Top ten Ages of Architecture in the world

Architecture has existed since the recognition of civilization. Like fashion, the architecture of today wouldn’t be what it is if we didn’t get inspiration from the architectural past. Stone Age influenced the Egyptian, Egypt influenced the Greeks, Greeks influenced the Romans, and Romans influenced the timeless elements of today’s architecture. Below is a list of architectural periods that are the foundations of our present-day structures. Enjoy!

  10: Neolithic Architecture 9500 B.C.

Also known as The New Stone Age, dated beginning about 9500 BC in the Middle East, it was a period of the progress of the human technology. Pottery was first introduced in this age, as well as the development of tools for hunting, building and cooking. The neolithic peoples in the Levant, Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Central Asia were great builders, utilizing mud-brick to construct houses and villages. Houses were plastered and painted with elaborate scenes of humans and animals. The Mediterranean neolithic cultures of Malta worshiped in megalithic temples. In Europe, long houses built from wattle and daub were constructed. Elaborate tombs for the dead were also built. These tombs are particularly numerous in Ireland, where there are many thousand still in existence. Neolithic people in the British Isles built long barrows and chamber tombs for their dead and causewayed camps, henges flint mines and cursus monuments. This period shows the start of human civilizations, spiritual beliefs, and the human ambition to make life easier. 

 9: Ancient Mediterranean 3000 B.C – 300(?) B.C.

This period covers the Ancient Civilizations of Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and The Byzantine Empire around the time from 3000 B.C. up to 300 B.C. The ancient Mediterranean civilization, from ancient times to the beginning of the Middle Ages, is a result of significant historical events, and it is one of the most notable empires which gave a progressive influence to the growth of human cultures. The mild and healthful climate, and the inheritance of important civilizations of Mesopotamia, India and China, the facile communication by maritime routes, as well as the invention of writing, supporting columns, doors, windows, arches, sculpture, painting, engineering, the alphabet, agriculture, metal works, and logistics was born in this era. The Ancient Mediterranean civilization was a result of the continuous process of advancement, enhanced by the inheritance from previous civilizations, by easy maritime communication, and by the exchange of ideas through migration and colonization. 

 8: Islamic Architecture 600 A.D.- 1700s

Dating from around 600 A.D. to around the late 1700s, Islamic architecture comprises a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture. It composes the Influences of Moorish, Abbasid Caliphate, Fatimid, Mamluk, Persian, Azerbaijani, Turkistan, Ottoman, Indo-Islamic, Sino-Islamic, Indonesian-Malay, Sahelian-Islamic, and the Somali-Islamic architectures. The principal Islamic architectural types are: the Mosque, the Tomb, the Palace and the Fort. From these four types, the vocabulary of Islamic architecture is derived and used for buildings of lesser importance such as public baths, fountains and domestic architecture. 

 7 :Africa 2000 B.C. – 1000 A.D.

For those of you who don’t know, Egypt is part of Africa. Egypt could be considered as the most progressed region in Africa. The Pyramids of Giza is considered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and is noted as one of the architectural achievements of its time. The rise of large structures like Building and Temple complexes were derived from Egyptian architectural backgrounds. Ancient architecture south and west of the Sahara is not well documented compared to their Egyptian neighbors so little is known of their architectural styles. The architecture of Africa is remarkably diverse because each of these African ethno-linguistic tribes has had their own architectural traditions throughout history. These entire region share a common theme that defines traditional African architecture: The use of fractal scaling: small parts of the structure tend to look similar to larger parts, such as a circular village made of circular houses. African architecture uses a wide range of materials, such as thatch, stick/wood, mud, mud brick, rammed earth, and stone, and other more perishable material. 

  6:Asia 5000 B.C. – 300 A.D.

Also includes Persian architecture, this age comprises of all four corners of Asia. It encompasses a wide variety of geographically and historically spread structures, each to their own details and religious deities. The diversity of each nation’s culture is represented in its architecture. It is a blend of ancient and varied native traditions, with building types, forms and technologies from West and Central Asia, as well as a few in Europe. Presently, Asian interior design is a popular trend used in homes. The use of artworks, furniture, Zen, Balinese, etc. are Asian inspired.

5 Pre-Columbian 2000 B.C. – 1600 A.D.

Comprises the Mesoamerican, Incan, Olmec,Maya, Aztec and Ancient North America influences in architecture, the pre-Columbian era is a period in history of the Americas before the arrival of the European colonizers in the 16th century. Traditions are best known in the form of public, ceremonial and urban monumental buildings and structures, the development of an extensive road system spanning most of the western length of the continent, the construction of the world’s first suspension bridges (Rope Bridges), peoples were excellent stone cutters whose masonry used no mortar, textiles, and the building of platforms were their most renowned achievements. Pre-Columbian architecture is mostly noted for its pyramids which are the largest such structures outside of Ancient Egypt, and also The Macchu Picchu.

 4: Medieval Period 500 A.D. to 1600s

Also known as ‘The Middle Ages,’ it is a term used to represent various forms of architecture common in Medieval Europe. The basic characteristics of this style of architecture were influenced by religion (latin cross style churches), military (castle and fortified walls) and civil (Manors) impacts. Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance Era divides this period. This was a time of war (Pre-Romanesque), Expansion (Romanesque), plague (Gothic) and rebirth (Renaissance). These are characterized by a use of round or slightly pointed arches, cruciform piers supporting vaults, featuring almost skeletal stone structures with great expanses of glass, windows containing beautiful stained glass, depicting biblical stories, rosette windows, pared-down wall surfaces supported by external flying buttresses, pointed arches using the ogive shape, ribbed stone vaults, clustered columns, pinnacles, sharply pointed spires, and don’t forget the gargoyles.

