Stories Of Historical Revenge We Just Learned In 2022

After Her Husband Was Killed In WWII, Mariya Oktyabrskaya Sold Her Possessions To Buy A Tank

The demise of her husband, Ilya, was the last straw for Mariya Oktyabrskaya. Born in 1905 in Ukraine, Oktyabrskaya took an interest in tanks two years after the death of Ilya when she was finally informed of his passing. In 1943, she donated the money she had to the Red Army, asking that they make a T34 tank she could use on the battlefield. In the letter she sent, Oktyabrskaya wrote:

My husband was killed in action defending the motherland. I want revenge on the fascist dogs for his death and for the death of Soviet people tortured by the fascist barbarians. For this purpose I’ve deposited all my personal savings 50,000 rubles to the National Bank in order to build a tank. I kindly ask to name the tank “Fighting Girlfriend” and to send me to the frontline as a driver of said tank.

The Kremlin agreed.

Oktyabrskaya undertook tank training, fought for the first time in the autumn of 1943, and participated in her last military action in January 1944. During her time on the battlefield, she reportedly demonstrated herself to be skilled at maneuvering her vehicle against the enemy. After her tank was damaged on a night mission on January 14, 1944, she disobeyed orders and tried to fix it. Oktyabrskaya was either shot or hit by shrapnel and succumbed to her injuries two months later.

Julius Caesar Promised To Crucify The Pirates Who Captured Him, But They Thought He Was Joking
In the Aegean Sea in 75 BCE, a notoriously dangerous area of the world at that time, a group of Mediterranean pirates captured a Roman nobleman named Julius Caesar. Not knowing the position and prestige held by Caesar back in Rome, the pirates set his ransom price at 20 talents (which is equivalent to over $600,000 USD).

Caesar laughed at the pirates, mocking them for not knowing his worth, and demanded the pirates raise this 20-talent sum to 50 talents (around $1.5 million USD).

Naturally, the pirates raised the ransom, but were presumably quite confused by Caesar requesting such a thing. During the course of Caesar's time as a hostage, he would treat his captors as if they were his subordinates, demanding silence when he was sleeping and ordering commands at them. He even recited speeches and poems he was working on at the time to them, mocking them as illiterates if they were not impressed.

In addition to these boldly confident actions performed by Caesar, he would additionally mention to his captors often that he was going to have them crucified once he was free, though they passed these remarks off as jokes by Caesar.

Sure enough, only 38 days after his release, Caesar mobilized a small naval force (mind you, in an area where he held little to no political power) and captured the pirates. He traveled to the prison in which they were being held and proceeded to have them crucified - even against the wishes of the local governor.

Michelangelo Painted The Pope's Master Of Ceremonies In Hell On The Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo (1475-1564) is renowned as one of the most skilled artists of the Renaissance. Throughout his long life, he produced paintings, sculptures, and poetry, earning his place in the pantheon of Western art. Among his many accomplishments are the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the painting The Last Judgment (also in the Chapel). Commissioned by Pope Clement VII, the painting is a testament to Michelangelo’s ability to capture religious subjects in a raw, arresting, and deeply physical style.

Even in the beauty, however, there is a trace of the artist's pettiness. It shows up in particular in the painted character of Minos, a thinly disguised depiction of Biagio da Cesena, the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies. This was Michelangelo’s vengeance against da Cesena for the latter’s snide remarks during a preview of the painting. Much to the Master’s chagrin, the Pope responded to the complaint with a joke about the limits of his own authority, and so the painting remained unchanged.

After Boyars Killed His Father And Brother, Vlad Tepes Invited Them To Dinner And Impaled Them On Spikes
Vlad III, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, was born in 1431 in Transylvania. His father was Vlad II Dracul, the ruler of Wallachia at the time. Dracul (“dragon”), was a title given to Vlad II by a Christian military order named the Order of the Dragon, and when Vlad III came to power after his father’s demise, Vlad III held the title of Dracula, meaning “son of the dragon.”

The details of Vlad the Impaler’s rule are littered with examples of him performing cruel and tortuous actions upon his enemies, though the following act of revenge is one of the more famous examples and happened quite early in his rule, more or less establishing his reputation as an “Impaler.”

With Transylvania experiencing heavy political turmoil during Vlad’s father's rule, a sizable group of local warlords in Wallachia, known as boyars, ousted Vlad II as leader and proceeded to torture and kill him, in addition to his eldest son. Shortly after this, as Vlad III regained rule over the principality of Wallachia, he invited hundreds of the feuding boyars to a banquet under the guise of discussing their terms and potentially relieving his power to them. In reality, it was a trap designed to consolidate power and exact revenge on them for the murder of his father and brother. As they were feasting, Vlad had his guests stabbed and impaled on large, rounded logs.

