Comments by "Pyromania101" (@pyromania1018) on "Biographics" channel.

  1. During their escape attempt, the Schindlers were intercepted by some French troops. Oskar produced the letter the workers had written and signed, and when a multi-linguist amongst the group read it, he burst into tears. He then translated it to his commander, who was so touched that he had them released.
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  2. Some things you missed: 1. Puyi was released from the reeducation camp after Mao announced an amnesty to a large number of war criminals--his name was at the top of the list. 2. In spite of being relegated to the position of a humble gardener, Puyi was brought before Mao several times and they conversed amicably. Mao convinced Puyi to write an autobiography, allowed the former emperor to keep a good chunk of the royalties from the book, and even helped him find a new wife. She would later have her husband's ashes buried amongst the graves of other dead emperors. 3. You never mention Puyi's wet nurse, the only person who could keep him in check when he was a child. He even visited her son, whom she never got to breastfeed, in his later years and the two became close friends.
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  3. Before he died, he entrusted his attorney with every gruesome detail of his crimes. The attorney was horrified and took those secrets to his grave, finding them too sickening to talk about.
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  4. The way the people of Nanking came to the Rabe family's rescue in the last years of John's life is particularly heartwarming: they raised the equivalent of almost $20000, which the mayor of Nanking hand-delivered to Rabe personally, along with a large supply of food parcels he'd purchased with money out of his own pocket along the way.
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  5. People like to quote that line, yet conveniently forget (or ignore) that the very next line stresses that, if you must be feared, you must also take care not to be HATED.
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  6. Wilson's grandson, Francis B. Sayre Jr., would go on to spit on his grandfather's legacy by openly opposing segregation, even going so far as to participate in the Selma March alongside MLK. He was also a vicious critic of McCarthy, labeling him as a "pretended patriot".
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  7. "Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?" ~Chen Yun
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  8. "Americans have conveniently misled themselves about the presidency of James Buchanan, preferring to classify him as indecisive and inactive... In fact Buchanan's failing during the crisis over the Union was not inactivity, but rather his partiality for the South, a favoritism that bordered on disloyalty in an officer pledged to defend all the United States. He was that most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise. His experience in government had only rendered him too self-confident to consider other views. In his betrayal of the national trust, Buchanan came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history." ~Jean Baker, 2004
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  9. Actually, a lot of people were pleased when Nero killed his mother, as they considered her a bad influence on him. She was widely hated for marrying Claudius, and rumors abounded that she even slept with Nero in order to control him.
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  10. Simon: "...called Jackass Hill." Me: "What?"
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  11.  @dangertrebor  I'm referring to armed French groups puttering about, resentful that they can't do as much as the others. Did I strike a nerve or something? Why all the hostility? Groups like these were typically partisans. I've studied history too, buddy, and just because you've got some bad blood with France doesn't give you an excuse to throw a tantrum. Did I not say it was AFTER the Nazis had already surrendered? Obviously, you don't remember that Schindler didn't leave the factory until after the war had ended, so of course French soldiers could be armed at that time. For all your claims of studying history, you certainly do like to let your personal bias cloud your views of it.
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  12. "Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day! Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day!" ~Mike Myers
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  13.  @katra5673  But 3 rights make a left!
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  14.  @dangertrebor  Free French forces under de Gaulle, to be precise. And the war had ended, so yeah, they were among the occupiers.
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  15. "If you wanted to create a totally isolated and hermetic society, northern Korea in the years after the 1953 'armistice' would have been the place to start... Pyongyang was an ashen moonscape. It was Year Zero. Kim Il Sung could create a laboratory, with controlled conditions, where he alone would be the engineer of the human soul." ~Christopher Hitchens, describing North Korea after the 1953 ceasefire
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  16.  Andrew L  But why just say "oh, he lived out his life as an obscure gardener" without mentioning, say, his date and cause of death, like in his other vids? He wasted the closing minutes of the video with a bittersweet scenario instead of, you know, how a biography would end. He could have said something like this: "Except not really. Puyi was eventually pardoned by Mao and released. The chairman met with Puyi several times, as they struck up a friendship. Mao even helped Puyi find a new wife. The former emperor would spend the rest of his life in relative obscurity, working as a humble gardener except when Mao would occasionally prop him up as a showpiece. He died in 1967, leaving no children behind. Roughly 3 decades later, his widow managed to convince the Chinese government to have his ashes interred at the imperial gravesite."
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  17.  @prateekyadav7679  The book that the film was based on, "Schindler's Ark". Sadly, that's all I have.
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  18. "You will have a wicked son. Your states will be prey to terror and tears. Rivers of blood will flow. Your cities will be devoured in flames." ~Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem
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  19. At least he didn't enslave his enemies or have them shot through the back of the head.
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  20. This deserves a movie. Or at least a book.
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  21.  @bursegsardaukar  I personally think he was kind of a villain to begin with.
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  22. Imelda has been forced to return roughly $3.6 billion to the Philippine government, and is fighting to keep the remainder of her stolen wealth.
