KNOW YOUR WORLD (past and present)

Worst Deaths In History-Balthasar Gerard- balthasar gerard(alternative spellings gerards or gerardts. c. 1557 – 14 July 1584) was the assassin of the Dutch revolt's leader, William the Silent of the House of Orange (William the Silent, and later known as the "Father of the Fatherland").  He killed William the Silent in Delft on 10 July 1584, by shooting him twice with a pair of pistols, and was afterwards tried, convicted, tortured, and executed. Gérard was born in Franche-Comté (then belonging to Holy Roman Empire, afterwards to France).  He came from a Roman Catholic family with 11 children and was a great admirer of Philip II, king of Spain and the Netherlands. He studied law at the University of Dole. On 15 March 1580, King Philip had offered a reward of 25,000 crowns, peerage and an inheritable estate to anyone who killed or captured William the Silent, to whom he referred in his decree as a "pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race"

Maria "Masha" Bruskina was a Belarusian Jewish teenage nurse and a communist martyr to the anti-fascist resistance during the early years of World War II, as well as a niece of the sculptor and Soviet MP Zair Asgur.  While volunteering as a nurse, she cared for wounded Red Army soldiers, and assisted them in escaping then Nazi-occupied Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. For this, she and 11 other communists of the anti-fascist underground were imprisoned, tortured, and when the teenagers refused to reveal any secrets, was publicly executed by the German Wehrmacht. She volunteered as a nurse at the hospital in the Minsk Polytechnic Institute, which had been set up to care for members of the Red Army wounded while defending what was then the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic against the planned genocide of the indigenous Slavic peoples by 3.8 Million Nazi and Finnish troops, a military escalation that remains the largest land invasion in history. In addition to c

The massacre of over 1,000 slave labourers – the largest number of whom were Poles – occurred in the town of Gardelegen on 13 April 1945, less than a month before the surrender of Nazi Germany brought the war in Europe to an end. As Allied forces advanced, the Nazi SS had been moving concentration camp prisoners towards the interior of the Third Reich. One such group was being transported from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken camps. After the transport stopped in Gardelegen, over 1,000 of the prisoners were – with the help of the local population – herded into a barn that was then sealed and set on fire. Those who tried to escape were shot dead. While the perpetrators had then hoped to destroy evidence of the crime, the rapid advance of the US 102nd Infantry Division – which arrived just one day after the massacre – meant that Allied forces discovered and documented the remains of the victims and were able to interview 11 prisoners who had survived. The condition of the bodies m

A young Vietnamese girl escorts an American POW after his plane was shot down near Hanoi, October 5th, 1967. The event took place on September 20, 1965 in Vietnam. After a US Air Force F105 was hit. The American pilot parachuted to escape but was later captured by Vietnamese guerrillas. The United States faced various challenges in the Vietnam War, contributing to its ultimate withdrawal and loss. Factors include guerrilla warfare tactics used by the Viet Cong, the lack of clear objectives, difficulties in navigating the complex political landscape of Vietnam, anti-war sentiments at home, and the inability to secure meaningful support from the South Vietnamese government.  Additionally, the war highlighted the limitations of conventional military strategies against a determined insurgency in a challenging terrain. At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a si

The Crucifixion was an ancient execution method, in which the criminal's hands and feet were bound or nailed to a wooden, cross-like structure. It wasa capital punishment reserved for slaves, traitors, "heretics", and usually the worst of criminals. It became widespread during the reign of Alexander the Great, but it still remains in occasional use in some countries. There were various methods of performing the crucifixion. Usually, the prisoner had to drag the crossbeam of his cross, weighing around 100 pounds, to the place of execution. Subsequently, his outstretched arms were bound to the crossbeam, or sometimes nailed through the wrists, and the crossbeam was raised and fixed to the already standing upright post. Death was usually caused by overall exhaustion or by heart failure. Sometimes, to shorten the victim's suffering, his legs were shattered using an iron club, so that subsequent asphyxiation soon ended his life.

