On this day in history

[Vile8r]

100 years ago today - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts. The Rocket Age was born. 43 years later, the Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever built, would launch men to the moon.

[Lucius]

155 years ago today, on 18 March 1871, the Paris Commune seized power in the city in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War.

It... did not go well.

[Pat Riarchy]

On this day in history, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick the Third was crowned by Pope Nicholas the 5th. Emperor Frederick was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by a pope, all the way back in 1452

[AdmiralPiet]

21 March 1871
Otto von Bismarck takes office as the first Reichskanzler (imperial chancellor) of the newly founded German Empire (Deutsches Reich)

[Lucius]

98 years ago, on 21 March 1928, Zinaida Islamova, a student of the Higher State Literary Courses in Moscow, Soviet Russia, married to a Party leader in Central Asia, went along with her girlfriend to a party held in what was then the Grenada Hotel on Tverskaya Street.

Next morning, Comrade Islamova was dead by her own hand --and one of the greatest rape scandals of the Soviet Union, the Three Poets' Affair, was underway.

The prosecution insisted that three young proletarian litterateurs, Altschuller (who wasn't a poet, despite the name of the affair), Avrushchenko and Anokhin, got the girls drunk and, once the girlfriend left, took turns having sex with the incapacitated Islamova, who shot herself on coming back home the next morning, but not after a suicide note cursing Altschuller for getting her defiled. Defence went for victim blaming, producing love letters penned by Islamova and addressed to Altschuller and a few character witnesses including Nâzım Hikmet ('Did Islamova leave an impression of a brazen prostitute?' 'Brazen, no. Prostitute, yes.')

Altschuller testified that he did not commit rape.

Avrushchenko testified that Islamova consented.

Anokhin testified that he was just bringing water for Islamova to drink.

Altschuller got eight years in prison, Avrushchenko -- four, Anokhin -- three.

Once freed, Altschuller kept writing under pseudonyms.

Avrushchenko was publishing his verses under his own name. In 1941, he became a war correspondent, was taken prisoner by the Germans, tied to two tanks and torn apart. At least, that's what Altschuller said.

No one knows what happened to Anokhin.

[VictimEyes]

On March 23, 1775, A lawyer named Patrick Henry spoke before the House of Burgesses in Richmond, Virginia.

The final seven words of that oration were "Give me liberty Or give me death."

[Lucius]

'Give me total power of give me death!'
'Sure thing...'

225 years ago, on 23 March 1801, Emperor Paul I of Russia had the rudest awakening of his life, the only saving grace being that it was his last. A bunch of drunk officers first was trying to get the autocrat to abdicate, but then decided to rough him up. A snuff-box to the side of the monarchal head, a sabre stroke, a scarf round the neck -- pretty soon they had a dead emperor on their hands. Stuff happens.

Well, long live the new emperor!

[Writers_Bloque]

"And thus the way of tyrants."

You, sir, are a scholar of history and erotica.

[Vile8r]

On this day in 1979 - A coolant leak at the Three Mile Island's Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania leads to the core overheating and a partial meltdown.

[Claire]

On this minute in history, on April 4 2025, the Ravishment Academy was officially launched.