Even more cruel was the fact that, throughout the countless examples of impaling, Vlad used poles that were rounded. This allowed them to avoid piercing vital organs, ensuring that the victims' suffering would be prolonged - even for days. (Vlad was, arguably, a much scarier villain than his fictional vampire counterpart.)

Genghis Khan Destroyed An Entire Empire After It Disrespected Him
As Genghis Khan and his Mongol forces extended their influence across Asia, they entered into diplomatic agreements with many of the groups they came across. The Islamic empire of Muhammad II of Khwarezm (who ruled from 1200 until 1220), also known as Shah Ala ad-Din, violated one such arrangement during the 1210s.

Within the Khwarezmian empire, Mongolian traders were supposed to be able to move freely and sell their wares. The governor of Otrar, Inalchuq, violated this and executed several hundred members of a Mongolian caravan. Inalchuq believed they were spies, but also took their possessions as his own. One man escaped and reported back to the Mongols what had happened.

Genghis Khan sent emissaries to Shah Ala ad-Din, demanding Inalchuq be punished. The Shah cut off one diplomat's head and defiled the others, prompting Genghis Khan to launch an all-out siege, which Otrar endured for five months. Afterward, the Mongols took the city and killed or enslaved its residents. Inalchuq was executed, reportedly having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears.

After Her Husband's Murder, Olga Of Kyiv Wiped Out Her Neighbors With Pigeons And Sparrows
The Drevlians (also spelled Derevlians) were a neighboring tribe to the kingdom of the Kyivan Rus. When they killed King Igor I of Kyiv in 945 CE, Igor's wife Olga became the regent for their son, Sviatoslav. Olga wanted revenge against the Drevlians. When they sent messengers to invite her to marry their prince, she received them with graciousness. She told them to wait one night for her reply and come back the next day. When they returned, she had the messengers captured and buried alive.

Olga then sent her own emissaries to the Drevlians with a message they should send "their distinguished men" to negotiate with her - and they did. Those individuals were taken into a bathhouse and burned alive. In another round of messaging, Olga reportedly told the Drevlians:

I am now coming to you, so prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him.

The Drevlians did as Olga instructed, but after the feast, her men killed as many as 5,000 drunk Drevlians. She returned to Kyiv and gathered forces to wipe out the whole of the Drevlian tribe. After a year of besieging their city, she asked them:

Why do you persist in holding out? All your cities have surrendered to me and submitted tribute... but you had rather die of hunger, without submitting to leave.

The Drevlians agreed to make peace and, as part of that arrangement, Olga demanded each house give her three pigeons and three sparrows as a form of tribute. She took the birds back to Kyiv, attached "a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth," and sent them back to the Drevlians with their flammable cargo. When the birds landed, they set the entire settlement on fire. As the Drevlians fled, Olga's men caught or killed everyone they encountered. Her revenge was complete, and the Drevlians were no more.

French Resistance Fighters Cut The Eiffel Tower Elevator Cables, Forcing Nazis To Walk All The Way Up The Structure To Plant Their Flag
The Eiffel Tower is one of the world's most famous landmarks, but it's lucky to have survived the German occupation of Paris during WWII. Originally built in 1889 by Gustave Eiffel and his civil engineers to commemorate the 100th anniversary of thre French Revolution and to demonstrate France's industrial power, it was nearly torn down in 1944 when Adolf Hitler ordered the German military governor of France to destroy it. The governor refused.

Not only did the Eiffel Tower remain standing, but French Resistance fighters arranged to have its elevator cables cut. So, when the Nazis decided to plant their flag at the top of the tower, they were forced to walk on foot - and there are 1,665 stairs from the esplanade to the top of the tower.

Student Gregory Watson Got A 'C' On A Paper Arguing A Constitutional Amendment Could Still Be Ratified; He Then Made It Happen
No student wants to get a poor grade on a paper, especially when he believes he presented legit points. But how many students follow up by proving their argument?

That's just what Gregory Watson did. In 1982, he was a 19-year-old student at the University of Texas at Austin. He had to write a paper for a political science class and decided to focus on a proposed Constitutional amendment written by James Madison in 1789. It read:

No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have intervened.

Madison had hoped it would be one of the original Constitutional amendments, but the proposal wasn't passed by enough state legislatures; in 1789, three-quarters of state legislatures had to approve a proposed Constitutional amendment for it to get ratified. Watson decided to write his paper on the proposed amendment, arguing that because there was no deadline on it, the amendment could still be ratified. When he received a “C” on the paper, he appealed the grade to the professor, Sharon Waite. But she didn't see any reason to change the grade.