John 'Babbacombe' Lee famously dubbed the man they could not hang' was accused of the murder of Miss Emma Anne Whitehead Keyse. In the early hours of November 15 1884 in the hamlet of Babbacombe, Devon, Emma Keyse was discovered brutally murdered.  Her throat was slit, she had three wounds to her head John " Babbacombe" had also attempted to burn the body. He was sentenced to be hanged at Exeter Prison on 23 February 1885. When John was about to be executed however, He was sentenced to be hanged at Exeter Prison on 23 February 1885.  When John was about to be executed however, the noose was tied around his neck but when the executioner pulled the lever to remove the floor beneath him to hang him, it stayed up. The executioner then tested the door and it worked so led john up again. Again however it did not work and the miraculous process was achieved for the third time also It's nearly 140 years since a gruesome murder in Torquay - and yet still today the stor

In the heart of Montana's rugged terrain, a unique chapter in American education unfolded during the 19th and early 20th centuries.  It was an era when one-room schoolhouses dotted the landscape, serving as beacons of learning for remote communities. These humble structures, with a single teacher at the helm, provided a foundation for countless young minds, fostering a sense of unity, resilience, and camaraderie among students of all ages. Montana's pioneer single classroom education system epitomized the spirit of the frontier. In a world far removed from the bustling cities, students from various grades shared the same space, their desks forming a microcosm of society.  Older children took on mentorship roles, guiding their younger peers, while the teacher, often the sole source of formal education, juggled the diverse needs of the classroom. The curriculum was simple yet robust, covering reading, writing, arithmetic, and practical life skills. Beyond the textbooks, these one

Lepa Radic died at just 17 in her fight against the Nazis, but they were never able to break her heroic spirit. Lepa Radić was just 15 years old when the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. Nevertheless, this brave young woman joined the Yugoslav Partisans in the fight against the Nazis — a fight that ended in her execution at just 17. In the act that would eventually propel Lepa Radić into the history books, Hitler launched his assault against Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, to secure Germany’s Balkan flank for Operation Barbarossa, his ultimately cataclysmic invasion of the Soviet Union later that same year. Facing Nazi attack on all fronts, Yugoslavia was quickly defeated and dismembered by the Axis powers. However, the Axis victory wasn’t entirely decisive.While the Germans maintained tight control over the roads and towns, they did not control the remote, mountainous regions of war-torn Yugoslavia.  In those towering mountains, Serbian resistance forces began to emerge from the r

In 1918 Mary Turner, a young, married black woman and mother of two was lynched by a white mob in Lowndes County, Georgia, for protesting the lynching and murder of her husband.  Mary Turner, who was eight months pregnant, was tied and hung upside down by the ankles, her clothes soaked with gasoline, and burned from her body. Her belly was slit open with a knife until her unborn child fell to the ground. Its little head was crushed by a member of the mob with his heel, and the crowd shot hundreds of bullets into Mary's body.....  Racially motivated mob violence by whites against black people in the American South was commonplace between 1880 and 1930, the lives of thousands of individuals including at least 159 women, lost. When I first read about Mary Turner it sent me searching for more information. I became obsessed with the horrid details, unable to comprehend that level of cruelty. I wondered about the white men and women who stood by and did nothing, their glee captured in ph

An unfortunate Soviet female soldier lies dead, shortly after being executed by her German captors. 1941. Red Army female soldiers did not have a life to envy. The Germans called them "rifle broads." I believe there was actually a German Directive to kill female soldiers outright, similar to the 'commando order'.  Their fellow Russian male soldiers called them "field mattresses." The propaganda machine is quick to replace that with the timeless woman-knight archtype ('polianitsy'). Behind the lie of smiling hyper-snipers was a war against life itself. Nobody knows how many times it ended like this. You see a photograph like this and wonder about the human mind on the other side of the lens. Was he documenting reality, possibly the nihilism of war? Or is she a hunting trophy. Imagine how many hands and minds a photo from early 1940s, taken by a nobody halfway around the world and long dead, of 1 subject out of tens of millions, has to go through befor

