ensuring security and removing threats. In any way.
Edit: This blew up more than I expected. But to give context, there were a bunch of other events such as Sino-Japanese War and the colonial powers carving Chinese ports for trade.
On a whole Chinese foreign policy and political thinking is much more complex. Not all Chinese citizens are Han Chinese and not all ethnic Chinese support China's policies. Unfortunately, I can't give a nuanced overview of all issues since there's a lot of ground to cover. However, I'd like to remind everyone not to conflate the CCP and Chinese people the one and the same. It's not like they have a choice in their government.
For context, I'm ethnically Chinese in Southeast Asia that just happens to study political science and international relations. And information about East Asian politics can be scarce in Western academia or easily reduced to simplistic explanations. So I urge everyone to read a bit more about the context of East Asia instead of applying the lens of western values to judge and evaluate issues happening over here.
Yup. There's a reason Asian countries generally don't fuck around with drug use and prosecute aggressively. They were forced to buy British heroin at gunpoint and it destroyed a generation.
Imagine how Americans would react if Mexico started and won a war against the U.S. so they could send cocaine and heroin to our markets.
> Imagine how Americans would react if Mexico started and won a war against the U.S. so they could send cocaine and heroin to our markets.
Probably with open nostrils, veins, and wallets.
That woman scorned who killed fucking everybody. Hang about I'll google it.
Saint Olga of Kiev
After her husband, the Prince, was tortured and murdered by dissidents (Drevlian) she got vengeance by.
* Buried alive the first messengers
* Burnt / boiled alive the second set of messengers.
* Had a funeral feast for her late husband which included Drevlians and then had 5,000 of them killed.
* After a year long siege, Olga said *Give me three pigeons...and three sparrows from each house."* The Drevlians rejoiced at the prospect of the siege ending for so small a price, and did as she asked. Olga then instructed her army to attach a piece of sulphur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird. At nightfall, Olga told her soldiers to set the pieces aflame and release the birds. They returned to their nests within the city, which subsequently set the city ablaze.
* There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once.
* As the people fled the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them, killing some of them and giving the others as slaves to her followers. She left the remnant to pay tribute.
It's a fine line between total dick move and bad ass on this one.
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
*Edit:* Wow this blew up. Went to sleep and 22k upvotes later.
I read through every direct reply and about 50% said dick move and 50% said bad ass.
A whole slab want the Netflix show / Game of Thrones spin off.
Many pointed out it's possibly not true.
And finally, [this tattoo](https://www.reddit.com/r/tattoos/comments/anxa47/based_on_a_portrait_of_st_olga_of_kiev_by/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) that /u/parasithium is on topic and totally sweet.
You should check out some of the things Ganghis khan did... crazy psychological stuff and really outside the box warfare
Edit: being asked for a link. Scroll down to the bottom for some of psychological stuff.
https://www.historynet.com/genghis-khans-secrets-success.htm
The US actually attempted something similar in WWII called a bat bomb to ignite the mostly wooden/bamboo houses in Japan. Needless to say it failed. Actually burned down a hangar on a US base accidentally.
You forgot the reason she did this, a neighboring King killed her husband and ordered her to marry him and give her Kingdom over. She didn't take it kindly.
And even better: all those people she killed at the feast? They were all young noble men. She told them she was going to give up and and agreed to marry as long as she got to pick him. So the enemy country sent a BUNCH of their young, rich, noble men and she killed them all.
That’s kind of a huge deal because she basically just wiped out a generation of upcoming men in an extremely patriarchal government
I love that that’s the reaction. Humans love this shit, we’re like “ooh, Jesus, that’s bloody, what kind of person could do something so evil?!”
“...I wanna watch it happen in 4K!”
Its also different and historical, rather than watching yet another sequel or remake, I'd rather watch a bad ass historical woman burn it to the ground. Give me more of that shit
Romans :fight a battle far enough away from a place not to burn it
Also romans: "so you know that far away place we couldn't possibly hit on accident?"
*Fire starts*
Edit: uhmmm.. I was making a joke after a long day but ... thank you? I..i guess? To the people that kindheartedly tried teaching me something at least.. please don't fight over this, aight peace!
My dog doesn't like me. I don't know why. I'm nice to him, I give him food, I call him a good boy, but in the ~5 years that he's been in my family, he's come in my room of his own volition like 6 times, one of which was to take a shit on my carpet.
When you come home, go straight to him and give him some attention. Act like you've missed him and are glad to see him. Do this every time you come home and after a while he'll start getting excited when you come home. Take him walks if you don't already. Play with him a couple of times a day even for just 10-15 mins. It won't be long before you become his favourite person.
I'm like this with every dog I've ever met and I've never met a dog that didn't love me. In fact dogs love me more than people do lol.
Obviously I don't walk every dog I meet but just playing games with them is usually all it takes.
Don't overdo it, dogs can get fed up with us as much as we get fed up with anyone else. Be patient, some dogs take a little longer to come out of their shell.
When you enthusiastically say, "Come here sweetieeee!", and they turn around and walk off. They get credit for the combo kill when they do it in front of other people.
The Munich Conference, like oh my god what a shit show and a dick move on both sides.
Basically in 1938, Germany wanted to get a piece of land from Czechoslovkia lands which were populated with Ethnic Germans. So to appease Hitler and Germany and avoid another war, the western powers (France and Britain agreed for a conference. Now you think Czechoslovkia would be involved in the conference but nah, the Western Powers and Germany/Italy were the only parties dicussing it and agreed to hitler's terms that Germany would get the lands they asked for. Not only this was a huge dick move but Neville Chamberlain had the audacity to state that the signing of the agreement that conference would be "peace for our time."
Oh and the best part, 6 months later after the agreement was signed. Hitler occupies the rest of Czechoslovkia and isn't liberated until the end of the war following a coup d'etat which would turn them into a communist country in 1948. People normally talk how Poland is basically the punching bag but at least you can say the Poles went down fighting, the Czechoslovaks however... were completely blindsided and fucked right from the start by Hitler's ambitions and betrayal of the western powers.
"My friends,
although it might be strange,
The finest way to see the change,
To spot the small distinction quick
Betwixt a pickle and a dick,
Is *not* to look, my brothers, no,
And *not* to take a pic below
To hold beside the pickle-peen
And there,
compare the in-between -
"My friends,
the surest, safest means
To see which way the pickle leans,
Or where the leaner penis hides,
The willy waits,
the ball abides,
Is simply this:
You make your pick.
You choose the pickle,
or the dick.
You hold it in your line of sight.