Instead of accepting this decision, Watson decided to try to actually get the amendment ratified, which required approval from at least 38 state legislatures. As nine had already done so - mainly back in the 1790s - he needed 29 more. He wrote to members of Congress, looking for the names of anyone who might help him with his plan. He didn't hear back from many of those he contacted, while others said they couldn't help or weren't interested. But William Cohen, a senator from Maine, not only got back to Watson - he passed the amendment on to someone in his home state. That person passed it on to someone else, and in 1983, the Maine legislature passed the amendment.

That spurred Watson to write to dozens of state legislators. Slowly but surely, more states passed the amendment; by early 1992, Watson was just three states away from the 38 necessary for ratification. Then on May 7, 1992, Michigan became the 38th state legislature to give its approval. About 200 years after Madison had proposed it, his amendment was finally ratified. And Watson had won the battle to prove that the argument he made in that “C” paper years earlier was indeed true. In 2017 he recalled that fight to NPR:

I wanted to demonstrate that one extremely dedicated, extremely vocal energetic person could push this through. I think I demonstrated that.

Waite was shocked to learn how Watson had responded to her giving him a “C” on his paper. At the time she learned of his success she was struggling, unable to find a teaching job and wondering if all her hard work had been worth anything. When she heard Watson had succeeded in his bid to get the amendment ratified, she realized that her teaching did have value.

And she came around to the idea that Watson's paper deserved a better grade. On March 1, 2017, she signed a form that officially changed his grade from a “C” to an “A.” As she told NPR:

Goodness, he certainly proved he knew how to work the Constitution and what it meant and how to be politically active. So, yes, I think he deserves an A after that effort - A-plus!

Assassins Took The Life Of His Lover, So Peter I Of Portugal Took Their Hearts
Peter I (AKA Peter the Just or Peter the Cruel) reigned as king of Portugal from 1350 until his demise in 1369. At the age of 16, while his father was serving as king, he was betrothed to Constanza Manuel of Villena in a bid to create an alliance between kingdoms, as was often done during the period. Peter quickly laid eyes upon Constanza’s cousin Ines de Castro, and immediately fell in love.

Peter and Constanza would remain married for five years until Constanza passed giving birth to their third child together. Throughout the marriage, Peter and Ines were involved in a scandalous love affair. His wife Constanza naturally disapproved and unsuccessfully attempted to put a stop to it. Peter would secretly marry Ines in 1354, to the dismay of Peter’s father and still reigning king.

The king saw the possibility of Peter and Ines’s children overtaking the heirdom to the throne over Constanza’s children, so he ordered the assassination of Ines. While Peter was away on a hunting trip, three assassins stabbed Ines to death.

Peter held this act of betrayal close to his heart and, upon succeeding to the throne after his father’s passing, captured two of the three assassins responsible for his wife’s murder. Peter, deciding to make a point of this crime, had their hearts removed from their chests publicly after prolonged torture.

Justinian II Humiliated His Rivals By Using Them As Footrests Before Killing Them
Justinian II was the Byzantine emperor not once, but twice, holding the position from 685 to 695 and again from 705 until 711. He was surnamed Rhinotmetus because he wore a prosthesis after his nose was cut off when he was deposed in 695. Justinian was overthrown by one of his generals, Leontius, who also exiled his predecessor in 695.

Justinian was known for his brutality, which was very much on display when he regained control of the Byzantine Empire in 705. He sneaked into Constantinople and staged a coup against the current emperor, Tiberius III (also called Apsimar).

Tiberius had, several years earlier, mutilated Leontius in the same fashion as Justinian and sent him to a monastery. When Justinian seized power, however, he ripped Leontius out of the cloister and took him and Tiberius through the streets of Constantinople in chains. When they arrived at the hippodrome, Justinian "presided at the games with his feet resting on his prostrate-fettered rivals."

Once events at the hippodrome ended, Justinian ordered both Leontius and Tiberius beheaded. The aftermath was gruesome, as it was reported:

Men of civil and military distinction were slain in multitudes... Some were invited by the Emperor to the repast, and as they rose at its conclusion were taken to be gibbeted or decapitated; to others he made death bitter by enclosing them in a sack and casting them into the sea.

After Suffering A Series Of Political Insults From Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr Challenged Him To A Duel
A story that has significantly risen in popularity in the past few years due to the acclaimed 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton, the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr gives us a view into how vital an individual’s reputation was to early Americans.