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  23.  @kafkacommercialstudios4124  Did anyone else in Singapore know how to do that, though? Your argument ignores just how FRACTURED the city was; most of its inhabitants were too busy fighting each other to exploit the port's economic potential. So, no, it becoming successful was NOT inevitable.
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  24. When the guards came to kill Pertinax, he faced them down and tried to reason with them. It almost worked, but then one guard got impatient and attacked him. He also managed to save his family from being purged by refusing to give them imperial status or titles. He was the emperor that Rome deserved, but that fact sealed his fate.
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  25. Chances are most folks were simply too sickened to do any in-depth research on him. Can you blame them?
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  26. As of right now... He's still dead.
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  27. "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son." ~Augustus
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  28. I'm looking for an outlaw named Billy the Goat.
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  29. Actually, Balian requested permission to break his promise, and Saladin not only granted it, but had allowed Balian's family to leave the city before the siege began, even providing them an escort.
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  30.  @erraticonteuse  Jefferson had his virtues, and while his view towards slavery was insultingly patronizing by modern standards, he may have had a point when he said that keeping them would also protect them from being lynched; he also refused to whip them, banned the international slave trade, and was against expanding it. And he did believe that women should get an education, and supported early suffragists.
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  31.  @dsc4178  The problem is that people who preach "law and order" are, usually, really just pompous aristocrats who want total power over commoners.
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  32. "And to think, he wasn't even a rich man." ~John D. Rockefeller, on Morgan's death
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  33. Also, teach your troops how to actually fight, not just loot and torture.
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  34. Ivan was one of Stalin's personal idols, the other being Augustus.
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  35. "Sure you did, Jim." ~Smartass
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  36. People I'm hoping you'll do: Nicolae Ceausescu Rafael Trujillo Konstantin Rokossovsky Erich von Manstein William T. Sherman
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  37. It downplays what a sadistic bastard Puyi was.
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  38. I'm from the south, and the "Lost Cause" can kiss my ass.* Sadly, while the rest of my family doesn't espouse it completely, they certainly are reluctant to admit that the Confederacy started the war to maintain and expand slavery, with some of them trying to make excuses. * Admittedly, it did take me a while to wake up to the facts, though I always expressed relief that the Union won the war. I guess I just didn't want to believe that the South's motivation was really that simple.
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  39.  @davidschalit907  America gave tacit support to him during that war, too, buddy. Don't pretend we didn't do dirty business with brutal dictatorships.
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  40. From that point on, Lee forbade ANYONE from saying anything bad about Grant in his presence.
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  41. The Russian Winter certainly helped, but it wasn't a decisive factor. The Soviets just had better industry and less racist generals who knew what they were doing, and once Stalin understood that, he stepped back and let them do their jobs. The Germans had less men and materials, pompous generals who swallowed the "Master Race" propaganda, and a downright insane leader with a god complex who meddled in every single affair imaginable and made it no secret that he was going to kill everyone in the Soviet Union no matter what, thus giving his enemies no reason to surrender.* * Hitler's generals were just as arrogant about their chances of conquering "Russia" as he was, and their self-serving memoirs claimed that the Soviets only won through sheer force of numbers and better adaptation to cold weather.
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  42. Actually, I think Hannibal was saying that Scipio was incomparable.
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  43. Skeletor.
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  44. Davy Jones works out a lot. (opens the locker) These are his socks. Get in!
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  45. He was a lot less of an asshole, though. Sadly, his daughter was more like Puyi--and looked like Cixi.
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  46. I also like that he was entirely honest about his actions. He freely admitted that not everything he did was *right*.
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  47. Jose Rodriguez de Francia: First Dictator of Paraguay Francisco Solano Lopez: The Paraguayan Hitler Pedro II: Last Emperor of Brazil Duke of Caxias: Brazil's Greatest General William T. Sherman: The Father of Total Warfare
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  48. By contrast, Lee was a brutal slave master who altered his dying father-in-law's will, which specified that his slaves were to be freed upon his death, so he could keep them for 5 more years, but really planned to keep them forever. To his astonishment, when the fifth year was close to ending, in 1862, fellow Southerners expected him to honor it. Instead, he took the matter to court and tried to extend it, but the (Confederate, pro-slavery) judge refuted his excuses and ordered him to abide by it. He refused to give an explicit answer, then deliberately stalled after the deadline had passed, to the disgust of his peers. Fed up, one of the slaves ran away, but was recaptured. Brought before Lee, he bluntly said he considered himself a free man, so Lee decided to "teach [him] a lesson" by having him brutally flogged before pouring salt water on the wounds to make it hurt more. Naturally, the Lost Cause tried to pretend this never happened, but a book published earlier this year "Robert E. Lee & Me", written by a disillusioned former Brigadier-General, called attention to it.
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  49. Eustace: "Got more sugarcane?"
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  50.  @JK-gu3tl  There undoubtedly were, but he just as often went after folks he simply didn't like.
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