History, Events And Facts

Did you know that Roman citizens did not go to gladiator fights to see blood and suffering, they went for aesthetic pleasure? Roman citizens did not go to gladiator fights to see blood and suffering, they went for aesthetic pleasure. Those muscular men engaged in close combat in the arena excited the artistic sensibility of the citizens. Although blood flowed, they did not see blood.  They saw the gracefulness of the brawny arms rising in the air. They saw the brilliance of the swords and the frolic of the sweaty bodies, the footwork... In short, they saw the beauty of the whole. They were aesthetes worshiping Art and Beauty.  They did not see cruelty because there was none: gladiators do not kill each other out of personal hatred, but because death is part of the show. If the loser's life is spared, the spectacle loses power. The gladiatorial fight finds its meaning in the death of the vanquished and in the risk that the victor runs. The gladiator is made to fight and, until ...

Murder on the Middle Passage by Nicholas Rogers review – slavery and the British empire An atrocity unpunished ... forget the triumphant tales of abolition – the brutal death of a teenage slave girl reveals important truths of Britain’s imperial history You are trapped in a net cast by a white man reeking of rum and smoke, and then dragged miles to the coast. You are processed, bound into chains, and led to vast wooden ships. You are packed into the hold and spend months on the ocean. You have little to eat, little to drink, little air to breathe. All around you there is coughing and fever. On deck, they make you dance to keep your muscles taut, to preserve your price at the market. If you resist, they will beat you; if you die, they will throw you overboard. In time, you see land. You are paraded on the dockside, prodded and inspected. They feel your arms; they look at your teeth. One man says “Yes”. You are loaded on to a cart and driven over rough land along dirt tracks until you...

5 horrifying ways enslaved African men were s£xually exploited and abused by their white masters Time and time again, the horrifying experiences of enslaved Africans working on plantations in the Americas and other parts of the world are told over and over. During the slave trade, which lasted for well over 400 years, Africans were captured and chained down, forced onto ships and taken into new lands against their will. Through their harrowing experiences on the ships, many of the enslaved Africans died before reaching their new homes. For the many who survived, it was the beginning of sleepless nights, several hours of work on plantations on empty stomachs and the constant reminder that in their new lives they were nothing but a commodity to their owners. To inform people about the black experience during the slavery years, much research has been done to help bring to light the accounts. Revelations on how women were used as sex toys, forced to...

19 Yazidi Girls Burned Alive in Iron Cages Because They Refused To Have S£x With ISIS Militants ISIS s£x Slaves. IS slave markets have sprung up across Iraq have been used by the terror group as a way to recruit new fighters. Reuters A number of Yazidi girl who refused to have sexual relations with Islamic State militants were placed in iron cages and burned alive in Mosul, Iraq, a horrific new report has revealed. "The 19 girls were burned to death, while hundreds of people were watching," a witness said, Fox News reports. "Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment." "They were punished for refusing to have sex with ISIS militants," local activist Abdullah al-Malla added. Mosul, formerly home to thousands of Christians, is Iraq's second-largest city and is considered to be the main stronghold for the terror group in the region. According to a local media outlet, after overtaking Mosul in June of 2014, ISIS militants began ...

Whores, damned whores and female convicts: Why our history does early Australian colonial women a grave injustice Artist Peter Gouldthorpe’s representation of convict women baring their backsides during church as a form of protest. AAP/MY WORD Some years ago while researching for my book on suicide in Australia, I thought it would be interesting to begin the book with a case study of the first recorded settler suicide in Australia. It did not take me long to find out this information. Robert Hughes’s then newly published book The Fatal Shore gave a vivid account of Australia’s first recorded suicide in the following words: “The oldest female convict was Dorothy Handland, a dealer in rags and old clothes who was eighty two years old in 1787. She had drawn seven years for perjury. In 1789, in a fit of befuddled despair, she was to hang herself from a gum tree at Sydney cove, thus becoming Australia’s first recorded suicide”. It didn’t happen Search for more information abou...

Female serial killers who shocked Victorian Britain: Fascinating pictures reveal 19th century husband killers, 'baby farmers' and a Jack the Ripper suspect Kate Webster killed and dismembered her employer Julia Martha in Richmond, South West London, in 1879 Marie Manning murdered her lover Patrick O'Connor in the 'Bermondsey Horror' case in London in 1849  Sunderland-born Mary Ann Cotton poisoned 21 people with her arsenic-filled teapot and was hanged in 1873  Amelia Dyer is said to have murdered at least 300 babies from Bristol and Reading and was hanged in 1896 A fascinating series of photographs and sketches have revealed the stories behind Victorian women serial killers whose crimes shocked Britain.  The 19th century was a significant era for criminology with the rise of modern forensics, the birth of a national police force and the proliferation of news coverage - with women murderers figures of particular fascination. Well before the likes of Rose West ...

Hanged Iranian Woman Leaves Heartbreaking Last Message A picture taken on July 8, 2007, shows Iranian Reyhaneh Jabbari standing handcuffed at police headquarters in Tehran after she was arrested for the murder of a former intelligence official. The 26-year-old Iranian woman who was executed on Saturday for murdering a man she said tried to rape her sent a final message to her mother, asking her to make sure her organs would be donated. Reyhaneh Jabbari is largely calm in the voice message she recorded for her mother in April; in it she seems resigned to her fate after being on death row for five years. Iranian activists distributed a translation of the message, equating it to Jabbari’s will. Jabbari was convicted of killing a former intelligence officer who had called her claiming he wanted her interior design advice. He then allegedly tried to rape her, and she stabbed him with a pen knife, although she denies murdering him. In her last message, she says her fate woul...