Longtime political opponents, Hamilton and Burr sparred publicly on numerous occasions. Hamilton once stated, “I feel it is a religious duty to oppose his career.” After helping to quash Burr's presidential bid in 1800, Hamilton once again campaigned against Burr in 1804 when the latter unsuccessfully ran for governor of New York. To restore his honor, Burr challenged Hamilton to an “affair of honor,” or duel, on July 11, 1804.

Concerning the details of what happened on the morning of the duel, the stories are conflicting. Hamilton’s assistant claimed he condemned the duel as morally wrong and chose to fire his pistol in the air as an act of noncompliance. However, Burr’s assistant claimed Hamilton intentionally fired at Burr but missed.

The result of the duel is well known: Burr fired his shot and hit Hamilton in the stomach. The bullet lodged next to his spine, and Hamilton died the next day.

Dante Alighieri Put Real People In The Different Circles Of Hell In 'The Divine Comedy'
Dante Alighieri is a giant of Western literature. The three parts of his narrative poem The Divine Comedy - Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso - tell the story of Dante’s journey through the three realms, led by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. Through this work, Dante illustrated the medieval understanding of the afterlife, and while religious sentiments have changed since then, his work remains a key part of school and university curricula.

In Dante’s vision of Hell, punishments are meted out in a form of poetic justice. Thus, one’s crimes during life are met by suitable retribution. Dante, however, was not only a subtle poet; he was also a petty one. Although many of those in Hell are infamous historical figures - including Cain, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius (the latter two among the assassins of Julius Caesar), Dante was petty enough to include numerous contemporaries in his vision of the afterlife.

These include Count Ugolino della Gherardesca and Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, both of whom conspired to take over the city of Pisa from the former’s nephew. In fact, theirs is an especially brutal and petty punishment, as Ugolino is condemned to perpetually devour the back of the Archbishop's head.

Ptolemy Stole Alexander The Great's Body To Get Back At Perdiccas For Seizing Power
The ancient world was filled with numerous conquerors determined to reshape the world in their own image. Among the most successful was Alexander the Great, who vanquished large swathes of Europe, Africa, and Asia, including the mighty Persian Empire. Upon his passing, however, his domains split as his generals began warring with one another, each determined to establish their own bases of power.

Two men in particular would come into conflict - Perdiccas and Ptolemy - the latter of whom showed himself to be especially petty. In order, at least in part, to get back at Perdiccas for seizing power, Ptolemy stole Alexander’s body and took it to his domain in Egypt, first in Memphis and then to Alexandria. It proved a shrewd move for Ptolemy, as it led to many of Alexander’s troops coming to the city where their leader had been laid to rest. Perdiccas would later perish in Egypt in an effort to reclaim the body.

Warren Buffett Bought Berkshire Hathaway After A Lowball Offer Offended Him
In what Warren Buffett openly said was a move that involved committing “a major amount of money to a terrible business,” the businessman bought enough stock in Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 to take control of the company. His rationale was to get back at Seabury Stanton, who ran Berkshire Hathaway at the time.

In 1964, Stanton made a verbal promise to buy Buffett's stock in Berkshire Hathaway at $11.50 per share. When the written offer came in, however, Stanton proposed $11 3/8 or, in Buffett's words:

He chiseled me for an eighth… If that letter had come through with 11 ½, I would have tendered my stock. But this made me mad. So I went out and started buying the stock, and I bought control of the company and fired Mr. Stanton.

As far as money moves go, the potentially bad purchase eventually paid off for Buffett - but not right away. While he expanded the business from textiles and entered the insurance industry in 1967, had he made that move sooner, “Berkshire would be worth twice as much as it is now.”

John McCaffrey's Ex-Wife And Mistress Teamed Up To Buy Him One Last Gift
Speculation about the authenticity of John McCaffrey's headstone has circulated for many years, but it is real. The story behind how it came to be made is a bit mysterious, but it could very well have been purchased out of spite.

McCaffrey passed in 1995 and is buried in the Notre-Dame-Des-Neiges Cemetery in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The front of the headstone bears his name and the years of his life. The back has a unique epitaph:

John:
Free your body and soul
Unfold your powerful wings
Climb up the highest mountains
Kick your feet up in the air
You may now live forever
Or return to this earth
Unless you feel good where you are!

Missed by your friends

According to the engraver:

This guy's ex-wife and mistress came in together and ordered the stone… They said the message represented him. It was a thing between the three of them.

It's possible the engraving was done in jest and as a tribute of sorts. Many viewers see the acrostic message as one final dig at McCaffrey.

Stories Of Historical Revenge We Just Learned In 2022

After Her Husband Was Killed In WWII, Mariya Oktyabrskaya Sold Her Possessions To Buy A Tank

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