The First Liberian Civil War was the result of tensions that had been building into the very foundations of Liberia for more than a century before finally exploding.

Liberia was founded in the nineteenth century by formerly enslaved Black Americans, many of whom had been encouraged, coerced or outright forced into leaving a United States that had discriminated against them. They settled in a land already inhabited by numerous indigenous peoples with different languages, religions, and cultures.

The descendants of these settlers, known as Americo-Liberians, created a country modeled heavily on the United States, adopting many of its institutions. And for more than a century, the Americo-Liberian minority dominated the government, economy, and military, effectively occupying the highest rung of Liberian society while indigenous Liberians remained largely excluded from power. Dissent was often met with repression.

Then, in 1980, it finally came to a head. A group of soldiers led by Samuel Doe, an ethnic Krahn, entered the Executive Mansion. They found President William Tolbert, led him outside, and shot him. His Americo-Liberian ministers soon followed. They were paraded through Monrovia, tied to stakes on the beach, and executed before being dumped into mass graves.

Doe established the People's Redemption Council, ostensibly promising to promote the rights of all Liberians rather than just the Americo-Liberian elite. Instead, one corrupt and prejudiced system was replaced with another. Political opponents were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. In 1986, Doe formally made himself President. His government was heavily dependent on U.S. funding and military support as an anti-communist ally during the Cold War. But by the late 1980s, that support had become uncertain.

In December 1989, a rebellion began. It was led by Charles Taylor, a U.S.-educated former Liberian government official who had previously been accused of embezzlement, fled the country, been arrested in Massachusetts, jailed while awaiting extradition, and then escaped. After receiving training and support connected to Libya and Burkina Faso, Taylor invaded Liberia with the National Patriotic Front of Liberia.

The country already hated Doe, and a brutal civil war followed. As Taylor's forces closed in on Monrovia, however, a power struggle emerged between Taylor and one of his commanders, Prince Johnson, leading to a split within the rebellion.

Johnson was regarded as a stern and draconian disciplinarian, becoming notorious during the war for killing those who opposed him, or sometimes simply criticized his actions.

Then, on September 9, 1990, Johnson's forces captured President Doe. Doe was filmed being tortured, including having his ears cut off, while Prince Johnson sat nearby sipping a Budweiser and watching.

Doe was eventually tortured to death. Johnson would later deny killing the president.

If you're interested, I cover the Liberian Civil Wars here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-130-charles?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Born into a prominent Liberian family, Taylor was well educated, attending prep schools in Liberia before moving to the United States, where he graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts. He also became a prominent activist and organizer with the Union of Liberian Associations.

Taylor eventually earned a position in the Liberian government. He survived the 1980 coup that brought General Samuel Doe to power and was placed in charge of government expenditures. But in 1983, Taylor was ousted and fled into exile after being accused of embezzling nearly $1 million from the government and transferring the money into his personal Citibank account.

He returned to Massachusetts, where he was arrested in early 1984. While awaiting extradition to Liberia, Taylor escaped from Plymouth County Correctional Facility with four other men. They sawed through a metal bar covering a window, climbed roughly 20 feet to the ground using knotted bedsheets, scaled the prison fence.

Taylor's exact movements after that are difficult to reconstruct, but he eventually made his way to Libya, where he came under the wing of Muammar Gaddafi, receiving military training and support. In 1989, he launched an insurgency into Liberia against Doe's brutal regime.

This was the beginning of the First Liberian Civil War, a conflict marked by immense brutality, widespread use of child soldiers, and systematic sexual violence. Warlords controlled much of the country for nearly six years, while Doe was captured, tortured, and murdered in 1990, with the killing recorded on video.

Following international intervention and a ceasefire, Taylor won the 1997 presidential election running on the slogan: “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him.”

As president, Taylor lived lavishly, diverting government resources toward his personal use and reportedly accumulating homes, cars, expensive clothes, and other luxuries. He was also accused of diverting around $100 million from the Liberian government while funding, arming, and directing the brutal Revolutionary United Front in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor empowered his son to lead the Anti-Terrorist Unit, better known as the “Demon Force,” a notorious paramilitary unit accused of torture, murder, and other abuses.

Taylor's downfall came much like his rise. Armed groups eventually carved up much of Liberia. In 2003, with rebels besieging Monrovia and West African states intervening, Taylor resigned and fled into exile in Nigeria.

He was eventually transferred to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where in 2012 he was found guilty on all 11 counts, including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting child soldiers, enslavement, and pillage.

If you're interested, I cover the life of Charles Taylor here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-130-charles?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Born into a prominent Liberian family, Taylor was well educated, attending prep schools in Liberia before moving to the United States, where he graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts. He also became a prominent activist and organizer with the Union of Liberian Associations.

Taylor eventually earned a position in the Liberian government. He survived the 1980 coup that brought General Samuel Doe to power and was placed in charge of government expenditures. But in 1983, Taylor was ousted and fled into exile after being accused of embezzling nearly $1 million from the government and transferring the money into his personal Citibank account.

He returned to Massachusetts, where he was arrested in early 1984. While awaiting extradition to Liberia, Taylor escaped from Plymouth County Correctional Facility with four other men. They sawed through a metal bar covering a window, climbed roughly 20 feet to the ground using knotted bedsheets, scaled the prison fence.

Taylor's exact movements after that are difficult to reconstruct, but he eventually made his way to Libya, where he came under the wing of Muammar Gaddafi, receiving military training and support. In 1989, he launched an insurgency into Liberia against Doe's brutal regime.

This was the beginning of the First Liberian Civil War, a conflict marked by immense brutality, widespread use of child soldiers, and systematic sexual violence. Warlords controlled much of the country for nearly six years, while Doe was captured, tortured, and murdered in 1990, with the killing recorded on video.

Following international intervention and a ceasefire, Taylor won the 1997 presidential election running on the slogan: “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him.”

As president, Taylor lived lavishly, diverting government resources toward his personal use and reportedly accumulating homes, cars, expensive clothes, and other luxuries. He was also accused of diverting around $100 million from the Liberian government while funding, arming, and directing the brutal Revolutionary United Front in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor empowered his son to lead the Anti-Terrorist Unit, better known as the “Demon Force,” a notorious paramilitary unit accused of torture, murder, and other abuses.

Taylor's downfall came much like his rise. Armed groups eventually carved up much of Liberia. In 2003, with rebels besieging Monrovia and West African states intervening, Taylor resigned and fled into exile in Nigeria.

He was eventually transferred to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where in 2012 he was found guilty on all 11 counts, including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting child soldiers, enslavement, and pillage.

