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An alternative "On This Day", On This Deity aims to bring light to and celebrate Culture Heroes, Outsider Icons, Beloved Immortals and Revolutionary Events in history.
Tyrants
2nd December 1547 the Death of Hernán Cortés
“He came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns, Looking for the new world in that palace in the sun”- from Cortez the Killer by Neil Young Hernán (Hernando) Cortés was a glory-seeking, ruthless murderer capable of barbaric cruelty, who … Continue reading
30th April 1945 the Suicide of Adolf Hitler
Today we celebrate with arms outstretched in utterly ecstatic glee the bizarre Berlin suicide sixty-seven years ago of that Cosmic Herostratus, World Garbage Mouth and Nihilistic Ruiner of All Things Adolf Hitler, who took his own life with poison even … Continue reading
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28th April 1945 the Execution of Mussolini
On this day in 1945, Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was summarily executed by communist partisans and his body brutalised, violated and hung up for public display in Milan’s Piazzo Loreto – as ignominious a death as any of those … Continue reading
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17th April 1975 Pol Pot Declares Year Zero
On this day in 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and declared revolutionary Year Zero. After five years of bloody civil war, the conquering Communist guerrillas were welcomed as heroes by a relieved population desperate for … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Tyrants, World Events 2 Comments
11th April 1979 the End of Idi Amin’s Reign of Terror
On 11th April 1979, Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda after his attempt to annex part of Tanzania spectacularly backfired. Following a counterattack by the Tanzania People’s Defence Force, the former stooge of Imperial Britain who had in 1971 … Continue reading
Posted in Tyrants, World Events 1 Comment
15th March 44B.C. the Assassination of Julius Caesar
Today we put our hands together and give a round of applause to the Libertores, those forty Roman senators who off’d that despicable cad, Julius Caesar – his death foretold (“Beware the Ides of March”) by a soothsayer earlier that … Continue reading
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5th March 1953 the Death of Joseph Stalin
Sixty years ago today, the people of the Soviet Union were finally shown cosmic mercy for their long sufferance, freedom at last from their quarter-century endurance test at the hands of a peripheral mad man. Peripheral? J. Stalin hailed from … Continue reading
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31st October 1961 Stalin’s Corpse Demoted
Fifty-one years ago today, the Soviet Union’s policy of de-Stalinisation reached its peak when the tyrant’s body was removed from Lenin’s tomb in Red Square and reburied about 300 feet from that mausoleum, among minor leaders of the Revolution. A … Continue reading
Posted in Curiosities, Tyrants 3 Comments
14th August
On this August day on which no great act occurred worthy of commemorating as an On This Deity entry, let’s take this opportunity to remind ourselves of the two ancient world tyrants – Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar – both of … Continue reading