On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down

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Sh!t happens. Every day.Mae West was sent to jail for “corrupting the morals of youth” with her first Broadway play. When participation in the Hitler Youth became mandatory in Germany, groups of teen “pirates” rebelled. Muhammad Ali refused to “drop bombs and bullets on brown people” in Vietnam. A dog sled relay carried life-saving medicine 674 miles through –50 temperatures to rescue children dying from diphtheria. The Dionne Quintuplets were stolen by the Canadian government and displayed like zoo animals for profit. Indian princess Noor Inayat Khan was one of the most successful spies against the Nazis in World War II. A children’s television show called Caillou tortured parents for more than a decade . . .Sh!t goes down every single day of the year, year after year. Sometimes it’s a battle that changes the course of history, other times it’s a life-saving medical advancement. Bravery is counter-balanced with cowardice. There is slavery and there is self-sacrifice. History is replete with deeds both noble and despicable. Some were motivated by greed, others generosity. Many dedicated themselves to the art of killing, while others focused their efforts on curing. There have been grave mistakes and moments of greatness. Confrontation and cooperation.Early in the twentieth century Spanish philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But history serves not just as a warning; it also offers encouragement. Humanity is not endless suck. There is inspiration to be found amidst the atrocities.
On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down will significantly expand your knowledge of world history in the most hilarious and profane way possible.
From the Author \nExcerpts from the book for your previewing pleasure. © James Fell. All rights reserved.\nExcerpt from October 25, 1944\nImagine this. It's 1936 and you're a teenager in Hitler's Germany. Membership in the Hitler Youth has just become mandatory, but you say no f*cking way because f*ck that Nazi bullsh*t. What do you do? Answer: you become a pirate.\nAt the time, you were allowed to leave school at age 14, but if you were 17 you were going to get conscripted. If you stayed in school, you'd be forced into the Hitler Youth in order to be indoctrinated into Nazism and work to convert others into the murderous cult. Many young people quit school and formed their own resistance group called the Edelweiss Pirates, and they loved to punch Nazis.\nBesides the whole allegiance to Hitler stuff, being in the Hitler Youth sucked. It was highly regimented fascist paramilitary bullsh*t and totally the death of fun. Hitler Youth was boys only; girls were made to be part of the League of German Girls. Edelweiss Pirates were all about freedom of expression and growing long hair and mixing genders and f*cking up those Nazi punks.\nThey numbered in the thousands, and in addition to just enjoying being teens and playing that "degenerate" jazz and blues music and exploring their sexuality, they'd hunt down Hitler Youth patrols and beat the sh*t out of them on a regular basis. The pirate slogan was "Eternal War on the Hitler Youth."\nBefore the war the pirates were seen as little more than an irritation, but during the war they did things such as gather up Allied propaganda dropped by airplanes and push it through people's mailboxes to spread the word that Hitler was bad. They also helped German Army deserters disappear. They added sugar to the gas tanks of Nazi vehicles, pulled down Nazi flags, and even derailed munitions trains. On October 25, 1944, the Nazis finally took them seriously and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's right-hand man, ordered a crackdown. The following month, 13 people, many of them Edelweiss Pirates, were publicly hanged in Cologne.\nThe Nazi regime kept up the pressure on the Edelweiss Pirates, imprisoning many and even sending some to concentration camps, but their spirits would not