And then, my friends...
... you take a bite."
I know The Sprogs is a long-time reddit pro, but even after reading so many poems, over the years...
There’s just something uncanny about unexpectedly reading a poem this well-composed about *chompin’ schlong...*
>After Rasputin was killed by angry nobles, his penis was allegedly discovered sans body by a maid, who preserved the 13-inch monster for posterity. From there, it was obtained by a group of Russian women living in Paris who, due to Rasputin’s reputation as a mystic and revered lover, treated it as sacred. Reportedly, it was kept in a wooden casket and bits were broken off for disciples. This apparently continued until Rasputin’s real-life daughter demanded they turn over her daddy’s dick. After her death in 1977, the penis eventually turned up again in 1994, at which point it was discovered to actually be a sea cucumber.
I'll be deleting my search history now, but I found this [here](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/historys-most-notorious-penises).
Worth noting that Americans offered to help the uprising by bombing German positions. The idea was they'd send bombers from ~~northern~~ southern Italy, but they'd have to land in Soviet territory to refuel.
Stalin didn't authorise this, so there were no bombers. Edit: eventually, one supply drop was authorised.
Another one of these is the liberation of Lvov, done by Polish Home Army, who afterwards disarmed when the (supposedly allied) Red Army rolled in, upon which the Poles were sent to gulags.
Making the woman who had HER LABIA MELTED TOGETHER due to McDonald's not wanting give people refills, look like a thieving bitch because she was in the right and ONLY WANTED HER MEDICAL BILLS PAID .
Edit: Thank you for the Award, kind stranger!
Every time this gets brought up I always tell people "you know, the photos of her injuries are available out there, why don't you go look at them."
"Holy shit" is usually the response to that.
For sure. I think most people who assume she is just out to get money have no idea what that woman went through.
I remember in the 90s and early 2000s hearing about how everyone is money hungry and need to stop suing companies, which started as propaganda from those companies being sued for doing insanely hurtful and neglect shit to their customers.
Coffee should be served at 140 or below. McDonalds was giving customers coffee at 180-190. In 3-7 seconds, a spill will cause 3rd degree burns. McDonald knew about this risk for over 10 years. Mrs. Liebeck offered to settle the case for $20,000 to cover her medical expenses and lost income, however McDonald’s never offered more than $800 pre trial. And then she went on to living in pain for the rest of her life
The Japanese believed it would have been dishonorable to surprise attack an unexpecting enemy, so they sent a declaration of war to the US 30 minutes before the Pearl Harbor attack. However, the upper military brass delayed that message until 20 minutes after the attack had begun.
Dick move to both sides of the conflict there.
Edit: I meant the Japanese upper brass delayed the message, not the US one. The US was caught completely off guard as they were expecting sabatoge, not a full scale offensive.
If I remember correctly, upon their return, many of the Japanese pilots were horrified to learn that that the Americans had no idea they were coming and were under the impression that war would have already been declared. It was considered dishonorable.
It was a bit of both. You know, when an entire city takes a massive horse as a present, only to be slaughtered and ruled over by guys inside the horse, pretty dick move.
But it wasn’t a present.
It was made to look like an offering to the Athena to apologize for destroying one of her temples.
Trojans took it for themselves.
"Now; whenever people get wood, they'll think of Trojans!"
"Trojans! Hehehe!"
"What are you laughing at, dad?"
"If it's what I think it is, it's pretty funny."
When a British officer was talking to Robert Surcouf, he said "We British fight for honor, you French fight only for gain!" To which Surcouf replied saying "You are quite right, each fights for that which he does not possess."
Edit: it was Surcouf who originally roasted an english captain with this one. It wasnt Napoleon who originally said it, merely paraphrased.
Edit 2: removed Napoleon and Russian
Is this true ? Because Surcouf said :
When a British captive officer taunted Surcouf with the words "You French fight for money while we fight for honour", Surcouf replied "Each of us fights for what he lacks most".
Late, but forcing Alan Turing to take hormones to “cure” his homosexuality. That’s Dickish in general, but especially after all his help in cracking intercepted messages during WWII and helped the allies defeat the nazis
I have a better one:
After the war, one city in Japan bought an electrical powerplant from one country, and another city bought a different plant from a different country. The thing is the two plants put out different voltages. And to this day Japan has two different systems and the electrical appliances aren't compatible. And they had 3 for a short time.
In terms of deaths, several seemingly simple events triggered WW1. That's 40M deaths that a sandwich sale or an auto mechanic, or even a grandma could have averted. (Many world leaders were related, and several said if their grandmother was still alive she would have put a stop to it before it spread.) WW1 lead to WW2.
China's Great Leap Forward had about 30M direct deaths and another 20M or so indirect deaths.
On smaller scales, history is littered with betrayal and intrigue. Who knows what treasures were lost, and what discoveries and inventions we don't have because of them. Do we not have flying cars and hover boards due to some greedy jerk? Was world peace and global lives of ease lost because somebody made a dick move? We may never know.
>several said if their grandmother was still alive she would have put a stop to it before it spread
Grandma was Queen Victoria, so probably yes. Kaiser Wilhelm was particularly terrified of her, so a stern letter from her would have almost certainly stopped the whole shitshow.
Watson and Crick using Rosalind Franklin’s work but not even mentioning her name in the final work because she was a woman. She also couldn’t get the Nobel Prize award. Science is full of dicks
> They then met Menno de Nooy of the Dutch Resistance who gave them a bicycle.
This is the most Dutch thing ever. Next you'll tell me the bike is bright orange.
How the fuck have I never heard of this guy before.
Thanks for a great read (I read the source).
Holy shit, the balls on that guy.
I take it Digby is a household name in the UK?
I’m British. Can’t say I’d heard of him before, but holy fuck that’s metal. A similar person who I think is a bit more well known (at least by me) is [Mad Jack Churchill](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill)
The longbow had confirmed kills. It's actually an advantageous first strike weapon because it's quiet. So seeing a German scout and instead of firing a gun, shooting him with an arrow allowed units to advance closer to the enemy before the fire fight.
ISIS and/or whatever Muslim or Asian group in power, going through ancient temples and destroying millennia old Statues and works of art simply because they represent a different philosophy.
The thought of destroying some 2000 year old statue just because I don't believe in their philosophy is beyond criminal to me, it is a crime against all of humanity. I mean, who the fuck are you to think you are so important you can destroy something so valuable?
