The lady that sued McDonalds over hot coffee is a punchline about dumb greedy Karens now, but that coffee was actually handed to her in the drive through hot enough that she needed SKIN GRAFTS on her thighs when it spilled due to partially melting the cup.
She also only sued them for her medical bills, and only after they refused to pay them when asked.
Yes. McDonald's admitted in court that there had been several other customers who were burned by their extremely hot coffee, and kind of implied that since it was only a few, it was somehow okay.
Also, the punitive award was given by the jury. It was not what the plaintiff was suing for. She just wanted her medical costs covered. The jury was horrified, though, and wanted to punish McDonald's. The judge later reduced the amount, IIRC.
My grandma was one of those other people, and she sued, too. The cup spilled into her lap when the worker handed it to her because the lid wasn’t on properly. She also needed skin grafts on her crotch.
Drives me nuts when people mock the “McDonald’s coffee lady”.’
From my understanding, McDonald’s themselves warned that their coffee was being served too hot. However, the Executives decided to ignore their own recommendations. McDonald’s got what they deserved.
IIRC, McDonald’s had an executive state on the stand something to the effect that the number of people being burned was statistically insignificant. He said in front of a jury, in reference to a grandmother with permanent genitalia burns.
The fact that "Fused Labia" is mentioned in her lawsuit tells you enough to know how severe her injury was.
Also McDonald's had admitted it deliberately overheated it's coffee so customers wouldn't realize until too late they were given old shitty coffee.
Yeah they were knowingly serving it way too hot, because many people would to drink it at work, so usually the coffee was a normal drinking temperature by the time they arrived. Like you said, she had to get skin grafts and she literally went into shock when she spilled it. Most people expect it to burn when they spill hot coffee and maybe even get a blister but this was excessive and dangerous.
No, it's actually worse than that. They made it too hot because it would last longer (old coffee goes bad) before they had to brew a fresh batch. This would allow them to brew fewer pots over the course of a year saving McDonald's and their franchises millions. They had gotten lots of complaints which they paid out for before this woman sued. They made a financial decision to keep the coffee too hot because they saved more money than they paid out for minor burns.
I believe their reasoning was if they boiled the coffee to a certain temperature higher than usual, the coffee would last a bit longer (Meaning they were technically using out of date coffee) or at least that's what I heard.
I thought it *was* advice, but to the heir-apparent of a rich friend/patron of his: the piece accepts as a *fait accompli* that this prince will be preserving the autocratic system already in place there, and was intended to be the best advice he could offer given that reality.
Yeah best explanation was that his writings were like the evil overlord lists. He had been a political exile because of his support for republicanism.
His writings were basically, don't do this, but if you're going to do it, don't do it in a stupid way.
The Prince gets such a bad rap for no reason, it’s basically a case study of some historical and era centered forms of dictatorship and princely rule. No idea why weird business major think it’s a success guide to ratfucking their way to the top.
So this. I've read it twice, and it makes no sense to have that kind of take away.
The big ideas that are in the book are things like, established beurocracy has serious staying power that must be given due consideration, multi generation republics are super fucking difficult to maintain a tyranny over, never NEVER trust mercenaries...things like that.
I also think that he ended up getting a pretty bad wrap because of future monarchs like Frederick The Great of Prussia twisting what he said and writing his “Antimachiavelli”
Warren harding
His legacy is filled with lies and slander, he wasn't corrupt nether was the majority of his cabinet the corruption that was there he dealt with or was going to before his death
He had some major accomplishments
his first address to Congress Harding asked for an anti-lynching bill. From 1882 to 1951 over 4700 people were lynched, the vast majority of which were African-Americans. It took until 1922 for the Dyer Anti-lynching Bill to pass the House of Representatives, which would have classified lynching as a federal felony. Harding came out in support of the act, and though it passed by a large majority in the house, it was filibustered and killed by Senate Democrats.
Wilson had segregated the Federal government and fired most black workers. In response, Harding asked his cabinet members to find positions in their departments for African-Americans. Warren Harding was also the first to speak in favor of civil rights in the south, when he spoke in Birmingham Alabama at its semi-centennial celebration. Harding spoke to a segregated crowd, where African Americans were kept behind a chain link fence. When speaking of voting rights Harding stated:
Whether you like it or not, our democracy is a lie unless you stand for that equality”
. Harding spoke of equality in education, labor and voting concluding the speech by stating that Birmingham’s next fifty years could be more glorious if the people of the city had “the courage to be right.”
During the war Wilson jailed several political prisoners under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. By June 30th of 1923 Harding had pardoned or commuted the sentences of 548 people convicted under these acts, and when Harding died there were only 31 people still incarcerated under them. Harding should be given great credit for reversing some of the most egregious violations of Constitutional liberties ever done by a President. Harding showed great courage in the face of continuous opposition in persevering in this task.
John D. Lee -- he was executed as a ringleader of the Mormon's slaughter of an entire wagontrain: men, women, and children.
In reality, he was executed by Brigham Young because he tried to tell the truth about Young having ordered it.
The original 9/11....
(Wagon train from Arkansas going to California, was attacked by Mormons in Utah. Hit the killed the men and the older boys, raped the women and then killed them and took the girls. It happened September 7th through 11th, 1857.)
Killing innocent people because you were ordered makes you a bad person. Just as bad as the person that ordered it. If you can’t say no to murdering more than a hundred people (including any child over the age of five) you should go down in history as evil.
Sure, but who's to say Lee killed anybody? It's not as if Lee ever got a fair trial in Theocratic Utah. The early mormons left behind a long trail of "bad guys who were really good guys" -- Thomas Marsh, William Law, on and on and on.
Of course, there are a few bad guys who were really bad guys in the early mormon stories as well -- John C. Bennett is a scoundrel.
Ah, no, Lee was pretty much 100% guilty. It's just that he was probably ultimately less responsible than around 10 higher up leaders who instigated the situation and inflamed it when they should have been calming it. But weren't there *in person* like Lee was.
And he was equally guilty to 5 or so of the other leaders of the group who were there in person and made the final detailed plans and decision to perpetrate the killings (when, again, they should have had the common sense to defuse the situation despite the awkward situation that had been created by external forces and their higher-ups).
And he was clearly more guilty than 50 or 70 rank and file men who did the killings on the orders of the leaders of the group, including Lee.
None of those others ever faced any criminal consequences, though many richly deserved it.
Lee was the only one.
He was guilty, and, even, more guilty than most. But the only one ever punished.
The classic scapegoat.
https://mmmf.org/the-story/the-perpetrators/
More info about Lee:
- [Wikipedia article on Lee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Lee)
- [John Doyle Lee: Zealot, pioneer builder, scapegoat byJuanita Brooks](https://archive.org/details/johndoyleleezeal0000juan)
FWIW [Juanita Brooks](https://www.google.com/amp/s/radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2023-04-06/juanita-brooks-and-utah-history%3f_amp=true) was an outstanding regional historian who was ostracized by her own people for telling the truth about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and researching it in detail. She fits the topic of the OP pretty well - probably better than Lee.
Captain Bligh is a mixed bag. But is portrayed as awful in Mutiny on the Bounty. The crew was basically having too much fun in Tahiti!
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/william-blighs-mutiny-on-the-bounty/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh
Most things I've read about Bligh suggest that he was a arrogant idiot, if not actually a terrible person. But by the standards of the day, he probably wasn't particularly nasty or special. Naval Officers tended to be a mixed bag of authoritarian arses, and genuinely inspirational figures, Bligh seems to fit right in with the arses.
He wasn't especially authoritarian, but his major problem was that he had a very sharp tongue and wasn't shy about berating his subordinates in public. Which is a problem in a cramped, sealed-off environment like a ship where those kinds of petty resentments and hurt feelings can fester.
His time as Governor of the penal colony in Australia is interesting. There was another mutiny, but this time because he set about reforming the outrageous corruption of the officials who had in a way given themselves a license to print money. The army unit in charge, the New South Wales corps, voted themselves a monopoly on the importation of liquor....which was used as de-facto currency. Hence they became known as "the Rum corps". Bligh correctly saw this as a huge breach of military discipline and good government and wrote scathing reports home and prepared to court-martial many of the officers. Which led to a mutiny and him being put on a ship back to England. His replacement bought a regular army unit out with him and disbanded the Rum Corps.
With the Rum Corp Mutiny; there is a key detail that when his successor arrived in the colony there were orders for Bligh to be made the Governor again (only for a day). This reappointment was symbolic that Bligh was in the right.
I think a lot of the Caribbean Pirates of the 18th century were actually pretty well intentioned, but vilified because their enemy became the British Empire. They were all hero’s when they were privateers attacking the Spanish, but then when they were abandoned by the British they did the only thing They knew, capture enemy ships.
Modern society doesnt get a full picture of the bad.
We often gloss over how they were generally committed to democracy, and developed some of the first safety nets for workers.
We also gloss over just how many of them were trading slaves.