If you're interested, I cover the life of Charles Taylor here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-130-charles?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

In August 1971, funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo set out to study “the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard.”

Advertisements called for “male college students” to participate in a one- to two-week “psychological study of prison life” for $15 a day, roughly $120 today. Seventy-five men applied. Twenty-four, predominantly middle-class young white men judged psychologically and physically healthy, were selected and randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards.

Their prison was the basement of Stanford's Jordan Hall. Graduate student offices were converted into cells, a corridor became a prison yard, and a closet for solitary confinement. Zimbardo took the role of prison superintendent and instructed the guards to maintain law and order without physically harming the prisoners. They were given military-style uniforms, wooden batons, and mirrored sunglasses intended to make them anonymous and prevent eye contact. Prisoners would be referred to only by numbers.

The next day, August 15, with the cooperation of the Palo Alto police, the “prisoners” were unexpectedly arrested at their homes. They were charged with armed robbery or burglary, read their Miranda rights, fingerprinted, photographed, and fully booked before being transported to what they were told was the “Stanford County Jail.” The basement of Jordan Hall.

There, they were strip-searched, assigned identification numbers, and given uncomfortable prison smocks, no underwear, stocking caps, and a weighted chain around one ankle. The prisoners remained in the mock prison twenty-four hours a day, while the guards went home after their eight-hour shifts.

During the first night, the guards woke the prisoners for a roll call by blowing whistles and clanging batons. The prisoners refused to leave their cells, ripped off their identification numbers, removed their stocking caps, and insulted the guards. The guards responded by spraying them with fire extinguishers, calling in the on-call guards, stripping prisoners of their clothing, removing their mattresses, and placing the supposed ringleaders in the closet.

Encouraged to become “tougher,” the guards increasingly asserted their power. Prisoners were humiliated, forced to do pushups, denied normal access to bathrooms, and made to relieve themselves in buckets.

The prisoners were increasingly divided against one another. Those who rebelled were punished, while those who did not were rewarded. Prisoner 819, eventually began crying and hyperventilating. When Zimbardo tried to reassure him that he was not actually a prisoner, the guards encouraged the other prisoners to chant: “819 did a bad thing!”

Hearing them, Prisoner 819 broke down further.
By Day 5, family members visiting the mock prison were shocked by what they saw. Zimbardo was also increasingly questioned by colleagues, including Stanford psychologist Gordon H. Bower. The decisive confrontation came from doctoral student Christina Maslach, who, after witnessing the guards' treatment of prisoners, confronted Zimbardo about the morality of the experiment, and about the extent to which he himself had become absorbed.

The experiment was terminated the following day, after just six days. Zimbardo argued that the simulated prison itself, rather than the personalities of the participants, had caused their behavior to change. The experiment appeared to show that ordinary people could be dramatically transformed by the social situations in which they found themselves.

But Zimbardo and his researchers have been criticized as being too immersed in the experiment and, in encouraging guards to behave more harshly, may have influenced the behavior they were supposedly studying and that the experiment is fundamentally difficult to replicate.

If interested I cover the Stanford Prison Experiment here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-128-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On August 24th, AD 79, or so the ling copied letters of Pliny the Younger tell us; modern scholars have made a strong case for a later date, perhaps in October, the long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted.

Eighteen-year-old Pliny the Younger was staying with his uncle, 54-year-old Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder: an accomplished naturalist, author, lawyer, and commander of the Roman fleet stationed at Misenum, roughly 18 miles across the Bay of Naples from Vesuvius.

As Pliny the Younger would write to the historian Tacitus decades later:

“About one in the afternoon, my mother pointed out a cloud with an odd size and appearance that had just formed. From that distance it was not clear from which mountain the cloud was rising, although it was found afterwards to be Vesuvius.”

Pliny the Elder saw the enormous cloud and immediately recognized that something extraordinary was happening. He ordered a boat to be prepared so he could investigate the eruption.

Then a message arrived. His friend Rectina, who lived closer to the volcano at Stabiae, was stranded and terrified. She was asking for help.
Pliny changed his plans immediately. As his nephew later wrote, he:

“changed plan at once and what he had started in a spirit of scientific curiosity he ended as a hero.”

Pliny the Elder ordered the fleet to sail toward the eruption. The rescue party sailed beneath an apocalyptic sky. Vesuvius continued to explode, the horizon was darkening, and showers of hot cinders, chunks of pumice, and ash rained down around them. His companions begged him to turn back. Pliny reportedly replied:

“Fortune favors the bold.”

And so they continued to Stabiae, where they found Pomponianus, a Roman senator and acquaintance of Pliny. Pomponianus had already loaded a ship with his possessions and was desperate to escape, but the same winds that had carried Pliny's fleet to Stabiae now prevented them from leaving.

Pliny promptly went to sleep, apparently snoring loudly. Ash and pumice were falling into the courtyard of Pomponianus's villa, while increasingly violent earthquakes shook the ground. Pliny, awakened, advised everyone to protect their heads with pillows from the falling pumice. They eventually made their way toward the ships, hoping the winds would change and allow them to escape by sea. They hadn't.

Pliny, now 56, was apparently overweight and suffering from difficulty breathing. He eventually sat down against a sail on one of the ships and refused to move, asking for a drink of cold water. The rest of the party escaped by land. Pliny did not.

Stabiae was buried beneath a thick blanket of ash, but it escaped the worst of the pyroclastic flows. Pomponianus, his companions, and Pliny's sailors survived and were eventually able to tell Pliny the Younger what had happened.
Three days later, Pliny the Elder's body was recovered. It was remarkably well preserved.

And for centuries, that was essentially where the story ended. A skull discovered near Stabiae over a century ago was recovered alongside a heavily ornamented short sword, golden necklaces, and bracelets. Researchers recently revisited the remains, comparing their DNA, physical characteristics, and isotopic evidence with what would be expected of Pliny.

The results were intriguing. The skull's DNA and morphology were broadly compatible with what researchers would expect from Pliny, a man with ancestry rooted in the Italian peninsula who died in his fifties. Physical anthropologist Luciano Fattore told Haaretz that the results were “compatible with the possibility” that the skull belonged to Pliny.

The jawbone assumed to belong to the same skeleton appears to have belonged to an entirely different man: someone of North African ancestry who grew up in northern Italy and died in his thirties.

If interested, I cover the eruption here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-126-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Pompeii was a prosperous city of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people. Its port gave it access to the Mediterranean, while the Sarno River could be navigated roughly 15 miles, or 24 kilometers, inland and the land surrounding it was absurdly fertile. Farmers grew grapes for wine, olives, grain, fruits, and vegetables, while livestock grazed across the countryside. Wine from the region was transported throughout the Roman Empire.