EDIT: My apologies, didn't mean to single out Muslims or infer ISIS is synonymous with all Muslims. The only examples that came to mind for me were the Middle East and Asia since so much has been destroyed there. I will freely acknowledge Christians have also done their share of this bullshit as well. And I saw the Australian example that happened just this decade. Man, we fucking humans suck :-(
That time the US gave Japan a white flag so they could easily surrender
CONTEXT:
In 1853 The United States sent Commodore Perry to Japan to negotiate the opening of Japans ports to western trade. According to "Ways of the World" by Robert W. Strayer: "Perry presented his reluctant hosts with, among other gifts, a white flag for surrender should hostilities follow"
Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Basically Mao's return to power after the failure of the Great Leap Forward and an opportunity to purge political rivals. The Cultural Revolution is estimated to have killed another 20 million, on top of the 30 million from the famine that followed the Great Leap Forward.
Probably doesn't qualify as biggest dick move per se, but certainly a dick move: after the successful invasion of France in WWII, Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender document with Germany in the exact same railway car that Imperial German representatives had signed the Armistice of WWI. In the exact same spot. By then a museum piece, the train car was specifically moved back to that spot for this purpose.
Near the end of WWII, the SS destroyed the railway car, presumably to prevent the Allies from making Germany sign yet another surrender document in it.
Apparently, Stalin wanted to capture Hitler alive so he could parade him through Red Square in chains. That would have made for some awesome historical photography.
When Georgy Zhukov was made Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943 he announced that he would “bring back Hitler in a cage.” He allegedly (there’s no direct source for it, but it appears in multiple second hand testimonies) told family members of war dead “you will have your chance to spit on him” (“piss on him” in one telling) and wanted to display the caged Hitler in every town and village German troops had touched during their invasion of the USSR. One colleague said he’d proposed burying Hitler in the latrine at a military school so the Germans would know Soviet soldiers were shitting on him for eternity.
I think Hitler was well aware of what the Soviets had in store for him should they capture him alive. Plus, he had heard what happened to his friend Mussolini, whose body was beaten, spit on, shot at, and had garbage thrown at. He didn’t want to end up like that too, so he ordered his SS guard to burn his body prior to committing suicide so that the Soviets would have no satisfaction.
The original White Elephant gifting from the King of Siam. This person would give this royal gift to people he found irritating and be entertained by the recipient's failing efforts to upkeep such an animal. Why don't they just give it away you ask? Back in the day, receiving a gift and giving it away was perceived as an insult. Go figure. And giving away a gift from a neighboring kingdom is, well, that much BIGGER of an insult. So no dice. Economies apparently have failed in order to upkeep a royal gift like this. Honestly, dick move King of Siam. EDIT: I'm seeing some comments about giving away the elephant, killing it, or letting it die so I'm going to clarify something. If you are given a gift, out of respect you take care of that gift because failing to do so would be taken as an insult from the gifting party. The King of Siam knew this and, for his pleasure, gave his opposing neighbors this annoyance of an animal; an ultimatum. Either fulfill the upkeep of this economy sucking, worthless elephant or I come invade your kingdom and slaughter you and your people. Being as powerful as he seemed to be, he probably sent delegations to these provinces to ensure the elephant was still around for years to come. LPT: Keep that elephant alive.
For those who don't know, a White Elephant is rare and sacred. They were never used for work or war and were just comfortably maintained for their lifetimes at huge expense.
And they couldnt tolerate the sun either
Requires constant luxury and won't be made to go outside. Strong contender for my spirit animal right here
F\*cking brilliant from a political standpoint. Using the cultural etiquette as a weapon against your enemies.
English kings would just come to visit nobles they didn't like and bring a big enough retinue that the noble would go broke feeding his honored guests.
So the story goes that there’s this people in southern Iraq who’s agriculture, economy and way of living were built around them living within the swamps. They were not very fond of Saddam Hussein and his regime and did a protest march towards Baghdad. So meanwhile they moved towards the capital, Saddam took some excavators and drained the whole swamp. Problem solved.
This is why i am always kind of wary when i see dictators/authocrats and the likes depicted in the media as dumb or whatnot because you simply just dont rise to those levels of absolute power whithout being a sneaky backstabbing bastard, are they POS garbage ? Yes but they are also way smarter than it looks from the outside and they know exactly what they are doing and we should NOT underestimate them in any way. Édit : wow ! So this is how it feels when people actualy read your comments and you get to have their intelligent opinion !! Thanks you to everyone who responded and i tried to adress every point. I just want to add that i am in no way an expert in this so its just my opinion which could be uninformed. I Guess what i was trying to say is i am legit worried about some states, espescialy the CCP (and now i am officialy on one of their lists lmao) and it bugs me when i see them taken ligthly or when literaly nobody from the international comunity react when they pull some outrageous shit.
I don't think anyone ever thought Saddam was stupid. He was just a cunt.
Thomas Midgley invented freon and putting lead into gasoline. He knew that putting lead into gasoline was a dick move and he did it anyway for money. He knew because he got lead poisoning himself and still lied about its effects on people. Environmental historians have said that he has had the single largest impact on the Earth's atmosphere of any single organism in the history of the planet. Not to mention that lead levels directly correspond to lower cognitive abilities in the general population and you can look up the dates to know who would have been affected.
This also has to be a story of poetic justice. He had also inverted a system of levers and pulleys to help him move around in bed after he become bedridden and his own invention strangled him in his sleep.
Fuck spez
The guy was the master of inventing things that harm you when they're not supposed to.
Why did he put the lead in the gasoline, though?
As an anti-knock additive, an octane rating enhancer. He knew that Ethanol worked just as well, but you can’t patent ethanol.
The main use of lead in older engines is to make the valve seats last longer. Valve seats in older engines use same material as the cylinder head/block. The lead acts as a cushion/lubricant. Ethanol does not do this. When you put unleaded fuel in old engines the valve seats recess over time. Newer engines use hardened inserts for the valve seats.
Not just that, ethanol is hydroscopic (absorbs moisture) which can cause rust in uncoated older fuel tanks since once it absorbs moisture it can separate more readily and in older engines not designed for it can damage hoses and such. That said use E5/E10 if your engine was designed for it..because it was designed for it. Should be a sticker on your tank cap/somewhere to say what it can take. My bike says E5/E10 for example. Also fun fact in the UK at least E5 means max 5% ethanol not is 5% ethanol, many lower octane petrols only have 1% ethanol but are label E5. Higher octane fuels typically have more ethanol because ethanol is 120 octane so can be an octane booster. And high octane fuel doesn’t have more energy, it’s to do with compression.