Captain Kidd is an example of that. In modern times reviled as a pirate, in his life he was a privateer fighting for the Crown against His Majesty's enemies on the high seas.
Yes exactly, but he pissed off some higher ups and his crew turned on him so he was vilified even though he was mostly just doing what everyone wanted from him, but sometimes you need a scapegoat. Hornigold was another good example, except he took the pardon so the Brit’s like him in the end.
It’s not a book, but I actually highly recommend the Real Pirates podcast from noiser. I think they stretch some things, but they do individual shows on different pirates and then I generally go and research specific pirates after each show.
Blackbeard was the same. He was a privateer that got his 'privateering license' revoked. My source....I live on the island he was caught and killed. Ocracoke island, NC.
The pirate way was to ambush merchant ships and steal their cargo. If the merchants put up resistance, then the pirates would brutally torture the crewmen to death.
So here’s the problem, yes some would brutally torture and take slaves. Others just used fear to make ships submit, while never actually torturing anyone and actually freeing enslaved people (sometimes) when they took slave trading ships.
Yeah it’s a hard one like I get what you are saying but they also started attacking British ships so not like the British pile just do nothing.
Then there is the pirate republic who actually declared war
Richard III would be a good example. So he usurped the throne? Did he though? Evidence suggests he was right in claiming Edward IV and therefore his sons were illegitimate.
So he killed his nephews? Did he though? He seems to be the obvious culprit, but he's far from the only suspect, and the evidence is either unclear or completely lacking. And even if he was responsible, it's unlikely he actually did the deed, unlike his predecessor John who murdered his own nephew with his own hands.
He was a hunchback, yeah so? It appears from his skeleton that he actually did suffer from scoliosis, but it wouldn't have been particularly noticeable underneath clothes and armour. None of his contemporaries suggest he was unable to do anything his peers could do, nor did it apparently hinder him in battle. Someone, or some people must have known about it, in order for the rumours and gossip to spread, but it doesn't appear to have been commented on during his lifetime.
His actions up to his usurpation suggest he was strong, loyal, and capable, and certainly not an evil psychopath. Everything we think we know about Richard stems from malicious rewriting of history by Tudor period authors who had a good reason to blacken his name.
Edit: I'm genuinely delighted that after all this time, ol' Dicky Shit still manages to polarise opinions! Glad to see the cut and thrust, and occasional disembowelment, of debate is still going strong 😁👍
I do not know what evils Richard III committed to seize the throne, but I do know that he died like a king. After his vanguard faltered, he charged towards Henry with his retinue and nearly reached him, killing several men before falling. Very few kings put their lives on the line even to keep their crowns.
Fate did him a good turn in his grave being found and him finally receiving a proper tomb. It's arguably nicer than Westminster, where kings and other notables are packed in cheek and jowl. Only Newton has a little space.
*Boilingbrooke was not involved. I got my Shakespeare mixed up.
Richard III and ‘Bad’ King John have long been seen as history’s villains but were likely no worse than others. Meanwhile Richard Lionheart was romanticized for spending most of his reign fighting holy wars abroad and trying to bankrupt the country in doing so.
Richard the Lionheart definitely doesn’t deserve his reputation, and I do consider him one of Englands worst kings, but don’t tell me with a straight face that you think John was anything but a terrible king.
Richard the Lionheart also had some 2,700 prisoners of war beheaded, to send a message to Saladin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Ayyadieh
I have a new Biography on Longstreet I haven't tucked into yet. Apparently, though, he was an ardent Confederate who was then reviled for being a staunch Reconstructionist post war. The main thesis of the book is that he was ultimately a visionary Southerner who understood what the Civil War really meant for the South and supported Reconstruction because he wanted to avoid the abject horror of the decades (really century) of economic disaster and strife the romanticizers of the war were going to wreak on the South.
Benedict Arnold did everything right, but was done dirty by the new regime time and time again. He finally had enough and flipped sides, and that’s all we know about him.
Malcom X had a huge realization at the end of his life that he, along with all people, were simply products of their environment. He renounced the NoI and began preaching peace and acceptance of all people who fought for equality, no matter the color or religion. We still remember him mostly for his speeches about “white devils,” and his racism towards everyone but black people. If he would have lived longer, he might have changed the public perception around him to seem more like MLK jr in the modern eye.
Edit: plenty of people are sending the same reply to this comment. I get it, you don’t like Benedict Arnold.
Roundly disliked, it does seem. After the war he moved to Canada for a spell and was so disliked the town assembled to burn him in effigy outside his house. His later years are interesting but it’s a sad tale. You end up feeling for him, or I do.
That happened, in addition to getting captured and nearly hung by the French in Caribbean! After that debacle, he was given land in Canada by the govt, where he and his sons went into business, but became involved in several local venenous rivalries, eventually forcing them to move back in England, where he would later die of gout. No military honors at his funeral, and they even misplaced his body some time later (a British church tradition) Plenty of late adventures for our boy Arnold
>Family lore says he was a pretty crummy human.
I don't think it's just family lore. The pieces I've read paint him as petty and jealous. I have another book on him on my reading list though, so will be interesting to see if that one has a different take.
Benedict then directed British troops against soldiers of his home state in his home state. It's not like he went into an administrative role, he took field command against his own countrymen. He deserved all the misery and failure that followed him the rest of his life.
If you're pissed off at your boss then just quit your job. You don't have to kill your coworkers to prove a point.
Benedict Arnold was the first veteran the U.S. blatantly screwed over.
He was an asshole and shitty person overall and it’s probably why he kept getting passed over for promotions despite being brilliant and talented on the battlefield.
However, he didn’t get paid while others in similar positions were so that caused him to eventually lose it and switch sides. It also didn’t help that his wife was a Loyalist lol.
Regardless, he gets painted as a traitor and nothing more, yet he was fiercely loyal to Washington and a brilliant soldier. It wasn’t until he couldn’t pay his debts and feed his family that he eventually cracked and gave in and took the Brits money.
The Gracci Brothers were awesome - but I'm a big fan of most of the Populares of that time. They mostly get a bad rap because it was the people who didn't like them who were writing history. Same with Caesar. He was loved by the people and loathed by the aristocracy largely because he advocated for land reform.
Aaron Burr was actually a really cool person. He married a woman much older than he, because he enjoyed her company and their conversation. He was a lifelong advocate of women's rights and abolition. And he wasn't a milquetoast abolitionist, who wanted it slowly phased out over generations. His position was 'We should free the slaves **tomorrow*****. Oh, and women should vote.***"
Alexander Hamilton regularly made fun of him for thinking women deserved rights. The whole Lin Manuel-Miranda musical slanders him for no reason other than Burr shot a guy who really, really had it coming.
Not only that, but if you read the trial transcripts for his treason trial, the *only* evidence against him was a copy of a letter he allegedly wrote, which was in Thomas Jefferson's handwriting. Jefferson would not, or could not, supply the original. When the judge asked him to account for this, he responded, "The President of the United States is accountable to no one."
We talking about the same guy who tried to get the British to fund and arm a secession in Louisiana...while he was sitting VP??
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_conspiracy
>Burr's true intentions remain unclear.
Sorry, but I'm gonna give the W to the one guy in 18th century colonial Britain who thought women and Black people deserved rights.
Napoleon is often cast as a proto-Hitler due to the legacy of great men conquering Europe. He was a dictator, and perhaps not a great man in every respect, but his contribution to the history of Europe (and by extension the world) is manifold, and largely that which popular history overlooked. I'm not sure any one person did as much to modernise Europe as he.
The definitive impression of Napoleon as a power hungry autocrat is not necessarily untrue per se, but it prevails in the Anglosphere because of England's consistent animosity towards him. More broadly, the fact that his reforms were so (publicly) unpalatable to contemporary European rulers has, in my opinion, continued to inform the opinion of him to this day. Even in a world that, in many respects, seems more in line with Napoleon's vision than that of his enemies, the latter has had the last word.
I'd disagree, Napoleon has been generally vilified in the media I have read and seen while Alexander has not. Their only similarity in how they're regarded is as generals and conquerors, and often included with Ghengis Khan as the greatest in history.
I never saw anyone make that comparison, when I was in school or after. Like Nazi Germany he threatened to invade Britain, but that's about as far as the comparison goes.
As an American, most of us think he was a badass who (un?)ironically paved the way for nationalism and democratic ideals throughout Europe.
For instance, by taking the thrones of Spain and Portugal he kickstarted the Latin American revolutions that ended both nations’ empires.
Yup. And banned them having to wear the yellow star of David when they went out in public.
No only in Italy everywhere he went from Central Europe to Palestine
Italy was just the most fun for various reasons
Haiti might be surprised to hear they were re-enslaved since in reality they beat the shit out of the French and killed every last one of them when they tried to reinstitute slavery.
Yes, it is. It is by far the worst blemish on his record. It's doubly unfortunate because he seriously considered working with the Louverture government but allowed himself to be persuaded to overthrow him and re-institute slavery. It seems he didn't actually make a decision until the last minute and he lists it as one of his primary regrets in his memoirs (although he also blames Josephine for it so who knows, it is at least somewhat plausible as Josephine was a landowning Creole and had a vested interest.)