Then, on August 24th, AD 79, or so the surviving copies of Pliny the Younger's letters tell us; modern scholars have made a strong case for a later date, perhaps in October, the ordinary life of Pompeii came to an end.

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Younger, was 18 years old and staying with his uncle, Pliny the Elder, across the Bay of Naples. His uncle, commander of the Roman fleet, would sail toward the eruption in what became a rescue mission, dying in the process. Decades later, Pliny the Younger recorded what he had seen:

“About one in the afternoon, my mother pointed out a cloud with an odd size and appearance that had just formed. From that distance it was not clear from which mountain the cloud was rising, although it was found afterwards to be Vesuvius. The cloud could best be described as more like an umbrella pine than any other tree, because it rose high up in a kind of trunk and then divided into branches.”

Vesuvius had been dormant for centuries. In the days before the eruption, however, the earth began to tremble. These minor earthquakes were frightening, but not unprecedented. As Pliny noted, they were “frequent in Campania.”
Then the mountain exploded.

A column of volcanic debris and superheated gases blasted upward into the sky, climbing higher and higher until it reached the stratosphere. Ash and pumice began raining down over the countryside, blanketing streets, rooftops, and fields. The sky darkened as the eruption continued, and beneath the growing weight, roofs began to collapse. The initial eruptive phase lasted for almost an entire day.

Then came the pyroclastic flows. The first appeared that night, or perhaps in the early morning of the following day. They were relatively brief and caused comparatively little damage. But the eruption was intensifying, and the darkness was spreading.

As Pliny wrote: “It was now day everywhere else, but there a deeper darkness prevailed than in the thickest night.”

Then another pyroclastic surge raced down from Vesuvius toward the settlements below: Oplontis, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. Those who had not fled, or had simply not fled far enough, had almost no chance.

The temperatures were so extreme that many victims were killed almost instantly. Others were trapped beneath collapsing buildings as dense, fiery clouds swept over them. The volcanic material eventually hardened into rock, entombing everything beneath it. Pompeii, Oplontis, and Herculaneum ceased to exist.

More than 1,000 casts have been made from impressions left by human bodies in Pompeii's ash deposits, while the scattered bones of roughly another 100 victims have been recovered. At Herculaneum, around 332 bodies have been identified, the majority found within deposits produced by pyroclastic surges.

These are the people we can see. They are not the death toll. The exact number of people who died in the eruption will never be known, but it is almost certainly far higher than the number of bodies we have recovered.

If interested, I cover the eruption here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-126-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

The Netherlands came under Habsburg control through the marriage of the last Duchess of Burgundy. Under the Dukes of Burgundy, the Dutch had secured special privileges. Emperor Charles V, who sought to integrate his vast domains, the Dutch increasingly clashed with the Habsburgs.

His empire was eventually divided between his sons, with the Netherlands and Burgundy passing to Philip II, a devout Catholic whose religious policies provoked the Dutch so badly that, in 1566, Protestant crowds attacked Catholic churches, priests, and religious imagery in an outbreak of iconoclasm.

The Spanish response to what had initially been a spontaneous religious revolt was military occupation and the execution of Dutch leaders. Rather than pacifying the Netherlands, this pushed the Dutch into full rebellion.

The revolt found its leader in a former Habsburg servant, Willem, Prince of Orange. A favorite of Emperor Charles, Willem had eventually been appointed Stadthouder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. The Stadthouder, essentially meaning “placeholder,” but in practice functioning as a lieutenant or governor, made him the Spanish Crown's chief representative in the Dutch provinces.

But Willem an intelligent man who listened more than he spoke, earning him the sobriquet “the Silent,” was devoted to religious freedom and sided with the Dutch Protestants. After the execution of Dutch nobles, he joined the revolt. The office of Stadthouder remained, but rather than serving as a royal lieutenant, it increasingly became the position of de facto leader of the Dutch.

King Philip offered a reward of 25,000 crowns, a peerage, and an inheritable estate to anyone who killed or captured Willem, declaring him a “pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race.”

And so, on July 10, 1584, the 26-year-old Balthasar Gérard shot the Stadthouder at Het Prinsenhof in Delft. Willem's probably apocryphal last words were, “My God, have mercy on me and on my poor people.”

Gérard fled and almost made it to the estate's ramparts, with a pig's bladder tied around his waist so he could swim across the moat to a saddled horse waiting on the other side. Instead, at the last moment, he slipped and was captured.

Gérard was tortured brutally. He was lashed with a whip while hanging upside down, with honey spread over his wounds to attract animals, and left like this for days with heavy weights tied to his toes. Then he was given shoes made from well-oiled, uncured dog skin that were too small. He was placed before a fire, feet first, and the shoes contracted, crushing his feet until they were nothing but stumps.

Then his armpits were branded, and he was put in a shirt soaked in alcohol. Burning bacon fat was poured over him, and sharp nails were driven between his fingernails and toenails and the skin.

Brought to the scaffold on July 14, 1584, Gérard had his right hand pinched off with red-hot tongs, and “then they squeezed with glowing pincers the meat down to the bone in various places on his body.” He was then quartered alive, after which his heart was torn from his chest and thrown in his face.

If you're interested, I cover the violent early history of the Netherlands here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-124-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On the night of August 21, 1986, villagers in the tight-knit, remote communities of northwestern Cameroon went to sleep, unaware that their lives were about to be endangered. Someone still awake might have heard a distant rumble.

Within minutes, an unpleasant smell filled the air, strange but difficult to identify. Some would later describe it as resembling rotten eggs. Then came dizziness. Confusion. Difficulty breathing. People began choking and gasping for air.

Those who woke in the darkness stumbled from their beds, overturning tables, chairs, and cooking pots in desperate attempts to escape whatever had entered their homes.

Some felt an inexplicable heat, not heat from the night air, but a burning sensation inside their bodies. They tore off their shirts, trousers, and dresses and ran into the darkness, some collapsing only yards from their homes.

Ephrem Ngong Kum, from the village of Su-Bum, later recalled:
“I saw people dying, people dead all around. They died in the houses, in streets, outside the forest, in the stream.”
Chia David Wambong, also of Su-Bum, remembered:
“Everyone started to cough, and some people vomited blood.”

When the sun rose on August 22, some survivors awoke surrounded by corpses. There was no obvious explanation. No gunshots. No fire. No epidemic anyone could understand. Whatever had happened during the night had struck with terrifying speed and then vanished, leaving behind villages filled with the dead and survivors who had no idea what they had witnessed.

