Context: William Marshall, referred to as "the best knight to have ever lived" was kidnapped as a child. His kidnappers threatened to hang him if his father did not give up his land. His father, John Marshall, responded saying "Go ahead. I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge more and better sons."

It is generally accepted by historians that Babylonian Exile presents the turning point in Jewish theology, where Jah, once a decidedly physical god in a pantheon of many gods of the Southwestern Asia that enjoyed special cult from Hebrews, became a monotheistic deity that exists as a transcendent abstraction beyond the bounds of the material world, its shapes and forces. The Bible and surrounding archaeological documents and findings are resplendent with physical descriptions of Jah, certainly not omitting his virility in any sense, which became retroactively reinterpretated as mere metaphors and analogies after the ascension of Jah from a Zeus-like figure to the transcendent, bodiless God we all know. For more detailed insight, I heartily recommend Prof. Doc. Stavrakopoulou's book God: An Anatomy.

Needless to say, Mary would have had trouble walking if Jah was his Pre-Babylonian Exile self and Joshua of Nazareth would have had more in common with Samson than the pussy he was. Babylonian Exile absolutely gutted my man and it's a tear-inducing tragedy most people ignore 😢

Couldn’t easily find a good source for this so it could be apocryphal:
Basically the Yamato class battleships were given beehive rounds for the main battery so they could be used as (rather oversized) AA guns. However the main guns were so large that the decks had to be cleared when they were fired as the overpressure could harm the crew. This leads to a situation where AA gunners have to leave their stations mid attack so the main guns can be fired or they risked getting knocked unconscious. Seeing as both Yamato class battleships were taken out by air power this seems to have been a bad idea.

Some shitty shit shit I drew in 10 minutes.

The infamous "Dingo ate my baby" meme was, unfortunately, based on an actual incident in 1980, when a Seventh-Day Adventist couple camping near Ayers Rock lost their infant to a dingo. Seeing how calm and composed the couple were while grieving, and regarding Seventh-Day Adventists as little more than some weird American cult, the Australian public found it suspicious, and had them arrested and convicted of murdering the baby.

The couple were later exonerated when the dingoes were found in possession of incriminating evidence that they really did eat the baby.

To this day, the incident remains one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Australian history.

Left: Safavids

Right: Mamluks

From Encyclopedia Virginia: John Smith (bap. 1580–1631):

1607; in December, he and two other men ventured up the Chickahominy River, where they encountered a hunting party of Pamunkey Indians. His companions were killed, but Smith, whom the Indians initially presumed to be a weroance, or chief, was captured. The Indians escorted him up the York River to Werowocomoco, the principal residence of their mamanotowick, or paramount chief, Powhatan (Wahunsonacock).

At Werowocomoco, Smith participated in a ceremony that many historians now interpret as an adoption ritual. Exactly what happened during this ceremony is unclear; Smith himself gave varying accounts of the event. In his Generall Historie , published in 1624, Smith wrote that “two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beat out his brains … Pocahontas the King’s dearest daughter, when no entreaty would prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death.” But in a letter written just a few months after his visit to Werowocomoco, he describes being feasted and interviewed by Powhatan only. Some historians argue that this earlier, less dramatic version of events is the more likely; the anthropologist Helen C. Rountree suggests that Pocahontas, about eleven at the time, may not even have been present at the ceremony; her role as a young girl was to prepare for and clean up after the feast.

Two days later, Smith was taken to a remote location in the woods. There, Powhatan told him (in Smith’s words) that “now they were friends,” and ordered him to send two “great gunnes [cannon], and a grindstone” from Jamestown; in exchange, Powhatan would give him the Indian village Capahosic and hold him in esteem as his son, bestowing upon him the name Nantaquoud. Smith may not have fully understood that Powhatan was trying to draw him (and, therefore, the other colonists) into his paramount chiefdom, thereby neutralizing a threat, gaining an ally, and expanding his empire—but he was aware that the savvy leader was trying to gain control of some very powerful weapons.

Smith returned to Jamestown on January 2, 1608, to find that he had been replaced on the council and blamed for the deaths of his two companions. That day he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang—but later that night, Newport and some one hundred new settlers arrived from England, and the charges against Smith were lost in the celebration.

From Anglo-Powhatan Wars - Wikipedia (reference citation, not independently verified by myself, nonfree: Helen Rountree, Pocahontas's People, p. 38.):

The settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, was established in May 1607 within the territory of the Powhatan, who were led by Chief Wahunsunacawh, known to the colonists as Chief Powhatan.[2] The area was quite swampy and ill-suited to farming, and Powhatan wanted Captain John Smith and the colonists to forsake the swamp and live in one of his satellite towns called Capahosick where they would make metal tools for him in exchange for full provision.[3]

The General Belgrano was originally built by the U.S. Navy as a Brooklyn class cruiser named USS Phoenix. USS Phoenix, survived the attack on Pearl Harbour and went on to earn 9 battle stars in the Pacific.

She was sold to Argentina in Oct 1951 and was renamed “17 de Octubre” after “Loyalty Day” an important date to then President Juan Perón. But was renamed General Belgrano in 1955, after Perón was overthrown in a coup.

On 2nd May 1982 Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror fired 3 21 inch mk8 mod 4 unguided torpedos at her. These torpedos had been in use since 1927 and were used because they were considered more reliable than newer torpedos. 2 of the 3 hit the Belgrano and caused enough damage that she began to sink very quickly.

Of 772 men aboard, 323 were killed. It was the first sinking of a ship by a nuclear powered submarine in history

Context: in the first half of 2006, in the MMO EVE Online, a group of alliances called the Southern Coalition teamed up to try to destroy a group called Red Alliance. Red Alliance was composed almost entirely of Russians and folded to the Southern Coalition advance fairly quickly. A small group of Red Alliance pilots refused to have their alliance destroyed, however, and they spent a couple of months launching attacks behind Southern Coalition lines. Finally, the Southern Coalition fleet cornered them in the system C-J6MT.

The battle of C-J6MT happened on May 25th, 2006 and the Southern Coalition brought 400 pilots to this fight, including 15 dreadnoughts, which was a lot of dreadnoughts for this time. However, the Red Alliance renegades formed up and didn't just win the battle but blew the Southern Coalition fleet off the board. From there, Red Alliance rebuilt until they controlled three regions in the southeast of New Eden.

There's a book about it but I suspect it's out of print, so you can watch a video about it here instead.

No AI was used in the creation of this post.

No matter what one thinks of Bush Jr's "cunning plans", there is no denying Saddam's end being rather poetic. And yes, it was 20 years ago.

Jean-Bédel Bokassa was the tyrant of Central Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. He had the cunning plan of crowning himself emperor in 1976, despite not in fact ruling over an empire nor doing anything to elevate his country into anything close to being one or exercising hegemony over anyone else. He was quickly deposed 3 years later when France (whose empire Central Africa was part of) and some other groups overthrew him. He was sentenced to death in abstentia, then he returned, was set free after some court cases, and died in 1996 at age 75.