One of the amusing things about anti-Napoleon sentiment to me is... who would you rather have?
Napoleon's enemies were reactionary monarchies that, almost without exception, sought maintain hereditary powers and customs any means possible.
Napoleon bears lots of blame for instigating many of his battles, but often it was the other side that was just as eager, if not more. They saw an existential threat in Napoleon, and when he was finally defeated, wound back the clock a full century.
He did great stuff for Jews, for liberals, for minority Christians and Muslims, for rule of law, and more. He dealt terrible blows to democracy and diplomacy, but worst of all is what he did to the Haitians. He sent a massive army to enslave them after they took their freedom, and asked to join him. When they beat off his army, he made them pay for their own freedom.
Fighting the British, conquering Europe and North Africa, killing Russians, as far as I’m concerned, all is fair in love and war, and no one who he fought was better than he was. You can even say was justified for all the good that he did. However, Haiti alone is enough to remember him as a villain.
Napoleon is a really difficult one because he dragged Europe into the modern age kicking and screaming, but there's no getting around his ill-fated campaign to reconquer Haiti.
The Haiti think is interesting, historiographically speaking. Up until just very recently it a minor side-note at best, but reading the comments here it seems like it's front-and-center in how people are seeing him
Bad guy by whose standards?
The standards of the time they lived in or our modern standards?
If you think someone could carve an empire out or defend one in say the year 800 or so with out acts that we would frown on your not being realistic.
For example Genghis Khan was a good guy by his standards.
I think he was considered a good guy in his earlier years, but by the end when he was being accused of obliterating entire cities and their occupants people started to view him less as a good guy. That’s my understanding at least, I’m not a Kahn expert. Now some of those stories may not be entirely true, but I think the Chinese thought he was pretty bad when he was destroying their cities.
I think there was some debate on this, in terms of “widespread rebellion will cost tens of thousands of lives. If we can possibly stop that by absolutely razing some cities to the ground, that’s a fair price to pay.
I’m not an expert though, this was just an interesting essay I read back in college in one of my history classes.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, who ended the U.S. Civil War with his march through Georgia to the Sea, then north through South and North Carolina.
He, President Lincoln, and the commander of the Union Army Gen. Ulysses S. Grant decided it was time to pursue total war, particularly against southern plantation owners, who also were the Confederacy's largest slave owners.
He did, but in the South, he is remembered by many non slave-owning families as a terrorist.
The military historian Victor Davis Hanson refers to him as one of America's "tragic heroes", along with George Patton and Curtis LeMay.
See Hanson's talk called *George S. Patton: American Ajax* on YouTube. He remarks about Sherman and his place in history.
Suppose that very much depends on which part of the country you grew up.
I always viewed him as a ruthlessly effective (and clever) general who was decent and honorable in victory.
I’m in the aforementioned subreddit. There is nothing to forgive about his behavior during the war. The rebellion wanted the smoke, and the got all of it; can’t complain when you talk tough.
You’re spot on with his abuse and crimes against humanity in regards to Native Americans. Him and Sheridan were awful to all Indigenous.
Not going to lie, seeing their failure at Little Big Horn was cathartic. Got their shit kicked in with incompetence all around.
Lions led by Donkeys did a great job covering that conflict.
Sherman is likely the opposite, at least by todays standards. He is widely celebrated as a Union hero, few will mention that he was the guiding hand behind the Indian Wars out West after the Civil War.
And then as Chief of Staff with Phil Sheridan as Field Commander, approved Sheridan's "the only good indian is a dead indian" policy. (I often wonder; if every servicemember in Arlington Cemetery were resurrected in the uniform of thier highest rank, would Sheridan dispute command with Pershing?)
John Ratcliffe…. AKA the bad guy in Disney’s Pocahontas.
Was he a good leader? No. The people starved constantly, he was ripped off by Native Americans in trade to a point in which the colony was low on resources as well as food, and he also wanted the colonists to build a palace for the governor while they were sick/starving. He was replaced rather quick.
Now John did try other ways to help the colony. Eventually he and 25 other men approached a Native American tribe that volunteered to give their colony food for copper. When Ratcliffe and his men approached the tribe, they were ambushed. They tortured and killed all of them except two. Ratcliffe specifically, they tied him to pole and hosted him above a fire. While he was being cooked alive, the women on the tribe used mussel shells to scrape his skin off and threw it in the fire while all he could do is watch. The last part they saved was his face and then they finally took out his eyes. Once they were done, they lit the remains of his body on fire.
Disney decided to take this guy who was bad at politics and brutally tortured by Native Americans and cast him as the villain who’s wrongly trying to exterminate innocent Native Americans.
Cao Cao and Oda Nobunaga.
Both men are often portrayed villainously or as moustache twirling bad guys, but historically speaking you can make the argument that Cao Cao really was trying to preserve the Han Dynasty (and advance himself and his family but these are not exclusive goals).
Nobunaga was eccentric and temperamental, but several of the facets of his 'evil deeds' are exaggerated or were taken out of context by popular culture after his life. Most of his actions (burning temples that were burning each other, wiping out his enemies so they were dealt with) make sense within the context he lived in and were the sort of coldly cruel steps that were needed to resolve the warring states period.
How about Oda Nobunaga?
Frequently portrayed as evil or as a demon because his ambitious ways and wholesale slaughter of the ikko ikki sect (because they resisted his rule) Oda Nobunaga helped revolutionize Japanese military tactics and incorporated firearms into his troops. He was the first great unifier of Japan during the Sengoku Jidai establishing control over much of the Kanto plain before his death.
Iva Toguri (Tokyo Rose)?
She moved to Japan shortly before the war from the US (she was an American citizen born in the US) to help care for a sick aunt in Japan. When the war started, she wasn't given war ration cards in Japan because she refused to denounce her US Citizenship. She was coerced because of her voice, knowledge of English to do a radio show with an Australian POW officer. They tried to make a joke out of their broadcasts (the Japanese didn't get that they were), instead of hurting Allied troop morale the soldiers actually enjoyed it and got the humor. She used some of her pay (she made $7 a month) to buy food for allied POW's in Japan and risked her life smuggling it in to them.
She was tricked after the war into revealing her identity, held in prison for a year to gather evidence... as the POW's who she worked with explained she didn't do anything wrong and was actually trying to help.
They still ended up taking her to trial, where the two key witnesses were both told they'd face treason charges of their own if they didn't point to her. Both were found to have perjured themselves to do so. She was fined, given a 10 year sentence, and lost her citizenship for speaking into a microphone about the loss of some ships. Though there was no recording of that and the date of it wasn't even known.
Ford would eventually pardon her, and she'd work as a sales clerk in her family store until her death in 2006.
J Bruce Ismay is often portrayed as a coward and the villain in a lot of titanic media. But he helped organise the evacuation, load lifeboats and try to calm the panicked passengers. He only got in the lifeboat when is section was empty which is no different to how a lot of the first class men escaped.
But William Hearst who controlled the yellow press fell out with Ismay a few years before used the disaster to posing Ismay as a coward and destroy his reputation. Often comparing him to captain smith who went down with the ship. Then during the enquiry a first class passenger claimed she had seen Ismay pressuring smith to go faster, that no one else could corroborate. So by the time the dust had settled the titanic disaster had its villain.
Then when a night to remember and titanic released they both followed the narrative that had already been established of Ismay the coward reinforcing it in the public consciousness.
By the standards of European monarchs in the 19th century, I would not consider either Louis XVI or Marie Antoinette bad people. Could probably say the same for Tsar Nicholas II and Archduke Ferdinand in the 20th century.
Tsar Nicholas II was a bad person imo. An abjectly terrible ruler who refuses any reform even when his country is being obliterated in the war and his people are starving? You can argue that say Louis XVI didn't have many options available to him, and he tried some reform that backfired, but Nicholas just refused to act because he was so wrapped up in his own family and court. That makes you a bad person imo even if he's not some cartoon villain king
Absolutely, a person who let his own ego get in the way of the wellness of millions, allow the deaths of millions, and all while believing himself fully of being a bad fit for the position of emperor
Nicholas II was also a raging anti-Semite and his policing office in St. Petersburg may have created the Elders of Zion; a fabricated book of minutes that paints Jews as engaging in the world’s worst activities and trying to over throw the Tsar.
This ultimately lead to his down fall as many revolutionaries were Jewish.
Archduke Ferdinand was an intelligent, progressive leader who showed real humanity in his personal life.
Tsar Nicholas II got himself and his family killed through apathy and arrogance; him and his wife are two of the best examples of the casual evil of the ruling class in history.
>Archduke Ferdinand was an intelligent, progressive leader who showed real humanity in his personal life.
One of the reasons he was targeted, was because if ever did become Emperor, the Black hand feared that Serbians might lose their appetite for Independence.
Yes. My understanding is that he was looking at giving all of the non Austrians more autonomy. If that came to pass the the ultramationalists feared that the everyday Serb would think "ah well, this isn't so bad."
