It’s not clear exactly when Cain murdered Abel in any biblical chronology I’ve been able to find. Some of them even date it (as I have here) to 4004 BCE, the same year usually given for the Creation of the earth. Which implies that not only were Cain and Abel both full grown men in the space of a single year, but that their mother’s two pregnancies (Cain and Abel were not twins – Cain is the older), also took place in that same year.
Nevertheless, as brothers, they didn’t always get along. This may or may not have had something to do with the notoriously fickle and hard to please deity that they worshipped, or that deity’s changing of the rules on them – Cain presumably would not have made an offering that God (who is, according to the Gospel of Luke, Cain’s grandfather) that God found unacceptable had he known ahead of time that it would be rejected.
Cain responds to his rejection by God by hunting and killing his brother, Abel. (Which makes him sound a little older than >1 – about 16 or so, I would guess.) And then God, not done with the mind games, pretends not to know about it and questions Cain, leading to his infamous declaration that he was “not his brother’s keeper” (which is a rare concession to historical accuracy by the Book of Genesis – cricket had indeed not yet been invented). God curses Cain and exiles him, making him the earliest biblical figure to be set up and knocked down by God.
The Medieval Inquisition was a series of Inquisitions that slowly merged into a more or less continuous process of arrest and interrogation of suspected heretics. Like all good coppers, the Inquisitors often complained that they were hamstrung by the limitations under which they worked – i.e., that they needed more powers, more authority to use them, and so on. In the middle ages, what that basically meant was torture.
On May 15, Pope Innocent IV, who had been Pope for nine years and would continue in that capacity for another two, issued the now-infamous papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorized, with some limits, the torture of suspected heretics for the purpose of eliciting confessions. The limitations were as follows: *that the torture did not cause loss of life or limb *that it was used only once *that the Inquisitor deemed the evidence against the accused to be virtually certain
In practice, these limitations were meaningless – loss of life or limb could be deemed accidental, ‘only once’ was often interpreted to mean a series of tortures collectively defined as one, and Inquisitors were somewhat less objective than the bull appeared to assume. Subsequent Popes would expand the scope and powers of the various Inquisitions.
The legends are very specific: in 1284, when the town of Hamelin, in the in Lower Saxony region of Germany, was overrun with rats. One day, a piper claiming to be a rat-catcher appeared in the town. A deal was soon struck: he would play his pipes and draw the rates away, the townspeople would pay him handsomely.
The piper led the rats into the nearby Weser river, where they drowned. But then the townsfolk reneged on their part of the deal. This was decision-making roughly on a par with saying “oh, what a lovely wooden horse, let’s drag it into the middle of Troy.”
The piper returned on the feast day of Saints John and Paul. He played once more, and this time, he enchanted the children of the town. 130 children followed him, leaving behind only one or two (accounts vary). Accounts also disagree over what happened to the children – some say he drowned them like the rats, some say they were safely returned after he was paid several times his original price. So it’s six to five and pick ‘em whether the Pied Piper was a mass murderer, or merely a staunch advocate of contract law.
Referenced in:
Pied Piper – Jethro Tull
Pied Piper – The Saw Doctors
Symphony of Destruction – Megadeth
People Call Me the Pied Piper – Donovan
Walter ‘Wat’ Tyler was born in 1341, and little is known of his life before his involvement in the Peasant’s Rebellion of 1381. He is believed to have served in the English army, seeing action at both Crécy and Poitiers, among others.
Tyler joined the rebellion apparently due to his strong egalitarian views, and sought an end, or at least a reform, of the feudal system. He led an army 50,000 strong into London, and their show of force persuaded the king to meet with them. Richard II, who was only 15, met with Tyler at Smithfield, although no account of their conversation survives. Tyler was struck down and stabbed repeatedly – it is widely believed that his first assailant was the Lord Mayor of London, who took exception to Tyler’s perceived ‘insolence’. Upon Tyler’s death, the king declared himself leader of the rebels, and commanded them to disperse. The promises he made to them were not kept, and the other leaders of the revolt were also killed, at his order.