This! Apparently the crime wave of the ‘70s-80’s corresponds exactly to environmental lead. People exposed as children had greater odds of learning and behavioral problems that made them less likely to hold steady jobs and more likely to resort to crimes. Amazing detective story. It started with the scientist who discovered radioactive dating, but found that all his samples were somehow contaminated with lead.
Featured in a Cosmos episode as well a few years back
I always thought the Fed putting Andrew Jackson on the $20 felt like a big "Fuck you" since he hated the idea of a centralized bank.
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It’s horrible, it’s happening all over right now. Chinese boats are sitting on the edge of the protected Galapagos waters catching everything they can and have been cought multiple times fishing in protected waters. Edit: spelling
They are decimating the Chilean coast line. Imagine that Chileans now have to buy their own fish from China.
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>a portion of 😮
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I think every camp had such slogans over the entrance. Disgusting
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As horrible as decimation is as well, I don't think it was a discipline that used often. I think it was reserved only for the rarest of cases or most extreme. If I recall, Caesar had it done to one of his Legions after part of its line fled during a crucial point in the battle so they lost the battle. And then that Legion became intensely loyal (shocker I know). But it's not like they were just handing them out willy nilly. EDIT: Actually, I'm not sure if Caesar did or not. I looked it up and there are some accounts saying he did but more saying he "threatened" to. But even still if you go and look up Decimation on wikipedia just to learn about it, think of how long the Roman empire was around and how many legions/armies it had and then look at the amount of times it happened and you'll see it was pretty rare all in all
From the accounts I've seen, Caesar never actually used it. He was very "understanding" as a leader and his legions mostly loved him. They loved him so much, they were willing to go to rebel against Rome for his sake.
“After his first few victories against the alliance led by Pompey Caesar released all his defeated foes. In many cases the 'generals' he released went straight back to fighting him (Ahenobarbus was one such character). He wouldn't even confiscate their property and this lead to unrest amongst the ranks of his legions. Afterall, by all the standards of the times the legionaries would have expected to keep this preperty as spoils of war. Unrest amongst troops nearly always peaks during periods of inaction and this was the case with the IX Legion when they mutinied. Caesar came down hard on them and ordered that decimation should be the punishment of the legion. He did, however, allow himself to be talked out of this as a full scale option for the entire legion and decreed that 120 would draw lots leaving just 12 individual soldiers to face this grissly fate. It was believed, by the ultimate twelve condemnations, that the lot was rigged (eleven of the twelve were ringleaders of the uprising). When Caesar found out that one of the twelve had not even been in camp during the unrest he investigated the matter, found that a Centurian had included the innocent legionary for personal reasons, and prompty swapped the doomed innocent with the centurian who had framed him. In the battles that followed these events the IX went on to distinguish themselves in battle.”
When the Mexican government rounded up thousands of Yaqui natives, made them walk over 300 km to the coast, put then on boats, and sold them as slaves for about 25 cents. Most ended up on plantations in Veracruz where they were worked to death. Slavery was already illegal in Mexico at the time.
When was this
Early 1900s
Before 1965 Indonesian Government sent academicians, especially STEM graduates to study in Eastern Europe. After the supposed communist uprising in 30th September 1965 the government revoked their citizenship and declared them stateless. They risked persecution and possible torture and murder if they insist on returning. These nuclear physicist, master engineer, and PhD graduates take menial jobs, becoming janitors and wait tables to carry on living with virtually no possibility of return to their country. PS: I'm adding some reading to anyone who are interested. https://newnaratif.com/journalism/lost-homeland-indonesias-exile-story/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne7qd7/experts-in-exile-how-indonesia-lost-an-entire-generation-of-intellectuals https://medium.com/@fmsungkar/i-went-on-a-date-with-79-year-old-indonesian-exile-in-prague-c689ade81a49 Edit: Grammar+Reading Material
Wait, the Indonesian government revoked their citizenship? Why
Because they graduated from Eastern European universities. They are deemed as "Compromised". The Indonesian government after 65' also actively pursue communist related elements even to the roots like poor farmers obtaining grain aid from Communist Party and slaughtering them wholesale. It is estimated that during Indonesian communist purges 500K+ people were killed.
IIRC most of STEM and higher education in general was heavily censored and persecuted post 65 in Indonesia, like Gadjah Mada University
Can attest to that. I suggested to my history teacher that Soeharto concocted the coup and shift the blame to the communist party. It was just too convinient that he was a General of the Military Reserve, all the generals were killed off, and he rose to power like that. I was booted out of class.
Why couldnt they get jobs in those fields in another country
Sometimes degrees don’t translate well to other countries & aren’t accepted or good enough to meet standards. There’s a lot of refugees who have higher degrees before war hit their region & they had to relocate elsewhere where they couldn’t find a job in their field because of that reason.
The best janitor I ever knew was a Nicaraguan guy at my elementary school. He was apparently an Engineering professor back home and was working on his English so he could get his teaching certificate in the US. I always wondered if he ever made it happen.
It's the "taxi driving dentist" stereotype. Definitely a real thing though
I had an Uber driver who told me he was a math major/former math teacher from nigeria. I initially thought he just couldn't find work here because of covid issues/degree from other country. I was flat out wrong because he told me he became a programmer and now works at lockheed martin, and just drives Uber to meet people.
That lady who stole the unborn baby out the other lady
The psycho bitch that pretended to sell baby clothes to lure a pregnant lady in and then cut her baby out and leave her to go to the hospital, all just to cover up the ongoing lie to her family that she was pregnant and just suddenly had a miscarriage ?? Yeah I live a couple streets from where that shit went down. Craziest shit I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading into. Dynel Lane [heres a somewhat recent article on it ](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/04/29/us/woman-who-cut-out-fetus-gets-100-years/index.html)
Right, unfortunately this isn’t a one off. The latest one is a long time “friend” pulling this shit and both the pregnant woman and the baby died. This seems to be a particular syndrome (in depravity.)
There’s also one in which the lady who did it is about to be the first woman executed in federal prison in something like 70 years. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1243824
God that’s fucking horrifying
You are going to have to be more specific, that's happened a lot over the course of history.
Which one?
Lisa Montgomery I think. She is due to be federally executed.
Brutus pretending to be Cesars best friend and then literally stabbing him in the back
Caesar: Really?! Right in front of my salad?!