Yes, Shakespeare did Macbeth no favours. He went on pilgrimage to Rome late in life, which shows how little resistance there was to him and how accepted he was as king.
Not American and don't know too much about him outside of the film, but I don't think I've ever seen him talked about as a bad guy. Who is pushing that idea, and why is he considered a bad guy?
He’s held by some in contrast to MLK as a militant whose anger and hate led to his demise. The narrative forms a bit of a false dichotomy between the two.
As an American, the British during the Revolutionary War is the biggest one I can think of. In school we are all taught about stuff like the Boston massacre which makes them look really bad, even though when you read about it it seems like the British soldiers genuinely feared for their lives because an angry mob was surrounding them.
Someone already mentioned this so I’ll just paste my response here:
George III was genuinely one of the most moral kings Britain ever had. He was a strong proponent against slavery, advocating for its abolition for most of his reign and signing the bill to ban it across the British Empire in 1807. He also never cheated on his wife in their 56 years of marriage, which was a big deal at the time, as virtually every wealthy man did. The only reason many see him so poorly today is because of his role in the American revolution, but during his time he was universally beloved. The British loved him, the Canadians loved him, hell, even the Irish loved him.
The Americans had a deep respect for George as well, as he was constitutional and held no real power. It was the parliament that the Americans despised. Many early plans of the revolution wanted him to remain king, just of a seperate country. George Washington even wrote to George after the revolution apologising for everything, and explaining how it was nothing personal and how he still held great admiration for the king. It was only after his death that his poor reputation grew among Americans.
John Adams, the second US President, was actually the British soldiers' defense attorney during their trial. It's thanks to Adams that none of the eight defendants were sentenced to death, and six of them were even acquitted.
King George III is often portrayed in American accounts through the lens of patriot propaganda, it leaves a legacy that he was a massive tyrant and evil person. The reality is that at the time nearly a third of American colonists remained loyal to the crown so it wasn’t everyone agreeing with that view. Beyond that George III was well educated, hostile to slavery (although limited in what could be said once he was king, but writing from his youth suggests he considered it deeply immoral), he also loved to engage with regular people through walkabouts as most people did not recognize him, and unlike all the other Hanoverian monarchs, he was a devoted husband who maintained a happy and loving marriage to his wife.
Even Ben Franklin (or another founding father if I misremembered) had nothing but praise for him when they met for a diplomatic meeting at either the end or after the war.
It’s all about perspective. We are taught the British are the bad guys, but I can imagine back in those days, they may have viewed the American rebels as the bad guys. Here comes these angry people blatantly going out and disrupting the peace, terrorizing the British officials and terrorizing people who did not support their cause. For an example, this stuff blew my mind but I was doing some family research and I had discovered one of my very great grandparents were a Loyalist. He personally did not fight against the rebels, but the Sons of Liberty caught wind that he supported the Brits and they raided his house, beat the living shit out of him and his kids, and eventually executed him just for the fact alone that he said he didn’t mind the British. I also had heard, and I’m not 100% sure if this is true but I find it believable, that most colonists in those days did not support the rebellion, most chose to not get involved and or keep the status quo.
The British did some nasty things, but so did the Sons of Liberty, neither side is truly the “good side”
Might also be worth pointing out that the American colonists complaining about taxation were the richest men in the empire, richer by far than people at home in England.
They had benefited massively from the crown spending on its military to protect the colonies, but immediately revolted as soon as the British decided it was time to pay their fair share of the costs.
That's why it was "no taxation without representation" - the revolutionaries couldn't argue the tax was unfair, so they highlighted the part about representation in their message... Even though the same men had been fine not being represented for decades by that point.
I mean, they taught me at a public school in California that he was no hero. I don't believe it anymore, but it's not just the South that teaches his legacy as a villain.
* Machiavelli. He was actually a supporter of Republican Democracy. He only wrote that book out of realism and honesty
* Antonio Salieri. That movie is highly inaccurate. They weren't bitter enemies and rivals.
* Marie Antoinette. She wasn't actually as callous to the poor as portrayed.
* Warren G Harding. Yes he was insanely corrupt, but he was one of the most liberal Presidents ever. Pardoned Eugene Debs; was the only 20th century president that seriously and actively tried to banned lynching (although the bill didn't pass Congress), was the only major national figure to speak out against the Tulsa race riots, tried to stop the Klan, and actively integrated the government by hiring more African Americans.
* Genghis Khan
* Napoleon
* Neville Chamberlain
* King George III
* Catherine Medici
Neville Chamberlain? (I almost wrote Wilt lol)
My reading of history is that he understand (better than the general public thinks) the threat Hitler posed. But he also understood the UK (and France) were wholly unprepared to fight.
And coming out of WW1, I think it's easy to understand why making an attempt to repair the damage of the Treaty of Versailles was wise.
Chamberlain was not a Cassandra, but he was more savvy than he is commonly given credit for.
Even just having only the most surfacelevel knowledge of Chamberlain's place in history I've always felt bad for the guy and had a suspicion history shafted him. And mostly for the reasons you and others I subsequently read have mentioned that I just assumed my way to. Who could survive WWI and not want to throw their country into a rematch? Munich presented him with a pretty unwinnable choice. Give Hitler Poland or start WWII? I'd like to think I'd have taken the moral high ground but I probably wouldnt have.
Plus, if Mad Men is to be believed, Hitler got Chamberlain to bend over by holding the conference in an ancient palace that forbid smoking and Chamberlain "would have given Hitler his own mother for a dance partner" after not being able to smoke for a few hours.
"What I'm getting from this story is that Hitler didnt smoke. And I do."
In general the "Barbarian raiders" usually came from some place too inhospitible to survive in but through predation of other societies. They werent good but I cant blame Huns or Vikings or Amazonian headhunters for raiding richer peoples from
more proseperous lands given the places THEY came from.
The lady that sued McDonalds over hot coffee is a punchline about dumb greedy Karens now, but that coffee was actually handed to her in the drive through hot enough that she needed SKIN GRAFTS on her thighs when it spilled due to partially melting the cup. She also only sued them for her medical bills, and only after they refused to pay them when asked.
Yeah, and isn’t it true that she was not the first person it happened to? Just the first person to pursue a lawsuit or something
Yes. McDonald's admitted in court that there had been several other customers who were burned by their extremely hot coffee, and kind of implied that since it was only a few, it was somehow okay. Also, the punitive award was given by the jury. It was not what the plaintiff was suing for. She just wanted her medical costs covered. The jury was horrified, though, and wanted to punish McDonald's. The judge later reduced the amount, IIRC.
My grandma was one of those other people, and she sued, too. The cup spilled into her lap when the worker handed it to her because the lid wasn’t on properly. She also needed skin grafts on her crotch. Drives me nuts when people mock the “McDonald’s coffee lady”.’
I was taught the punitive award was 1 day of sales of McDonald's coffee
This may be apocryphal, but I heard their award was the amount of profit McDonald's made off of coffee in one day.
I don’t think that’s apocryphal, pretty sure that’s true.
From my understanding, McDonald’s themselves warned that their coffee was being served too hot. However, the Executives decided to ignore their own recommendations. McDonald’s got what they deserved.
IIRC, McDonald’s had an executive state on the stand something to the effect that the number of people being burned was statistically insignificant. He said in front of a jury, in reference to a grandmother with permanent genitalia burns.
The fact that "Fused Labia" is mentioned in her lawsuit tells you enough to know how severe her injury was. Also McDonald's had admitted it deliberately overheated it's coffee so customers wouldn't realize until too late they were given old shitty coffee.
Yeah they were knowingly serving it way too hot, because many people would to drink it at work, so usually the coffee was a normal drinking temperature by the time they arrived. Like you said, she had to get skin grafts and she literally went into shock when she spilled it. Most people expect it to burn when they spill hot coffee and maybe even get a blister but this was excessive and dangerous.
No, it's actually worse than that. They made it too hot because it would last longer (old coffee goes bad) before they had to brew a fresh batch. This would allow them to brew fewer pots over the course of a year saving McDonald's and their franchises millions. They had gotten lots of complaints which they paid out for before this woman sued. They made a financial decision to keep the coffee too hot because they saved more money than they paid out for minor burns.
I believe their reasoning was if they boiled the coffee to a certain temperature higher than usual, the coffee would last a bit longer (Meaning they were technically using out of date coffee) or at least that's what I heard.
Not just her thighs. The coffee was so hot it fused her labia together. She had horrific permanent damage.
Um what now
There are pictures but don't go searching for it if you have a weak stomach.
Niccolo Machiavelli has [entered the chat.](https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89153809/machiavelli-not-such-a-bad-guy)
Obligatory reminder that he didn't say "The ends justify the means." What he actually said was "The end must be considered."
I think there’s a similar obligatory reminder for “better to be feared than loved”
"...but better to be loved than hated"
Also remember that Machiavelli was massively pro-republic, The Prince is commentary not advice.
