Part 19 (1/2)
Touch of Evil Al Capone was impressed with a story about his new trigger man, Tony Accardo, who took a liking to going to town on his rivals with a baseball bat. ”That kid's a real Joe Batters,” Capone said approvingly, and Accardo lived up to the moniker.
h.e.l.l Hath No Fury:
4 Angry Queens
Whether they were picking fights with the Arabs or torching all of the nation's heretics at the stake, these royal highnesses were definitely capable of a little rage, and more than a few people felt the burn.
_01:: Nitocris (2200 BCE) OK, so Nitocris didn't exactly leave an archaeological record, but as far as the story goes, she was brave, beautiful, and married to her brother (which was common among Egyptian royalty). At some point, a mob killed her sib/hubby and put her on the throne, all of which made Nitocris the first woman known to rule Egypt. Her response wasn't exactly sweet, though. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, after a few years in charge, Nitocris built a big underground chamber, and then invited her brother-husband's slayers to a banquet. But just as they were settling in, Nitocris had the chamber flooded, to kill all of them. After the murders, she didn't exactly celebrate. Her life's work having been done, Nitocris then killed herself by jumping into a room full of hot ashes. At least her revenge was inspirational, though. In 1928, a 17-year-old kid had his first story published, in Weird Tales magazine. The story was called ”The Vengeance of Nitocris.” The kid was eventually called Tennessee Williams.
_02:: Dihya al-Kahina (ca. 694 CE) The Berbers of North Africa were religiously a mixed lot in the last part of the seventh century: pagans, Christians, and Jews. But not Muslims. So when Arabs began pus.h.i.+ng into the area with a convert-or-die message, the Berbers pushed back. Their leader was a tough, smart Jew said by some to be a prophetess. Keep the emphasis on tough. Al-Kahina took no mercy on the Arabs, and forced them to retreat almost out of Africa. Convinced they wouldn't come back if there were no riches to take, al-Kahina then mounted a scorched-earth campaign that decimated the region's settled areas. Irrespective of her efforts, the Arabs decided to return anyway, and al-Kahina's army was soundly defeated. It's unclear whether she died in battle or was captured and executed. Either way, legend claims she was 127 years of age when she died, which might be just a tad old to still be on the warpath.
_03:: Mary I (15161558) Mary I had it pretty tough for much of her life, especially for a princess. Her dad, Henry VIII, had married her uncle's widow, which made her mom, Catherine of Aragon, her aunt, sort of. But never mind that. The important thing is that Hal divorced Catherine only to claim that it made Mary a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Despite their religious differences (Henry being a Protestant and Mary an ardent Catholic), however, dad and daughter managed to reconcile. That is, until a crown was placed upon her head. When Mary became queen in 1553, she quickly decided there wasn't room for two religions in England. She was also quick to act on said belief. During her reign, about 300 people were burned at the stake for heresy, earning her a place in history as ”b.l.o.o.d.y Mary.” Shortly after a disastrous war with France, she died alone, having been abandoned by her husband and being childless. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
_04:: Queen Isabella Offs Her Fella Edward II was, surprise, the son of King Edward I of England. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the Deuce liked boysparticularly a French knight named Piers Gaveston. Although married to Isabella, daughter of the French king, Edward spent most of his time hunting and cavorting with Piers, showering him with gifts and, occasionally, playing some ”hide the scepter.” But Isabella didn't take kindly to being ignored. Taking a lover of her own, Roger de Mortimer, Izzy decided to oust Edward and proclaim her son the king. She and Mortimer imprisoned Edward II until, in 1327, they decided it would be better to just get rid of him. The method of execution was unbelievably gruesome. Edward was wedged between two tables. Then a hunting horn was inserted into his, ahem, royal exit door. Then a red-hot poker was shoved through the horn, cauterizing poor Ed's intestines and killing him. While this method was partly chosen as punishment for Edward's h.o.m.os.e.xuality, the more practical (and horrifically devious) reason was that it would leave no marks on Edward's body, so Isabella could claim he died of natural causes.
Touch of Evil Elizabeth I had known and loved Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Ess.e.x, since he was a child. And while she had no choice but to put him to death in 1601 after he had taken part in an uprising against her, the event triggered a bitter depression from which she never recovered.
Good Witch Hunting:
5 Trials or Cases Where Reason
Was Turned Upside Down
Sometimes Lady Justice isn't blind, she's just ma.s.sively embarra.s.sed. The following are five cases where the light of truth could have used some more wattage.
_01:: Autun v. the Rats When the French province of Autun's barley began disappearing in 1521, the local rats were charged with stealing. When they failed to answer a summons (yes, really!), their appointed lawyer, Bartholomew Cha.s.senee, argued that a single summons was invalid because the rats lived in different villages. New summonses were issued. This time Cha.s.senee argued some of his clients were aged and infirm and needed more time. After that, he argued the rats were afraid to come to court because of all the cats along the way. When villagers refused to obey a court order to lock up their cats, charges against the rodents were dismissed. Cha.s.senee later became France's leading jurist. The dirty rats presumably returned to lives of crime.
_02:: Making a Monkey of the Prosecutor It was a simple case. In 1925, a Dayton, Tennessee, teacher had taught Darwin's theory of evolution in defiance of a new state law. But the charges quickly became international news when Clarence Darrow, the era's most famous liberal lawyer, took up teacher John Scopes's defense. The case only got more intriguing when William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate, joined the prosecution. During the defense's case, Darrow stunned the courtroom and a national radio audience by calling Bryan to the stand. For two hours, the two dueled over Bryan's literal interpretation of the Bible. It was immensely entertaining, but had almost nothing to do with the case. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. Bryan died a few days after the trial. And the state's ban on teaching evolution was reversedin 1967.