 3 :Colonial 16th – 20th Centuries

This is the time when men wanted to colonize other land masses, think of Pocahontas, Magellan, Columbus, Lewis and Clark. This is the Colonial Period. Architecture was primarily made from things they found wherever they are in search of the frontier. With the rise of various European colonial empires from the 16th century onward through the early 20th century, the new stylistic trends of Europe were exported to or adopted by locations around the world, often evolving into new regional variations. This period is divided into the Baroque (elaborate and over-designed), Classicism (symmetry and proportion), Revivalism (revival of an architectural era), Orientalism (Imitation of Eastern Cultures), and Art Nouveau (organic forms and structures).

 2 :Early Modern 1900 – 1940s

Expressionist, Art Deco, International Style… this is the Early Modern Era. Think of old Hollywood, Silver Screen at its peak. Early Modern architecture began with a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, which first arose around 1900. By the 1940s these styles had largely consolidated and been identified as the International Style. The exact characteristics and origins of modern architecture are still open to interpretation and debate. An important trigger appears to have been the maxim credited to Louis Sullivan: “form follows function.” Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building. This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern architecture. 

 1:Contemporary Architecture 1950s – Present

Could be subcategorized into the general term of modern architecture but this period is slowly standing on its own. This was the time that man finally set foot on the moon, which inspired the idea of futurism to architecture as well. It composes the Regionalism (sense of placelessness), Postmodern Architecture (diverse and innovative aesthetics), Deconstructive Architecture (fragmentation and controlled chaos). The newest addition to this period is Green Architecture, also known as Sustainable Architecture, is a general term that describes environmentally conscious design techniques in the field of architecture. Most simply, the idea of sustainability, or ecological design, is to ensure that our actions and decisions today do not inhibit the opportunities of future generations.

by Marielle M. Capistrano

Source:http://listverse.com

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Worst Generals in British History

Great Britain has a long, storied military history. For every glorious victory and brilliant general, however, there’s an ignominious defeat and blundering fool. The following list presents ten such incompetents.

10:James Abercrombie
1706-1781

Poor Edward Braddock always gets a drubbing for his mismanagement of the Monongahela Campaign. But the French and Indian War saw an equally stupid disaster perpetrated by James Abercrombie, who wasted thousands of men in a futile assault against Fort Ticonderoga in July 1758.

The French position at Ticonderoga was not insurmountable. The terrain gave the British a chance to flank the fort without difficulty, while unoccupied hills nearby offered prime artillery positions. “It is rare in military history for a commander to be faced by such a range of options,” notes Geoffrey Regan, “any one of which guaranteed success.”

Instead, Abercrombie opted for a suicidal frontal assault. The result was a bloodbath: 2,000 men fell, including nearly half of the famous “Black Watch” Highland regiment, and the attack was repulsed. Abercrombie lost his job to Edward Amherst, who captured Ticonderoga a year later with fewer men at a fraction of the cost.

9:FitzRoy James Henry Somerset

2nd Baron Raglan (1788-1855)

The Crimean War (1853-1856) is the apotheosis of British military incompetence, a conflict mismanaged on every level. Presiding over it was Lord Raglan, a former aide to the Duke of Wellington completely out of his depth. “Without the military trappings,” wrote Cecil Woodham-Smith, “one would never have guessed him to be a soldier.”

Raglan was an amiable man but at 65 years-old he was senile and unhealthy. On multiple occasions, he referred to the Russians as “the French,” forgetting France was now his ally. His inability to sort out differences amongst his subordinates, especially cavalry commanders Lucan and Cardigan, led to disaster in Balaclava’s infamous Charge of the Light Brigade.

Raglan blundered into victory at the Alma, making assaults to capture and recapture the same ground and allowing the routed Russians to escape unhindered. His mismanagement of Balaclava turned a potential victory into an epochal gaffe; the Light Brigade’s fate hinged on his inability to articulate a clear order. His troops then hunkered into trenches before Sebastopol, dying of disease and cold from atrocious medical care and inadequate provisions. Raglan suffered along with his troops, and in 1855 died of dysentery.

8:Sir Redvers Buller

1839-1908

“A brave man who loved action but feared responsibility for the lives of others” (Byron Farwell), Buller was Britain’s equivalent of Ambrose Burnside. Affable and well-liked, he had no business commanding an army. Early in the Boer War he lost battle after battle, never realizing infantry assaults against well-entrenched opponents rarely works. Spion Kop (January 23-24, 1900) is a representative case.

Buller’s first mistake was delegating responsibility to Charles Warren, his equally incompetent second-in-command. Warren’s lead brigade smashed into the teeth of the Boer position, becoming pinned down between two Boer forces. Without entrenchment tools, artillery support or proper leadership they were forced to endure a brutal crossfire.

Buller’s non-management is inexplicable. He made no effort to reinforce Warren, even calling off a flank attack that may have won the day. 1,700 troops fought while 28,000 remained idle. When Highland troops launched an unauthorized charge he angrily ordered them to withdrawal – after it succeeded! Ultimately 1,500 men died pointlessly. The bright side? Buller and Warren were finally sacked.

7:William Howe

5th Viscount Howe (1729-1814)

As Britain’s commander-in-chief in the Revolutionary War, Howe won several battles and executed one brilliant campaign. But nearly all were Pyrrhic victories, Howe winning the battlefield while forfeiting long-term advantage.

Howe managed the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, winning a tactical victory only after suffering 30 percent casualties. Howe then offered a passive defense of Boston, playing cards instead of campaigning and ultimately abandoning the city without a fight.

Howe redeemed himself routing George Washington’s army on Long Island and seizing New York City. Howe’s hesitance in attacking Brooklyn Heights, however, allowed Washington to escape. Worse, Howe left scattered outposts throughout New Jersey, allowing Washington easy victories at Trenton and Princeton that winter.

Howe’s final blunder came during 1777’s Saratoga Campaign. John Burgoyne’s New York offensive threatened to split the colonies in two, and Howe was to join in a pincer movement against Horatio Gates’ Continentals. Howe instead marched on Philadelphia. He won a costly victory at Brandywine and captured Philadelphia but again allowed Washington to escape. Meanwhile Burgoyne was trounced by Gates and forced to surrender – an event that brought France into the war. After this debacle, Howe was finally sacked.