recidivist false accusation of capital sexual offenses causing execution of an innocent person; recidivist theft; certain military offenses (e. g., cowardice, assisting the enemy); "waging war against God"; spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason. Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015, at least 567 executions in 2016, and at least 507 executions in 2017. In 2018 there were at least 249 executions, at least 273 in 2019, at least 246 in 2020, at least 290 in 2021, at least 553 in 2022, and at least 309 so far in 2023. Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki  Executions in Iran 2007–2018 (Official, true number probably higher due to unreported cases. From 2015 onward, some established unreported cases have been taken into account as well.) In January 2023, Iran executed a British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari who once served as Iran's deputy defense minister, despite calls from London

The Vietnamese people worked for little pay and were treated badly, as peasants. The French erased Vietnam from the map and named it IndoChina. Anyone that claimed they were Vietnamese would be jailed. The Vietnamese people worked for little pay and were treated badly, as peasants. The French even introduced the guillotine to the Vietnamese and used that to execute/behead anyone who stood up against them for the mistreatments. The French eventually appointed several Vietnamese including King Bao and used them to manage the country after many uproars from the people. It was a facade move to manipulate the Vietnamese to think that their own were in power while the French continued to enslaved the Vietnamese people and rob them of the country’s resources.

During World War II, the Nazi doctor worked at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where he had unfettered access to prisoners to use as subjects in experimentation.  Gebhardt exploited the opportunity, performing needless and painful tests. At one point, he attempted to transplant limbs from camp victims to German soldiers wounded in the war. Among those subjected to Gebhardt’s terror were a group of female political prisoners from Poland who had been part of the resistance, fighting their German occupiers. Gebhardt and other doctors operated on a number of the women, cutting open their legs and intentionally infecting them by inserting wood chips, ground glass, or dirt into the wound. The women secretly documented injuries inflicted on them. Their testimony and evidence helped convict Gebhardt and other doctors in August 1947 at an American military tribunal held in Nuremberg, Germany.   Gebhardt was sentenced to death by hanging and was executed in June 1948. As we commemorate Disab

31 year old Clifford Wills had served in the army during World War II and after demob in 1945 worked as an electrician but was unemployed in 1948.   He was having an affair with a 32 year old married woman, Sylvina May Parry who lived with her husband 36 year old John and 14 year old son, Anthony, at 11 Wayfield Crescent in Pontnewdd, a suburb of Cwmbran, South Wales.  On Tuesday the 8th of June 1948, John Parry had gone off to his job as a furnace man at G.K.N. as usual.  He was on afternoon shift, working 2 p.m. - 10 p.m. and when he got home was surprised to find his wife was not there.  He went for a walk round the village in search of her but returned home without finding any trace. The following morning he reported her missing to Sgt. Daniel Plummer.  He then went home where he discovered Sylvina’s body hidden under the spare bed in the small box room.  He went and told Sgt. Plummer who then initiated a murder investigation.  A thorough search of the house revealed bloody footpri

Frank had been a typical 40-year-old dad in Kansas. He was proud of what he’d achieved in life, from his successful plumbing business to his comfortable home.  His beloved wife, Sarah, had made him the happiest man by giving him a son, Jeremy. Life had been great for their little family. That was until trouble reared its head. Jeremy, once a healthy baby, had suddenly fallen ill. Frank and Sarah were overwhelmed with worry, rushing their little angel to the emergency room. They hoped it was just a severe stomachache, but the doctor’s grave expression upon returning from his examination told them otherwise. The diagnosis was chronic kidney failure, a gut-wrenching blow. Frank couldn’t believe his ears, and Sarah, a strong-willed woman, was trying to hold herself together even in the face of such devastating news. She was researching every available option for Jeremy. The doctor explained that diagnosing kidney failure in children was notoriously challenging because symptoms typically ap

