The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.
edit:
Cool thread idea, if a bit depressing here and there, and also hello! Haven't posted on these forums in quite a long time, glad to see its still an interesting place.
Last edited by Donkeycow; April 28, 2014 at 10:58 PM.
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This one should be pretty easy
I second the 'Rape of the Sabine Women' if you want to move on.
The Visby ransom. The inhabitants of the town pay a huge ransom to the Danish King Valdemar IV to avoid being sacked after the Danes won the nearby Battle of Visby.
Cortes meets geronimo aguilar?
Yes Cortes meets/rescues Geronimo de Aguilar. IMO one of those pivotal moments in history wherein if it hadn't happened I think the world might be a very different place.
Aguilar was a priest in a shipwrecked group of maybe 20. They were captured by a Mayan tribe, some were sacrificed and the women enslaved, Aguilar and a sailor escaped and found refuge with another, friendlier tribe. The sailor went native but Aguilar maintained his religious convictions. He did however learn the language. Later when Cortes was presented with 20 slave women by the Nauhtl speaking Tabascans, he found among them a young women sold into slavery by a Mayan tribe, who now spoke Nauhtl as well as her Mayan dialect, no prizes for guessing that was 'Malinche' (more properly Dona Marina but for consistency's sake I'll continue with Malinche). The Mexica (Aztecs) and all in their realm spoke Nauhtl.
Cortes was able to use Malinche to negotiate with the tribal kingdoms subject to the Aztec and forge alliances that were crucial to his eventual success, using Aguilar to translate Spanish to Mayan and Malinche to translate Mayan to Nauhtl and vice versa. Malinche fairly quickly learned Spanish, perhaps as a result of her becoming 'the captains women' (Cortes), and Aguilar sort of became redundant and resumed his priestly role.
Without Aguilar it is doubtful Malinche's usefulness would even have been discovered, and without access to Nauhtl, Cortes's ability to negotiate military alliances would have been seriously limited. Without those alliances Cortes does not conquer the Mexica, South America's history could have been anything and Spain doesn't get it's golden egg goose - with soooo many repercussions for European and subsequent world history.
+rep and your go.
Alexander's men in India getting scared? Or Zama I guess.
Hannibal and Scipio meeting to talk about possible peace before Zama?
To be clear I did not edit to say Zama, I edited it to say Alexander in India rather than the Battle of Hydaspes which I had before.
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I believe you too, Oda.
GarretJax is right