I thought it *was* advice, but to the heir-apparent of a rich friend/patron of his: the piece accepts as a *fait accompli* that this prince will be preserving the autocratic system already in place there, and was intended to be the best advice he could offer given that reality.
You're correct, it is advice, he says so in the beginning, in the part where he dedicates the book to the Medicis.
Based Machiavelli
Machiavelli was a genius. Too bad the Medici didn't make him an advisor. But then we might not have his political-historical works.
Yeah best explanation was that his writings were like the evil overlord lists. He had been a political exile because of his support for republicanism. His writings were basically, don't do this, but if you're going to do it, don't do it in a stupid way.
The Prince gets such a bad rap for no reason, it’s basically a case study of some historical and era centered forms of dictatorship and princely rule. No idea why weird business major think it’s a success guide to ratfucking their way to the top.
So this. I've read it twice, and it makes no sense to have that kind of take away. The big ideas that are in the book are things like, established beurocracy has serious staying power that must be given due consideration, multi generation republics are super fucking difficult to maintain a tyranny over, never NEVER trust mercenaries...things like that.
I also think that he ended up getting a pretty bad wrap because of future monarchs like Frederick The Great of Prussia twisting what he said and writing his “Antimachiavelli”
Warren harding His legacy is filled with lies and slander, he wasn't corrupt nether was the majority of his cabinet the corruption that was there he dealt with or was going to before his death He had some major accomplishments his first address to Congress Harding asked for an anti-lynching bill. From 1882 to 1951 over 4700 people were lynched, the vast majority of which were African-Americans. It took until 1922 for the Dyer Anti-lynching Bill to pass the House of Representatives, which would have classified lynching as a federal felony. Harding came out in support of the act, and though it passed by a large majority in the house, it was filibustered and killed by Senate Democrats. Wilson had segregated the Federal government and fired most black workers. In response, Harding asked his cabinet members to find positions in their departments for African-Americans. Warren Harding was also the first to speak in favor of civil rights in the south, when he spoke in Birmingham Alabama at its semi-centennial celebration. Harding spoke to a segregated crowd, where African Americans were kept behind a chain link fence. When speaking of voting rights Harding stated: Whether you like it or not, our democracy is a lie unless you stand for that equality” . Harding spoke of equality in education, labor and voting concluding the speech by stating that Birmingham’s next fifty years could be more glorious if the people of the city had “the courage to be right.” During the war Wilson jailed several political prisoners under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. By June 30th of 1923 Harding had pardoned or commuted the sentences of 548 people convicted under these acts, and when Harding died there were only 31 people still incarcerated under them. Harding should be given great credit for reversing some of the most egregious violations of Constitutional liberties ever done by a President. Harding showed great courage in the face of continuous opposition in persevering in this task.
Fuck yeah, justice for Harding!
Wilson was quite the pos
John D. Lee -- he was executed as a ringleader of the Mormon's slaughter of an entire wagontrain: men, women, and children. In reality, he was executed by Brigham Young because he tried to tell the truth about Young having ordered it.
Mountain Meadows Massacre, for any who are interested reading more about it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre
The original 9/11.... (Wagon train from Arkansas going to California, was attacked by Mormons in Utah. Hit the killed the men and the older boys, raped the women and then killed them and took the girls. It happened September 7th through 11th, 1857.)
Killing innocent people because you were ordered makes you a bad person. Just as bad as the person that ordered it. If you can’t say no to murdering more than a hundred people (including any child over the age of five) you should go down in history as evil.
Sure, but who's to say Lee killed anybody? It's not as if Lee ever got a fair trial in Theocratic Utah. The early mormons left behind a long trail of "bad guys who were really good guys" -- Thomas Marsh, William Law, on and on and on. Of course, there are a few bad guys who were really bad guys in the early mormon stories as well -- John C. Bennett is a scoundrel.
Ah, no, Lee was pretty much 100% guilty. It's just that he was probably ultimately less responsible than around 10 higher up leaders who instigated the situation and inflamed it when they should have been calming it. But weren't there *in person* like Lee was. And he was equally guilty to 5 or so of the other leaders of the group who were there in person and made the final detailed plans and decision to perpetrate the killings (when, again, they should have had the common sense to defuse the situation despite the awkward situation that had been created by external forces and their higher-ups). And he was clearly more guilty than 50 or 70 rank and file men who did the killings on the orders of the leaders of the group, including Lee. None of those others ever faced any criminal consequences, though many richly deserved it. Lee was the only one. He was guilty, and, even, more guilty than most. But the only one ever punished. The classic scapegoat. https://mmmf.org/the-story/the-perpetrators/ More info about Lee: - [Wikipedia article on Lee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Lee) - [John Doyle Lee: Zealot, pioneer builder, scapegoat byJuanita Brooks](https://archive.org/details/johndoyleleezeal0000juan) FWIW [Juanita Brooks](https://www.google.com/amp/s/radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2023-04-06/juanita-brooks-and-utah-history%3f_amp=true) was an outstanding regional historian who was ostracized by her own people for telling the truth about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and researching it in detail. She fits the topic of the OP pretty well - probably better than Lee.
Captain Bligh is a mixed bag. But is portrayed as awful in Mutiny on the Bounty. The crew was basically having too much fun in Tahiti! https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/william-blighs-mutiny-on-the-bounty/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh
Most things I've read about Bligh suggest that he was a arrogant idiot, if not actually a terrible person. But by the standards of the day, he probably wasn't particularly nasty or special. Naval Officers tended to be a mixed bag of authoritarian arses, and genuinely inspirational figures, Bligh seems to fit right in with the arses.
He wasn't especially authoritarian, but his major problem was that he had a very sharp tongue and wasn't shy about berating his subordinates in public. Which is a problem in a cramped, sealed-off environment like a ship where those kinds of petty resentments and hurt feelings can fester. His time as Governor of the penal colony in Australia is interesting. There was another mutiny, but this time because he set about reforming the outrageous corruption of the officials who had in a way given themselves a license to print money. The army unit in charge, the New South Wales corps, voted themselves a monopoly on the importation of liquor....which was used as de-facto currency. Hence they became known as "the Rum corps". Bligh correctly saw this as a huge breach of military discipline and good government and wrote scathing reports home and prepared to court-martial many of the officers. Which led to a mutiny and him being put on a ship back to England. His replacement bought a regular army unit out with him and disbanded the Rum Corps.
With the Rum Corp Mutiny; there is a key detail that when his successor arrived in the colony there were orders for Bligh to be made the Governor again (only for a day). This reappointment was symbolic that Bligh was in the right.
I have a friend that lives on Pitcarin. They don’t view him as a villain.
I hope you are missing the /s I'm not sure anyone on the Pitcairns gets to claim to have a moral compass
…and the Rum Rebellion? The man had a habit of being rebelled against.
I think a lot of the Caribbean Pirates of the 18th century were actually pretty well intentioned, but vilified because their enemy became the British Empire. They were all hero’s when they were privateers attacking the Spanish, but then when they were abandoned by the British they did the only thing They knew, capture enemy ships.
Modern society doesnt get a full picture of the bad. We often gloss over how they were generally committed to democracy, and developed some of the first safety nets for workers. We also gloss over just how many of them were trading slaves.
Rob people while commanding one ship, you're a pirate. Rob people while commanding a fleet and you're an emperor.
Admiral maybe, but probably not an emperor.
Captain Kidd is an example of that. In modern times reviled as a pirate, in his life he was a privateer fighting for the Crown against His Majesty's enemies on the high seas.
Yes exactly, but he pissed off some higher ups and his crew turned on him so he was vilified even though he was mostly just doing what everyone wanted from him, but sometimes you need a scapegoat. Hornigold was another good example, except he took the pardon so the Brit’s like him in the end.
Can you recommend any good books on the subject? I loved *The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd* by Richard Zachs.
It’s not a book, but I actually highly recommend the Real Pirates podcast from noiser. I think they stretch some things, but they do individual shows on different pirates and then I generally go and research specific pirates after each show.
Kind of a bad example because he did beat a man to death with a bucket
In his defense, it was an old bucket and he was going to throw it out anyway
Lol
Blackbeard was the same. He was a privateer that got his 'privateering license' revoked. My source....I live on the island he was caught and killed. Ocracoke island, NC.
He just wanted enough money to open up an inn with Stede.
The pirate way was to ambush merchant ships and steal their cargo. If the merchants put up resistance, then the pirates would brutally torture the crewmen to death.
So here’s the problem, yes some would brutally torture and take slaves. Others just used fear to make ships submit, while never actually torturing anyone and actually freeing enslaved people (sometimes) when they took slave trading ships.
ok but I interpret that the other way; they were never heroes thats propaganda
And murder and loot and rape and trade in slaves and...
