Dog whistles and stochastic terrorism
How do politicians court the violent fringe? Dog whistles and scripted violence.
Category: Politics & law
Ex-men
In Marvel comics, the X-Men struggle to have their humanity recognised. But in real life, the United States Court of International Trade ruled that the X-Men are not human.
Hotel for ransom
In 1980 three men placed a bomb packed with 450kg of dynamite in a Nevada hotel, hoping to collect a three million dollar ransom.
The final tsar
In 1946 Simeon II, the last person to bear the title “tsar,” was deposed and exiled from Bulgaria. Fifty years later, he returned and was elected prime minister.
Bisbee deportation
In 1917 a 2,200-strong posse kidnapped 1,300 striking miners from Bisbee in Arizona, loaded them into trains, and sent them to New Mexico. The sheriff then sealed off all the entrances to Bisbee and began purging the town.
First Antarcticans
Three people can lay claim to being the first person born in Antarctica: the first born in Antarctic waters, the first born on an Antarctic island, and the first born on the Antarctic mainland.
Suffragette jujutsu
Edith Margaret Garrud trained British suffragettes in Japanese martial arts so that they could evade capture by the police.
Kilt ban
The kilt was banned in 1746, forcing the Scots to wear “the unmanly dress of the Lowlander.”
Mongolian Beatles
In 1971, Mongolia’s Minister of Culture decided that the country needed its own rock band, and so Soyol Erdene was born.
Book smugglers
From 1864 to 1904, a vast underground network smuggled illegal books into Russian-controlled Lithuania.
Workers on the board
In Germany, by law, all public and private companies with more than 2,000 employees must have half of their board of directors elected by those employees.
Greatest headline
Although probably apocryphal, the greatest newspaper headline I’ve heard of was supposedly written for the occasion that the English politician Michael Foot was appointed to a nuclear disarmament committee.
Jail trees
In the United States, prisoners used to be chained to trees. In Australia, prisoners used to be put inside trees.
Anonymous Oscars
Pierre Boulle won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Bridge on the River Kwai. He did not write the screenplay, did not accept the award in person, and in fact did not even speak English.
Education circus
Tents appear outside a town in early 20th century rural United States. It’s not the circus, it’s the circuit chautauqua: teachers, preachers, musicians, and orators, ready to bring education and religion to the masses.
Suffragette arson
The campaign for women’s voting rights was not smooth: by 1913 suffragettes in Britain were setting fire to houses, cricket pavilions, and Westminster Abbey.
The Generalist Academy 