After a trial lasting from January 9 until May 24, Jeanne d’Arc was convicted of heresy by her somewhat less than unbiased prosecutors. Jeanne (the French original of her name, equivalent to the English Joan) had led the French to several victories over the English, claiming divine inspiration.
Her accusers and judges were, unfortunately for her, strongly influenced by English interests in the matter, and she was found guilty and forced to abjure. Finally, she was executed by being burnt at the stake in Rouen, France. After her death, the coals were raked back in order to expose her charred body – so that no one could claim she had escaped alive – and then her body was burned twice more to reduce it to ashes. Her remains, such as they were, were cast into the Seine to prevent any collection of relics.
Referenced in:
Joan of Arc – Leonard Cohen
Bigmouth Strikes Again – The Smiths
Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans) – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
The heroine and role model of every goth woman who ever aspired to the title of Queen Bitch, Countess Elisabet Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman most famous for bathing in the blood of virgins in order to preserve her youthful appearance.
It’s unlikely that Bathory ever actually bathed so, but it is certain that she numbers among the most prolific serial killers of all time, and is possibly the most prolific of female serial killers known to history. Most of her victims were indeed young women (although their virginity or otherwise is a question unlikely ever to be answered).
In 1610, she was arrested along with four of her servants. Three of the servants were later convicted and executed, with the fourh being sentenced to life imprisonment. Bathory herself was never convicted, but remained under the house arrest that had been instituted from the first. Four years later, it appears that she starved herself to death.
Referenced in:
Elizabeth – Kamelot
Love – Unusual Suspect
Countess Bathory – Venom
Báthory Aria – Cradle of Filth
Venus in Fear – Cradle of Filth
Elisabeth Bathory – Dissection
Elisabeth Bathory – Tormentor
Bathory’s Sainthood – Boy Sets Fire
Woman of Dark Desires – Bathory
Once Upon Atrocity – Cradle of Filth
Desire in Violent Overture – Cradle of Filth
The Twisted Nails of Faith – Cradle of Filth
Beneath The Howling Stars – Cradle of Filth
Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids – Cradle of Filth
Portrait of the Dead Countess – Cradle of Filth
Thirteen Autumns and a Widow” – Cradle of Filth
Lustmord and Wargasm (The Lick of Carnivorous Winds) – Cradle of Filth
Galileo Galilei is one of the people most credited with creating modern science – he is regarded as the father of physics and of observational astronomy. Among his acheivements are the discovery of Jupiter’s four largest moons, advances in telescope design and construction and his famous demonstration of the constant acceleration of falling objects.
An early advocate of the heliocentric theory – the idea that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun – Galileo Galilei was denounced for this heretical view by various members of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately for Galileo, he lived in Italy, which at the time was dominated by the power of the church. He was summoned to Rome and tried for heresy (although his true crime seems to be less his heresies and more his willingness to teach them to others).
He was convicted and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. In addition, he was forced to publicly recant his views – although legend has it that his denial was followed by the muttered words ‘E pur si muove!’ – ‘and yet it moves’ – an explicit contradiction of the Biblical doctrine that the Earth is fixed in space. It will never be known if he actually did say the words – but it’s nice to think that he did.
Referenced in:
Bohemian Rhapsody — Queen
I know, I know, the song only mentions his name… but this is such a cool story, and it’s such a cool song…
The Rump Parliament was what remained of the British Parliament after Colonel Pride had purged it a month earlier, leaving only those parliamentarians who supported the army.
On January 6, 1649, the Parliament appointed a total of 135 men to constitute a High Court for the trial of King Charles I for tyranny. A quorum was declated to be twenty of these appointees.
The trial of Charles I commenced shortly thereafter, and duly returned the guilty verdict it was intended to.