Touch of Evil In 1982, laid-off Detroit autoworker Ronald Ebens literally beat a Chinese-American man to death after mistaking him for j.a.panese and blaming him for the loss of jobs stateside. In the judicial farce that followed, Ebens pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received three years' probation.
_03:: The Scottsboro Boys There were 11 of them: nine black male teenagers and two white women, all traveling in a freight car through Alabama in 1931. When they hit the town of Scottsboro, though, all 11 were arrested for vagrancyand the two women quickly cried rape. Defense attorneys were given 25 minutes to prepare their case. In the kangaroo court proceedings that followed, all nine boys were quickly convicted by an all-white jury, and eight were sentenced to death. The U.S. Communist Party hired attorney Samuel Leibowitz for the boys, and he convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the convictions. The nine were retriedand reconvicted, despite the confession of one of the victims that the rapes never happened. Then, a third trial was ordered. This time, four were acquitted. Of the other five, one escaped and the other four were eventually paroled. The whole thing took almost 20 years.
Scandalicious Iroquois Warfare Spurs Lacrosse Game!
Think lacrosse is a game for high schoolers in pleated skirts? Despite the sport's growing popularity around the world, the history of lacrosse isn't generally known. Originally dubbed Gatciihkwae, or ”Little Brother of War,” lacrosse began as training for young men from tribes in the Iroquois federation of what is now upstate New York, preparing them for hunting and combat. The equipment resembled that used in the modern gamesmall baskets attached to the ends of sticks, which were used to catch and volley a small round stone. The game itself, however, has changed pretty drastically. ”Little Brother of War” exhibitions lasted for two or even three days on a ”field” that ranged from 500 yards to a few miles in length, and involved up to 1,000 players. Needless to say, the game was incredibly violent (no sideline medics or oxygen tanks), and extreme injury or even death was considered just a part of the play.
_04:: The Twinkie Defense There wasn't much question it was Dan White who climbed through a window at San Francisco City Hall in 1978 and methodically shot to death Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the nation's most prominent gay politicians. So lawyers for White, who was an ex-cop and county supervisor, relied on a ”diminished capacity” defense. They argued White was too depressed to commit premeditated murder. As proof, they briefly mentioned White's recent consumption of sugary snack foods. Oddly enough, the defense worked, and White was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder. The verdict, however, triggered a night of rioting in the city's gay community. White served five years in prison and then killed himself a few months after his release. In 1982, California voters abolished diminished capacity as a legal defense.
_05:: ”Can't We All Just Get Along?”
On March 3, 1991, a 25-year-old black man named Rodney King was stopped by Los Angeles police for reckless driving. While a pa.s.serby videotaped the affair, several cops began viciously beating King, and four were charged with a.s.sault. In a controversial move, the trial was s.h.i.+fted from L.A. to the suburban community of Simi Valley, where a jury of 10 whites, an Asian American, and a Latino acquitted the police, despite the videotaped evidence. And while the ruling made no sense, what happened next was unimaginable. The verdict triggered one of the worst riots in U.S. history, with more than 50 people killed, 4,000 injured, and $1 billion in property damage done. The violence was so great that it spurred King to make his famous query: ”Can't we all just get along?” The following year, two of the cops were convicted in federal court of violating King's civil rights. The other two were again acquitted.
My G.o.d's More Furious Than Yours:
5 Deities with Anger Management Problems
There are more than a few deities from world mythology that had serious issues reining in their powerful emotionsand with omnipotence to match, the results were often devastating, as well as really entertaining.
_01:: Artemis: The Angry Bathing G.o.d The ultimate definition of a woman scorned, Artemis, the Greek G.o.ddess of the hunt, of nature, and of chast.i.ty, had a temper notorious even by the standards of her fellow anger-p.r.o.ne Olympians. The fact that she killed her follower Maera and changed another friend, Callisto, into a bear was the least of it (in both cases, by the way, the hapless ladies had committed the ”crime” of losing their virginity). Along with her brother Apollo, Artemis slaughtered the children of the Theban queen Niobe, for no more than insulting their mother. On two separate occasions young men had the misfortune to stumble upon Artemis while she bathed naked in the forest; one was turned into a stag and promptly killed by his own hounds, while the other got off easy (only being turned into a woman). Artemis even killed a girl named Chione for the sin of being too beautifulwhich became more of a sin when the girl's beauty was said to rival the G.o.ddess's.
_02:: Kali: The Badly Dressed G.o.d A Hindu fertility G.o.ddess, Kali is the female aspect of divine energy and the consort of s.h.i.+va, the Destroyer. As the slayer of evil spirits and the somewhat unpredictable mother of all life, she also moonlights as the G.o.ddess of death. Not a bad gig, except the uniform's a little scary. To show how many evil spirits she's slain, Kali's usually depicted wearing a necklace of human skulls and a girdle of severed arms, children's corpses as earrings, and cobras as bracelets. The outfit is pulled together, however, by her ferocious grimace and the blood smeared on her face. And in her eight arms she holds weapons or the severed head of a demon, representing both her creative and her destructive power. Some followers honored her with animal sacrifices, though a few even took things to the next level. One India-wide sect, the Thuggee, kidnapped and murdered humans as sacrifices to ”the Dark Mother” until they were wiped out by British colonial authorities in the 1800s.