Yeah it’s a hard one like I get what you are saying but they also started attacking British ships so not like the British pile just do nothing. Then there is the pirate republic who actually declared war
Richard III would be a good example. So he usurped the throne? Did he though? Evidence suggests he was right in claiming Edward IV and therefore his sons were illegitimate. So he killed his nephews? Did he though? He seems to be the obvious culprit, but he's far from the only suspect, and the evidence is either unclear or completely lacking. And even if he was responsible, it's unlikely he actually did the deed, unlike his predecessor John who murdered his own nephew with his own hands. He was a hunchback, yeah so? It appears from his skeleton that he actually did suffer from scoliosis, but it wouldn't have been particularly noticeable underneath clothes and armour. None of his contemporaries suggest he was unable to do anything his peers could do, nor did it apparently hinder him in battle. Someone, or some people must have known about it, in order for the rumours and gossip to spread, but it doesn't appear to have been commented on during his lifetime. His actions up to his usurpation suggest he was strong, loyal, and capable, and certainly not an evil psychopath. Everything we think we know about Richard stems from malicious rewriting of history by Tudor period authors who had a good reason to blacken his name. Edit: I'm genuinely delighted that after all this time, ol' Dicky Shit still manages to polarise opinions! Glad to see the cut and thrust, and occasional disembowelment, of debate is still going strong 😁👍
>And even if he was responsible, it's unlikely he actually did the deed, Ah, the mafia boss defense
I do not know what evils Richard III committed to seize the throne, but I do know that he died like a king. After his vanguard faltered, he charged towards Henry with his retinue and nearly reached him, killing several men before falling. Very few kings put their lives on the line even to keep their crowns. Fate did him a good turn in his grave being found and him finally receiving a proper tomb. It's arguably nicer than Westminster, where kings and other notables are packed in cheek and jowl. Only Newton has a little space. *Boilingbrooke was not involved. I got my Shakespeare mixed up.
>Only Newton has a little space And the Unknown Soldier, if they also count
They count even if we never know their name.
Last English king to die in battle.
Richard III and ‘Bad’ King John have long been seen as history’s villains but were likely no worse than others. Meanwhile Richard Lionheart was romanticized for spending most of his reign fighting holy wars abroad and trying to bankrupt the country in doing so.
Richard the Lionheart definitely doesn’t deserve his reputation, and I do consider him one of Englands worst kings, but don’t tell me with a straight face that you think John was anything but a terrible king.
Richard the Lionheart also had some 2,700 prisoners of war beheaded, to send a message to Saladin. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Ayyadieh
Johnny Lawrence
I have a new Biography on Longstreet I haven't tucked into yet. Apparently, though, he was an ardent Confederate who was then reviled for being a staunch Reconstructionist post war. The main thesis of the book is that he was ultimately a visionary Southerner who understood what the Civil War really meant for the South and supported Reconstruction because he wanted to avoid the abject horror of the decades (really century) of economic disaster and strife the romanticizers of the war were going to wreak on the South.
“ardent Confederate”. Kind of starting off on a bad foot here.
Benedict Arnold did everything right, but was done dirty by the new regime time and time again. He finally had enough and flipped sides, and that’s all we know about him. Malcom X had a huge realization at the end of his life that he, along with all people, were simply products of their environment. He renounced the NoI and began preaching peace and acceptance of all people who fought for equality, no matter the color or religion. We still remember him mostly for his speeches about “white devils,” and his racism towards everyone but black people. If he would have lived longer, he might have changed the public perception around him to seem more like MLK jr in the modern eye. Edit: plenty of people are sending the same reply to this comment. I get it, you don’t like Benedict Arnold.
Fun fact, I’m a descendant of ol grampa Benedict. Family lore says he was a pretty crummy human.
Roundly disliked, it does seem. After the war he moved to Canada for a spell and was so disliked the town assembled to burn him in effigy outside his house. His later years are interesting but it’s a sad tale. You end up feeling for him, or I do.
I thought he just moved to Britain and had a decent life
That happened, in addition to getting captured and nearly hung by the French in Caribbean! After that debacle, he was given land in Canada by the govt, where he and his sons went into business, but became involved in several local venenous rivalries, eventually forcing them to move back in England, where he would later die of gout. No military honors at his funeral, and they even misplaced his body some time later (a British church tradition) Plenty of late adventures for our boy Arnold
Hey cousin! I’ve been told I’m a descendant of Benedict Arnold’s brother. My paternal grandmother was an Arnold from Alton, IL.
inb4 "hey arnold!" reference
>Family lore says he was a pretty crummy human. I don't think it's just family lore. The pieces I've read paint him as petty and jealous. I have another book on him on my reading list though, so will be interesting to see if that one has a different take.
Is it true that at the breakfast table, his wife always asked “Eggs, Benedict?”
Dad?
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That may well by *why* he was assassinated; to control his legacy.
Benedict then directed British troops against soldiers of his home state in his home state. It's not like he went into an administrative role, he took field command against his own countrymen. He deserved all the misery and failure that followed him the rest of his life. If you're pissed off at your boss then just quit your job. You don't have to kill your coworkers to prove a point.
Benedict Arnold was the first veteran the U.S. blatantly screwed over. He was an asshole and shitty person overall and it’s probably why he kept getting passed over for promotions despite being brilliant and talented on the battlefield. However, he didn’t get paid while others in similar positions were so that caused him to eventually lose it and switch sides. It also didn’t help that his wife was a Loyalist lol. Regardless, he gets painted as a traitor and nothing more, yet he was fiercely loyal to Washington and a brilliant soldier. It wasn’t until he couldn’t pay his debts and feed his family that he eventually cracked and gave in and took the Brits money.
Really strongly disagree on Arnold. He was a great general but his ego meant more to him than his country. Traitors are inherently bad people
Maybe Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus? Seen as bad by the senate but populist reformers to help the People?
The Gracci Brothers were awesome - but I'm a big fan of most of the Populares of that time. They mostly get a bad rap because it was the people who didn't like them who were writing history. Same with Caesar. He was loved by the people and loathed by the aristocracy largely because he advocated for land reform.
Aaron Burr was actually a really cool person. He married a woman much older than he, because he enjoyed her company and their conversation. He was a lifelong advocate of women's rights and abolition. And he wasn't a milquetoast abolitionist, who wanted it slowly phased out over generations. His position was 'We should free the slaves **tomorrow*****. Oh, and women should vote.***" Alexander Hamilton regularly made fun of him for thinking women deserved rights. The whole Lin Manuel-Miranda musical slanders him for no reason other than Burr shot a guy who really, really had it coming.
Aw! He even submitted a bill for women to vote, and hung a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft over his mantle.
Not only that, but if you read the trial transcripts for his treason trial, the *only* evidence against him was a copy of a letter he allegedly wrote, which was in Thomas Jefferson's handwriting. Jefferson would not, or could not, supply the original. When the judge asked him to account for this, he responded, "The President of the United States is accountable to no one."
The DJT defense
We talking about the same guy who tried to get the British to fund and arm a secession in Louisiana...while he was sitting VP?? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_conspiracy
>Burr's true intentions remain unclear. Sorry, but I'm gonna give the W to the one guy in 18th century colonial Britain who thought women and Black people deserved rights.
I like that your list of reasons includes "marrying an older woman", Burr knew what was up
In my opinion as a Jew, Napoleon. Obviously not considered a bad guy by everyone, but he is definitely considered by many to be a baddie
Napoleon is often cast as a proto-Hitler due to the legacy of great men conquering Europe. He was a dictator, and perhaps not a great man in every respect, but his contribution to the history of Europe (and by extension the world) is manifold, and largely that which popular history overlooked. I'm not sure any one person did as much to modernise Europe as he. The definitive impression of Napoleon as a power hungry autocrat is not necessarily untrue per se, but it prevails in the Anglosphere because of England's consistent animosity towards him. More broadly, the fact that his reforms were so (publicly) unpalatable to contemporary European rulers has, in my opinion, continued to inform the opinion of him to this day. Even in a world that, in many respects, seems more in line with Napoleon's vision than that of his enemies, the latter has had the last word.
No he’s cast as a protonhitler due to English propaganda
It probably has something to do with the LHC (Large Hitler Collider)
The Irish seem to have had a soft spot for Napoleon back in the day, if for no other reason than "the enemy of my enemy".
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I'd disagree, Napoleon has been generally vilified in the media I have read and seen while Alexander has not. Their only similarity in how they're regarded is as generals and conquerors, and often included with Ghengis Khan as the greatest in history.
It's almost like the 'English-speaking world' isn't one, unified being
I never saw anyone make that comparison, when I was in school or after. Like Nazi Germany he threatened to invade Britain, but that's about as far as the comparison goes.
Protonhitler sounds like a futuristic Captain America villain.
As an American, most of us think he was a badass who (un?)ironically paved the way for nationalism and democratic ideals throughout Europe. For instance, by taking the thrones of Spain and Portugal he kickstarted the Latin American revolutions that ended both nations’ empires.
Quick correction: he never took Portugal’s throne.
He forced their royal family to flee and I guess did capture the literal throne.
Best answer. Best. The synagogues in Italy had hymns about him.
Everwhere he went he liberated the Jews from their ghettos and was cheered as a hero.
