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Rarely Talked About But Entirely Awesome Historical Figures thread

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Have you ever read about some relatively obscure historical figure and thought, “Wow, how is this guy not way better known than he is?”

Happens to me pretty often, so I thought I’d start a thread to share a few of these guys with you. I hope others will do the same and share their lesser known, but significant historical figures with the rest of us.

 

 

Mod Edit: This thread was originally named…

‘Rarely Talked About But Entirely Awesome Historical Figures (was: The Most Excitingest Thread Ever (Will eventually be “Rarely Talked About But Entirely Awesome Historical Figures” thread))’

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Nikola Tesla - Inventor

Most people have heard of Dr. Nikola Tesla, but from my experience, relatively few know how awesome this guy was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

The wikipedia entry has a lot of information, and is a fairly long read. So I looked around and found a shorter and much more exciting source that still highlights how awesome he was.

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tesla.html

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Wait, who?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Not fair, he changed the post after I asked who...  :(

 

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

Not fair, he changed the post after I asked who...  :(

 

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/8/6/bb33f1fa-3aad-4eb5-965a-fb2fc3c576db.gif

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I'm a big Tesla fan, though I readily admit I know very little about him.  I have a couple biographies about him... mayb if I actually read them, it would help... probably not.

(Though, perhaps I can persuade you to play Assassin's Creed II if I say that there is a lot of stuff about Tesla in it)?

Edward Bernays, is my unknown man of history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

Though the real goods are about a third of the way through this video:

http://podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/conspiracy/2009-11-13-conspiracy-fluoridation.m4v

 

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Dr. Henry Howard Holmes - Serial Killer

Killed an unknown number of people, potentially (but unlikely) ranging in the hundreds. Built a kick ass "Murder Castle", complete with its own crematorium. Probably never would have been caught if he hadn't gotten sloppy on some life insurance scams.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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C3PX said:


Dr. Henry Howard Holmes - Serial Killer

Killed an unknown number of people, potentially (but unlikely) ranging in the hundreds. Built a kick ass "Murder Castle", complete with its own crematorium. Probably never would have been caught if he hadn't gotten sloppy on some life insurance scams.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes
I am creeped out now. His "Murder Castle" had a labyrinth where he could keep women in soundproof rooms until they died or he decided to fill the room with gas. What a sick person.

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There is really nothing about him that isn't extremely disturbing. He was obviously extremely intelligent, and had a good way with people as he was very persuasive.

Even more disturbing is how much he would profit from his habits, from collecting life insurance policies, to selling skeletons and body parts to science and medicine. 

 

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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For your consideration may I suggest Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace 1815-1852.

For some people being the only legitimate child of Lord Byron would be noteworthy enough but this lady of letters and renown beauty was an accomplished writer, mathematician and highly likely the first computer programmer.

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I object to the thread title and OP on two counts.

1) This is not The Most Excitingest Thread Ever.  In fact, it's nowhere close to either the hot.like.fire thread or the Ziggy Archive.

2) The thread title says it "Will eventually be" about historical figures, and yet the OP is about exactly that.

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1) How can you read about Dr. Tesla's Earthquake causing machine and not become immensely excited? Every time I read about the man's inventions and the possibilities of what could have been, I nearly soil my pants. 

2) The thread is currently about historical figures, the title will eventually reflect that.

I was going to make a thread called "Rarely Talked About But Entirely Awesome Historical Figures", but decided to call it "The Most Excitingest Thread Ever" in your honor and to attempt to turn today's seriousness into a bit of levity. I also thought it would be amusing to put the eventual thread title in the thread title, as a play on the common practice of putting the previous thread titles in the thread title of threads that undergo a title change.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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C3PX said:

I was going to make a thread called "Rarely Talked About But Entirely Awesome Historical Figures", but decided to call it "The Most Excitingest Thread Ever" in your honor and to attempt to turn today's seriousness into a bit of levity. I also thought it would be amusing to put the eventual thread title in the thread title, as a play on the common practice of putting the previous thread titles in the thread title of threads that undergo a title change.

Meh.  I give it a 6/10 on the Frink Scale of Levity.

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I like the eventual name being in the parenthesis. Makes me feel like a time traveler.

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You should change your name to doubleofive (will eventually be "010")

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Freddy Funston.

US Soldier at the end of the 1800s. Dude was too scrawny to make it into West Point. So he went to Cuba and enlisted to fight the Spanish. Came back to the US, joined the army and  invaded the Phillipines, where he said

I personally strung up thirty-five Filipinos without trial ... ...  all Americans who had recently petitioned Congress to sue for peace in the Philippines should be dragged out of their homes and lynched.

Even TEDDY ROOSEVELDT thought that was too extreme.

Later Funston declared Martial Law in San Francisco (without authorization) to fight the 1906 fire, which he made worser by dynamiting the hell out of what was left of the city.

After busting heads of labor unions, Funston hunted Pancho Villa for a while and was hand picked by Hoover to command US forces in WWI before he keeled over and died at the ripe age of 51, his last words being "How beutiful it all is."

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Bingowings said:

For your consideration may I suggest Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace 1815-1852.

For some people being the only legitimate child of Lord Byron would be noteworthy enough but this lady of letters and renown beauty was an accomplished writer, mathematician and highly likely the first computer programmer.

 Holy wow! Lord Byron's daughter was a hacker!!

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TV's Frink said:

This is not The Most Excitingest Thread Ever.

Depends for who.  I actually think it may be. Perhaps members you can read, and those you can't but lurk here sometime are more cultivated, or more after interesting threads than you think. ;)

 

Anyway, the Kirlian photography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography

If you can find more about, it's really interesting all the experiences that have been made from it.

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A B C said:

TV's Frink said:

This is not The Most Excitingest Thread Ever.

Well, that's just like, my opinion, man.

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My next contribution is William Cavendish Scott Bentinck, 5th Duke Of Portland who moved all the furniture out of estate Welbeck Abbey and moved into a handful of rooms, all painted pink and all fitted with a toilet basin.

He then built an large underground dwelling for himself connected by 15 miles of tunnels including a billiard room, a 250 ft long library and an observatory capped with a glass dome.

He went out of his way to avoid anyone but his valet, having two sets of letterboxes fitted (one for mail in and one for mail out), his tenants and workmen on his estate were instructed to ignore him on the few occasions he did venture out in daylight (wearing two overcoats and an unusually tall hat carrying a very large umbrella).

He was more likely to step out at night preceded by a servant lady carrying a lantern 40 yards ahead of him.

He liked horses much more than people, building an large riding school with 100 horses (none of which he ever rode).

Despite his eccentric behaviour he was very popular with his staff who were very well treated he even built a roller skating rink for their use.

Rumours of him having a secret identity (which he killed off) were sadly quashed when his suspected alter ego's body was exhumed and proved to not be him at all, though strangely his estate tried to prevent the body being examined further adding to the mystery.

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TheBoost said:


Later Funston declared Martial Law in San Francisco (without authorization) to fight the 1906 fire, which he made worser by dynamiting the hell out of what was left of the city.
(JOKE A) "Fight fire with dynamite"? That's a new one.

(JOKE B) Sounds like a job for the Mythbusters.

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