6:John Whitelocke

1757-1833

Sir John Fortescue described Whitelocke as “bound up indissolubly with foolish expeditions.” He spent most of his career in the West Indies, notably in Britain’s disastrous attempts to conquer Santo Domingo during Touissant L’Overture’s slave revolt. He earns his place here for mismanaging the 1807 Buenos Aires expedition, a costly sideshow of the Napoleonic Wars.

Whitelocke’s troops landed outside Buenos Aires on July 1st and routed a token Spanish force. However, Whitelocke delayed following up, giving local militia time to organize. Whitelocke’s troops marched into the city, only to face a hostile citizenry. Every window housed a sniper, an artilleryman or an angry local with a pot full of boiling oil. Whitelocke exercised little control, allowing his force to be divided and attacked piecemeal in the streets.

Trapped in Buenos Ares, Whitelocke capitulated to Spanish General Liniares on August 12th. He’d lost more than 3,000 of his 10,000-man force in the meantime. He was ignominiously cashiered upon returning to England.

5:Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend

1861-1924

To hear Charles Townshend tell it, he was a genius comparable to Napoleon and Clausewitz. The 43,000 troops lost during the Siege of Kut might beg to differ. Driven by ambition and overconfidence, Townshend led his 6th Indian Division into Britain’s greatest humiliation of World War I.

Ordered to advance on Baghdad in September 1915, Townshend expressed private misgivings. Publicly though, he leaped at the chance for glory, dreaming himself Governor of Mesopotamia. After several initial victories, stiffening Turkish resistance and heavy casualties stopped Townshend’s advance. Ordered to withdraw to Basra, Townshend instead hunkered down in the village of Kut.

Townshend’s men endured a horrific 147-day siege. Townshend made little effort to escape or prevent the Turks from surrounding him. He even forbade sorties on the grounds that “withdrawing” afterwards sapped morale! A hastily-organized relief force lost 23,000 men trying to raise the siege. His troops decimated by starvation and cholera, Townshend finally surrendered on April 29th, 1916.

Townshend enjoyed a cushy captivity in Constantinople while his troops endured forced labor. The British government was so embarrassed by Kut that they censored mention of it. Townshend became a Lieutenant-General, knight and MP, but history remembers him as an arrogant boob.

4:Arthur Percival

1887-1966

When Japan entered World War II, Britain was understandably preoccupied with Nazi Germany. The Japanese overran Hong Kong, Malay and Burma in lightning campaigns. The biggest prize, however, was Singapore, the heavily-fortified port considered “the Gibraltar of the East.” Fortunately for Japan, its opponent was the singularly inept Arthur Percival.

Percival apparently occupied a strong position. His 85,000 Commonwealth troops vastly outnumbered Yamashita’s 36,000 Japanese. But his men were badly overstretched, with few tanks or modern planes to oppose Yamashita. Percival’s myopic focus on a naval attack – he believed landward defenses would be “bad for the morale of troops and civilians” – ceded initiative to Yamashita, who navigated the “impassible” Malay jungle and overwhelmed the British. Percival folded with a whimper, surrendering to Yamashita in “the worst disaster in British history” (Winston Churchill).

Unlike Townshend, Percival endured imprisonment just as bad as his men. Percival came out of it worse, however; he became the only Lieutenant-General in British history not to receive a knighthood.

3:Sir Charles Maccarthy

1764-1824

What’s worse than surrendering an entire army? How about utterly destroying one? “A decent, proud, but stupid man” (James M. Perry), MacCarthy inherited a difficult situation as Governor of Africa’s Gold Coast. Ongoing disputes with the powerful Ashanti tribe led to war in 1824. MacCarthy mismanaged the resultant campaign in bizarrely comic fashion.

MacCarthy anticipated a colonial mistake repeated by Custer, Chelmsford and Baratieri. Starting with a 6,000-man force, he divided it into four uneven columns. MacCarthy’s own force numbered a mere 500, against 10,000 Ashanti. When the Ashanti initiated battle on January 20th, the other columns were tens of miles away.

At the battle’s onset, MacCarthy ordered his musicians to play God Save the King, thinking this would scare the Ashanti away. It did not. A ferocious battle ensued, MacCarthy’s troops holding their own until ammunition began running out. Hard-pressed, MacCarthy called up his reserve ammunition, only to find macaroni instead of bullets!

The Ashanti overran and massacred the British force, with only 20 survivors. MacCarthy was killed, his heart eaten and head used as a fetish for years. It took 50 years of intermittent warfare to subdue the Ashanti.

2:William Hicks

1830-1883

Assigned to suppress the Mahdist Uprising in the Sudan, Hicks led what Winston Churchill called “the worst Army that has ever marched to war” – a rabble of Egyptian prisoners and ex-rebels, some shipped to the front in shackles. Arrogant British officials assumed this paltry force would put the pesky Mohammedans in their place. Hicks proved them wrong.

In fall 1883, Hicks marched his jerry-rigged 10,000-man army into Sudan. Misled by treacherous guides, Hicks’ army fell victim to the desert clime, losing hundreds to desertion and dehydration. On November 3rd, the Mahdists, 40,000 strong, finally pounced at the oasis of El Obeid. After two days of desperate fighting, the army was overrun and massacred, with all but 500 men killed (Hicks included). Hicks’ stupendous failure set the stage for Charles Gordon’s doomed stand at Khartoum and fifteen years of fighting in Sudan.

1:William George Keith Elphinstone

1782-1842

Britain won the Anglo-Afghan War’s first round, routing Dost Mohammed and capturing Kabul. But the Afghans hated English rule and quickly revolted. Into this firestorm stepped William Elphinstone, the only man to lose an entire British army.

Riddled with gout and heart disease, Elphinstone was a poor choice to command. He arrived in Kabul in 1842, with disaster looming. British encampments were sighted lower than Kabul’s city walls, with provisions located outside them. Afghan bandits murdered Britons who ventured out of camp.