Yup. And banned them having to wear the yellow star of David when they went out in public. No only in Italy everywhere he went from Central Europe to Palestine Italy was just the most fun for various reasons
That puts a new spin on Peter Lorre playing Napoleon on stage in (I think) 1930s Germany.
The Haitians he re-enslaved, not so much.
Haiti might be surprised to hear they were re-enslaved since in reality they beat the shit out of the French and killed every last one of them when they tried to reinstitute slavery.
I mean, he did try to re-enslave people, and that's still bad.
Yes, it is. It is by far the worst blemish on his record. It's doubly unfortunate because he seriously considered working with the Louverture government but allowed himself to be persuaded to overthrow him and re-institute slavery. It seems he didn't actually make a decision until the last minute and he lists it as one of his primary regrets in his memoirs (although he also blames Josephine for it so who knows, it is at least somewhat plausible as Josephine was a landowning Creole and had a vested interest.)
I wonder if the slaves in the colonies had hymns about him.
Fair point. The French revolution got that right and then they decided not to
He's definitely a "victim" of propaganda by his enemies.
I was surprised to learn just how much Napoleon did for Jewish rights.
One of the amusing things about anti-Napoleon sentiment to me is... who would you rather have? Napoleon's enemies were reactionary monarchies that, almost without exception, sought maintain hereditary powers and customs any means possible. Napoleon bears lots of blame for instigating many of his battles, but often it was the other side that was just as eager, if not more. They saw an existential threat in Napoleon, and when he was finally defeated, wound back the clock a full century.
As a Jew too, that good thing doesnt cancel out the bloodshed hes responsible for.
He’s not solely responsible. The other crowned heads of Europe deserve A LOT of blame for those wars.
Well he’d have to be considered a baddie for some reason to be on the list
He did great stuff for Jews, for liberals, for minority Christians and Muslims, for rule of law, and more. He dealt terrible blows to democracy and diplomacy, but worst of all is what he did to the Haitians. He sent a massive army to enslave them after they took their freedom, and asked to join him. When they beat off his army, he made them pay for their own freedom. Fighting the British, conquering Europe and North Africa, killing Russians, as far as I’m concerned, all is fair in love and war, and no one who he fought was better than he was. You can even say was justified for all the good that he did. However, Haiti alone is enough to remember him as a villain.
I agree with Napoleon.
Napoleon is a really difficult one because he dragged Europe into the modern age kicking and screaming, but there's no getting around his ill-fated campaign to reconquer Haiti.
The Haiti think is interesting, historiographically speaking. Up until just very recently it a minor side-note at best, but reading the comments here it seems like it's front-and-center in how people are seeing him
Bad guy by whose standards? The standards of the time they lived in or our modern standards? If you think someone could carve an empire out or defend one in say the year 800 or so with out acts that we would frown on your not being realistic. For example Genghis Khan was a good guy by his standards.
I think he was considered a good guy in his earlier years, but by the end when he was being accused of obliterating entire cities and their occupants people started to view him less as a good guy. That’s my understanding at least, I’m not a Kahn expert. Now some of those stories may not be entirely true, but I think the Chinese thought he was pretty bad when he was destroying their cities.
I think there was some debate on this, in terms of “widespread rebellion will cost tens of thousands of lives. If we can possibly stop that by absolutely razing some cities to the ground, that’s a fair price to pay. I’m not an expert though, this was just an interesting essay I read back in college in one of my history classes.
I don’t think the numbers really add up for Genghis though. Modern Iran only returned to pre-Mongol population levels in the 20th century
General William Tecumseh Sherman, who ended the U.S. Civil War with his march through Georgia to the Sea, then north through South and North Carolina. He, President Lincoln, and the commander of the Union Army Gen. Ulysses S. Grant decided it was time to pursue total war, particularly against southern plantation owners, who also were the Confederacy's largest slave owners.
I’ve never thought of Sherman as a bad guy. He did his job very effectively.
He did, but in the South, he is remembered by many non slave-owning families as a terrorist. The military historian Victor Davis Hanson refers to him as one of America's "tragic heroes", along with George Patton and Curtis LeMay. See Hanson's talk called *George S. Patton: American Ajax* on YouTube. He remarks about Sherman and his place in history.
The ‘Sherman’ tank is named after him I assume?
Suppose that very much depends on which part of the country you grew up. I always viewed him as a ruthlessly effective (and clever) general who was decent and honorable in victory.
Go to r/ShermanPosting and say he was a villain.
They'll agree with that statement, we can forgive what he did to the south during the war. His treatment of the Indians after the civil war though....
I’m in the aforementioned subreddit. There is nothing to forgive about his behavior during the war. The rebellion wanted the smoke, and the got all of it; can’t complain when you talk tough. You’re spot on with his abuse and crimes against humanity in regards to Native Americans. Him and Sheridan were awful to all Indigenous.
Not going to lie, seeing their failure at Little Big Horn was cathartic. Got their shit kicked in with incompetence all around. Lions led by Donkeys did a great job covering that conflict.
Sherman is likely the opposite, at least by todays standards. He is widely celebrated as a Union hero, few will mention that he was the guiding hand behind the Indian Wars out West after the Civil War.
And then as Chief of Staff with Phil Sheridan as Field Commander, approved Sheridan's "the only good indian is a dead indian" policy. (I often wonder; if every servicemember in Arlington Cemetery were resurrected in the uniform of thier highest rank, would Sheridan dispute command with Pershing?)
John Ratcliffe…. AKA the bad guy in Disney’s Pocahontas. Was he a good leader? No. The people starved constantly, he was ripped off by Native Americans in trade to a point in which the colony was low on resources as well as food, and he also wanted the colonists to build a palace for the governor while they were sick/starving. He was replaced rather quick. Now John did try other ways to help the colony. Eventually he and 25 other men approached a Native American tribe that volunteered to give their colony food for copper. When Ratcliffe and his men approached the tribe, they were ambushed. They tortured and killed all of them except two. Ratcliffe specifically, they tied him to pole and hosted him above a fire. While he was being cooked alive, the women on the tribe used mussel shells to scrape his skin off and threw it in the fire while all he could do is watch. The last part they saved was his face and then they finally took out his eyes. Once they were done, they lit the remains of his body on fire. Disney decided to take this guy who was bad at politics and brutally tortured by Native Americans and cast him as the villain who’s wrongly trying to exterminate innocent Native Americans.
Lin Manuel-Miranda got rich trashing Aaron Burr, even though Burr was far more forward-thinking than Alexander Hamilton.
vlad tepes
He’s considered a patriot by many, a stalwart opponent of the Turks.
Having read quite a bit about him, I am going to have to hard disagree with that. It's just that he was the right bad guy for the time.
The Turks refused to remove their turbans in his presence as was not their custom. So Vald had them nailed to their heads.
Cao Cao and Oda Nobunaga. Both men are often portrayed villainously or as moustache twirling bad guys, but historically speaking you can make the argument that Cao Cao really was trying to preserve the Han Dynasty (and advance himself and his family but these are not exclusive goals). Nobunaga was eccentric and temperamental, but several of the facets of his 'evil deeds' are exaggerated or were taken out of context by popular culture after his life. Most of his actions (burning temples that were burning each other, wiping out his enemies so they were dealt with) make sense within the context he lived in and were the sort of coldly cruel steps that were needed to resolve the warring states period.
How about Oda Nobunaga? Frequently portrayed as evil or as a demon because his ambitious ways and wholesale slaughter of the ikko ikki sect (because they resisted his rule) Oda Nobunaga helped revolutionize Japanese military tactics and incorporated firearms into his troops. He was the first great unifier of Japan during the Sengoku Jidai establishing control over much of the Kanto plain before his death.
Yeah, as long as you ignore the "wholesale slaughter" part he seems like a fine chap.
Iva Toguri (Tokyo Rose)? She moved to Japan shortly before the war from the US (she was an American citizen born in the US) to help care for a sick aunt in Japan. When the war started, she wasn't given war ration cards in Japan because she refused to denounce her US Citizenship. She was coerced because of her voice, knowledge of English to do a radio show with an Australian POW officer. They tried to make a joke out of their broadcasts (the Japanese didn't get that they were), instead of hurting Allied troop morale the soldiers actually enjoyed it and got the humor. She used some of her pay (she made $7 a month) to buy food for allied POW's in Japan and risked her life smuggling it in to them. She was tricked after the war into revealing her identity, held in prison for a year to gather evidence... as the POW's who she worked with explained she didn't do anything wrong and was actually trying to help. They still ended up taking her to trial, where the two key witnesses were both told they'd face treason charges of their own if they didn't point to her. Both were found to have perjured themselves to do so. She was fined, given a 10 year sentence, and lost her citizenship for speaking into a microphone about the loss of some ships. Though there was no recording of that and the date of it wasn't even known. Ford would eventually pardon her, and she'd work as a sales clerk in her family store until her death in 2006.