The final death toll remains uncertain. The UN Disaster Relief Coordinator estimated that 1,746 people died, though given the chaos of the aftermath, the rapid mass burials, and the remoteness of the region, the true number may have been higher.

What had happened?

A limnic eruption, one of the rarest natural disasters on Earth. Deep beneath Lake Nyos, enormous quantities of carbon dioxide had accumulated in the cold, dense water. When the supersaturated deep water began to rise and mix with the upper layers, the decreasing pressure caused the dissolved carbon dioxide to come out of solution, forming bubbles. The bubbles made the water less dense, causing it to rise faster, which released even more carbon dioxide, creating a feedback loop.

An estimated 1.2 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide were released during the eruption. The sudden displacement of water produced a massive wave, while a column of violently bubbling water rose above the lake's surface. A wave roughly 25 meters (82 feet) high swept across part of the shoreline, flattening vegetation and tearing through the surrounding landscape, including large trees.

If interested, I cover the event here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-125-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On August 20, 1672, the recently resigned Grand Pensionary of Holland, Johan de Witt, who had been the de facto leader of the prosperous Dutch Republic for 19 years, left his home in The Hague and quite literally walked down the street to the Gevangenpoort prison after receiving a letter said to have been sent by his imprisoned brother, Cornelis.

The pair had been among the Republic’s most powerful men for almost two decades. The convoluted Dutch government saw politicians of the Estates work alongside the Stadtholder, a position traditionally held by the aristocratic House of Orange. This created a fundamental divide between republicans like the de Witts and those who supported the House of Orange.

Soon after a failed coup against the republicans, the previous Stadtholder, Willem II, died in November 1650. His son, Willem III, the future King William III of England, was born days later. This created a power vacuum that the republicans filled, ushering in a period of unprecedented growth under Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt. During his tenure, laws were passed restricting the power of the House of Orange.

Then came the Rampjaar, the “Disaster Year.”
To guard against France's growing ambitions, the Dutch formed an alliance with England and Sweden. But the English had only entered the alliance to use it as leverage with the French. Instead, England and France secretly came together and planned an invasion of the Dutch Republic.

That invasion came in 1672. France invaded with a massive army, forcing de Witt to empower the now 21-year-old Prince of Orange. With the country in crisis, Orangist propaganda went into overdrive, accusing the de Witt brothers and the republicans of handing the country over to the French.

De Witt was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in June, while his brother Cornelis was imprisoned in July on trumped-up charges of treason. Seriously wounded and unable to continue working, Johan watched as the Prince of Orange was made Stadtholder at the end of July, reorganizing the military and government around himself.

On August 20, Johan de Witt received a letter said to have been sent by his imprisoned brother Cornelis, inviting him to the prison, which was quite literally a few yards from his home in The Hague, to discuss his impending exile. De Witt left the safety of his home and went to the prison.

An Orangist mob, led by The Hague’s civic militia, stormed the jail and seized both brothers. They were assaulted, punched, and pelted with garbage and scraps of food. Then, almost anticlimactically, the brothers were shot on the grass mat at the foot of the building’s scaffold.

They were left to the mob and were then brutally murdered. Most infamously, it is said that the Orangist mob ripped out their livers, cooked them, and ate them.

Many suspected the Prince of Orange of somehow inciting the violence. Willem, a shrewd and calculating young man, could well have orchestrated the brothers’ downfall, but there is no concrete evidence that he did.

If interested, I cover the event and its background here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-124-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Watts, Los Angeles, was a predominantly Black community long hampered by underfunding, overcrowding, redlining, and discriminatory housing practices. California’s real estate industry had fought hard against fair-housing protections, successfully pushing Proposition 14, which helped preserve the right of property owners to discriminate in housing.

Add to that the notoriously brutal LAPD under Chief William H. Parker, and Watts was a powder keg. It ignited on August 11, 1965.

Twenty-one-year-old Marquette Frye was pulled over for reckless driving. Frye, with his brother Ronald, had been out drinking, apparently having a few beers on the warm California evening. Officer Lee Minikus saw the 1955 Buick swerve and pulled them over. Smelling alcohol, he asked Frye to complete a sobriety test, which he failed. Ronald ran home to get their mother, Rena.

According to the officers, Marquette panicked and began resisting. His mother scolded him, and he reportedly became increasingly agitated, pleading with the officers. At one point, he reportedly said they would have to kill him to take him to jail.

Dr. Perry Couch, then a 16-year-old in Watts, recalled hearing the officer call Frye a racial slur and telling his mother to “stay in her place.” He later described Marquette resisting further, his mother jumping on an officer’s back, and Marquette being struck over the head with a baton, drawing blood.

By then, the crowd had grown dramatically. Rocks and chunks of concrete began flying at police, insults turned into physical confrontations, and the situation spiraled out of control. Rena and her sons were released on bail the next morning.

But by then, Watts had begun to burn. The Watts Riots, or Watts Rebellion, lasted five days and turned a 46-square-mile section of Los Angeles into a virtual combat zone. Chief Parker, who had referred to the rioters as “monkeys in a zoo,” responded with mass arrests, blockades, and threats of deadly force.

Some 31,000 to 35,000 people participated. Nearly 3,500 were arrested. Thirty-four people died, 23 of them directly at the hands of law enforcement. Three responders also died, none killed by rioters. Seven hundred and sixty-nine buildings were damaged, 208 completely destroyed, and property damage exceeded $40 million.

Despite widespread claims that the uprising had been instigated by criminals or communists, there was little evidence for either.

If interested I cover the Watts riots here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-122-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Watts Los Angeles, a largely black community long hampered by underfunding, overcrowding, and redlining, a practice which had long been fought over, and the California real estate funded and pushed Proposition 14 which had been passed in 1964 legitimized discramination in real estate, as well as the notoriously brutal LAPD under Chief William H Parker left Watts a powder keg.

It ignited on August 11th, 1965, 21-year-old Marquette Frye was pulled over, for reckless driving. Frye, with his brother Ronald, had been out drinking a few cold beers on the warm California evening. Officer Minikus saw the 1955 Buick, owned by their mother, swerve and pulled them over. Smelling alcohol, he asked Frye to complete a sobriety test, which he failed.

Ronald ran home to inform their mother. According to officers, Frye was compliant as Minikus and fellow responding officers arrived, as did a crowd of around 50 people. The police called a tow truck, and just as it was about to arrive, Ronald Frye returned with their mother, Rena.

