Showing results by author "Kelly Mass" in All Categories

The Netherlands had a great century in the 1600s, until it all ended about three-fourths of the way along. Trading was all around; business was good. Their vast empire that reached across the world made money from spices, raw materials, metals, and so much more, with an extensive network of ships and merchants, and an entire army fleet. The Dutch Golden Era was a time in Dutch history varying from about 1588 (the start of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the "Catastrophe Year"), throughout which Dutch trade, science, and art, and the Dutch armed force, were amongst the world's best.

From 1845 to 1852, the Great Hunger, also referred to as the "Potato Famine", was a period of a lot of starvation and illness in Ireland. The period was known in Irish at the time as a "Drochshaol"—loosely translated as "the hard days", or actually "the bad life"—with the most badly affected districts in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was popular. The year 1847, at times called "Black '47", was the absolute worst year of the period. Around one million people died, and over a million left the nation throughout the Great Famine.

Oliver Cromwell was an English army and statesman who led Parliamentary armies against King Charles I throughout the English Civil War. Why was he so hated by so many? And is this image of him historically correct? The reason why people thought he was so evil is because of his brutality against the Irish at that time. Several Irish and English scholars agree that Cromwell was too cruel in Ireland. Other academics accuse him of "ethnic cleansing", or the systematic expulsion of a certain ethnic population from a territory. Is this true? And why did he do this?

The following cruel dictators, mass murderers, torturers, and sadists from an extensive world history will be described and discussed in further detail: Adolf Eichmann, Benito Mussolini, Enver Pasha, Francisco Pizarro, Josef Mengele, Oliver Cromwell, Paul Joseph Goebbels, Pol Pot, Robespierre, Rudolf Hoess, and Torquemada.

During the Spanish inquisition, being called a heretic, a witch, or a sinner meant business. It could mean the end of your life. And so, it is with a tragic view on the past that we see countless innocent victims being accused of something they never did, with no bad intentions or rebellious behavior, and nonetheless being executed in brutal manners. One of the proponents of this system, and an active executioner, was Thomas de Torquemada, a completely insane, cruel man who had become notorious for his methods of hunting down and taking out supposed anti-church offenders.

The Cambodian genocide was the methodical abuse and death of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who pushed Cambodia toward being an entirely self-dependent agrarian socialist state. Between 1975 and 1979, 1.5 to two million people were murdered, representing about a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975. Through a high number of propaganda resources and sheer force, the coup forced millions of people from the cities to farmlands, leaving them there to die.

At its peak, the Etruscan society of age-old Italy covered circa what's now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, and areas of what's now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, Southeastern Lombardy, Southern Veneto, and small parts of Campania. The first proof of an Etruscan society might be traced back to around 900 BC. This is the Iron Age Villanovan culture, which emerged from the former late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan civilization in the exact same area and is considered the first stage of Etruscan civilization.

It’s a hard name to pronounce, but hey, it’s been the legend of Native American peoples for centuries. Was it a man? Was it a god? Was it a white person? Or, was it some animal or strange thing? Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec divine being whose name originates from the Nahuatl language and meaning "valuable snake" or "Quetzal-feathered snake".

Martin van Buren was an American attorney and statesman who acted as the United States' eighth president between 1837 to 1841. He was the ninth ruler of New York, the 10th US Secretary of State, and the eighth vice president of the United States. He was a creator of the Democratic Party. With the support of well-known leaving president, Andrew Jackson, and the Democratic Party's organizational strength, he won the 1836 presidential election. He was the third and last incumbent vice president to be chosen president till 1988.

The Yugoslavian genocide is hard to explain. So many factors have contributed to the war—and eventually, the genocide in Bosnia—that many UN soldiers didn’t even know what to do about it. A lack of response, though, made the problem worse. A combination of historical aspects, such as the division of religion, the world wars, the Iron Curtain, and the fall of the Soviet Union, were part of what led to a conflict that lasted for years in this sensitive region in Europe.

This is the ultimate guide to all the Greek (and Roman) heroes, gods and goddesses! You’ll learn about all the best-known ones, like Zeus, Aphrodite, and Heracles, but also about the lesser-known ones, like Hephaestus, Cadmus, and Ion. All the most important stories and backgrounds are in here: The complicated relationships, the drama, the vengeance, the quests, and lots, lots more! Get ready for a treat!

There are doers and there are preachers. The people who were executing orders or abusing people in World War Two wouldn’t have been able to commit any atrocities if the country hadn’t warmed up to an inhumane narrative. That’s where propaganda came in. Propaganda has long been part of various countries and societies to make the population believe something, and to find culprits, create feelings of animosity, and glorify local leaders or military campaigns.

The Haitian Revolution has played a big role in the history of abolishing slavery. Its significant influence on the Civil War in the United States in the 1860s has probably been underestimated by many. The English and French already had conflicts elsewhere, and the Napoleonic Wars greatly contributed to these. Aside from that, the nation of Haiti was still in its early stages, with plantations populated by African slaves the settlers had captured and brought into servitude. Abuse and exploitation were common in many people’s lives, but the Haitian Revolution brought many changes.

The Dutch East India Company, officially the United East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie; VOC), was a megacorporation created in the early 17th century by a government-directed merger of many competing Dutch trade services. You might think that Amazon or Google is big, but the VOC is still thought to be the world's biggest corporation in documented history.

Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and writer who was commonly seen as one of the best mathematicians, physicists, and most prominent researchers of perpetuity. He was hailed as a natural theorist in his time. He was a considerable player in the knowledge thought movement. In the year 1687, he wrote Mathematical Concepts of Natural Philosophy, which established classical mechanics. Newton also made considerable advances in optics, and he shares credit for developing infinitesimal calculus with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Hannibal Barca, one of Carthage’s most influential generals, lived a couple hundred years before Christ, and has led many Roman troops to victory to conquer the surrounding nations. Famous were his battles with elephants he employed during tactical moves of cavalry and infantry armies alike. His resistance against the Roman powers in the Punic Wars have been praised and lamented worldwide.

Michael Faraday was born in Newington Butts, Surrey, on September 22, 1791 (which is now part of the London District of Southwark). He grew up in a bad home. His dad, James, was a Christian who came from the Glasite sect.

Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg, was a conservative German statesman, diplomat, and author who was born Junker Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck. Bismarck supervised Germany's unification in 1871 and functioned as its first chancellor till 1890, throughout which time he ruled Europe for 20 years. From 1867 to 1871, he was the chancellor of the North German Confederation, and from 1862 till 1890, he was Prussia's minister president and minister of foreign affairs, in addition to his role as chancellor of Germany.

Conquistadores (or Conquistadors) were the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors who invaded parts of the world that hadn’t been discovered by the Europeans before the 16th century. Some were incentivized by greed, lust, and dominance, which caused them to pillage, steal, and enslave the indigenous people they encountered. In this audiobook, you will learn more about one infamous sadist in particular: Francisco Pizarro, who abused and attacked the Peruvian peoples, acted as an inquisitor for the Catholic Church, and inflicted physical and psychological wounds on his subjects.

Ulysses S. Grant was an American army officer and political leader who acted as the United States' 18th president from 1869 to 1877. Grant was an achieved civil liberties executive at the time of his presidency, developing the Justice Department and teaming up with the Radical Republicans to secure African Americans at the time of Restoration. He led the Union Army to success in the American Civil War as Commanding General in the year 1865, and after that briefly functioned as Secretary of War.