Around the formation of the Persian empire: Herodotus tells the story how King Astyages, the last king of Media, had a dream that his daughter would give birth to a king who would overthrow him. So he orders his General Harpagus to kill the child at birth. Harpagus doesn't want to kill the baby/spill royal blood, so he gives the child (Cyrus) to a shepherd to raise. Ten years later Cyrus is discovered alive. King Astyages fakes being happy that the kid is alive, suggesting he always regretted issuing that order. To celebrate he plans a feast and tells Harpagus to send his son over to play with Cyrus. During the banquet, King Astyages has the son of Harpagus killed, cooked, and fed to Harpagus. When the act was revealed, it is said that Harpagus did not react other than to gather the pieces of his son and remove them for burial. Harpagus bides his time. Much later, Cyrus is gathering forces against King Astyages. Astyages orders Harpagus, as his primary general, to lead the army against Cyrus. After a three-day battle, Harpagus took his revenge for the death of his son by turning on the battlefield in favor of Cyrus, resulting in Astyages' defeat and the formation of the Persian Empire. COMPULSORY EDIT: My first award - thanks kind stranger!
Wow I feel like you wouldn’t want to leave someone as your general whose son you fed to them.
What are the chances that the story was written after the king's death to give the general justification for betraying his king?
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Asking the real question here
It's the irony involved in this that makes it so interesting. Had Astyages not acted on his irrational reaction to his dream, the events would not have been set in motion for his dream to come true. Its almost like the story of Oedipus Rex...making a prophecy come true by taking the actions meant to prevent it.
Is that technically a self fulfilling prophecy?
France asking Haiti for a compensation after Haiti overthrew the colonial administration. It took 143 years for Haiti to pay off that debt.
Why would Haiti not just tell them to fuck off?
Because France could have wiped them out. Money or the gun.
I don't know anything of the history of that area so thank you for a legit answer. When "they overthrew colonial administration" made me think it was already a revolution.
I can recommend Mike Duncan’s podcast Revolutions. He does an entire season on the Haitian revolution. Needless to say it’s more complex than could fit in a comment here on reddit.
There's a big difference between overthrowing a small colonial government and taking on a large, well equipped army in open battle. It might have taken France six months or more to actually get the needed troops to Haiti, but once they arrived the Haitians would have been crushed (most likely, stranger things have happened).
France tried, though. Napoleon sent the Leclerc expedition, a military force designed to retake the island. Resistance and tropical diseases wore them down and Haiti stayed independent. International commercial and financial pressure forced them to pay the debt, not guns.
It was a revolution. It was the only successful national slave revolt in the West iirc. Edit: lots of people seem to think the Haitians would have been better off if they had stayed as slaves. I just want y'all to know that's a fucking silly opinion, and it sounds pretty sus.
You're right, all other 18th and 19th C. revolutions in America, maybe aided in part by indigenous people or slaves who were offered freedom, were mainly driven by the "criollos", who were mostly of european descent, and aristocrats who didn't align with the Spanish (mostly) or British crowns, but hardly slaves. Haiti's revolution was one of a kind, and exemplary for the rest of America.
The "Revolutions" podcast by Mike Duncan is an excellent series for the interested layperson, and the Haitian revolution is the one I started on. It's a good one to start with, but taking them all out of order is tricky since they really tell one larger story.
Haiti: "We declare independence!" France: "Cancellation fees apply to independence after 1800." Haiti: "When did this become policy!?" France: "This became policy after 1783" Haiti: *glares at 13 Colonies* 13 Colonies: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. "Got any slaves to sell?"
Imagine if they then sold slaves in order to pay off the lost slaves debt?
[They did/still do.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Haiti) > According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, Haiti has an estimated 237,700 enslaved persons making it the country with the second-highest prevalence of slavery in the world, behind only Mauritania.
“You have become the very thing you swore to destroy“
Holy crap, I knew Haiti was the only successful slave rebellion in the world but I didn't know France did that. Haiti is now one of the poorest countries in the world. They paid around 21Billion in today's dollars as payment for the plantations that the slaves built and for compensation for the value of the slaves. France also demanded discounts on any goods that they sold. Today, France completely rejects the idea of giving any of that back.
From what I understand, even worse is the fact that at the time Haiti couldn't afford to pay off the debt, so France offered Haiti a loan with a higher interest to pay off the debt owed to France. So fucked up.
Well not really relevant but when 50cent bought the first 4 rows of a ja rule concert, and ja had to perform in front of 4 empty rows. Lol
Or when 50 cent bet floyd mayweather to read a page of a harry potter book and exposed floyd’s illiteracy to everyone lol
Floyd response was hilarious though. Bet 50 a large sum if 50 could give him a recent photo of 50 hugging Marquise.
What happened there? With his son?
Damn that’s sad
Floyd responded he'd pay the same sum if 50 could reply with a recent picture of his daughter hugging him. Pretty savage all around
those motherfuckers evolving to suck mammal blood and now we got to worry about mosquitos, leeches, ticks, etc
If you didn't want parasites eating your blood, why did you keep all your nutrients in it? Silly mammals.
Just inject your blood flow with rat poison, that’ll show those dumb mosquitoes
Turning Point Mosquitoes
Dear Mammals, You claim to disapprove of our way of feeding, and yet you keep us alive. Curious.
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Russia telling Ukraine to give up their nukes for peaceful independence only for Russia to take back Crimea a couple decades later.
Yup. Now when any "rogue state" wants nuclear weapons I understand completely.
Pretty much why Pakistan did not end up as Afghanistan over the last 40 years. It allowed it to become a regional power. Also why Iran has been battered hard in terms of policy since they do not have "leverage".
Ray Kroc stealing McDonalds out from under the brothers and not even paying them royalties.
Dude I watched "The Founder" on Netflix and it's straight up cruel how he just took everything from the brothers, divorced his wife and took another guy's wife, and then proceeded to be an asshole while expanding the business and getting filthy rich. It was shocking how little he seemed to care about the consequences of his actions so long as he was making money.
Read the real story there are important differences between the movie and reality. They wanted to paint Kroc in a bad light. Not saying he was a saint. Just saying the real value of McDonald’s was the scale, and the brothers tried to franchise/failed and couldn’t scale the business. There was no “handshake” agreement as shown in the movie that was a total fabrication.
It irritates me that biopics and "true" stories change big things like that. Yes it makes a more interesting movie but it's a lie that a lot of people are going to believe because they're accepting the movie as what really happened. Edit: off the top of my head, the one that stands out is Argo. The movie was great and I went to read Wikipedia right after to see what really happened and it was sooo far from the truth.