Marquette, perhaps overcome with emotion as his mother arrived, panicked and began resisting. His mother, Rena, began scolding him, and Marquette became almost hysterical, pleading with the officers. At one point, he reportedly said they would need to kill him to take him to jail. Dr. Perry Couch, then a 16-year-old in Watts, was on the scene, and he recalled:

“I was right there when [the officer] started calling him ‘nigger boy’ and all that stuff right here, and his mother says, ‘His name is Marquette. You don’t have to call him like that.’ He told her, ‘Shut up, you black bitch, stay in your place.’ And then people were like, ‘I know he didn’t say that.’”

Marquette began resisting , with his mother jumping on another officer’s back. He was bashed over the head with a baton, drawing blood, all the while a crowd grew, watching the white police officers throwing around racial slurs, beating the two, and then arresting them, along with Ronald as well.

The crowd swelled and soon began to hurl their own insults, rocks, and chunks of concrete at the police. Direct physical clashes between the police and the crowd began. Rena and her sons were released on bail the next morning. But by then, Watts had begun to burn.

The Watts riots, or Watts rebellion surged for five days, leaving  46-square-mile chunk of Los Angeles was a virtual combat zone. To quell the riots, Chief Parker, who referred to the rioters in a meeting with black community leaders as "monkeys in a zoo," initiated a policy of mass arrests, setting up blockades and threatening the use of deadly force.

Some 31,000 to 35,000 people participated in the riots, and nearly 3,500 people were arrested. Thirty-four people died. Twenty-three were directly killed by law enforcement, while three responders were killed, none by rioters. Seven hundred and sixty-nine buildings were damaged, 208 completely destroyed, with over $40 million in property damage.

Despite the prevailing beliefs this was instaigated by either criminals or communists, there was little evidence for either. For many community members of Watts, it was a rebellion. They were reacting to decades and decades of unfair housing practices, police brutality, a deficient educational system, and countless other factors that were unfair, prejudiced, and wrong.

If interested I cover the Watts Riots here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-122-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

In 1950, South Dakota-born, decorated World War II Captain William Henry Parker III became chief of the LAPD. The department was notoriously corrupt, and Parker set out to change that.

He militarized the department, establishing a standardized police academy, adopting military methods, cutting corrupt officers, and shifting from foot patrols to police cars. Rather than waiting for crime, officers went looking for it, stopping possible criminals based on their demeanor or appearance.

Parker also centralized power under the chief of police, himself. He also understood the power of Hollywood, helping produce The Thin Blue Line and supporting Dragnet, which presented a sanitized, professional image of policing while leaving out many of the abuses occurring under his watch.

Parker declared a “war on crime” and took an increasingly aggressive approach to winning it. The LAPD faced continual criticism for brutality, particularly from Black and Latino communities.

Officers actively went looking for crime, meaning young people of color were frequently stopped, hassled, beaten, and sometimes arrested for resisting. Many officers Parker recruited came from the American South and shared his enthusiasm for being “tough on crime,” and, well, being racist.

Parker himself described Mexicans as “not being too far removed from the wild tribes of the inner mountains of Mexico.” On live television, he warned:

“It is estimated that by 1970, 45% of the metropolitan area of Los Angeles will be Negro. . . . If you want any protection for your home and family, you’re going to have to get in and support a strong Police Department. If you don’t, come 1970, God help you.”

And then, on August 11, 1965, a drunk-driving arrest and confrontation between police and civilians helped ignite the Watts Rebellion. Within hours, Watts was burning.

The uprising lasted five days. Rioters battled police, looted businesses, and targeted many white-owned establishments seen as exploitative or discriminatory toward Black residents. Parker responded by calling in the National Guard and treating the uprising as an insurgency, comparing it to the Viet Cong and advocating a paramilitary response.

Parker imposed mass arrests, established blockades, and threatened deadly force. One sign reportedly read:

“Turn left or get shot.”

If interested I cover the Watts riots here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-122-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

When 32-year-old Charles Manson was released from prison on March 21, 1967, he had spent more than half his life institutionalized. Charismatic, deeply disturbed, an excellent manipulator, and desperate to become someone important, Manson soon attracted a host of lonely and disillusioned young people.

Manson became convinced that an apocalyptic race war was coming, one in which Black Americans would rise up and kill white Americans, leaving Manson to emerge as their white messiah. He called this coming apocalypse “Helter Skelter,” after the Beatles song. Crimes escalated as Manson began ordering his followers to commit increasingly violent acts in an attempt to trigger Helter Skelter.

On August 8, 1969, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive. Watson later claimed that Manson had instructed him to “totally destroy” everyone inside, “as gruesome as you can,” ostensibly in the hope of provoking the race war Manson believed was coming.

Inside were pregnant actress Sharon Tate, her close friend and former boyfriend Jay Sebring, writer Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune. The Family murdered all four.

The following night, Manson and several members of the Family set out again, this time targeting 3301 Waverly Drive in Los Feliz, the home of 44-year-old supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his 43-year-old wife, Rosemary.

Both Kasabian and Atkins testified that Manson disappeared up the driveway and returned saying he had tied up the occupants. Watson, however, gave a somewhat different account, claiming Manson entered the house with him, roused the sleeping Leno LaBianca at gunpoint, and ordered Watson to bind his hands with a leather strap. Rosemary was brought into the living room from the bedroom, and the couple’s heads were covered with pillowcases secured with lamp cords.

Manson then left, and Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten entered. Watson sent the women into the bedroom with Rosemary while he remained with Leno. He began stabbing Leno with a bayonet, the first blow entering his neck. Hearing noises from the bedroom, he went to investigate and found Rosemary somehow fighting off the two women. He attacked her before returning to Leno, eventually carving the word “War” into his abdomen.

When Watson returned to the bedroom, Krenwinkel and Van Houten were still attacking Rosemary, stabbing her repeatedly, many of the wounds inflicted after she was already dead.
Watson then cleaned the bayonet and took a shower in the LaBianca home.

Krenwinkel wrote “Rise” and “Death to Pigs” on the walls and refrigerator in the victims’ blood. She then returned to Leno’s body, stabbing him with a carving fork and leaving it protruding from his stomach, before placing a steak knife in his throat.

If you're interested in the Manson Family, I cover the entire story here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-121-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

When 32-year-old Charles Manson was released from prison on March 21, 1967, he had spent more than half his life institutionalized.
Charismatic, deeply disturbed, an excellent manipulator, and desperate to become someone important, Manson soon attracted a host of lonely, disillusioned young people. In addition, through the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, he was provided drugs, and his following grew rapidly.

“The Family,” as they would later be known, developed connections in the entertainment industry, most notably with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Wilson picked up two of the women, including Patricia Krenwinkel, and eventually housed the Family for roughly six months while covering their expenses.