Patrick Macrory characterizes Elphinstone as “[seeking] every man’s advice… he was at the mercy of the last speaker.” Fatally indecisive, he allowed Afghans to kill envoys Alexander Burns and William Macnaghten, capture his supplies and snipe at his men without response. Elphinstone finally capitulated, agreeing to withdraw his army to India.

Elphinstone’s army, accompanied by thousands of camp followers, staggered through the Afghan mountains. Their numbers were whittled down by disease, cold weather and incessant Afghan attacks. In the Khyber passes, the Afghans finally massacred the survivors. A single European, Dr. Brydon, survived of 16,000 who’d left Kabul. Elphinstone himself died in Afghan captivity.

Novelist George Macdonald Fraser aptly called Elphinstone “the greatest military idiot, of our own or any day.”

Source:http://listverse.com/

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Top ten Terrible Decisions of the 20th and 21st Century

We all make bad decisions. Fortunately our decisions don’t usually cause continent-wide destruction. Here are the most catastrophic decisions of the twentieth century. I think you’ll find a few surprises.

10:Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Though Harry Truman was under extreme pressure to end the war and reduce American casualties I think his decision to drop two atomic bombs on August 6th and August 9th, 1945 was in error. The Japanese were already defeated. According to Army Air Force General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, “It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” President Eisenhower declared in an interview with Newsweek: “…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

9:Elite within the Democratic Party

Bad move. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the so very lofty upper-class took control of the Democratic Party. Since then the Democrats rarely win elections, no matter how stupidly the Republicans behave. Tragically some thought this new elitist Democratic Party would be pro-peace. In fact the Democrats are more war-like than ever, only now the wars are even more pointless. (Example: our invasions of small Muslim nations.) What happened to Democrats that stand up for working people?

8:Vietnam War

General MacArthur said that any defense secretary who advises the president to fight a land war is Asia should “have his head examined.” Unfortunately this is just the advice Defense Secretary Robert McNamara gave to President Johnson, and troop levels rocketed upward in the mid-1960s. The war suited the enemy. No domestic opposition was permitted in Vietnam so the government didn’t have to worry about public opinion. Vietnam possessed a large population that could hide from American firepower in the dense jungle. In contrast, the United States media often criticized the war effort. Americans don’t like high casualties, especially not in an interminable war half way around the world.

7:Iraq War

The 9/11 Commission chaired by Republican Tom Kean concluded that Saddam Hussein did not aid Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction after 1991. So why did so many people die in the 2003 launched Iraq War? Why the huge expense?

6:Foundation of Israel

After World War II, many Jews fled to Palestine and established the new nation of Israel, thus antagonizing a huge new set of people – the Muslim community which now numbers about 1/5 of the world’s population. Hitherto Muslims had been particularly anti-Jewish, but after the Zionists massacred villages and forced the original population to flee, Muslims turned against the Jews. It would have been far preferable for Jews to migrate to any of the English-speaking nations.

5:Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

The December 7th, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor was madness. What’s startling is that Admiral Yamamoto, who planned the attack, knew very well Japan could not possibly win a protracted war against the United States. The U.S. possessed a far larger population and greatly superior industrial strength. Though his staff celebrated on December 8th, Yamamoto was sunk in depression.

4:Mao Left in Power

If only the decision had been made to remove Chairman Mao from power! The long-suffering Chinese people would have been spared the Great Leap Forward (actually Backward), the Great Famine of 1958-1962, and the Cultural Revolution. Just one of Mao’s bright ideas during the Great Leap Forward: his plan to exterminate sparrows. He thought the sparrows consumed primarily grain, where in fact they consume a lot of insects. With the sparrows gone the locust population exploded, causing immense ecological damage.

3:British Guaranty to Poland

Winston Churchill never should have issued a guaranty to Poland in 1939, which led to war when Germany invaded Poland. As esteemed American diplomat and historian George Kennan wrote: “the British guaranty to Poland … was neither necessary nor wise.” The British and French didn’t have the power to save Poland from Germany. Churchill’s foolish guaranty only benefited Stalin, who was happy to see Germany, France, and Britain destroying one another. Stalin had killed millions of his own people in his vast system of prison camps and the engineered famine of 1932-1933 (the Holodomor). Churchill I think should be singled out as the single worst decision-maker of the century. As First Lord of the Admiralty he energetically banged the drums for war as Britain pondered whether to enter World War I. Churchill also deserves a great deal of blame for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw the catastrophic return of Britain to the gold standard, which helped bring about the Great Depression.

2:The Treaty of Versailles

Prime Minister Clemenceau perhaps deserves the most blame for the vindictive Versailles Treaty (signed 1919) though some of his compatriots thought him too generous. Despite promises made to the Central Powers, territory was parceled out by the victors regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. Germany was saddled with huge reparations payments, impossible to pay. Economist John Maynard Keynes wrote of this decision: “I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible.” The Central Powers were unfairly forced to accept sole responsibility for the war. Keynes concluded that the Versailles treaty was a “Carthaginian peace.” Versailles vengeance sowed the seeds for World War II.

1:British Involvement in World War I

In 1914 Prime Minister Asquith and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey decide to involve Britain in World War I, although it was France and Russia – not Germany – that threatened the British Empire. British policy called for an alliance against the most formidable continental power, but long-term was Germany alone so overwhelmingly superior to both France and Russia? If Britain had not send troops the war would have ended within a year. Europe would have been spared one of its greatest nightmares – the millions that died from machine gun, cannon, disease, poison gas, and starvation. The rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia, with all its attendant misery, and the atrocities of World War II would also have been avoided. Instead of the Great War we would have had the relatively minor War of 1914, and Europe would never have descended into the depths of despair and decadence from which they still haven’t entirely recovered.

Source: listserve.com

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Worst Moments in Human History

So often we publish lists that praise events in human history – tales of victory over diseases, disastrous situations, and the like. But alas, history is also replete with events that we must remember so as to not repeat them, but we wish had never happened. This list looks at ten of the worst moments in history when man showed that he can act with utter contempt for the rest of man.