Instead of gentlemanly admitting that the Japanese imperial army were cruel and merciless killing near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people.  Almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war, Japanese students are taught to worship their WWII war criminals like heroes. Unlike the German who gentlemanly admit and sincerely apologised what they had done absolutely wrong. Japanese leaders and politicians seem not to be remorseful at all about their cruel and merciless past and instead of gentlemanly admit their horrible massacre in China, they cowardly and heartlessly prioritise themselves to regularly give offerings to those Japanese.  WWII war criminals at Yasukuni shrine and rewrite Japan’s history books to erase or cover up their horrendous, heinous and dreadful past without giving any due consideration nor feeling to the families of WWII victims in China, Korea and S. E. Asia. Japanese leaders and politicians

She was so little and exhausted, that she forgot her last name. She lost a whole family; mother, grandmother, elder brother... A special group of skinny girls found her - they were going from apartment to apartment during a terrible blockade winter looking for children whose parents had died or were dying... A special group of skinny girls found her - they were going from apartment to apartment during a terrible blockade winter looking for children whose parents had died or were dying... This is how they discovered Lenochka and could evacuate her. She didn't remember being carried across the ice with other children in a shaking truck, she didn't remember getting to the orphanage; she was little. Like a skinny midget with a big head on a thin neck... And she refused to eat anymore. This is what happens with dystrophy. She was laying in bed or sitting in a chair by the stove. She was getting hot. And she kept her mouth shut. They thought Lenochka would die. Many children died alr

Sanju Bhagat was born in Nagpur, India, in 1963. He had a normal life until his late 20s when his abdomen began to protrude as if he was pregnant. It kept increasing until he couldn't carry out his daily activities. Things got out of hand in 1999 when his breathing almost stopped  due to his extremely enlarged abdomen which didn't give his chest room to take in air; he was rushed to the hospital. At the hospital, the doctors believed he had a massive tumor growing inside of him and worked him up for surgery. To their utter amazement, when they opened him up, they saw a baby in his stomach. It appeared Sanju didn't have a tumor, he had his unborn brother growing inside of him for more than 35 years. In medical terms, this was a rare case of fetus-in-fetu. Basically, what happens is that one twin doesn't fully separate from the other during development, and ends up growing inside of the other twin's body. The twin that's growing inside is usually very small and un

In August 1944, Paradies arrived at the Stutthof SK-III camp for training as an Aufseherin, or overseer. She soon finished training and became a wardress. In October 1944, she was reassigned to Stutthof's Bromberg-Ost subcamp, and in January 1945, back to the main Stutthof camp. In April 1945, Paradies accompanied one of the last transports of women prisoners to the Lauenburg subcamp and fled. After she was captured, she was a defendant in the Stutthof trial. One witness testified: She ordered a group of female prisoners to undress in the freezing cold of winter, and then doused them with ice cold water. When the women moved, Paradies beat them. For this and other brutalities, including causing the deaths of some prisoners[citation needed], Paradies was sentenced to death. She was publicly executed by short-drop hanging on 4 July 1946 with 10 other Stutthof guards and kapos (five women and six men in all); Paradies was the last of the women to hang.

"Blood is the juice of life. It contains everything a person needs for nutrition." In 2001, Armin Meiwes killed and feasted on a willing victim at his home in Rotenburg, Germany who he met through an online ad he placed looking for someone to be eaten.  And once he was done, he butchered the man's body and stored it in freezer bags in a secret compartment in his kitchen refrigerator for the next 20 months.  In total, Meiwes consumed more than 44 pounds of human flesh and even tried to grind his bones into flour.  But eventually, the meat began to run out, so Meiwes returned online to find a new victim. This time, however, a college student alerted the police to the ads. When they raided Meiwes' home, they uncovered his first victims' remains along with a four-hour-long videotape of the initial encounter — only 19 minutes of which were played at his trial because the rest was deemed "too disturbing to show." Go inside the disturbing story of the German ca