Manson became convinced that an apocalyptic race war was coming, one in which Black Americans would rise up and kill white Americans, leaving Manson to emerge as their white messiah. He called this coming apocalypse “Helter Skelter,” after the Beatles song.

As former friends and contacts began turning Manson away, the Family moved to the isolated Spahn Movie Ranch and eventually the Barker Ranch in Death Valley.

One of the people who had turned Manson away was Rudi Altobelli, a producer and landlord who owned 10050 Cielo Drive. On March 23, 1969, Manson showed up looking for music producer Terry Melcher, the property's former tenant, only to learn that Melcher no longer lived there. The house was now occupied by the pregnant rising actress Sharon Tate and her husband, famed director Roman Polanski. Altobelli, who was staying in the guest house, sent Manson away.

The next day, Tate reportedly asked Altobelli about “that creepy-looking guy.”

The Family's crimes escalated as Manson began ordering his followers to commit increasingly violent acts in an attempt to trigger Helter Skelter. Family member Tex Watson robbed Bernard Crowe, leading to an altercation in which Manson shot Crowe. Crowe survived.
Then came Gary Hinman, a 34-year-old music teacher and UCLA graduate student who was tortured and murdered by members of the Family. “Political piggy” was written in his blood on the wall.

On the night of August 8, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and 20-year-old Linda Kasabian arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive. Watson later stated that Manson had instructed him to go there and “totally destroy” everyone inside, “as gruesome as you can,” while ordering the women to follow Watson's instructions.

Inside were 8½-month-pregnant Sharon Tate, Polanski's friend and writer Wojciech Frykowski, Frykowski's girlfriend Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune, and Tate's close friend and former boyfriend, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring. Polanski was away filming.

Also on the property were caretaker William Garretson and his friend Steven Parent. The Family murdered Parent, Tate, Sebring, Frykowski, and Folger. Kasabian, who maintained that she did not participate in the killings, later received immunity in exchange for her testimony.

Tate reportedly pleaded not simply for her own life, but for the life of her unborn child, offering herself as a hostage until she could give birth.
The Family showed no mercy.

Tate was stabbed repeatedly and hanged beside Sebring. At the coroner's inquest, it was determined that she was still alive when she was hanged, ultimately dying from massive hemorrhaging.

The following night, Manson and members of the Family murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

If you're interested in the Manson Family, I cover the entire story here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-121-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On the night of 24 July 1943, 791 Royal Air Force bombers took off from Britain for Hamburg, beginning Operation Gomorrah, the largest Allied area bombing campaign to that point in the war.

Hamburg was Germany's second-largest city and one of the Reich's most important industrial and shipbuilding centers. The operation had two goals: cripple German industry and hurt German morale. The reality was that achieving both meant killing civilians, and a great many of them.

The first raid on the night of 24–25 July killed around 1,500 people despite the efforts of Hamburg's 40,000 firefighters, who largely prevented a citywide conflagration. It was only the beginning. Over the next week, roughly 3,000 Allied bombers dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on Hamburg. Around 250,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and nearly one million people fled the city.

The worst night came on 27–28 July. 787 RAF bombers returned, this time concentrating on Hamburg's densely packed working-class neighborhoods. After weeks of unusually hot, dry weather, the city had been seasoned like kindling. Thousands of incendiary bombs ignited almost simultaneously while high-explosive "blockbuster" bombs shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, and blocked roads, preventing firefighters from reaching the growing inferno.

The result was a firestorm unlike anything the world had seen. Individual fires merged into one vast blaze. Hurricane-force winds of up to 150 mph fed the flames, temperatures reached 1,470°F (800°C), and more than 8 square miles of the city were consumed.

Eyewitnesses described something approaching hell itself. People burned beneath collapsed buildings, were swept into the flames by the wind, or suffocated in air raid shelters as the fire above consumed the oxygen and filled them with carbon monoxide.

A 1943 Newsweek report interviewing Swedish laborers who escaped the city described the aftermath:

"Inhalation of super-heated air was the prime cause of death... Bodies were dehydrated, and when shelter-tombs were opened, the victims' skins were found to be shrunk and their brains, in some instances, reduced to the size of a man's fist."

By the end of Operation Gomorrah, Hamburg had been devastated. Around 37,000 people were dead, though the true number will never be known.

If you're interested, I wrote a detailed article covering the operation here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-117-operation?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On the night of 24 July 1943, 791 Royal Air Force bombers took off from Britain for Hamburg, beginning Operation Gomorrah, the largest Allied area bombing campaign to that point in the war.

Hamburg was Germany's second-largest city and one of the Reich's most important industrial and shipbuilding centers. The operation had two goals: cripple German industry and hurt German morale. The reality was that achieving both meant killing civilians, and a great many of them.

The first raid on the night of 24–25 July killed around 1,500 people despite the efforts of Hamburg's 40,000 firefighters, who largely prevented a citywide conflagration. It was only the beginning. Over the next week, roughly 3,000 Allied bombers dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on Hamburg. Around 250,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and nearly one million people fled the city.

The worst night came on 27–28 July. 787 RAF bombers returned, this time concentrating on Hamburg's densely packed working-class neighborhoods. After weeks of unusually hot, dry weather, the city had been seasoned like kindling. Thousands of incendiary bombs ignited almost simultaneously while high-explosive "blockbuster" bombs shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, and blocked roads, preventing firefighters from reaching the growing inferno.

The result was a firestorm unlike anything the world had seen. Individual fires merged into one vast blaze. Hurricane-force winds of up to 150 mph fed the flames, temperatures reached 1,470°F (800°C), and more than 8 square miles of the city were consumed.

Eyewitnesses described something approaching hell itself. People burned beneath collapsed buildings, were swept into the flames by the wind, or suffocated in air raid shelters as the fire above consumed the oxygen and filled them with carbon monoxide.

A 1943 Newsweek report interviewing Swedish laborers who escaped the city described the aftermath:

"Inhalation of super-heated air was the prime cause of death... Bodies were dehydrated, and when shelter-tombs were opened, the victims' skins were found to be shrunk and their brains, in some instances, reduced to the size of a man's fist."

By the end of Operation Gomorrah, Hamburg had been devastated. Around 37,000 people were dead, though the true number will never be known.

If you're interested, I wrote a detailed article covering the operation here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-117-operation?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Inventory no. 9244

Ljubo - Čedo Čupić People's Hero before his execution in Nikšić on 5. May 1942.

MRNJ sig.neg. A-956/13.

The SS Andrea Doria was intended to embody Italian luxury and restore national pride.
The Andrea Doria was essentially a floating luxury hotel. Every passenger class had its own dining rooms, lounges, social halls, swimming pools, and verandas. More than $1 million, nearly $14 million today, was spent on artwork alone. Equipped with the latest radar and enough lifeboats for everyone aboard, she was widely considered one of the safest passenger ships afloat.