10:Roman-Catholic Sex Abuse

Sexual abuse of the naive and innocent by authority figures is nothing new to human history, but what makes this example of it especially heinous is that it has taken place under the unwatchful eye of the most powerful Christian organization in the world. Child rape and molestation are, in the common view, possibly the vilest, most despicable sin (and felonies) a person can commit, precisely because there can be no excuse for it. Add to that the sin of homosexuality (we speak here in terms of Christianity), and it seems an impossible situation for a child ever to be found in.

Priests ought to understand these sins better than most people, and in Roman-Catholic cultures all over the world, parents highly revere priests as authority figures, second fathers to their children, and excellent teachers of morality. Hence, the question everyone has asked, “How in God’s name could this have happened?”

It’s not just a matter of well kept personal secrets among the guilty parties. The Catholic Church held meetings in the 1950s concerning sexual abuse of minors by priests, and yet, apparently nothing was done to prevent the growing disaster. Those people known to have a history of committing sexual abuse against others were knowingly ordained and sent to priestly duties all over the world, not just in the United States, but in England, Ireland, Canada, Belgium, the Philippines, and many other nations.

The scandal didn’t hit the mainstream media until the 1980s, raising suspicion of Papal cover-ups to protect the image of Christianity. Fortunately, Christianity’s image has not suffered a fraction of the fall-out that the Catholic hierarchy has. Christ will never be torn down because of man’s sin, or it would certainly have happened by now. The priests are, as of this list, still being hunted down, investigated, and dealt with according to man’s law. God’s law will deal with the guilt of every sinner involved, if you believe in Him, but in the meantime, the Roman-Catholic denomination of the man many hold as the absolute greatest good in history has suffered severe damage to its reputation. Whether it is irreparable depends on how long a consecutive series of superlative Popes the Catholic Church can elect, beginning with John Paul II.

9:Great Chinese Famine

From 1958 to 1962, China experienced a monumental famine that killed at least 45 million people. There are generally two causes blamed for it: natural disasters and the communist policies of Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao defined this period of his rule as the “Great Leap Forward,” and implemented economic and social changes with epic consequences. This entry is quite similar to #6 and #3.

Mao intended to turn China from an agrarian economy into a modern, urbanized, industrial giant on par with the U. S. But forcing his Great Leap Forward on the Chinese countryside led to nationwide crop shortages. Then the Yellow River flooded in 1959, drowning or starving 2 million. The next year, 60% of China’s farmland received no rain at all.

Mao’s idea of forcing farmers into industrial careers further destroyed the harvests. The famine became so intolerable that in some areas, people resorted to canniablism. Millions were tortured to death for the crime of stealing food to feed their families. One man, Liu Desheng, was found to have stolen a sweet potato, and he and his wife and son were urinated on, then forced to eat large gulps of human feces. They both died within weeks.

Mao and his officers meanwhile dined on $1,000 French meals and 20 year-old Scotch whisky. Mao is on record as having told his officers that there would be many deaths due to his Great Leap Forward, but that in the end, they would serve a greater good. The famine only ended when the weather improved in 1962. 5% of China starved to death, drowned, or were murdered.

8:Forced Extinction of Species

Ecologists agree that Earth appears to be experiencing a mass extinction at present. These have happened many times in the past. The extinction of the dinosaurs is believed to have been caused most directly by a comet or asteroid impact. That event was nothing compared to the Permian-Triassic extinction, which may have been caused by a Gamma Ray Burst. That event resulted in 96% of all marine life and 70% of all land life dying.

What has happened to plant and animal species while modern man has been on Earth pales in the shadow of these two events, and yet humanity in general is doing terribly little to maintain critically endangered species. Most humans seem to adore “cuddly” animals. Anything with fur qualifies, and we have many tastes in what animals are beautiful. The tiger is magnificent. In 2005 there were only 250 breeding Siberian tigers in the Russian wild. There are well over 10,000 in captive breeding programs around the world: some people are trying to save species from extinction, while many others willfully poach those endangered animals for the black market.

Tiger penis is considered the ultimate aphrodisiac in some places in China. These magnificent animals are being killed, illegally and at extreme personal risk, for money and sexual gratification. In 2011, the Western Black Rhinoceros was declared officially extinct. They, like so many other gigantic African marvels, had been hunted coldly, and unsympathetically, by humans out for a cheap thrill and what they thought was sport and danger.

Black rhinoceroses are extremely aggressive and have terrible eyesight. They will charge headfirst into trees and termite mounds, thinking they see a territorial challenger. Males weigh an easy 3,000 pounds. The record is 6,380 pounds. There are only about 4,000 left in the African wild as of this list. The reason is two-fold: in 1900 there were several hundred thousand in Africa, but English “hunters” toured Africa to shoot down the Big Five: elephants, rhinoceroses, cape buffaloes, lions, and leopards.

This lister goes hunting now and then for deer, squirrels, rabbits, and doves, and these animals are very bountiful and fairly difficult to outwit in the wild. The hunter must also be a good marksman. But in Africa, elephants and rhinoceroses are too gargantuan to have natural predators except the very occasional lion. So they stand still or charge in the presence of humans. There’s no “hunting” involved. You can drive up to either species in a jeep in the middle of day and take pictures.

And armed with a .700 Nitro Express, which propels a 1000 grain solid bronze bullet at 8900 foot-pounds of force, there’s no skill involved. Some people just enjoy killing these magnificent animals for the empowerment it seems to instill. Also, rhinoceros horns are highly sought after in Chinese “medicine” for their ability to cure disease and impotence, neither of which the horn can do. It is made of pure keratin, and so are your fingernails. Keratin comes from the Greek κέρατος, which means “of the horn.”

There are anywhere from 470,000 to 690,000 African Bush Elephants left in the wild, and they are protected from poachers, but not well. They are poached for their ivory tusks, regardless of the international illegality of buying or selling them. Gorillas are poached for their hands, which are used as ashtrays. Then, of course, there is severe habitat destruction in virtually every ecosystem on the planet, so we can have our diamonds and gold, and build colossal megalopolis.