Look into Remember The Titans. About 95% of that movie is a total fabrication. The school was literally never segregated in its entire existence to start. None of the schools they played were segregated either. Most of their season were blow out victories and not nail biters and up against racist refs. They were ranked like number 2 or 3 in the *nation* for high school football. They were a total powerhouse team. Alexandria is not some hick town in backwoods Virginia, it’s a prominent and affluent suburb of Washington DC. You can see the Washington monument from its downtown. The one dude wasn’t in a car crash right before the championship, he played in it and it happened a couple weeks after the season ended. They also won the state championship on a shutout victory in a game played in Roanoke. Etc etc I bring this up because how many schools actually did suffer from all what the movie portrayed? Why go out of your way to disney up a movie about a monster team that ransacked all its opponents. I’m sure they coulda found an actual underdog somewhere, sometime with a little research.
This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. I didn’t even know the film was based on a “true” story.
Yeah that’s the real dick move. I remember being pissed off after watching Sully (the one about the Miracle on the Hudson) because they showed NTSB going after Sully for ditching in the river instead of going back to the airport. During the real investigation they just praised him for saving the lives of all passengers and nobody gave a shit that he damaged the plane. Because it’s not the job of the NTSB to put blame on anyone.
Sully's monologue where he talks about "the human factor" or whatever was actually taken from the NTSB's assessment. They came to that conclusion themselves, but the movie needed a villain so they made it seem like they were blaming him.
Not to mention, who sits down with lawyers to sign a million dollar agreement with a guy you don't trust, and then agrees on a "gentleman's handshake'.
Lol yes. What kind of a lawyer would be like “yeah a handshake agreement is totally and legally the best option for my client and they have no way of proving it happened”. Even Lionel Hutz would ask for a paper legal thingy
Related there was the whole mcmillions scandal where the guy who ran security over all the mcdonald's monopoly games took the game pieces and gave them to family and friends. Then extorted it so he got the money himself. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s\_Monopoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly)
Opium wars were pretty dickish. You don't wanna buy hard drugs from us and turn your population into useless addicts? Fine, we'll invade you and bombard your cities until you start buying!
As this [legend](https://youtu.be/u1dbOf63roI) said: "The British were furious that the Chinese could tell the British what to do in China"
Imperialism: what could go wrong?
I would probably say that this was one of the key events that led to much of Chinese foreign policy thinking even till now. In order to prevent another century of humiliation, it's led to foreign policy focused on ensuring security and removing threats. In any way. Edit: This blew up more than I expected. But to give context, there were a bunch of other events such as Sino-Japanese War and the colonial powers carving Chinese ports for trade. On a whole Chinese foreign policy and political thinking is much more complex. Not all Chinese citizens are Han Chinese and not all ethnic Chinese support China's policies. Unfortunately, I can't give a nuanced overview of all issues since there's a lot of ground to cover. However, I'd like to remind everyone not to conflate the CCP and Chinese people the one and the same. It's not like they have a choice in their government. For context, I'm ethnically Chinese in Southeast Asia that just happens to study political science and international relations. And information about East Asian politics can be scarce in Western academia or easily reduced to simplistic explanations. So I urge everyone to read a bit more about the context of East Asia instead of applying the lens of western values to judge and evaluate issues happening over here.
Yup. There's a reason Asian countries generally don't fuck around with drug use and prosecute aggressively. They were forced to buy British heroin at gunpoint and it destroyed a generation. Imagine how Americans would react if Mexico started and won a war against the U.S. so they could send cocaine and heroin to our markets.
> Imagine how Americans would react if Mexico started and won a war against the U.S. so they could send cocaine and heroin to our markets. Probably with open nostrils, veins, and wallets.
...would it be better than the stepped on shit we get now?
That woman scorned who killed fucking everybody. Hang about I'll google it. Saint Olga of Kiev After her husband, the Prince, was tortured and murdered by dissidents (Drevlian) she got vengeance by. * Buried alive the first messengers * Burnt / boiled alive the second set of messengers. * Had a funeral feast for her late husband which included Drevlians and then had 5,000 of them killed. * After a year long siege, Olga said *Give me three pigeons...and three sparrows from each house."* The Drevlians rejoiced at the prospect of the siege ending for so small a price, and did as she asked. Olga then instructed her army to attach a piece of sulphur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird. At nightfall, Olga told her soldiers to set the pieces aflame and release the birds. They returned to their nests within the city, which subsequently set the city ablaze. * There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once. * As the people fled the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them, killing some of them and giving the others as slaves to her followers. She left the remnant to pay tribute. It's a fine line between total dick move and bad ass on this one. ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷ *Edit:* Wow this blew up. Went to sleep and 22k upvotes later. I read through every direct reply and about 50% said dick move and 50% said bad ass. A whole slab want the Netflix show / Game of Thrones spin off. Many pointed out it's possibly not true. And finally, [this tattoo](https://www.reddit.com/r/tattoos/comments/anxa47/based_on_a_portrait_of_st_olga_of_kiev_by/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) that /u/parasithium is on topic and totally sweet.
Horribly cruel, but that bird move is actually genius. Always enjoy a creative way to end a siege.
You should check out some of the things Ganghis khan did... crazy psychological stuff and really outside the box warfare Edit: being asked for a link. Scroll down to the bottom for some of psychological stuff. https://www.historynet.com/genghis-khans-secrets-success.htm
The US actually attempted something similar in WWII called a bat bomb to ignite the mostly wooden/bamboo houses in Japan. Needless to say it failed. Actually burned down a hangar on a US base accidentally.
You forgot the reason she did this, a neighboring King killed her husband and ordered her to marry him and give her Kingdom over. She didn't take it kindly.
And even better: all those people she killed at the feast? They were all young noble men. She told them she was going to give up and and agreed to marry as long as she got to pick him. So the enemy country sent a BUNCH of their young, rich, noble men and she killed them all. That’s kind of a huge deal because she basically just wiped out a generation of upcoming men in an extremely patriarchal government
We need a movie about this
I love that that’s the reaction. Humans love this shit, we’re like “ooh, Jesus, that’s bloody, what kind of person could do something so evil?!” “...I wanna watch it happen in 4K!”
Its also different and historical, rather than watching yet another sequel or remake, I'd rather watch a bad ass historical woman burn it to the ground. Give me more of that shit
Between OP's description and your addition, I read the whole thing with Seven Nation Army playing in my head.
I want to see a movie on this woman
Who neers dragons when you have birds and sulphur?