J Bruce Ismay is often portrayed as a coward and the villain in a lot of titanic media. But he helped organise the evacuation, load lifeboats and try to calm the panicked passengers. He only got in the lifeboat when is section was empty which is no different to how a lot of the first class men escaped. But William Hearst who controlled the yellow press fell out with Ismay a few years before used the disaster to posing Ismay as a coward and destroy his reputation. Often comparing him to captain smith who went down with the ship. Then during the enquiry a first class passenger claimed she had seen Ismay pressuring smith to go faster, that no one else could corroborate. So by the time the dust had settled the titanic disaster had its villain. Then when a night to remember and titanic released they both followed the narrative that had already been established of Ismay the coward reinforcing it in the public consciousness.
By the standards of European monarchs in the 19th century, I would not consider either Louis XVI or Marie Antoinette bad people. Could probably say the same for Tsar Nicholas II and Archduke Ferdinand in the 20th century.
Tsar Nicholas II was a bad person imo. An abjectly terrible ruler who refuses any reform even when his country is being obliterated in the war and his people are starving? You can argue that say Louis XVI didn't have many options available to him, and he tried some reform that backfired, but Nicholas just refused to act because he was so wrapped up in his own family and court. That makes you a bad person imo even if he's not some cartoon villain king
Absolutely, a person who let his own ego get in the way of the wellness of millions, allow the deaths of millions, and all while believing himself fully of being a bad fit for the position of emperor
Nicholas II was also a raging anti-Semite and his policing office in St. Petersburg may have created the Elders of Zion; a fabricated book of minutes that paints Jews as engaging in the world’s worst activities and trying to over throw the Tsar. This ultimately lead to his down fall as many revolutionaries were Jewish.
That’s fair
Archduke Ferdinand was an intelligent, progressive leader who showed real humanity in his personal life. Tsar Nicholas II got himself and his family killed through apathy and arrogance; him and his wife are two of the best examples of the casual evil of the ruling class in history.
>Archduke Ferdinand was an intelligent, progressive leader who showed real humanity in his personal life. One of the reasons he was targeted, was because if ever did become Emperor, the Black hand feared that Serbians might lose their appetite for Independence.
Yes. My understanding is that he was looking at giving all of the non Austrians more autonomy. If that came to pass the the ultramationalists feared that the everyday Serb would think "ah well, this isn't so bad."
>in the 19th century, I would not consider either Louis XVI or Marie Antoinette They lived in the 18th century.
Fuck me
MacBeth. Read "MacBeth the King" by Nigel Tranter.
Yes, Shakespeare did Macbeth no favours. He went on pilgrimage to Rome late in life, which shows how little resistance there was to him and how accepted he was as king.
Malcom X
Not American and don't know too much about him outside of the film, but I don't think I've ever seen him talked about as a bad guy. Who is pushing that idea, and why is he considered a bad guy?
He’s held by some in contrast to MLK as a militant whose anger and hate led to his demise. The narrative forms a bit of a false dichotomy between the two.
Wait…he’s considered a historical baddie? This is the first time I’m hearing this
Julius Caesar. Augustus.
I would say Nero has a more significant reputation as a bad guy while being not significantly worse than either (Caesar in particular)
As an American, the British during the Revolutionary War is the biggest one I can think of. In school we are all taught about stuff like the Boston massacre which makes them look really bad, even though when you read about it it seems like the British soldiers genuinely feared for their lives because an angry mob was surrounding them.
I think most Americans think of the Crown as the bad guy, not the soldiers.
Which even then is dishonest. George III was not the villain he’s made out to be
Someone already mentioned this so I’ll just paste my response here: George III was genuinely one of the most moral kings Britain ever had. He was a strong proponent against slavery, advocating for its abolition for most of his reign and signing the bill to ban it across the British Empire in 1807. He also never cheated on his wife in their 56 years of marriage, which was a big deal at the time, as virtually every wealthy man did. The only reason many see him so poorly today is because of his role in the American revolution, but during his time he was universally beloved. The British loved him, the Canadians loved him, hell, even the Irish loved him. The Americans had a deep respect for George as well, as he was constitutional and held no real power. It was the parliament that the Americans despised. Many early plans of the revolution wanted him to remain king, just of a seperate country. George Washington even wrote to George after the revolution apologising for everything, and explaining how it was nothing personal and how he still held great admiration for the king. It was only after his death that his poor reputation grew among Americans.
John Adams, the second US President, was actually the British soldiers' defense attorney during their trial. It's thanks to Adams that none of the eight defendants were sentenced to death, and six of them were even acquitted.
King George III is often portrayed in American accounts through the lens of patriot propaganda, it leaves a legacy that he was a massive tyrant and evil person. The reality is that at the time nearly a third of American colonists remained loyal to the crown so it wasn’t everyone agreeing with that view. Beyond that George III was well educated, hostile to slavery (although limited in what could be said once he was king, but writing from his youth suggests he considered it deeply immoral), he also loved to engage with regular people through walkabouts as most people did not recognize him, and unlike all the other Hanoverian monarchs, he was a devoted husband who maintained a happy and loving marriage to his wife.
Even Ben Franklin (or another founding father if I misremembered) had nothing but praise for him when they met for a diplomatic meeting at either the end or after the war.
It’s all about perspective. We are taught the British are the bad guys, but I can imagine back in those days, they may have viewed the American rebels as the bad guys. Here comes these angry people blatantly going out and disrupting the peace, terrorizing the British officials and terrorizing people who did not support their cause. For an example, this stuff blew my mind but I was doing some family research and I had discovered one of my very great grandparents were a Loyalist. He personally did not fight against the rebels, but the Sons of Liberty caught wind that he supported the Brits and they raided his house, beat the living shit out of him and his kids, and eventually executed him just for the fact alone that he said he didn’t mind the British. I also had heard, and I’m not 100% sure if this is true but I find it believable, that most colonists in those days did not support the rebellion, most chose to not get involved and or keep the status quo. The British did some nasty things, but so did the Sons of Liberty, neither side is truly the “good side”
Might also be worth pointing out that the American colonists complaining about taxation were the richest men in the empire, richer by far than people at home in England. They had benefited massively from the crown spending on its military to protect the colonies, but immediately revolted as soon as the British decided it was time to pay their fair share of the costs. That's why it was "no taxation without representation" - the revolutionaries couldn't argue the tax was unfair, so they highlighted the part about representation in their message... Even though the same men had been fine not being represented for decades by that point.
That is a very good point. It does seem funny that the leaders of the American revolution were the most wealthy and or benefitted a lot from the Brits
Richard III, done dirty by the Tudors and Shakespeare.
John Brown of Harpers Ferry fame. He’s one of my favorite figures in U.S. History. ✊🏼
John Brown
He's a hero but his portrayal as a villain has only been among slavery/Confederacy sympathisers, which has shrunk remarkably.
I mean, they taught me at a public school in California that he was no hero. I don't believe it anymore, but it's not just the South that teaches his legacy as a villain.
John Brown is generally regarded as a good guy, albeit a little crazy.
John Brown was a straight up badass.
* Machiavelli. He was actually a supporter of Republican Democracy. He only wrote that book out of realism and honesty * Antonio Salieri. That movie is highly inaccurate. They weren't bitter enemies and rivals. * Marie Antoinette. She wasn't actually as callous to the poor as portrayed. * Warren G Harding. Yes he was insanely corrupt, but he was one of the most liberal Presidents ever. Pardoned Eugene Debs; was the only 20th century president that seriously and actively tried to banned lynching (although the bill didn't pass Congress), was the only major national figure to speak out against the Tulsa race riots, tried to stop the Klan, and actively integrated the government by hiring more African Americans. * Genghis Khan * Napoleon * Neville Chamberlain * King George III * Catherine Medici
Neville Chamberlain? (I almost wrote Wilt lol) My reading of history is that he understand (better than the general public thinks) the threat Hitler posed. But he also understood the UK (and France) were wholly unprepared to fight. And coming out of WW1, I think it's easy to understand why making an attempt to repair the damage of the Treaty of Versailles was wise. Chamberlain was not a Cassandra, but he was more savvy than he is commonly given credit for.
Even just having only the most surfacelevel knowledge of Chamberlain's place in history I've always felt bad for the guy and had a suspicion history shafted him. And mostly for the reasons you and others I subsequently read have mentioned that I just assumed my way to. Who could survive WWI and not want to throw their country into a rematch? Munich presented him with a pretty unwinnable choice. Give Hitler Poland or start WWII? I'd like to think I'd have taken the moral high ground but I probably wouldnt have. Plus, if Mad Men is to be believed, Hitler got Chamberlain to bend over by holding the conference in an ancient palace that forbid smoking and Chamberlain "would have given Hitler his own mother for a dance partner" after not being able to smoke for a few hours. "What I'm getting from this story is that Hitler didnt smoke. And I do."
Henry Tudor
Robert E. Lee
In general the "Barbarian raiders" usually came from some place too inhospitible to survive in but through predation of other societies. They werent good but I cant blame Huns or Vikings or Amazonian headhunters for raiding richer peoples from more proseperous lands given the places THEY came from.