7:Fanatical Terrorism

Splinter-cell terrorism refers to acts of terror, especially bombings, hijackings, and assassinations, committed by agents of organizations operating all over the world free of direct link to any organization. It is the ultimate example of guerrilla warfare, and as the world has seen in the past 20 years or so, huge, powerful, technologically advanced militaries have extreme difficulty stopping these criminals.

Splinter-cell terrorists are responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States of America. Before that, the U. S. remained generally aloof to the global war of attrition being waged against these fanatics (lunatics). U. S. embassies were bombed in Africa in 1998, the USS Cole in 2000, and all the while, efforts were underway to find the leader of the primary aggressor against global civilization, al-Qaeda. That leader, Osama bin Laden, could not be found, until after 9/11, when the U. S. began hunting him down in earnest. It took a decade to catch him. In the meantime, other fanatics the world over were perpetrating atrocity after atrocity against innocent, unarmed civilians of dozens of countries, for the avowed purpose of eradicating Jews and Christians from Earth. Stopping each of these terrorists once they make their presence known can never put an end to the problem.

Islamic terrorists are not the only culprits, as Theodore Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh prove. It is impossible to make these fanatics respect any military might, since to begin with, they are not afraid to die in the process of killing others. How civilized humanity can put a total end to this terrorism is still debatable, of course. Whether it even can be stopped is also debatable.

6:Khmer Rouge Regime

The Khmer Rouge were members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, and during their 4-year reign of terror, from 1975 to 1979, they completely destroyed Cambodia, economically, politically, and demographically. They took advantage of the chaos following the Vietnam War to overthrow the Republican government and set up what their leader, Saloth Sar, who named himself Pol Pot, called “agrarian socialism.” It was, in reality, a forced relocation of every single Cambodian citizen from cities to farms where they were forced to farm regardless of skill or health. They were starved to death, beaten to death, overworked to death, and tortured to death.

Anyone deemed “intellectual” was immediately murdered to protect the regime. Anyone wearing glasses was deemed intellectual. These people were taken out into “killing fields” and hacked to pieces with machetes. Every single book that could be found was burned, as was all money. All banks and even hospitals were shut down. The citizens were no longer given more than two bowls of rice soup per day. All religion was banned, and those adhering to any religion were prime targets for murder, including Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims, anyone educated in western universities, and any ethnicity other than Cambodian.

The most notorious details of this sorry moment in human history come from S-21, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It was a high school before it was taken over. The Khmer Rouge guards forced the prisoners to eat the guards’ feces. The prisoners were forbidden from drinking water without permission, and if they did, they were beaten sometimes to death. They were water boarded, raped, their teeth and genitals electrocuted, bled to death, drowned, and castrated with pliers.

The death toll of this regime cannot be accurately calculated, because records were rarely kept well. The most reliable estimate is 2.5 to 3 million murdered. That was 21% of Cambodia’s population. Pol Pot died on 15 April 1998 of what was claimed to be heart failure. He might have been poisoned, or committed suicide, since he was about to be arrested for his crimes.

5:World War One

One of only two wars to make this list, this one does because of the hideous speed at which hostilities escalated in 1914, and because there is no single villain to blame. Humanity in general is to blame for this one. In retrospect, it appears as if every country in Europe was harboring a festering hatred for one another, and everyone was looking for an excuse to invade. The act that touched it off was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este, by Gavrilo Princip, whose motive was no more complicated than a desire to prove his bravery to the Serbian army, which had rejected him for being too small and weak.

Almost every nation in Europe had a treaty with another nation, and these treaties all said the same thing: if anyone attacks you, we’ve got your back. Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia, which prompted Russia to declare war on Austro-Hungary, which prompted Germany and Italy to declare war on Russia, which prompted the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany and Italy. Spain and, of course, Switzerland stayed out of it.

The United States stayed out of it until Germany waged total war on international unarmed merchant ships, particularly Lusitania, and because of the Zimmermann Telegram which Germany sent to Mexico, urging it to declare war on the U. S. The British intercepted this memo, but Mexico, to its credit, did not dare attack the U. S.

We can all agree that war is the epitome of human stupidity, and as wars go, WWI may be insurmountable in exemplary idiocy. War theory, if we may call it that, had progressed in terms of modern defense, but not attack: both sides were armed with more or less the very same weaponry, especially the Maxim machine gun, the first truly modern machine gun. It is belt-fed, fires the .303 British, the 8mm Mauser, or the 7.62 NATO, at a rate of 450 to 500 rounds per minute, sufficient to cut men in half, which is precisely what it did tens of thousands of times for 4 years.

The British, French, Germans, Russians, and Americans all had them, and for the first 2 and a half years, the trench warfare involved one side charging out across 100 to 1000 yards of no-man’s land, through shell craters, barbed wire, mud and mines, right into the waiting machine gun lines of the enemy trenches. Each time one side was beaten back with severe losses, the other side thought there would be a weakness and charged after them, right into waiting machine gun lines. Kaiser Wilhelm sent a telegram in late 1914 to his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II, that read, in Russian, “Nicky, how can we stop this?”

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme River, 1 July 1916, the middle day of the middle year of the Great War, as it was called before 1939, the British conducted the European Slow March, walking, not running, toward the Germans, on the theory that the slower they advanced, the more difficult they would be to hit, and more fearsome they would be to the enemy. After 12 hours, 19,240 British soldiers lay dead in about 25 square miles. This was the most lethal day in the British military’s history.

The Somme was begun in an attempt to draw men of both sides away from the Battle of Verdun, so a decision there could be attained. Instead, the Somme became an even larger battle in scale, and it and Verdun remain the most epic of the War. 698,000 men died at Verdun, 70,000 per month for 10 months. Over 300,000 died at the Somme. Each battle resulted in over 1 million casualties, the debut of the modern flamethrower at Verdun, and the tank at the Somme.

The Germans opened hostilities at Verdun with a 10-hour cannonade of 808 artillery pieces, firing almost 1 million shells, some as wide as steering wheels. Around the French fortifications, the blackened skeletons of trees were festooned with human and horse intestines. The Germans also used ample supplies of mustard gas in both battles. Mustard gas is essentially aerosol hydrochloric acid. One breath of it can kill a man by internal drowning. It also severely burns and blisters skin and blinds eyes.

Both battles ended in utter stalemate, because mobility had not progressed on par with firepower, and that lack of mobility, especially on the first day of the Somme, displayed more directly than any other action in any war the utter futility and insanity of warfare. Neither side could approach the other, but the Germans found their losses more irreplaceable than the combined French and British. When the Americans showed up, the Germans simply could not cope with the overwhelming enemy men and materiel for much longer. About 15 million, military and civilian, died, unless we include deaths from Spanish influenza, which was itself a direct result of the War. That puts the estimate at about 65 million.

4:The Black Death

There is no one cause to blame for the Bubonic plague’s rise to power in 1346 or so, but Europe in general can be criticized strongly for its primitive belief in witches. Because “witches” were hunted down wholesale by reason of an insufferably pervasive fear of the Devil, domestic and feral cats were also killed by the hundreds of thousands, because they were thought to be witches’ “familiars,” that without one, a witch could not adequately cast spells.

So once witch-hunts showed up in full swing and cats started disappearing into the fires, the entire European world was ripe for an epidemic of rats. And the rats showed up in full swing in 1346 in the Crimea, via the Silk Road from China. There were no cats to check the rats stowing away onboard merchant ships, and these rats were infested with fleas. The fleas carried yersinia pests, better known as plague.

Today, this bacteria has been all but eradicated in most places around the world, because cleanliness is next to Godliness. A regular hot bath with soap will rid you of fleas, but such baths were not regular in the Middle Ages. Once bitten by an infected flea, curing yourself is really not difficult at all. Streptomycin prevents the bacteria from replicating, which gives the immune system enough time to tailor an antibody to kill it. Europe didn’t know about antibiotics, and had they, they might have had fair results by eating moldy bread.

Without treatment, plague is one of only three known diseases with a mortality rate of 100%. The other two are rabies encephalitis and HIV. Given the primitive medical knowledge of the Middle Ages, the world didn’t have a chance. Even the best physicians had no clue what to do to protect themselves, much less the populace.

Doctors entered homes only after donning full-body leather armor, helmets and masks shaped like hawk beaks, filled with aromatic herbs, due to the miasmatic theory of diseases. According to this theory, simply “stirring up the vapors” would cure the area of plague, while the doctor would remain safe breathing in his mask. The masks had red glass over the eyeholes, because even looking at an infected person was thought to cause infection.

Ringing bells was thought to stir up the vapors. Or the sick person could stand next to a latrine and inhale the stench. About the only method that actually worked to a small degree was smoking tobacco, because the smoke kept the fleas away. But the most infamous methods for curing the plague were based on the principle that God was very angry with the whole world.

The Flagellants began roaming the countryside by 1349, especially in Germany, and they beat themselves bloody with Roman-style flails, the same kind used to scourge Christ. The idea was that if they suffered enough, God would relent and the plague would stop. It didn’t work.

So, like clockwork, God’s wrath was blamed on the non-Christians throughout Europe, and that mostly meant Jews. In February of 1349, 2,000 Jews were hacked to pieces and burned at the stake in Strasbourg, on the French-German border. But the plague kept coming. It killed 40% of Egypt, 30% of the Middle East, about half of the 100,000 people in Paris. The worst hit area was Mediterranean Europe, including Italy, Spain, and southern France. There, about 75% to 80% died. The Pope, Clement VI, survived by surrounding his throne 24 hours a day with torches burning close to the floor. In the aftermath, his servants found scorched fleas “like pepper” just outside the ring of flame.

England suffered about 20% dead. The total average was about 25% of the whole world, as evidence indicates plague deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and the Orient. As much as 66% of Europe and Asia succumbed. Approximately 100,000,000 people died in 4 years.

3:The Holodomor

Holodomor is the Ukrainian word for “killing by hunger.” It is now the proper term for Josef Stalin’s forced starvation genocide against the Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. The manner by which Stalin forced it on the Ukrainian people is open for discussion, but most historians agree that he knew what was happening in the Ukraine and refused to provide relief of any kind, even ordering food shipments diverted from the Ukraine and what food its population had confiscated, violently whenever necessary. He imposed this particularly cruel death sentence on so many solely out of retaliation for the Ukraine striving for national recognition and independence.

Today, we refer to it as a country, Ukraine, with Kiev as its capital city. But at that time, it was still referred to as “the Ukrainian SSR,” or simply, “the Ukraine,” one of many areas of Russia. The famine was manmade, an imposition directly from Stalin, but whether he premeditated it beforehand is difficult to determine. Most of Russia was experiencing a famine at that time, and Stalin may have seen this a chance to make the Holodomor look, at best, like an accident, at worst, passive justice.

The numbers are the saddest testimony overall in every one of these entries. Records were not well kept during the famine, so the death toll ranges from 1.8 to 12 million. Some scholars have narrowed this down to about 4 to 5 million. The borders were closed by the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB, and anyone attempting to flee to other countries or Russian states was either shot or captured and brought back to starve. 190,000 tried to escape the Ukraine after the first year. Starvation may be the most awful cause of death. The commoners’ despair, agony, and terror led tens of thousands to resort to eating their own children. Many ate their own feet. It did not end until Stalin’s implementation of forced collectivization of grain threatened to destroy all of Russia, not just the Ukraine. Once the police and military stopped stealing everyone’s grain, farmers were able to grow for small communities, as they always had.

2:World War Two

This war can be blamed mostly on one man, Adolf Hitler. Let us take a brief look at the motives by which he initiated global hostilities in 1939. Whereas, Stalin was patently paranoid that he would lose his power, Hitler was not afraid. He simply carried a fuming rage which, in childhood, he directed against nothing in particular.