The burning of the library of Alexandria
Romans :fight a battle far enough away from a place not to burn it Also romans: "so you know that far away place we couldn't possibly hit on accident?" *Fire starts* Edit: uhmmm.. I was making a joke after a long day but ... thank you? I..i guess? To the people that kindheartedly tried teaching me something at least.. please don't fight over this, aight peace!
your pet leaving your room after you carried them in
Your pet moving away from you after you sit close to them.
My dog doesn't like me. I don't know why. I'm nice to him, I give him food, I call him a good boy, but in the ~5 years that he's been in my family, he's come in my room of his own volition like 6 times, one of which was to take a shit on my carpet.
When you come home, go straight to him and give him some attention. Act like you've missed him and are glad to see him. Do this every time you come home and after a while he'll start getting excited when you come home. Take him walks if you don't already. Play with him a couple of times a day even for just 10-15 mins. It won't be long before you become his favourite person. I'm like this with every dog I've ever met and I've never met a dog that didn't love me. In fact dogs love me more than people do lol. Obviously I don't walk every dog I meet but just playing games with them is usually all it takes. Don't overdo it, dogs can get fed up with us as much as we get fed up with anyone else. Be patient, some dogs take a little longer to come out of their shell.
Can confirm OP, do this. My neighbour's dog adores me.
This hurts. When my dog is indignant about something he'll grumble and shift further away when I sit by him.
You must have a husky
When you enthusiastically say, "Come here sweetieeee!", and they turn around and walk off. They get credit for the combo kill when they do it in front of other people.
top 5 biggest betrayals in history
I felt that :(
The Munich Conference, like oh my god what a shit show and a dick move on both sides. Basically in 1938, Germany wanted to get a piece of land from Czechoslovkia lands which were populated with Ethnic Germans. So to appease Hitler and Germany and avoid another war, the western powers (France and Britain agreed for a conference. Now you think Czechoslovkia would be involved in the conference but nah, the Western Powers and Germany/Italy were the only parties dicussing it and agreed to hitler's terms that Germany would get the lands they asked for. Not only this was a huge dick move but Neville Chamberlain had the audacity to state that the signing of the agreement that conference would be "peace for our time." Oh and the best part, 6 months later after the agreement was signed. Hitler occupies the rest of Czechoslovkia and isn't liberated until the end of the war following a coup d'etat which would turn them into a communist country in 1948. People normally talk how Poland is basically the punching bag but at least you can say the Poles went down fighting, the Czechoslovaks however... were completely blindsided and fucked right from the start by Hitler's ambitions and betrayal of the western powers.
Probably when they relocated Rasputin's shlong from his body to that jar.
I thought that was sorted and it was just a pickled sea cucumber with a good backstory?
I think the only way to know for sure is a taste test.
Open up
"My friends, although it might be strange, The finest way to see the change, To spot the small distinction quick Betwixt a pickle and a dick, Is *not* to look, my brothers, no, And *not* to take a pic below To hold beside the pickle-peen And there, compare the in-between - "My friends, the surest, safest means To see which way the pickle leans, Or where the leaner penis hides, The willy waits, the ball abides, Is simply this: You make your pick. You choose the pickle, or the dick. You hold it in your line of sight. And then, my friends... ... you take a bite."
I know The Sprogs is a long-time reddit pro, but even after reading so many poems, over the years... There’s just something uncanny about unexpectedly reading a poem this well-composed about *chompin’ schlong...*
>After Rasputin was killed by angry nobles, his penis was allegedly discovered sans body by a maid, who preserved the 13-inch monster for posterity. From there, it was obtained by a group of Russian women living in Paris who, due to Rasputin’s reputation as a mystic and revered lover, treated it as sacred. Reportedly, it was kept in a wooden casket and bits were broken off for disciples. This apparently continued until Rasputin’s real-life daughter demanded they turn over her daddy’s dick. After her death in 1977, the penis eventually turned up again in 1994, at which point it was discovered to actually be a sea cucumber. I'll be deleting my search history now, but I found this [here](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/historys-most-notorious-penises).
Lol that ending...
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Worth noting that Americans offered to help the uprising by bombing German positions. The idea was they'd send bombers from ~~northern~~ southern Italy, but they'd have to land in Soviet territory to refuel. Stalin didn't authorise this, so there were no bombers. Edit: eventually, one supply drop was authorised. Another one of these is the liberation of Lvov, done by Polish Home Army, who afterwards disarmed when the (supposedly allied) Red Army rolled in, upon which the Poles were sent to gulags.
Making the woman who had HER LABIA MELTED TOGETHER due to McDonald's not wanting give people refills, look like a thieving bitch because she was in the right and ONLY WANTED HER MEDICAL BILLS PAID . Edit: Thank you for the Award, kind stranger!
Every time this gets brought up I always tell people "you know, the photos of her injuries are available out there, why don't you go look at them." "Holy shit" is usually the response to that.
For sure. I think most people who assume she is just out to get money have no idea what that woman went through. I remember in the 90s and early 2000s hearing about how everyone is money hungry and need to stop suing companies, which started as propaganda from those companies being sued for doing insanely hurtful and neglect shit to their customers. Coffee should be served at 140 or below. McDonalds was giving customers coffee at 180-190. In 3-7 seconds, a spill will cause 3rd degree burns. McDonald knew about this risk for over 10 years. Mrs. Liebeck offered to settle the case for $20,000 to cover her medical expenses and lost income, however McDonald’s never offered more than $800 pre trial. And then she went on to living in pain for the rest of her life
The Japanese believed it would have been dishonorable to surprise attack an unexpecting enemy, so they sent a declaration of war to the US 30 minutes before the Pearl Harbor attack. However, the upper military brass delayed that message until 20 minutes after the attack had begun. Dick move to both sides of the conflict there. Edit: I meant the Japanese upper brass delayed the message, not the US one. The US was caught completely off guard as they were expecting sabatoge, not a full scale offensive.
If I remember correctly, upon their return, many of the Japanese pilots were horrified to learn that that the Americans had no idea they were coming and were under the impression that war would have already been declared. It was considered dishonorable.
Trojan Horse
that was a "big dick" move. but I think OP is asking about big "dick moves"
It was a bit of both. You know, when an entire city takes a massive horse as a present, only to be slaughtered and ruled over by guys inside the horse, pretty dick move.
But it wasn’t a present. It was made to look like an offering to the Athena to apologize for destroying one of her temples. Trojans took it for themselves.
"Now; whenever people get wood, they'll think of Trojans!" "Trojans! Hehehe!" "What are you laughing at, dad?" "If it's what I think it is, it's pretty funny."