It’s not entirely fair to call Henry Morgan a pirate – he was actually more a privateer, serving the English crown fairly well throughout his long career.
First acheiving the rank of captain in 1661, Morgan was highly successful, and became a romantic figure in England due to his daring exploits. The most controversial of these was the sack of the Spanish colony of Panama City in 1671, a feat all the more impressive because the city lay on the Pacific coast of Panama. Morgan and his men had to traverse the isthmus of Panama to attack from the landward side.
Unfortunately for Morgan, the attack violated a treaty between England and Spain, and he was summoned back to England to face charges. He managed to demonstrate that he had not known of the treaty at the time of the attack, and far from being punished, was knighted and returned to the Caribbean as acting Governor of Jamaica in 1675.
He died of what was diagnosed as ‘dropsie’ in 1688, although it is possible that it represents the effects of a lifetime of drinking catching up with his liver, or the effects of tuberculosis caught in England, or possibly both.
Referenced in:
El Capitan – OPM
Oh, Jamaica – Jimmy Cliff
Captain Morgan – Tempest
August 24th, 1688 – Amadan
Kingston Market – Harry Belafonte
Henry Morgan – Brien Bohn Hopkins
Can’t Blame The Youth – Peter Tosh
Here Comes The Judge – Peter Tosh
Head of the Buccaneer – Prince Far I
Morgan the Pirate – The Mighty Diamonds
Accused of witchcraft and swiftly condemned and hanged for her supposed crimes, Bridget Bishop was the first person to be killed in the name of Christ during the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials.
She was a resident of Salem Town – not Salem Village, as the majority of the other accused were – and it is believed that she may have been confused with the similarly named Sarah Bishop, a tavern-keeper in Salem Village. She was accused of bewitching five other women who were residents of Salem town (and each of whom would go on to accuse others of similar crimes). In a statement made after her arrest, Bridget stated that she did not know her accusers. Unfortunately for Bridget, she made contradictory statements at her trial (some of which may have been facetious or ironic), and the humourless religious fanatics who tried her were quick to seize on this as evidence of her guilt.
She was approximately sixty years old at the time of her trial, and known to be an outspoken woman in a time that regarded that quality with suspicion at best. She was found guilty, and sentenced to death.
On June 10, 1692, she was hanged. By the time the hysteria died down, another 19 people would be executed with a similar lack of evidence (or indeed, of common sense), and four more would die in prison.
Referenced in:
American Witch — Rob Zombie
They Were Wrong, So We Drowned — Liars
Burn The Witch — Queens of the Stone Age
It is perhaps the most infamous outbreak of mass hysteria in American history (with the possible exception of the McCarthy Era).
From February 1692 through to late September of that year, a total of 20 people were executed, with five more nearly dying in prison. Over 150 people were accused. Most of them were accused based on ‘spectral evidence’ – which is to say, dreams and visions. Every person actually brought to court was convicted, although some were pardoned.
I’m not sure what’s more shameful about this whole episode. Is it that it happened at all, or that there are still people who think it didn’t go far enough…
Referenced in:
Salem ’76 – Mary Lou Lord
Lords of Salem – Rob Zombie
American Witch – Rob Zombie
Witch Hunting in Salem – Ishia
Salem 1692 – Ceremonial Castings
The Dead Can’t Testify – Billy Talent
Burn the Witch – Queens of the Stone Age
An advance party for the First Fleet to colonise Australia entered Botany Bay on this day. The Governor of the colony, Arthur Phillip, saild the armed tender Supply into the bay, and weighed anchor. Two days later, they were joined by the other ships of the Fleet. However, the poor quality of the soil led to the entire fleet decamping, and landing instead in Port Jackson 8 days later, at what was named Sydney Cover by the Governor.
The French explorer La Perouse entered Botany Bay on the same day, January 26, too late to claim the land for France. The British penal colony was, of course, never heard from again.
Referenced in: Who Can Stand In The Way? – Midnight Oil
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