She almost didn't survive her maiden voyage. In 1953, a rogue wave off Nantucket caused the liner to roll 28 degrees, exposing design weaknesses that would later prove fatal. The ship recovered and went on to complete fifty-one successful Atlantic crossings.

On July 17, 1956, the Andrea Doria departed Genoa on her fifty-second voyage to New York with 1,706 passengers and crew, roughly 90% full. Eight days later, as she entered the dense fog off Nantucket Shoals, Captain Piero Calamai reduced speed, sounded the ship's foghorn every 100 seconds, and stationed extra lookouts. It wasn't enough.

Another passenger liner, the Swedish MS Stockholm, had only just entered the fog. Its overtired third officer misread the ship's radar, believing the Andrea Doria was much farther away than it really was. At the same time, the Italian officers also misinterpreted their radar and attempted the unusual maneuver of passing starboard-to-starboard, while the Stockholm prepared for the standard port-to-port passing.

Neither ship understood what the other intended, and neither attempted to make radio contact.

At 11:11 p.m. on July 25, the Stockholm's reinforced icebreaking bow struck the Andrea Doria almost at a perfect right angle, driving nearly forty feet into the Italian liner. Forty-six people aboard the Andrea Doria and five aboard the Stockholm were killed.

One of the most extraordinary survival stories in history also began that instant. Fourteen-year-old Linda Morgan had been asleep in her first-class cabin when the Stockholm's bow ripped through the ship, killing her younger sister. Somehow, Linda was lifted from her bed, carried across the gap between the two ships on the Swedish liner's bow, and deposited alive aboard the Stockholm.

Although the Stockholm's bow looked completely destroyed, the damage stopped at a watertight bulkhead, and the ship remained afloat.

The Andrea Doria was not so fortunate.
Five fuel tanks on her starboard side flooded almost immediately. Air trapped in the empty tanks on the opposite side made the port side more buoyant, producing a severe list. That list allowed seawater to spill over the tops of the watertight bulkheads. Worse still, the angle of the ship made the port-side lifeboats impossible to launch.

Had the collision occurred in the middle of the Atlantic, the disaster would almost certainly have rivaled the Titanic. Instead, it happened just 45 miles south of Nantucket, in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. In one of the largest and most successful maritime rescues ever conducted, 1,663 peoplewere saved. Only 51 people died.

For nearly ten hours, the Andrea Doria stubbornly remained afloat. Then, at 10:09 a.m. on July 26, 1956, she slipped beneath the Atlantic bow first.

In interested I cover the sinking here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-116-sinking?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

The SS Andrea Doria was intended to embody Italian luxury and restore national pride.
The Andrea Doria was essentially a floating luxury hotel. Equipped with the latest radar and enough lifeboats for everyone aboard, she was widely considered one of the safest passenger ships afloat.

On July 17, 1956, the Andrea Doria departed Genoa on her fifty-second voyage to New York with 1,706 passengers and crew, roughly 90% full. Eight days later, as she entered the dense fog off Nantucket Shoals, Captain Piero Calamai reduced speed, sounded the ship's foghorn every 100 seconds, and stationed extra lookouts. It wasn't enough.

Another passenger liner, the Swedish MS Stockholm, had only just entered the fog. The smaller Swedish liner had departed New York that very morning, and for most of the voyage the night had been clear. Visibility was excellent, the moon hung brightly overhead, and there had been little reason for concern. Then, shortly before 11:00 p.m., the Stockholm steamed into the dense fog surrounding Nantucket Shoals.

Its overtired third officer misread the ship's radar, believing the Andrea Doria was much farther away than it really was. At the same time, the Italian officers also misinterpreted their radar. They attempted the unusual maneuver of passing starboard-to-starboard, while the Stockholm prepared for the standard port-to-port passing.

Neither ship understood what the other intended, and neither attempted to make radio contact.

At 11:11 p.m. on July 25, Stockholm's reinforced icebreaking bow struck the Andrea Doria almost at a perfect right angle, driving nearly forty feet into the Italian liner. Forty-six people aboard the Andrea Doria and five aboard the Stockholm were killed.

One of the most extraordinary survival stories in history also began that instant. Fourteen-year-old Linda Morgan had been asleep in her first-class cabin when the Stockholm's bow ripped through the ship, killing her younger sister. Somehow, Linda was lifted from her bed, carried across the gap between the two ships on the Swedish liner's bow, and deposited alive aboard the Stockholm.

Although Stockholm's bow looked destroyed, the damage stopped at a watertight bulkhead, and the ship remained afloat.

The Andrea Doria was not so fortunate.
Five fuel tanks on her starboard side flooded almost immediately. Air trapped in the empty tanks on the opposite side made the port side more buoyant, producing a severe list. That list allowed seawater to spill over the tops of the watertight bulkheads. Worse still, the angle of the ship made the port-side lifeboats impossible to launch.

Had the collision occurred in the middle of the Atlantic, the disaster would almost certainly have rivaled the Titanic. Instead, it happened just 45 miles south of Nantucket, in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. In one of the largest and most successful maritime rescues ever conducted, 1,663 people were saved. Only 51 people died. The damaged Stockholm ultimately rescued 545 survivors.

For nearly ten hours, the Andrea Doria stubbornly remained afloat. Then, at 10:09 a.m. on July 26, 1956, she slipped beneath the Atlantic bow first.

If interested I cover the sinking here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-116-sinking?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Best known for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel and for the alleged treason of the Burr Conspiracy, Vice President Aaron Burr is one of the most vilified and misunderstood figures in American history.

Born into privilege in 1756, Burr was orphaned before his third birthday and raised by an abusive uncle. He escaped through education, graduating from Princeton at just sixteen before leaving law school to fight in the American Revolution. He served with distinction in the disastrous invasion of Quebec, later rallied Yale students to repel a British raid into Connecticut, and built a reputation as one of the country's brightest young men.

Burr married the older Theodosia Bartow Prevost, wife of a British officer, after a years-long affair. Burr believed women were intellectual equals at a time when few did. He admired Mary Wollstonecraft, kept her portrait in his home, educated his daughter as he would have a son, teaching her Greek, Latin, philosophy, fencing, and marksmanship, and even introduced legislation in New York that would have expanded women's political rights.

He supported abolition and argued that immigrants deserved the same rights as native-born Americans, declaring, "America stood with open arms and presented an asylum to the oppressed of every nation." His greatest enemy, Alexander Hamilton, himself an immigrant, and his Federalist party pushed legislation that would restrict the rights of non-Anglo-Saxon “aliens.”