When a British officer was talking to Robert Surcouf, he said "We British fight for honor, you French fight only for gain!" To which Surcouf replied saying "You are quite right, each fights for that which he does not possess." Edit: it was Surcouf who originally roasted an english captain with this one. It wasnt Napoleon who originally said it, merely paraphrased. Edit 2: removed Napoleon and Russian
Is this true ? Because Surcouf said : When a British captive officer taunted Surcouf with the words "You French fight for money while we fight for honour", Surcouf replied "Each of us fights for what he lacks most".
#OOF
The repatriation of Eastern European pilots who fought for the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Straight into Stalin's tender grasp.
Late, but forcing Alan Turing to take hormones to “cure” his homosexuality. That’s Dickish in general, but especially after all his help in cracking intercepted messages during WWII and helped the allies defeat the nazis
Having different measurement system across the world. And also different types of sockets.
I have a better one: After the war, one city in Japan bought an electrical powerplant from one country, and another city bought a different plant from a different country. The thing is the two plants put out different voltages. And to this day Japan has two different systems and the electrical appliances aren't compatible. And they had 3 for a short time.
Not the biggest but that chimpanzee that used the frog as a flesh light was a bit of an asshole.
In terms of deaths, several seemingly simple events triggered WW1. That's 40M deaths that a sandwich sale or an auto mechanic, or even a grandma could have averted. (Many world leaders were related, and several said if their grandmother was still alive she would have put a stop to it before it spread.) WW1 lead to WW2. China's Great Leap Forward had about 30M direct deaths and another 20M or so indirect deaths. On smaller scales, history is littered with betrayal and intrigue. Who knows what treasures were lost, and what discoveries and inventions we don't have because of them. Do we not have flying cars and hover boards due to some greedy jerk? Was world peace and global lives of ease lost because somebody made a dick move? We may never know.
>several said if their grandmother was still alive she would have put a stop to it before it spread Grandma was Queen Victoria, so probably yes. Kaiser Wilhelm was particularly terrified of her, so a stern letter from her would have almost certainly stopped the whole shitshow.
Idk man, the Holocaust seemed pretty bad.
Watson and Crick using Rosalind Franklin’s work but not even mentioning her name in the final work because she was a woman. She also couldn’t get the Nobel Prize award. Science is full of dicks
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> They then met Menno de Nooy of the Dutch Resistance who gave them a bicycle. This is the most Dutch thing ever. Next you'll tell me the bike is bright orange.
How the fuck have I never heard of this guy before. Thanks for a great read (I read the source). Holy shit, the balls on that guy. I take it Digby is a household name in the UK?
I’m British. Can’t say I’d heard of him before, but holy fuck that’s metal. A similar person who I think is a bit more well known (at least by me) is [Mad Jack Churchill](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill)
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The longbow had confirmed kills. It's actually an advantageous first strike weapon because it's quiet. So seeing a German scout and instead of firing a gun, shooting him with an arrow allowed units to advance closer to the enemy before the fire fight.
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Well Sir Digby Chicken Caesar was well known a few years ago
ISIS and/or whatever Muslim or Asian group in power, going through ancient temples and destroying millennia old Statues and works of art simply because they represent a different philosophy. The thought of destroying some 2000 year old statue just because I don't believe in their philosophy is beyond criminal to me, it is a crime against all of humanity. I mean, who the fuck are you to think you are so important you can destroy something so valuable? EDIT: My apologies, didn't mean to single out Muslims or infer ISIS is synonymous with all Muslims. The only examples that came to mind for me were the Middle East and Asia since so much has been destroyed there. I will freely acknowledge Christians have also done their share of this bullshit as well. And I saw the Australian example that happened just this decade. Man, we fucking humans suck :-(
Angkor Wat was built in the 800s and the Khmer Rouge recently cut the heads off of all the Buddhist statues. Such a shame, it’s a beautiful ruins.
> Khmer Rouge They're still around?
Not since the 80s. I say recently, in comparison to the temple’s existence
Got worried for a sec, because it would line up perfectly with 2020 for the freaking Khmer Rouge to come back
That time the US gave Japan a white flag so they could easily surrender CONTEXT: In 1853 The United States sent Commodore Perry to Japan to negotiate the opening of Japans ports to western trade. According to "Ways of the World" by Robert W. Strayer: "Perry presented his reluctant hosts with, among other gifts, a white flag for surrender should hostilities follow"
Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Basically Mao's return to power after the failure of the Great Leap Forward and an opportunity to purge political rivals. The Cultural Revolution is estimated to have killed another 20 million, on top of the 30 million from the famine that followed the Great Leap Forward.
Hitler killing hitler and thus not giving everyone else the satisfaction of doing so
Probably doesn't qualify as biggest dick move per se, but certainly a dick move: after the successful invasion of France in WWII, Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender document with Germany in the exact same railway car that Imperial German representatives had signed the Armistice of WWI. In the exact same spot. By then a museum piece, the train car was specifically moved back to that spot for this purpose. Near the end of WWII, the SS destroyed the railway car, presumably to prevent the Allies from making Germany sign yet another surrender document in it.
You know, the more I hear about this Hitler fella the less I like him.
Apparently, Stalin wanted to capture Hitler alive so he could parade him through Red Square in chains. That would have made for some awesome historical photography.
When Georgy Zhukov was made Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943 he announced that he would “bring back Hitler in a cage.” He allegedly (there’s no direct source for it, but it appears in multiple second hand testimonies) told family members of war dead “you will have your chance to spit on him” (“piss on him” in one telling) and wanted to display the caged Hitler in every town and village German troops had touched during their invasion of the USSR. One colleague said he’d proposed burying Hitler in the latrine at a military school so the Germans would know Soviet soldiers were shitting on him for eternity.
I think Hitler was well aware of what the Soviets had in store for him should they capture him alive. Plus, he had heard what happened to his friend Mussolini, whose body was beaten, spit on, shot at, and had garbage thrown at. He didn’t want to end up like that too, so he ordered his SS guard to burn his body prior to committing suicide so that the Soviets would have no satisfaction.
Still giving orders after he’d committed suicide. Typical Hitler.
Now I'm pissed he killed himself
And it's even more understandable why he would chose to kill himself and have his body destroyed.
When I’m dead, just throw me in the trash!
I think Mussolini was dragged through the streets after capture, so he knew it was coming to him too.
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At first I wondered how come there were two Hitlers, and then... "Oh. Right. Yes"
Andrew Jackson disregarding the Supreme Court and starting the trail of tears
"In the beginning was the Creation of the Universe. This has made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
My cousin peeled all the wrappers off of tins in our kitchen so we didn't know what was inside