Alan Shepard being recovered from the Freedom 7 capsule after the first American human spaceflight; May 5th, 1961
Another angle:
German soldiers walk past fallen British soldiers, following heavy street fighting in the village of Moreuil; ca. 1918.
Bertrand Russell’s Message to the Future; ca. 1959.
“…in this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like.”
Man, this guy was just starting to see how information was being sent more quickly and at higher quality and said something so incredibly forward-thinking. That’s amazing.
Can you imagine showing this dude the fact that we can send cat-videos instantly? This would blow his mind.
Oppression Olympics
Example: comparing the suffering of Native Americans or European Jews. Each group had its own unique challenges and faced its own unique obstacles. Their persecution or repression evolved from vastly different trends and motivations in society. Short of the objective fact that being considered a piece of property and not a human being is one of the most dehumanizing and traumatic acts it is possible to impose on a person, it is better to look at, in my opinion, a broad struggle for equality within an impersonal legal framework supported by variously motivated establishment figures. Otherwise, you risk obscuring the suffering and struggles of one group because group X had it worse.
So, to conclude, certain acts may have been undeniably worse or more repressive, but to compare them to other groups is of dubious merit and risks starting a meaningless and historically irrelevant competition.
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 