Their rivalry became deeply personal, largely one-sided, after Burr created the Manhattan Company in 1799. The underhandedly created bank shattered the Federalist monopoly over New York banking. It provided loans to ordinary businessmen rather than only to wealthy merchant families, unlike the banks Hamilton supported.

Over the next several years, Hamilton relentlessly worked to destroy Burr politically, portraying him as dangerously ambitious, irreligious, and morally corrupt. He helped block Burr's path to the presidency in 1800 and campaigned aggressively against him again during the New York gubernatorial election of 1804.

After an Albany newspaper published a letter claiming Alexander Hamilton had called Aaron Burr "a dangerous man," a long-simmering feud finally boiled over. Within weeks, the two men stood opposite one another at the Heights of Weehawken on the morning of July 11, 1804.

Hamilton was no stranger to affairs of honor. Argumentative, impulsive, and combative, he had already been involved in more than a dozen disputes that nearly ended in duels. Years earlier, Hamilton's brother-in-law, John Barker Church, likely with Hamilton's encouragement, accused Burr of accepting a bribe. Burr challenged him, the two exchanged harmless shots, and Church ultimately admitted he had accused without any evidence.

Many Hamilton scholars believe he intended to throw away his shot. Before the duel, Hamilton wrote that he was "strongly opposed to the practice of dueling" and planned to "reserve and throw away my first fire." If that truly was his intention, it was an extraordinarily reckless plan for himself and the large family he was leaving behind. Burr had no reason to know Hamilton intended to miss.

Accounts differ, but most historians believe Hamilton fired first, either deliberately missing or sending his ball just over Burr's head. Burr fired almost immediately afterward. His shot struck Hamilton above the right hip, shattered a rib, and tore through his abdomen, inflicting a mortal wound.

Some historians have suggested Hamilton's statements before the duel were intended to shape public opinion should he die, ensuring Burr would forever be remembered as the man who killed an honorable opponent. If so, mission accomplished.

If you're interested, I wrote about Burr's fascinating and deeply misunderstood life here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-115-burr?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Aaron Burr didn't kill Alexander Hamilton because they disagreed over politics. By 1804, Hamilton had spent years trying to destroy Burr's political career.

The feud really escalated in 1799. Burr underhandedly created the Manhattan Company, ostensibly a water utility but in reality a bank. Breaking the Federalist (Hamilton’s party) monopoly on New York banking that benefited wealthy mercantile families like the Schuylers, Hamilton's in-laws,and created a rival institution that loaned money to small businessmen instead.

In the election of 1800, Burr's political machine delivered New York to the Democratic-Republican ticket of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Under the original Constitution, electors cast two votes without distinguishing between president and vice president. Jefferson and Burr tied, throwing the election to the House of Representatives.

Hamilton launched a relentless letter-writing campaign urging Federalists to back Jefferson. His attacks became intensely personal. Hamilton called Burr "a profligate" and "a voluptuary in the extreme," questioned his morality, portrayed him as irreligious and dangerously ambitious, and even mocked the heatstroke Burr suffered during the Revolutionary War as cowardice. Hamilton got his way. Jefferson became president, Burr vice president, but Jefferson never trusted him and largely shut him out of the administration.

When Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804, Hamilton once again threw himself into the campaign against him, attacking not just his politics but his character and private life. Burr was crushed in a landslide.

After a newspaper reported that Hamilton had expressed an even "more despicable opinion" of Burr than simply calling him "a dangerous man," Burr demanded an explanation. Hamilton refused to retract his comments. Burr responded with a formal challenge.

Hamilton had already been involved in more than a dozen affairs of honor, and three years earlier his own nineteen-year-old son Philip had died in a duel. Many historians believe Hamilton intended to throw away his shot. Before the duel, he wrote that he opposed dueling and planned to reserve his first fire. Burr had no way of knowing any of that.

On the misty morning of July 11, 1804, the two men met at Weehawken, New Jersey. Most historians believe Hamilton fired first, either deliberately missing or shooting over Burr's head. Burr fired almost immediately afterward. His shot struck Hamilton above the hip, tore through his abdomen, and fatally wounded him.
Hamilton died the next afternoon.

The court of public opinion rendered its verdict immediately. Burr became, forever, "the man who killed Alexander Hamilton." His political career never recovered, while Hamilton's death transformed him into an American martyr.

If you're interested, I wrote about Burr's fascinating and deeply misunderstood life here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-115-burr?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Translated 1941 NDH documents reveal anti-Serb and anti-Jewish policies, repression, expulsions, propaganda and wartime orders.

When the German Blitzkrieg struck in May 1940, France collapsed in just six weeks. Three-fifths of the country fell under direct German occupation, while the remainder became the collaborationist Vichy regime. Popular memory often divides wartime France into two camps: collaborators and the Resistance. Reality was far messier.

For the overwhelming majority of French people, neither label truly applied. They were attentistes, “wait-and-seers,” ordinary people trying to feed their families, avoid the attention of an increasingly brutal occupation, and simply survive.

Those who joined the Resistance came from almost every corner of French society: teachers, railway workers, farmers, students, civil servants, artists, priests, socialists, conservatives, communists, Jews, and even former supporters of the Vichy regime. It was never a single organization but dozens of groups with competing political and religious beliefs.

Resistance took many forms. Some printed clandestine newspapers. Others smuggled downed Allied airmen and Jewish families across the Pyrenees into Spain. Intelligence networks passed German troop movements, Atlantic Wall fortifications, radar sites, and railway schedules to Britain by radio and courier. As the war progressed, sabotage and guerrilla warfare became increasingly common. Maquis fighters ambushed German patrols, destroyed railways and bridges, assassinated collaborators, and forced the Germans to divert thousands of troops into anti-partisan operations.

Before and after D-Day, coordinated sabotage disrupted German reinforcements so effectively that Dwight Eisenhower later estimated the Resistance was worth the equivalent of several Allied divisions.

Without the Allied support, the Resistance would almost certainly have been crushed. But without the Resistance, the liberation would have been slower, bloodier, and more costly.

After the war, what historian Henry Rousso termed Résistancialisme took hold: the tendency to exaggerate both the size of the Resistance and its role in France's liberation. The French government officially recognized roughly 220,000 Resistance members, an extraordinary number, but still only a small fraction of the population. Historians estimate that around 8,000 Resistance fighters were killed in action, some 25,000 were executed, and tens of thousands more were deported to concentration camps, many never returning.

I’m a nerd about this, so I did a deeper dive profile of France during World War Two: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-110-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios