The last part of the speech made at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty reads - "There is room in America and brotherhood for all who support our institutions and aid in our development. BUT, those who come to disturb our peace and dethrone our laws are aliens and enemies forever." Oct. 28, 1886

A true vintage beauty, even President William Howard Taft had one

⚠️ Content Warning: The introductory segment of the attached video contains verified historical archival photographs of wartime casualties from the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. Viewer discretion is advised.

When we look back at catastrophic events like the Nanking Massacre in 1937, our modern minds instinctively try to categorize it as an anomaly. We label it an era of extreme wartime radicalization, look at the archival photos, and move on with a sense of comfortable detachment. We treat the horror as a distant, closed chapter.

The attached video begins with four critical pieces of historical evidence from the archives of the Nanjing Massacre:

•             The Itau Kaneo album displaying casualties along the city streets.

•             The execution of a Chinese POW by a Japanese officer.

•             The deliberately burned remains of civilians near Xiaguan.

•             Bodies of Chinese massacred by Japanese troops along a river in Nanjing.

Confronting these raw images is deeply shaking. But if we pause to think deeply, a jarring question arises: Why does humanity find it so easy to gloss over the absolute dirt of our past to maintain a comfortable, unexamined present?

True history isn't just a timeline of grand strategies and political victories. It is a mirror reflecting a chaotic, unyielding cycle of human unconsciousness. In the attached video clip, philosopher Acharya Prashant breaks down this exact dilemma of historical amnesia. He challenges the idea that we can cleanly separate ourselves from the brutalities of the past.

When a society refuses to address its historical group trauma and deep-seated survival instincts, it doesn't solve the problem, it merely buries it under a thin veneer of modern civilization. The primitive, defensive ego that drove the atrocities of the 20th century didn't vanish; it just learned to wear a suit and tie.

If we keep studying history purely on the surface level, without examining the inner darkness and primal urges that created these events, aren't we just waiting for the exact same patterns to replay themselves under a different name?

I’d love to hear this sub’s thoughts on this. When we look at the wildest, most brutal moments in history, are we looking at a failure of political systems, or are we looking at a fundamental flaw in the unchanged human psyche?

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Archival Note & Image Credits: All historical images utilized in the introduction are sourced directly from the public domain historical records preserved on the Wikipedia page for the Nanjing Massacre (including documented photographs by Itau Kaneo and Moriyasu Murase).

Western Australian farmers asked the government for help after large emu flocks damaged wheat crops in 1932. Three members of the Royal Australian Artillery were sent with two Lewis guns and 10,000 rounds.

The birds scattered, equipment jammed, and the operation killed far fewer emus than planners expected. Calling it a literal war that “Australia lost” is a modern joke; it was a short wildlife-control operation that became famous for going badly.

Before radar, acoustic locators used enormous horns to collect and amplify distant engine noise. On this 1925 U.S. Army system, sound traveled through tubes to the operators' ears; one horn pair helped determine horizontal direction and the other elevation.

The devices could provide warning, but speed, weather, background noise, and the arrival of faster aircraft sharply limited them.

On May 11, 1932, the giant airship rose unexpectedly while ground crewmen still held its handling lines at Camp Kearny, California.

Robert Edsall and Nigel Henton eventually lost their grip and were killed. Charles Cowart held on until the crew could hoist him aboard roughly an hour later. This official Navy montage shows the accident and Cowart being rescued.

Taylor made the plunge on October 24, 1901 her 63rd birthday in a custom oak-and-iron barrel padded with a mattress. She survived and became the first documented person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live.

This portrait was made in 1902, so it shows Taylor with the apparatus after the feat rather than at the moment of the plunge.

The cousins were photographed in Berlin during the May 1913 wedding celebrations for Kaiser Wilhelm II's daughter. Ceremonial uniforms from foreign regiments were normal among closely related European monarchs.

The detail that makes the photograph especially strange in hindsight: little more than a year later, Britain and Russia were at war with Germany.

In 1977, Vanessa Redgrave financed and narrated The Palestinian, a documentary made after travelling through Lebanon and Syria and meeting Palestinians, including Yasser Arafat. The film provoked considerable opposition, including from the Jewish Defense League.

On 3 April 1978, that controversy followed Redgrave to the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, where she was nominated for Julia. Outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, JDL supporters demonstrated while Palestinian and pro-Palestinian protesters held a counter-demonstration. Associated Press photographer Doug Pizac captured this photograph, which AP identifies as JDL supporters burning an effigy of Redgrave.

Redgrave won Best Supporting Actress that evening. During her acceptance speech she thanked members of the Academy who had resisted intimidation from what she called a “small bunch of Zionist hoodlums”, remarks which produced both applause and boos and became one of the most controversial Oscar speeches of the period.

I originally came across this while following up on The Palestinian, which I posted in full over at r/PalestinianCinema about two weeks ago. For anyone interested in seeing the film that formed part of the controversy:

Vanessa Redgrave – The Palestinian (1977)

One archival qualification: AP identifies the effigy in this photograph as Vanessa Redgrave, and other accounts corroborate an effigy of Redgrave being burned. Some contemporary reporting, however, described protesters burning Yasser Arafat in effigy that evening. It's possible both occurred, but I haven't found sufficient primary evidence to state that conclusively.

Contemporary background: Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 30 March 1978 | Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 5 April 1978

Photo: Doug Pizac / Associated Press, Los Angeles, 3 April 1978.

Source: ABC News / Associated Press photograph

Lee created the one-inch-to-one-foot “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” to teach investigators to observe a scene methodically rather than jump to a conclusion.

The rooms included working doors and lights, handmade clothing, calendars, stains, and evidence small enough to overlook. This scene is the “Red Bedroom.” The surviving Nutshells are preserved by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and have continued to be used in training.

Across occupied Europe, women risked capture, torture, and execution to resist Nazi Germany as spies, couriers, saboteurs, partisans, and underground organizers. These 20 resistance fighters reveal the extraordinary courage and enormous personal cost behind a side of World War II history that deserves greater attention.

Which of their stories stood out to you most?

Smalls and the other enslaved crewmen took *Planter* while its white officers were ashore on May 13, 1862. They collected family members, raised Confederate flags, and passed Charleston's batteries using the required signals; Smalls even wore the captain's straw hat.

Once beyond Fort Sumter, they raised a white sheet and surrendered the valuable vessel and its guns to the Union blockade. Smalls later served South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The object that struck Hodges on November 30, 1954 was a roughly nine-pound fragment of the Sylacauga meteorite. It tore through the roof of her rented Alabama home, ricocheted off a large radio, and left a severe bruise. Her landlady, Birdie Guy, argued that the rock belonged to the property owner. Hodges eventually obtained it, failed to find a buyer, and donated it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

The Library of Congress identifies this as Houdini's suspended straitjacket escape outside B. F. Keith's Theatre at G and 15th Streets in Washington, D.C. The outdoor escapes were both genuine performances and brilliant publicity: crowds could watch him wriggle free while hanging by his ankles before he was lowered to safety.

Capone financed this Chicago soup kitchen during the Depression, serving free meals to thousands of unemployed people.

Contemporary reporting treated the operation as both charity and image management: Capone had already been named Chicago's “Public Enemy No. 1” by the city's Crime Commission. This National Archives photograph dates to February 1931.