He was imprisoned for his failed Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt to overthrow the Kaiser government, in 1923. While serving 8 months, he and Rudolf Hess wrote Mein Kampf, in which Hitler blamed absolutely everything bad that had ever happened to Germany on the Jews, all of them everywhere on Earth. Whether he actually believed this is open to debate, but there is no denying that he saw in Jews an outstanding scapegoat, one against which all non-Jewish Germans would rally.

It worked better than he could possibly have imagined. He emerged from prison a national hero and 10 years later took control of the government. What followed was a nationwide brainwashing: everyone began hating Jews intensely. Many of the Jews saw the trouble coming and left for England or America. Most stayed, hoping they would be saved. They weren’t, until it was too late.

6 years later, Hitler made good on his promise to acquire “lebensraum” for the German people, by invading Poland. Britain and France immediately declared war on Germany. Russia made a pact with Germany because Stalin knew he could not conquer Germany at that time. Hitler bided his time before invading Russia 2 years later, in the knowledge that Russia’s military was woefully inadequate. Japan invaded China for its resources, and in September 1940 Japan, Italy, and Germany became the formal Axis Powers, solely because they understood their identical desires to conquer other countries.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in retaliation for the U. S. embargo on oil, iron, and machinery. The U. S. then declared war on Japan, and there were declarations of war all around. Oh, what a merry world it became so quickly. After 6 years, 71 million people were dead. Rome, Paris, Moscow, Leningrad, and London were smoldering. Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Stalingrad, and Manila were obliterated.

The most infamous aspect of the War will forever remain the Holocaust. It is also referred to as HaShoah, which is Hebrew for “The Catastrophe.” Much has been said about it already on Listverse, so let us briefly examine Hitler’s methods, by which he remorselessly and unsympathetically attempted to eradicate an entire race of humans.

His seething, abiding rage found in Jews the perfect target, and he set about in his political ambitions, surrounding himself with men who agreed, some for power, some out of rage or delight, all out of hatred, that the Jews as a race needed to, and could, be extinguished. The Wehrmacht, for its part, had nothing at all to do with the Holocaust, and had very little idea it was going on. They were an honorable institution, if honor, just as compassion, can be found in war.

The Schutzstaffel, or SS, carried out the murder of 6 million men, women, and children, by poisonous gas, shooting, beating, torturing, “scientific” experiments, systematic starvation, and overwork, on the pretense that “Aryans” were superior humans, and that Jews were no better than cattle, in which terms, the question was asked, “Do we feel bad when we slaughter cows for food?”

1.1 million were murdered at Auschwitz, 700,000 to 800,000 at Treblinka, 600,000 at Belzec, 360,000 at Majdanek, 320,000 at Chelmno, 250,000 at Sobibor. Merely because they were Jewish. Meawhile, at least 750,000 soldiers and civilians died in 199 days in Stalingrad. That was only one battle of the War.

1:The Crusades

Whereas, Stalin never offered any political explanation for, nor a formal admission of, attempting to starve all of Ukraine, and Hitler explained the Holocaust as “a necessary step” in the process of purifying and strengthening the “master race,” the Crusades were undertaken by both the Christians and the Muslims for the openly expressed purpose of exterminating the opposing religion along with all its adherents, solely to glorify God. It remains the blackest moment in the history of all religion.

It lasted from c. 1063 until c. 1434, when handheld gunpowder weapons were first used to good effect in combat. Keep in mind, before you denounce God for allowing or causing it to happen, that doing so is foolishly dismissive. Assuming there is a God, the Crusades were not his fault. They remain humanity’s fault by two causes: first, the refusal to tolerate differences; and second, the active enjoyment derived from hurting things, especially other humans, since they can best voice their disapproval of such actions.

The use of the word “God” in any language to justify one’s actions of violence is but a means to an end, and also sweetens the enjoyment of another person’s pain, since by denouncing that person as an infidel, the malicious party can believe that person is also destined for eternal agony, after the agony s/he is forced to suffer on Earth. Sounds appetizing, doesn’t it? Because we all get angry at other people for various perceived offenses, deep down doesn’t it sound appetizing to believe those people are going to Hell, regardless of how much they suffer in life? No one would ever admit to it, of course, but it’s a primitive passion innate in every human, and precisely the heart of the Crusades.

In 1099, the 1st Crusade ended in “Christian” victory, when knights and soldiers from France, England, Germany, and Apulia (southern Italy) successfully besieged Jerusalem from 7 June to 15 July. They were opposed by the Islamic Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, under Iftikhar ad-Dawla, who had 400 cavalrymen and a garrison of Muslim and Nubian troops comparable in size to the invaders, about 13,000 for each side. Inside the city there lived over 60,000 unarmed civilians, mostly Muslims and Jews.

Once the city fell, the invaders stormed in, ransacked every building and murdered every single man, woman, and child within the walls. 70,000 people were hacked to pieces “in the name of Christ.” The horses waded in blood up to their knees. Probably half the women were raped, and most of everyone was tortured by varying methods. It was unbridled, bacchanalian sadism. About 500 Jews fought alongside the Muslims, then took refuge in a synagogue. The French burned the synagogue to the ground, with everyone in it.

88 years later, Salah ad-Din successfully took Jerusalem back for Islam and allowed all those inside to return unharmed to their homelands provided they paid a ransom. Those who could not afford it were sold into slavery. Two years later, Richard I of England (the Lionheart) arrived with Phillip II of France and Frederick I of Germany. Richard was not the chivalrous hero he is frequently depicted as in films. He spent barely 6 months of his 10-year regency in England. He lived in France, spoke only Langues d’Oil and Langues d’Oc, two dialects of Old French, did not speak any form of English, and used England as a money machine to finance his conquests. He loved the sport and glory of overpowering other nations. His Crusade, the 3rd, ended in an uneasy stalemate.

There would be 6 more Crusades, with the Holy Land changing hands several times, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, all in the name of one god or another. All the while, both bibles stated, “Love your enemies.”

by Flamehorse

Source:http://listverse.com/

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